Tuesday, June 20, 2006
The most dear
were the most dead.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Forget the half-steppers
Eject the rest.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
I gotta cut and paste these AP articles as I know the limp-wristed media in charge will make sure anything positive in Iraq is minimized. There's no Kool-Aid drinking here, this is merely a point of light in a world of Islamist and liberal shit.
Al-Qaeda 'coming to end in Iraq'
The killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi marks the "beginning of the end" of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the country's national security adviser has said.
Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said documents seized after the raid that killed Zarqawi had yielded key information about the militant group.
"Now we have the upper hand," he told a news conference in Baghdad.
Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, was killed last week by a US air strike near Baquba, north of Baghdad.
Key records
Mr Rubaie said a pocket hard-drive, a laptop and documents were found in the debris after the strike.
The documents and records revealed the names and whereabouts of other al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders, he said, adding that more information has since been found in raids on other insurgent hideouts.
"We believe that this is the beginning of the end of al-Qaeda in Iraq," Mr Rubaie said.
"They did not anticipate how powerful the Iraqi security forces are and how the government is on the attack now."
One of the documents showed that Zarqawi was planning to widen the rift between the US and Iran by carrying out attacks on US interests falsely attributed to Iran, the prime minister's office said.
Hundreds of raids
According to a US military spokesman, US forces have carried out 452 raids since the killing of Zarqawi, leading to the death of 104 insurgents and the capture of 759 "anti-Iraqi elements".
Maj Gen William Caldwell said the raids had also yielded 28 significant arms hauls.
He said 143 of the raids had been carried out by Iraqi forces acting alone, while 255 raids had involved US forces working with Iraqi security.
The news comes on the second day of tough new security measures that have been put in place in Baghdad amid fears al-Qaeda in Iraq is preparing new attacks after Zarqawi's killing.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi and US security forces have been deployed across the capital. Citizens have been stopped and frisked at checkpoints as police enforce a ban on weapons, causing long delays on the roads.
There were noticeably fewer reports of violence in Baghdad than usual, although a chemicals worker was reported to have been shot dead in the west of the city.
In other developments:
The US death toll military death toll in Iraq reaches 2,500 with the death of a marine, the Pentagon says four worshippers are shot dead as gunmen storm a Sunni mosque in the city of Tikrit
Several hundred prisoners are released as part of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's national reconciliation plan, under which 2,500 will be freed in all.
A senior official in the Iraqi province of Karbala is arrested in a joint US-Iraqi operation - local police allege links with "terrorism".
Mr Maliki has said he is ready to talk to insurgents as part of a national reconciliation initiative to try to engage the minority Sunni population in the country's political process. However, he has ruled out talking to "terrorist" groups.
Al-Qaeda 'coming to end in Iraq'
The killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi marks the "beginning of the end" of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the country's national security adviser has said.
Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said documents seized after the raid that killed Zarqawi had yielded key information about the militant group.
"Now we have the upper hand," he told a news conference in Baghdad.
Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, was killed last week by a US air strike near Baquba, north of Baghdad.
Key records
Mr Rubaie said a pocket hard-drive, a laptop and documents were found in the debris after the strike.
The documents and records revealed the names and whereabouts of other al-Qaeda in Iraq leaders, he said, adding that more information has since been found in raids on other insurgent hideouts.
"We believe that this is the beginning of the end of al-Qaeda in Iraq," Mr Rubaie said.
"They did not anticipate how powerful the Iraqi security forces are and how the government is on the attack now."
One of the documents showed that Zarqawi was planning to widen the rift between the US and Iran by carrying out attacks on US interests falsely attributed to Iran, the prime minister's office said.
Hundreds of raids
According to a US military spokesman, US forces have carried out 452 raids since the killing of Zarqawi, leading to the death of 104 insurgents and the capture of 759 "anti-Iraqi elements".
Maj Gen William Caldwell said the raids had also yielded 28 significant arms hauls.
He said 143 of the raids had been carried out by Iraqi forces acting alone, while 255 raids had involved US forces working with Iraqi security.
The news comes on the second day of tough new security measures that have been put in place in Baghdad amid fears al-Qaeda in Iraq is preparing new attacks after Zarqawi's killing.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi and US security forces have been deployed across the capital. Citizens have been stopped and frisked at checkpoints as police enforce a ban on weapons, causing long delays on the roads.
There were noticeably fewer reports of violence in Baghdad than usual, although a chemicals worker was reported to have been shot dead in the west of the city.
In other developments:
The US death toll military death toll in Iraq reaches 2,500 with the death of a marine, the Pentagon says four worshippers are shot dead as gunmen storm a Sunni mosque in the city of Tikrit
Several hundred prisoners are released as part of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's national reconciliation plan, under which 2,500 will be freed in all.
A senior official in the Iraqi province of Karbala is arrested in a joint US-Iraqi operation - local police allege links with "terrorism".
Mr Maliki has said he is ready to talk to insurgents as part of a national reconciliation initiative to try to engage the minority Sunni population in the country's political process. However, he has ruled out talking to "terrorist" groups.
I gotta cut and paste these AP articles as I know the limp-wristed media in charge will make sure anything positive in Iraq is minimized. There's no Kool-Aid drinking here, this is merely a point of light in a world of shit.
Papers show 'gloomy' state of insurgency
By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 23 minutes ago
A blueprint for trying to start a war between the United States and Iran was among a "huge treasure" of documents found in the hideout of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqi officials said Thursday. The document, purporting to reflect al-Qaida policy and its cooperation with groups loyal to ousted President Saddam Hussein, also appear to show that the insurgency in Iraq was weakening.
The al-Qaida in Iraq document was translated and released by Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie. There was no way to independently confirm the authenticity of the information attributed to al-Qaida.
Although the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the document was found in al-Zarqawi's hideout following a June 7 airstrike that killed him, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the document had in fact been found in a previous raid as part of an ongoing three-week operation to track al-Zarqawi.
"We can verify that this information did come off some kind of computer asset that was at a safe location," he said. "This was prior to the al-Zarqawi safe house."
The document also said al-Zarqawi planned to try to destroy the relationship between the United States and its Shiite allies in Iraq.
While the coalition was continuing to suffer human losses, "time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance," the document said.
The document said the insurgency was being hurt by, among other things, the U.S. military's program to train Iraqi security forces, by massive arrests and seizures of weapons, by tightening the militants' financial outlets, and by creating divisions within its ranks.
"Generally speaking and despite the gloomy present situation, we find that the best solution in order to get out of this crisis is to involve the U.S. forces in waging a war against another country or any hostile groups," the document said, as quoted by al-Maliki's office.
According to the summary, insurgents were being weakened by operations against them and by their failure to attract recruits. To give new impetus to the insurgency, they would have to change tactics, it added.
"We mean specifically attempting to escalate the tension between America and Iran, and American and the Shiite in Iraq," it quoted the documents as saying, especially among moderate followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shiite cleric in Iraq.
"Creating disputes between America and them could hinder the U.S. cooperation with them, and subsequently weaken this kind of alliance between Shiites and the Americans," it said, adding that "the best solution is to get America involved in a war against another country and this would bring benefits."
They included "opening a new front" for the U.S. military and releasing some of the "pressure exerted on the resistance."
It pointed to clashes in 2004 between U.S. forces and followers of radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army militia as evidence of the benefits of such a strategy. Al-Sadr and his growing followers are among the fiercest advocates of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.
It said the "results obtained during the struggle between U.S. army and al-Mahdi army is an example of the benefits to be gained by such struggle."
Al-Maliki's office said the document provides "the broad guidelines of the program of the Saddamists and the takfiris inside al-Zarqawi's group."
"Takfiri" is a reference to an extremist ideology that urges Muslims to kill anyone they consider an infidel, even fellow Muslims. It is the ideology that many Iraqis, especially in the Shiite community, use to describe al-Zarqawi and his followers.
The language contained in the document was different from the vocabulary used by al-Qaida statements posted on the Web. For example, it does not refer to the Americans as "Crusaders" nor use the term "rejectionists" to allude to Shiites.
Much of what is in the statement from al-Rubaie echoes results that the U.S. military and the Iraqi government say they are seeking. It also appears to reinforce American and Iraqi arguments that al-Qaida in Iraq and its operatives are a group of imported extremists bent on killing innocent civilians.
Al-Qaida in Iraq has been blamed for thousands of deaths, hundreds of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations in the past three years. Al-Qaida in Iraq's own hatred of the Shiites is well-documented and al-Zarqawi has repeatedly called on Sunnis to rise up and kill them.
Papers show 'gloomy' state of insurgency
By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 23 minutes ago
A blueprint for trying to start a war between the United States and Iran was among a "huge treasure" of documents found in the hideout of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraqi officials said Thursday. The document, purporting to reflect al-Qaida policy and its cooperation with groups loyal to ousted President Saddam Hussein, also appear to show that the insurgency in Iraq was weakening.
The al-Qaida in Iraq document was translated and released by Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie. There was no way to independently confirm the authenticity of the information attributed to al-Qaida.
Although the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the document was found in al-Zarqawi's hideout following a June 7 airstrike that killed him, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the document had in fact been found in a previous raid as part of an ongoing three-week operation to track al-Zarqawi.
"We can verify that this information did come off some kind of computer asset that was at a safe location," he said. "This was prior to the al-Zarqawi safe house."
The document also said al-Zarqawi planned to try to destroy the relationship between the United States and its Shiite allies in Iraq.
While the coalition was continuing to suffer human losses, "time is now beginning to be of service to the American forces and harmful to the resistance," the document said.
The document said the insurgency was being hurt by, among other things, the U.S. military's program to train Iraqi security forces, by massive arrests and seizures of weapons, by tightening the militants' financial outlets, and by creating divisions within its ranks.
"Generally speaking and despite the gloomy present situation, we find that the best solution in order to get out of this crisis is to involve the U.S. forces in waging a war against another country or any hostile groups," the document said, as quoted by al-Maliki's office.
According to the summary, insurgents were being weakened by operations against them and by their failure to attract recruits. To give new impetus to the insurgency, they would have to change tactics, it added.
"We mean specifically attempting to escalate the tension between America and Iran, and American and the Shiite in Iraq," it quoted the documents as saying, especially among moderate followers of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shiite cleric in Iraq.
"Creating disputes between America and them could hinder the U.S. cooperation with them, and subsequently weaken this kind of alliance between Shiites and the Americans," it said, adding that "the best solution is to get America involved in a war against another country and this would bring benefits."
They included "opening a new front" for the U.S. military and releasing some of the "pressure exerted on the resistance."
It pointed to clashes in 2004 between U.S. forces and followers of radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army militia as evidence of the benefits of such a strategy. Al-Sadr and his growing followers are among the fiercest advocates of a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.
It said the "results obtained during the struggle between U.S. army and al-Mahdi army is an example of the benefits to be gained by such struggle."
Al-Maliki's office said the document provides "the broad guidelines of the program of the Saddamists and the takfiris inside al-Zarqawi's group."
"Takfiri" is a reference to an extremist ideology that urges Muslims to kill anyone they consider an infidel, even fellow Muslims. It is the ideology that many Iraqis, especially in the Shiite community, use to describe al-Zarqawi and his followers.
The language contained in the document was different from the vocabulary used by al-Qaida statements posted on the Web. For example, it does not refer to the Americans as "Crusaders" nor use the term "rejectionists" to allude to Shiites.
Much of what is in the statement from al-Rubaie echoes results that the U.S. military and the Iraqi government say they are seeking. It also appears to reinforce American and Iraqi arguments that al-Qaida in Iraq and its operatives are a group of imported extremists bent on killing innocent civilians.
Al-Qaida in Iraq has been blamed for thousands of deaths, hundreds of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations in the past three years. Al-Qaida in Iraq's own hatred of the Shiites is well-documented and al-Zarqawi has repeatedly called on Sunnis to rise up and kill them.
