Sunday, April 30th late morning news update
American and Iraqi forces have killed more than 20 insurgents during raids in areas used by militants to stage attacks in Baghdad, the U.S. military said Sunday.
The U.S. military said the raids have taken place in and around Youssifiyah, a town about 12 miles south of Baghdad, where an American helicopter apparently was shot down by insurgents nearly a month ago, killing the two soldiers aboard. In the latest operations Saturday, U.S. and Iraqi forces attacked buildings used by foreign insurgent groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq, capturing seven militants and detaining more than 50 suspects, the U.S. command said.
Twelve of the militants, at least five of them foreign, were killed Tuesday when U.S. troops backed by a helicopter and jets struck a suspected safe house in Youssifiyah, the U.S. military said.
Insurgents have been using the Youssifiyah region as a staging ground for suicide attacks Baghdad, the command said. Several of the 20 insurgents killed in the last few weeks were wearing suicide vests, it said. Twelve of the militants, at least five of them foreign, were killed Tuesday when U.S. troops backed by a helicopter and jets struck a suspected safe house in Youssifiyah, the U.S. military said.
The U.S. military did not say whether those killed in the latest raids were believed to have been involved in the helicopter crash. The area is part of the infamous "triangle of death" and the scene of numerous ambushes against U.S. and Iraqi troops, foreigners and Shiite civilians.
In violence Sunday, a roadside bomb hit a U.S. military convoy in central Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein, said police Maj. Ahmed Awad said. He said the blast set a Humvee on fire and caused U.S. casualties, but the U.S. command could not immediately confirm that.
On Saturday, a roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier southwest of Baghdad. The U.S. military would not give the precise location of Saturday's attack or say whether it was related to the coalition raids.
"I made the case to Gen. Franks and Secretary Rumsfeld before the president that I was not sure we had enough troops," Powell said in an interview on Britain's ITV television, according to a transcript released by the network.
"The case was made, it was listened to, it was considered. ... A judgment was made by those responsible that the troop strength was adequate." Powell, who served as chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991 Gulf War, is known for his belief in deploying decisive force with a clear exit strategy in any conflict. "The president's military advisers felt that the size of the force was adequate, they may still feel that years later. Some of us don't, I don't," Powell said. "In my perspective, I would have preferred more troops but you know, this conflict is not over."
Powell said he gave the advice to now retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who developed and executed the Iraq invasion plan, and Rumsfeld while the president was present. "At the time the president was listening to those who were supposed to be providing him with military advice," Powell said. "They were anticipating a different kind of immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad, it turned out to be not exactly as they had anticipated." Rumsfeld has rejected criticism that he had sent too few U.S. troops to Iraq, saying that Franks and two other generals who oversaw the campaign's planning - John Abizaid and George Casey - had determined the overall number of troops, and that he and Bush agreed with them.
The Sudanese government formally confirmed Sunday that it is ready to sign a draft agreement with rebels from its Darfur region, but the rebels said they still have reservations about the deal.
The two groups were meeting on the deadline set by the African Union for a resolution to two years of talks. The discussions aim to end fighting that has left about 180,000 dead and forced 2 million from their homes. "The government wishes to confirm its position to formally accept this document and its readiness to sign," said Magzoub El-Khalif, the head of Sudan's delegation. AU mediators distributed the draft last week. But a spokesman for the rebels said they are still not satisfied with the draft. "We have some reservations about the draft peace agreement," said Ahmed Hussein, a spokesman for one of the two rebel factions, the Justice and Equality Movement. "We are going to forward our reservations to the mediation after our meeting."
Another rebel faction, the Sudan Liberation Movement, has asked for an extension to the Sunday deadline. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo met with the heads of each delegation and rebels on Saturday said he leaned on the groups to sign the deal.
As of Wednesday, when an initial draft of the agreement was first circulated, the proposed agreement addressed complaints from Darfur rebel groups that they had been neglected by the national government. It called for the president to include a Darfur expert, initially nominated by the rebels, among his top advisers. The draft, noting that Darfur was "historically deprived" and suffered severely from the war, also called for the establishment of a rehabilitation fund to which international donors would be asked to contribute, suspension of school fees at all levels for students from Darfur for five years, and the adoption of a national anti-poverty plan.
In the draft, mediators also proposed that the people of Darfur vote by 2010 on whether to create a single geographical entity out of the three current Darfur states, which would presumably have more political weight. The draft agreement also calls for the disarmament of the Janjaweed. It also calls for some rebels to be integrated into the national army and security forces and others to be disarmed.
A small detachment of African Union troops have so far failed to stem the violence.
From the New York Times, the ironic story of the day: U.S. Says It Fears Guantánamo Bay Detainee Abuse in Repatriation
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Sunday he had met insurgents and a deal to end violence could be reached with some groups.
"I believe that a deal could be reached with seven armed groups that visited me,'' Talabani said in a statement released by his office. The statement said U.S. officials took part in the discussions. The wording of the statement indicated that Talabani was referring to Sunni Arab insurgents. "There are other groups, excluding the Saddamists and Zarqawi types, who are involved in military operations to remove the occupiers and these are the ones who we are seeking to hold a dialogue with and to include them in the political process.''
Talabani, a Kurd, said the talks took place in the northern region of Kurdistan, but did not say when they were held. A U.S. embassy spokeswoman said the U.S. position has always been to try to persuade insurgents to join the political process who are not associated with about Saddam Hussein." Saddam Hussein or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda leader in Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last year that U.S. officials had long had contact with people claiming to represent Sunni Arab insurgent groups.
A new estimate by one of Iraq's vice presidents has put the number of families who have fled their homes at 100,000, a number far greater than recent projections by other Iraqi officials and one that further clouds the debate over how deeply sectarian conflicts are affecting the nation.
The latest estimate was made by Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite leader selected as one of two vice presidents, but it was not clear where he had gotten his information. In an interview last week, the Iraqi national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, said 13,750 families had been displaced, which could mean about 70,000 to 80,000 people.
The conflicting numbers speak to the difficulty in estimating how many people are fleeing the violence, when most are believed to be finding shelter with relatives or friends. And both estimates contrast with statements by American military leaders, who have said there is no "widespread movement" of Iraqis fleeing from sectarian fighting.
Estimates of displaced people are notoriously hard to pin down, because most families are leaving mixed neighborhoods and may have only an hour's drive or less to find a place to stay with friends or cousins. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a senior American military spokesman in Baghdad, says reports of a huge number of displaced persons and refugees appear to be overblown. "We see reports of tens of thousands of families displaced here in Iraq, and we chase down each and every one of those reports," he said Thursday. "But we have seen some displacement, pockets of families moving, but not in large numbers." "Some of them truly are moving because they're concerned about their own personal security or their family's security, I'm sure of that," General Lynch said. "Some of them are moving for economic reasons. Some of them are moving to be with their families. But we're not seeing internally displaced persons at the rate which causes us alarm."
Sheik Omar al-Jibouri, a human rights officer with the Iraqi Islamic Party, a large Sunni Arab group, said that in Zubayr, a suburb of Basra, Sunnis are being increasingly warned to leave. At least 60 Sunnis were killed there in the past month, he said. "Leaflets fill the streets saying, 'Leave this district, Wahhabis!' " Mr. Jibouri said Saturday. "Neither students nor officials can work" if they are Sunnis, because of the threats, he said.
One of the leading figures indicted in the March 11, 2004, train bombings in Madrid used a simple trick that allowed him to communicate with his confederates on ordinary e-mail accounts but still avoid government detection, according to the judge investigating the case.
Instead of sending the messages, the man, Hassan el Haski, saved them as drafts on accounts he shared with other militants, said papers issued by the judge, Juan del Olmo. They all knew the password, so they could access the accounts to read his unsent notes and post replies the same way, the judge said. This way, the notes left less of a digital trail that the government could track. Intelligence officials have said in the past that some terrorist groups were using the method, which investigators call a "virtual dead drop." Few details of this use of e-mail accounts were given in a lengthy indictment that was released to news organizations this month and that named 29 suspects, most of them North African, in connection with the Madrid attack.
Mr. Haski, 42, a Moroccan who has lived in Belgium, is portrayed in the indictment as one of the three main conspirators who helped bombers carry out the Madrid attacks, which killed 191 people. He was arrested in the Canary Islands nine months after the bombings, and his trial is to begin next spring. Before his arrest, Spanish investigators said, Mr. Haski was a top leader of a terrorist network described as having broad contacts in Europe and Morocco and many ties to the Madrid suspects. The network, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, is described in the indictment as the "supreme point of reference for the Salafist Jihadist Movement in our country." That refers to the followers of an extremist interpretation of Islam.
The indictment also says the group has sent "a large part of its militants to join the ranks or the insurgency in Iraq" and "constitutes the principal concern regarding the end of the conflict and the return of the volunteers to Europe and Morocco."
The Egyptian and Jordanian rulers, accompanied by their intelligence chiefs, met urgently Saturday, April 29, to discuss the threat to regional stability posed by the al Qaeda in Iraq’s chief’s expansion and stepped-up operations in Egypt, Sinai, the Palestinian territories, Israel and Jordan.
Israel was not invited to the summit, although squarely in Zarqawi’s sights, because its new leaders show scant interest in the encroachment of his cells right up to Israel’s borders.
Presented to Mubarak and the king were updates on the penetration of al Qaeda cells into the Egyptian heartland and the towns on the banks of the Suez Canal. They heard about the heavy recruitment by Zarqawi of Palestinians resident in Jordan and northern Sinai.
Friday night, April 28, Zarqawi’s cell in Gaza announced it is waiting for the final signal to execute the order received in mid-week to “revive the traditional sacrifice of apostates” against four Palestinian targets. They are identified as Fatah followers of Mahmoud Abbas: former interior minister and Gaza strongman Muhammad Dahlan, prominent West Bank figure Yasser Abd Rabbo, deputy chief of Gaza’s Preventive Security Service Samir Mashrawi, and Abu Ali Shihin, an old Yasser Arafat crony from Rafah.
It was twice the fun for members of the White House Correspondents’ Association and guests Saturday night when President Bush and a look-alike, sound-alike sidekick poked fun at the president and fellow politicians. “Ladies and gentlemen, I feel chipper tonight. I survived the White House shake-up,” the president said.
But impersonator Steve Bridges stole many of the best lines. “Speaking of suspects, where is the great white hunter?” Bridges said, later adding, “He shot the only trial lawyer in the country who supports me.”
The president invited Bridges to play his double. The president talked to the press in polite, friendly terms. Bridges told them what the president was really thinking. Bridges opened like this: “The media really ticks me off - the way they try to embarrass me by not editing what I say. Well, let’s get things going, or I’ll never get to bed.” “I’m absolutely delighted to be here, as is (wife) Laura,” Bush replied.
“She’s hot,” Bridges quipped.
Mohammed of Iraq the Model on the idea of integrating the militias into government security. He's thinking it's a bad idea.
"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it." --Daniel Webster
The U.S. military said the raids have taken place in and around Youssifiyah, a town about 12 miles south of Baghdad, where an American helicopter apparently was shot down by insurgents nearly a month ago, killing the two soldiers aboard. In the latest operations Saturday, U.S. and Iraqi forces attacked buildings used by foreign insurgent groups such as al-Qaida in Iraq, capturing seven militants and detaining more than 50 suspects, the U.S. command said.
Twelve of the militants, at least five of them foreign, were killed Tuesday when U.S. troops backed by a helicopter and jets struck a suspected safe house in Youssifiyah, the U.S. military said.
Insurgents have been using the Youssifiyah region as a staging ground for suicide attacks Baghdad, the command said. Several of the 20 insurgents killed in the last few weeks were wearing suicide vests, it said. Twelve of the militants, at least five of them foreign, were killed Tuesday when U.S. troops backed by a helicopter and jets struck a suspected safe house in Youssifiyah, the U.S. military said.
The U.S. military did not say whether those killed in the latest raids were believed to have been involved in the helicopter crash. The area is part of the infamous "triangle of death" and the scene of numerous ambushes against U.S. and Iraqi troops, foreigners and Shiite civilians.
In violence Sunday, a roadside bomb hit a U.S. military convoy in central Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein, said police Maj. Ahmed Awad said. He said the blast set a Humvee on fire and caused U.S. casualties, but the U.S. command could not immediately confirm that.
On Saturday, a roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier southwest of Baghdad. The U.S. military would not give the precise location of Saturday's attack or say whether it was related to the coalition raids.
"I made the case to Gen. Franks and Secretary Rumsfeld before the president that I was not sure we had enough troops," Powell said in an interview on Britain's ITV television, according to a transcript released by the network.
"The case was made, it was listened to, it was considered. ... A judgment was made by those responsible that the troop strength was adequate." Powell, who served as chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991 Gulf War, is known for his belief in deploying decisive force with a clear exit strategy in any conflict. "The president's military advisers felt that the size of the force was adequate, they may still feel that years later. Some of us don't, I don't," Powell said. "In my perspective, I would have preferred more troops but you know, this conflict is not over."
Powell said he gave the advice to now retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who developed and executed the Iraq invasion plan, and Rumsfeld while the president was present. "At the time the president was listening to those who were supposed to be providing him with military advice," Powell said. "They were anticipating a different kind of immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad, it turned out to be not exactly as they had anticipated." Rumsfeld has rejected criticism that he had sent too few U.S. troops to Iraq, saying that Franks and two other generals who oversaw the campaign's planning - John Abizaid and George Casey - had determined the overall number of troops, and that he and Bush agreed with them.
The Sudanese government formally confirmed Sunday that it is ready to sign a draft agreement with rebels from its Darfur region, but the rebels said they still have reservations about the deal.
The two groups were meeting on the deadline set by the African Union for a resolution to two years of talks. The discussions aim to end fighting that has left about 180,000 dead and forced 2 million from their homes. "The government wishes to confirm its position to formally accept this document and its readiness to sign," said Magzoub El-Khalif, the head of Sudan's delegation. AU mediators distributed the draft last week. But a spokesman for the rebels said they are still not satisfied with the draft. "We have some reservations about the draft peace agreement," said Ahmed Hussein, a spokesman for one of the two rebel factions, the Justice and Equality Movement. "We are going to forward our reservations to the mediation after our meeting."
Another rebel faction, the Sudan Liberation Movement, has asked for an extension to the Sunday deadline. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo met with the heads of each delegation and rebels on Saturday said he leaned on the groups to sign the deal.
As of Wednesday, when an initial draft of the agreement was first circulated, the proposed agreement addressed complaints from Darfur rebel groups that they had been neglected by the national government. It called for the president to include a Darfur expert, initially nominated by the rebels, among his top advisers. The draft, noting that Darfur was "historically deprived" and suffered severely from the war, also called for the establishment of a rehabilitation fund to which international donors would be asked to contribute, suspension of school fees at all levels for students from Darfur for five years, and the adoption of a national anti-poverty plan.
In the draft, mediators also proposed that the people of Darfur vote by 2010 on whether to create a single geographical entity out of the three current Darfur states, which would presumably have more political weight. The draft agreement also calls for the disarmament of the Janjaweed. It also calls for some rebels to be integrated into the national army and security forces and others to be disarmed.
A small detachment of African Union troops have so far failed to stem the violence.
From the New York Times, the ironic story of the day: U.S. Says It Fears Guantánamo Bay Detainee Abuse in Repatriation
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Sunday he had met insurgents and a deal to end violence could be reached with some groups.
"I believe that a deal could be reached with seven armed groups that visited me,'' Talabani said in a statement released by his office. The statement said U.S. officials took part in the discussions. The wording of the statement indicated that Talabani was referring to Sunni Arab insurgents. "There are other groups, excluding the Saddamists and Zarqawi types, who are involved in military operations to remove the occupiers and these are the ones who we are seeking to hold a dialogue with and to include them in the political process.''
Talabani, a Kurd, said the talks took place in the northern region of Kurdistan, but did not say when they were held. A U.S. embassy spokeswoman said the U.S. position has always been to try to persuade insurgents to join the political process who are not associated with about Saddam Hussein." Saddam Hussein or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda leader in Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last year that U.S. officials had long had contact with people claiming to represent Sunni Arab insurgent groups.
A new estimate by one of Iraq's vice presidents has put the number of families who have fled their homes at 100,000, a number far greater than recent projections by other Iraqi officials and one that further clouds the debate over how deeply sectarian conflicts are affecting the nation.
The latest estimate was made by Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite leader selected as one of two vice presidents, but it was not clear where he had gotten his information. In an interview last week, the Iraqi national security adviser, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, said 13,750 families had been displaced, which could mean about 70,000 to 80,000 people.
The conflicting numbers speak to the difficulty in estimating how many people are fleeing the violence, when most are believed to be finding shelter with relatives or friends. And both estimates contrast with statements by American military leaders, who have said there is no "widespread movement" of Iraqis fleeing from sectarian fighting.
Estimates of displaced people are notoriously hard to pin down, because most families are leaving mixed neighborhoods and may have only an hour's drive or less to find a place to stay with friends or cousins. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a senior American military spokesman in Baghdad, says reports of a huge number of displaced persons and refugees appear to be overblown. "We see reports of tens of thousands of families displaced here in Iraq, and we chase down each and every one of those reports," he said Thursday. "But we have seen some displacement, pockets of families moving, but not in large numbers." "Some of them truly are moving because they're concerned about their own personal security or their family's security, I'm sure of that," General Lynch said. "Some of them are moving for economic reasons. Some of them are moving to be with their families. But we're not seeing internally displaced persons at the rate which causes us alarm."
Sheik Omar al-Jibouri, a human rights officer with the Iraqi Islamic Party, a large Sunni Arab group, said that in Zubayr, a suburb of Basra, Sunnis are being increasingly warned to leave. At least 60 Sunnis were killed there in the past month, he said. "Leaflets fill the streets saying, 'Leave this district, Wahhabis!' " Mr. Jibouri said Saturday. "Neither students nor officials can work" if they are Sunnis, because of the threats, he said.
One of the leading figures indicted in the March 11, 2004, train bombings in Madrid used a simple trick that allowed him to communicate with his confederates on ordinary e-mail accounts but still avoid government detection, according to the judge investigating the case.
Instead of sending the messages, the man, Hassan el Haski, saved them as drafts on accounts he shared with other militants, said papers issued by the judge, Juan del Olmo. They all knew the password, so they could access the accounts to read his unsent notes and post replies the same way, the judge said. This way, the notes left less of a digital trail that the government could track. Intelligence officials have said in the past that some terrorist groups were using the method, which investigators call a "virtual dead drop." Few details of this use of e-mail accounts were given in a lengthy indictment that was released to news organizations this month and that named 29 suspects, most of them North African, in connection with the Madrid attack.
Mr. Haski, 42, a Moroccan who has lived in Belgium, is portrayed in the indictment as one of the three main conspirators who helped bombers carry out the Madrid attacks, which killed 191 people. He was arrested in the Canary Islands nine months after the bombings, and his trial is to begin next spring. Before his arrest, Spanish investigators said, Mr. Haski was a top leader of a terrorist network described as having broad contacts in Europe and Morocco and many ties to the Madrid suspects. The network, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, is described in the indictment as the "supreme point of reference for the Salafist Jihadist Movement in our country." That refers to the followers of an extremist interpretation of Islam.
The indictment also says the group has sent "a large part of its militants to join the ranks or the insurgency in Iraq" and "constitutes the principal concern regarding the end of the conflict and the return of the volunteers to Europe and Morocco."
The Egyptian and Jordanian rulers, accompanied by their intelligence chiefs, met urgently Saturday, April 29, to discuss the threat to regional stability posed by the al Qaeda in Iraq’s chief’s expansion and stepped-up operations in Egypt, Sinai, the Palestinian territories, Israel and Jordan.
Israel was not invited to the summit, although squarely in Zarqawi’s sights, because its new leaders show scant interest in the encroachment of his cells right up to Israel’s borders.
Presented to Mubarak and the king were updates on the penetration of al Qaeda cells into the Egyptian heartland and the towns on the banks of the Suez Canal. They heard about the heavy recruitment by Zarqawi of Palestinians resident in Jordan and northern Sinai.
Friday night, April 28, Zarqawi’s cell in Gaza announced it is waiting for the final signal to execute the order received in mid-week to “revive the traditional sacrifice of apostates” against four Palestinian targets. They are identified as Fatah followers of Mahmoud Abbas: former interior minister and Gaza strongman Muhammad Dahlan, prominent West Bank figure Yasser Abd Rabbo, deputy chief of Gaza’s Preventive Security Service Samir Mashrawi, and Abu Ali Shihin, an old Yasser Arafat crony from Rafah.
It was twice the fun for members of the White House Correspondents’ Association and guests Saturday night when President Bush and a look-alike, sound-alike sidekick poked fun at the president and fellow politicians. “Ladies and gentlemen, I feel chipper tonight. I survived the White House shake-up,” the president said.
But impersonator Steve Bridges stole many of the best lines. “Speaking of suspects, where is the great white hunter?” Bridges said, later adding, “He shot the only trial lawyer in the country who supports me.”
The president invited Bridges to play his double. The president talked to the press in polite, friendly terms. Bridges told them what the president was really thinking. Bridges opened like this: “The media really ticks me off - the way they try to embarrass me by not editing what I say. Well, let’s get things going, or I’ll never get to bed.” “I’m absolutely delighted to be here, as is (wife) Laura,” Bush replied.
“She’s hot,” Bridges quipped.
Mohammed of Iraq the Model on the idea of integrating the militias into government security. He's thinking it's a bad idea.
"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it." --Daniel Webster