Sen. Biden: Iraq should be divided into 3 regions

Mon May 1, 2006 - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - yahoo.com

Iraq should be divided into three largely autonomous regions -- Kurd, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab -- with a weaker central government in Baghdad, Sen. Joseph Biden (news, bio, voting record) said on Monday.

In an op-ed article in The New York Times, Biden, the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee's top Democrat, said the Bush administration's effort to establish a strong central government in Baghdad had been a failure, doomed by ethnic rivalry that had spawned widespread sectarian violence.

"It is increasingly clear that President Bush does not have a strategy for victory in Iraq. Rather, he hopes to prevent defeat and pass the problem along to his successor," said Biden and co-author Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Iraq's Sunnis, the driving force behind the insurgency, would welcome the partition plan rather than be dominated by a Shiite-controlled central government, Biden said.

He said the division of Iraq would follow the example of Bosnia a decade ago when that war-torn country was partitioned into ethnic federations under the U.S.-brokered Dayton Accords.

Biden billed his plan as a "third option" beyond the "false choice" of continuing the Bush administration policy of nurturing a unity government in Iraq or withdrawing U.S. troops immediately.

As part of the plan, the United States should withdraw most of its troops from Iraq by 2008, except for a small force to combat terrorism, Biden said.

Under Biden's proposal, the Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite regions would each be responsible for their own domestic laws, administration and internal security. The central government would control border defense, foreign affairs and oil revenues.

U.S. General Predicts Intensified Attacks

Coalition leader applauds defense efforts but says rebels will seek to thwart the new government.

By Louise Roug LA Times Staff Writer April 30, 2006

BAQUBAH, Iraq - The top U.S. general on the ground in Iraq warned Saturday that a surge in violence was likely in coming months as Iraq's new government began its full term in office.

Army Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, commander of U.S.-led troops in Iraq, said that despite political progress and the growing competence of Iraqi security forces, troops are still fighting a bloody insurgency.

"There's nothing about this that I would [call] peacekeeping," he said. "We're in a fight."

At least 70 U.S. troops were killed in April, the highest toll in five months. A soldier died Saturday when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb southwest of Baghdad.

Chiarelli spent Saturday in Baqubah, about 35 miles northeast of the capital, addressing Iraqi and American troops. In recent weeks, rebels have mounted a series of bold, large-scale attacks in an effort to gain control of the ethnically and religiously mixed city, the capital of Diyala province.

On Thursday, rebels launched mortar rounds at an Iraqi army base and then simultaneously attacked four police stations. Up to 100 insurgents battled for hours with Iraqi security forces, using mortar launchers, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms.

Attacks came in waves throughout the day. One Iraqi soldier and 17 insurgents were killed, the U.S. military said, and U.S. commanders called in gunships to strike rebels hidden in orchards. There was sporadic fighting in Baqubah on Friday, but authorities then locked down the city, ordering a curfew that lasted until Saturday.

Despite the need for American backup, Chiarelli said, Iraqi soldiers and police officers fought side by side to fend off the rebels and stood their ground.

Traveling from his Baghdad headquarters to Baqubah in a phalanx of Black Hawk and Apache helicopters, Chiarelli was accompanied by several Iraqi generals, including the deputy commander of the Iraqi army, Lt. Gen. Nasier Abadi.

"By this heroic action, you have written a new chapter in the book of major exploits of the new Iraqi army," Abadi told soldiers from Iraq's 2nd Brigade, 5th Division. "You were able to conquer fear and uncertainty, and demonstrate how the will to win makes a difference in combat, leading to victory and defeat of the terrorists."

After the ceremony, Chiarelli addressed the team of U.S. military advisors who work to support the Iraqi soldiers. "Let us know if there's anything you need," he told the troops.

"Keep the helmets coming," answered Capt. John Wayne McFarlin. A sniper's bullet had hit his helmet during the gun battle and nearly pierced it.

"What we're seeing now, the upsurge in violence, is all about destabilizing the government," Chiarelli said in an interview as he traveled back to Baghdad. "It's a strategy to push up violence to take away the focus from what the prime minister is doing.

"I'll expect the violence to be high in the first months of the new government."

Parliament endorsed a deal on April 22 that designated Shiite politician Nouri Maliki as prime minister. He has 30 days from the time he was named to the post to put together a Cabinet, which will be Iraq's first permanent government since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

In the past, violence has surged around key political events such as elections.

"Zarqawi is starting to run out of events," said Chiarelli, referring to Abu Musab Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Abadi, seated across from Chiarelli in the Black Hawk, likened a recent video message from Zarqawi to one of the last appearances by ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before the invasion of Baghdad. Hussein stood atop a car, telling the crowd not to surrender.

"That was his grandstand, and it went to the pits after that," Abadi said. The appearance by Zarqawi, firing a machine gun, was intended "to show might, to show power," he said. "We have the same pattern repeating itself."

Chiarelli's comments echoed those of President Bush, who in his weekly radio address from Washington on Saturday warned of "more days of sacrifice and struggle."

The American casualty count in April, more than twice the previous month, broke a downward trend begun in November. Most of the toll came in Baghdad and volatile Al Anbar province, the western area that is the heart of the Sunni Arab-led insurgency.

Authorities in Baghdad said they found five bodies on Saturday, and two roadside bombs injured five police officers.

Six bodies were found in Dora, on the southern edge of the capital. All of the victims had been handcuffed and blindfolded, and showed signs of torture.

Near Tall Afar in northwestern Iraq, hospital officials reported that an adult and two children were killed when a mortar round hit their house. In Ramadi, clashes continued between U.S. troops and rebels. A number of rockets hit the provincial government building downtown, police said. There were no reports of casualties.

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 2

*NEAR BALAD - The U.S. military said in a statement it had killed 10 insurgents, including three wearing suicide vests, and wounded another at a house while searching for al Qaeda leaders 40 km (24 miles) southwest of Balad, north of Baghdad. No casualties were reported among U.S. forces.

*BAGHDAD - A senior Defence Ministry official said Iranian forces breached the Iraqi border in Kurdistan twice in the past two weeks, a day after Tehran denied such allegations.

RAMADI - A suicide bomber targeting the motorcade of Anbar province governor Maamoun Sami Rasheed exploded his car in the centre of the provincial capital, Ramadi, 110 km (70 miles) west of Baghdad, killing three of the official's bodyguards, hospital sources and local residents said. A local government official said there was no word on the fate of the governor.

BAGHDAD - An official at Yarmouk hospital in Baghdad said its morgue was full after receiving 65 corpses over the past three days of people who mostly died from gunshot wounds. Some others were beheaded. The victims included three schoolteachers who were gunned down in the capital.

RAMADI - U.S. and Iraqi forces killed more than 100 insurgents last week in the town of Ramadi in the rebel heartland of Anbar province, the U.S. military said on Tuesday. Two Iraqi soldiers were killed in these clashes. An Iraqi Defence Ministry spokesman said he was unaware of major battles.

RAMADI - Two civilians were killed and seven wounded during severe clashes between U.S. troops and insurgents, a source in the hospital said.

BAGHDAD - The Central Criminal Court convicted 12 security detainees between April 19 and April 25 for various crimes including illegal border crossing, possessing illegal weapons and joining outlawed groups. Three of the 12 were jailed for life for being members of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq network.

BAGHDAD - U.S. private security contractors shot dead an Iraqi ambulance crewman as the ambulance approached a site in northern Baghdad where the contractors' armoured vehicle had been hit by a roadside bomb, a U.S. military spokesman said.

BAGHDAD - Two people were killed and five wounded when a bomb planted inside a minibus exploded in a crowded area in Baghdad's central Shorja district, police said.

YUSUFIYA - The bodies of three people were found, tortured and shot, in Yusufiya, 15 km (9 miles) south of Baghdad on Tuesday, police said.

BAGHDAD - A civilian was killed and four wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in southern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - The bodies of four people, bearing signs of torture and with bullet holes in their heads, were found in Baghdad's Shula district, police said.

BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier was killed on Monday when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

BAQUBA - Policemen at Baquba's police headquarters said they shot and killed two civilians who were suspected of being car bombers as they approached the headquarters on Monday evening. Two others were wounded. - www.alertnet.org

Iran 'shelling PKK in Iraq', say Kurds

By Gareth Smyth Published: May 2 2006 - ft.com

Iraqi Kurdish officials yesterday reported Iranian artillery shelling of positions held by fighters of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) inside Iraq. This was a day after the Iraqi defence ministry said Iranian troops had recently attacked PKK positions inside Iraq, crossing 5km into Iraqi territory near Haj Umran. Iran denied the charge.

The PKK is a primarily Turkish group, but an allied Iranian Kurdish group, Pejak, has clashed repeatedly with Iranian security forces over the past year. Both Turkey and Iran, with substantial Kurdish minorities, are concerned about the example of autonomy in Iraq.

Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, Iran's interior minister, said in remarks reported yesterday that northern Iraq was "the centre for terrorist attacks" and that Tehran and Ankara were committed to "intelligence co-operation and increasing border guards". Gareth Smyth, Tehran

Iran bombarded Mount Kandil

KANDIL (01.05.2006)- The Iran military this morning bombed Mount Kandil. The bombardment continued all night, some villages were heavily damaged as a result. Currently there are no loss of life. The bombardment of the Xinere region is still continuing.

Koma Komelen Kurdistan (KKK) Executive Council member Rustem Cudi stated that Iran has also bombed Dola Koke, Zele, Berda Kası, Sehit Harun and Kalatuka region with mullens and hawitzers.

Yesterday Iraq Defence Minister made a statement stating that, "Iran has in the last 24 hours has bombarded kamps of the PKK near the state of Erbil." The statement also stated that Iran had entered 5km into Iraq during the bombardment. - kurdishinfo.com

Ring of steel protects Iraqi oil terminals

Big News Network.com Monday 1st May, 2006

There's a "ring of steel" around one of the most important economic targets in the world.

That's the way Royal Navy Cmdr. Steve Dainton, the captain of HMS St. Albans, described the coalition maritime protection around Iraqi oil terminals in the Northern Arabian Gulf.

The terminals generate some $18,000 a second for Iraq as they pump crude oil into four supertankers gathered around the Al Basra Oil Terminal and two smaller tankers around the Khawr al Amaya Oil Terminal. The terminals operate around the clock. A line of tankers vanishes over the horizon further south as they wait their turn at the pump. The two platforms are known as ABOT and KAOT.

Coalition maritime forces guard the platforms from attack. On KMOT is a memorial to three Americans killed in the attack on it two years ago. On April 24, 2004, an American boat stopped a dhow attempting to penetrate the exclusion zone around the platforms. The dhow exploded as the crew boarded it, killing two U.S. sailors and a Coast Guardsman.

Other dhows, similarly booby-trapped, attempted to break the ring of steel, but coalition forces dealt with them. Through it all, the platforms kept pumping.

The loss of the platforms could be catastrophic not only to Iraq - which generates more than 80 percent of its revenue through the oil terminals - but also to the world.

"Bottom line, this oil is their future," said Navy Capt. Christopher Noble, commander of Coalition Task Group 58.1, the group primarily charged with defending the platforms. "Without the hard currency, without the economic anchor, it's going to be very difficult for Iraq. We take (the responsibility) very seriously."

Iraqi patrol boats and marines have joined the coalition protecting the oil platforms, and are now an integral part of the platform defenses. Iraqi marines man defenses on the platforms and Iraqi patrol boats sail alongside coalition ships.

"They have just been aces," said Marine Brig. Gen. Carl B. Jensen, the commander of Coalition Task Force 58. "They are highly motivated, they take enormous pride in what they are doing and the fact that they are defending their home turf. These are their waters, these are their oil platforms, and they understand fully the priceless value that these oil platforms represent to their nation."

The coalition forces continue to work with the Iraqi servicemembers to train them up both at sea and at the home base in Umm Qasr. A U.S. Navy transition team does the training in Umm Qasr, and the task force commander certifies the forces.

"I expected much more difficulty with language and cultural barriers, but they haven't materialized," Noble said. "There have been some, but we are able to work through those."

All countries recognize the importance of the oil platforms and the coalition constantly includes ships from the United States, Great Britain and Australia. Ships from other countries shuttle in and out of the command.

"The world realizes the importance of the team here and how necessary it is to stability and to set the conditions for economic development," said Royal Australian Navy Cmdr. Mal Wise, the captain of the HMAS Ballarat.

The coalition has a "defense in depth" for the platforms, Jensen said. Iraqi marines and U.S. sailors from Mobile Security Detachment 71 from Guam man defenses on the platforms themselves. Coalition ships and helicopters provide the muscle for the ring of steel. Further afield there are roving patrols and Jensen can call on other assets from the U.S. Navy's Carrier Group 7 or land-based personnel.

"This is not unlike protecting a nuclear power station in the states," Jensen said. "They are guarded and guarded very well because the prospect of them being destroyed is too horrible to imagine. It's the same here."

And the ring of steel maintains its edge and mission. "Every morning we get up, we see the oil platforms are still there, and we know we've achieved our mission for another 24 hours," Dainton said. "We have to maintain our focus."

Gang activity seen in U.S. troops in Iraq

Big News Network.com Monday 1st May, 2006 (UPI)

A growing amount of U.S. gang-related graffiti and activity is being reported among U.S. troops in Iraq, The Chicago Sun-Times reported Monday.

I have identified 320 soldiers as gang members from April 2002 to present, said Scott Barfield, a Defense Department gang detective at Fort Lewis, Wash. I think that's the tip of the iceberg.

No one has been arrested for a gang-related felony on the base, Barfield said, but some are suspected of criminal activity off the Washington base, he said.

Meanwhile, graffiti for such Chicago gangs as the Gangster Disciples, Latin Kings and Vice Lords is showing up in Iraq on military buildings and vehicles.

Christopher Grey, spokesman for the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, disputed the problem is rampant.

We recently conducted an Army-wide study, and we don't see a significant trend in this kind of activity, especially when you compare this with a million-man Army, Grey said.

Turkish army claims right to pursue rebels in Iraq

May 2, 2006 ANKARA -- metimes.com

The Turkish army said on Tuesday that it reserves the right to venture into neighboring Iraq to pursue separatist Kurdish rebels based there, but denied reports that such operations were already underway.

"All our activities ... are taking place within our borders," General Bekir Kalyoncu, head of operations at the general staff, told a group of reporters, Anatolia news agency reported. "If the conditions [for a cross-border operation] arise, Turkey will use its rights as any sovereign country," he said. "Those conditions are outlined in the UN Charter."

Turkey has amassed troops along the border with Iraq for what officials describe as a large-scale effort to prevent increasing infiltrations by rebels from the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), based in mountainous hideouts in northern Iraq.

The army has repeatedly said that Article 51 of the UN Charter provides for the right of "hot pursuit" against the PKK on Iraqi territory.

The article acknowledges the right "of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security".

Ankara has long urged Washington and Baghdad to root out the PKK from northern Iraq, but it has been told that violence in other parts of the conflict-torn country is their priority.

The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara, the European Union and the United States, has been fighting the government since 1984 when it took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in adjoining southeast Turkey.

"The movement of the terrorists has become easier because no forces of the Iraqi government are present on the other side of border to ensure control," Kalyoncu said, referring to northern Iraq, which is administered by the Iraqi Kurds.

At least 20 members of the security forces have been killed in clashes with the PKK and landmine attacks blamed on the rebels in the southeast this year. The PKK has lost at least 53 people.

Kurdish militants have also claimed eight bomb attacks in urban centers, which claimed four lives and left 95 people injured.

The Turkish army conducted incursions into northern Iraq before the 2003 US-led invasion, but Washington is opposed to similar operations at present on the grounds that they could further complicate the troubled security situation.

Shiites and Sunnis Reach Pre-agreement

By Cihan News Agency, Washington, Bagdat (Baghdad) Published: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 zaman.com

After overcoming the prime ministry crisis in Iraq, Sunni and Shiite representatives resumed government negotiations and agreed on an initial accord.

The representatives, meeting in Bagdat (Baghdad), agreed on allocating ministry posts yesterday.

They have reached a deal to allocate the foreign, finance, and oil ministries. Independent names will be appointed to the interior and defense ministries.

The cabinet list is expected to be presented to the Iraqi parliament while Nouri al-Maliki, authorized to from the government, has been given until May 22.

One of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee's leading members Democrat Party Senator Joseph Biden, said Iraq should be separated into three autonomous regions as "Kurds, Sunnite Arabs, and Shiite Arabs" to resolve the problem.

Suicide bomber attacks Iraqi governor, 3 dead

Tue May 2, 2006 RAMADI, Iraq (Reuters) -

A suicide car bomber attacked the motorcade of the governor of the restive Iraqi province of Anbar on Tuesday, killing three bodyguards, hospital sources and local residents in the regional capital Ramadi said.

A local government official said there was no word on the fate of governor Maamoun Sami Rasheed after the attack in the centre of the city, a stronghold of Sunni Arab rebellion 110 km (70 miles) west of Baghdad.

A predecessor of Rasheed was kidnapped and killed last year. Al Qaeda Islamists and hardline followers of Saddam Hussein have vowed to kill Sunni Arab leaders who take part in the U.S.-sponsored political process.

The U.S. military said on Tuesday that Iraqi and U.S. troops had killed more than 100 insurgents last week in Ramadi. Two Iraqi soldiers died and no Americans were killed.

Reuters witnesses in Ramadi said there were heavy clashes last week between U.S. forces and insurgents in the city but could not independently confirm the number of deaths.

Bomb hidden in minibus kills 2 Iraqis

Tuesday, May 2, 2006 BAGHDAD, Iraq - By THOMAS WAGNER Associated Press

- A bomb hidden in a parked minibus exploded in Baghdad's main wholesale market on Tuesday, killing two Iraqis and wounding five, police said. Insurgents also killed a U.S. Army soldier and two Iraqi civilians in attacks using roadside bombs.

In another development, the U.S. military announced that Iraq's Central Criminal Court had convicted 12 suspected insurgents in April of crimes such as joining a terrorist group. They included two men who were given life sentences for joining al-Qaida in Iraq operations: Hassan Abdullah Muhsin and Mohammed Dhaher Ibrahim Yassen Jazzah.

The minibus bomb exploded in Shorja, a market where wholesalers use warehouses, stalls and shops to sell food, clothing and house products to businessmen and shoppers. At least two Iraqis were killed and five wounded, said Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi, an Interior Ministry policeman.

Baghdad is filled with privately owned minibuses that charge small fees to take citizens around the often crowded streets of the capital.

A roadside bomb killed the U.S. soldier Monday night about 40 miles south of Baghdad in the Sunni-dominated "Triangle of Death," a farming region rife with sectarian violence and the scene of numerous ambushes against U.S. and Iraqi troops.

The bombing raised to at least 2,406 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

A roadside bomb missed a U.S. convoy in Waziriyah, northern Baghdad, but killed an Iraqi pedestrian Tuesday, said police Cap. Ali al-Obeidi. Another roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi police patrol in western Baghdad killed one civilian and wounded another, said police 1st Lt. Maithem Abdel-Razaq.

North of Baqouba, gunmen attacked a stone quarry, killing the guard and kidnapping the quarry owner's son, police said.

Police also found the bodies of four Iraqi men on the streets of Kazimiyah, a Shiite neighborhood in northern Baghdad, al-Mohammedawi said. The legs and hands of the men were bound with rope, and each had been shot in the head and chest before being dumped on a street, he said.

On Monday, at least 15 bullet-riddled bodies were found in the capital, Iraq's Interior Ministry said. The victims were men aged 20-40 years; all were handcuffed and blindfolded.

U.S. officials hope the new Iraqi government, expected to be finalized this month, will be able to calm sectarian tensions and lure many minority Sunni Arabs away from the insurgency so U.S. and other international troops can begin heading home.

President Jalal Talabani was quoted by his office as saying Sunday that he had met with representatives of seven armed groups and was optimistic they would agree to lay down their arms. However, an official in Talabani's office said Monday the president did not meet with the groups and that his security adviser, Lt. Gen. Wafiq al-Sammaraie, made the contacts.

Another Kurdish politician, Mahmoud Othman, also said Talabani had not met with any insurgent representatives but that al-Sammaraie was in contact with undisclosed groups not linked to Saddam Hussein loyalists or al-Qaida in Iraq.

In Washington, President Bush said Monday he was convinced Iraq's leadership is "more determined that ever to succeed" with formation of a new permanent government.

"We believe we've got partners to help the Iraqi people realize their dreams," Bush said after meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who visited Baghdad last week. "They need to know that we stand with them."

Also Monday, the director general of Japan's Defense Agency, Fukushiro Nukaga, told the United States that Japan would withdraw its 600 non-combat troops deployed in southern Iraq at the same time that British and Australian troops are pulled out, the Kyodo News agency reported Tuesday.

The Japanese government has said in the past that it would consult with Britain and Australia before making any decisions to withdraw troops from Iraq and would take into consideration the political and security situation there.

A Japanese Defense Ministry spokeswoman told The Associated Press that the policy had not changed. She spoke on condition of anonymity according to department policy.

Australia, which has a total 1,320 troops in and around Iraq, has said it will keep forces in the country until they are no longer needed. Britain, which has the second largest foreign force in Iraq after the United States, announced in March cuts of about 10 percent in its force of 8,000.

US guards kill ambulance crewman

By Maher Nazih in Baghdad May 02, 2006 - the australian

AMERICAN security contractors shot dead an Iraqi ambulance crewman today, when they opened fire on his vehicle after a roadside bomb blasted their convoy. Two American civilians were wounded in the incident in north Baghdad, the US military said.

The incident drew an angry response from Iraqi officials, who often complain private foreign guards kill civilians with impunity. Tens of thousands of armed foreigners work in Iraq licensed by US authorities and beyond the reach of Iraqi law.

Reuters journalists saw the dead crewman sprawled in the passenger seat of the ambulance. Clearly marked with a red crescent symbol, its windows had been shattered by bullets. "A civilian contractor security firm returned fire after one of its convoys was hit by an IED (improvised explosive device), apparently killing an ambulance driver responding to the scene," a US military spokesman said. "Two US civilians were wounded in the attack."

He declined to name the contractors involved or say if any action would be taken against them. An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said the security guards drove off after the shooting. One damaged armoured four-wheel drive vehicle was left behind. The surviving driver of the ambulance said at the scene he and his fellow crewman were taking a stretcher case to hospital when the bomb blasted the convoy of unmarked contractors' cars travelling on the same stretch of road.

"We were taking a case to hospital when a bomb went off close to a convoy of Americans that was passing," said the driver, who gave his name only as Abu Ali for fear of reprisals. "They opened fire and shot him in the heart," he said, declining to name his dead colleague. "We are an ambulance crew, who help people when there are bombings. What did we do wrong?"

Asked about the incident, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said: "The Americans killed the ambulance driver. They just killed him and left. They did not stop to check."

Video footage posted on the internet last year apparently showing Western security guards firing on civilian cars in Baghdad, accompanied by a musical soundtrack, provoked new accusations that some such contractors were out of control. Largely employed to protect operations being carried out under US government contract - many work directly on US military bases - private security outfits are ubiquitous in parts of Iraq. Some contractors complain that an irresponsible minority of "cowboys" is giving them a bad name.

US troops have also often been accused by Iraqis of opening fire on passing civilians after roadside bomb blasts.

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 3

*BAGHDAD - An American security contractor was killed and two others were wounded when a blast struck their vehicle close to Nassiriya, 375 km (235 miles) south of Baghdad, a British military spokesman in southern Iraq said.

KERBALA - Hameed al-Hilaly, a senior local government official, escaped an assassination attempt by gunmen near Kerbala, police said.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed four college students on Tuesday in an ambush in a southern Doura district of the capital, police said.

NAJAF - About 40 parents and relatives of 15 policemen who went missing three weeks ago in Taji, north of Baghdad, demonstrated near police headquarters in the sacred city of Najaf, demanding the governor of Najaf and the national interior minister find out what happened to them.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen wounded professor Riyadh Hadi outside the University of Mustansiriya in eastern Baghdad, police said.

NIBAI - The bodies of three people were found after they had been tortured and shot dead on Tuesday in Nibai, near Dujail, 90 km (55 miles) north of Baghdad, the Joint Coordination Centre of the U.S. and Iraqi military said.

YUSUFIYA - A policeman was killed and two others wounded, including a civilian, when a roadside bomb hit their patrol in Yusufiya, 15 km (9 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

FALLUJA - A suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd of men waiting to sign up to join the police force in the city of Falluja, killing 18 people and wounding 20, doctors said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb exploded in a crowded market wounding 17 people in the Shi'ite Shula district of the capital, police said.

BAQUBA - A police officer was killed and three wounded as they were disarming a bomb when a second bomb exploded nearby in an apparent ambush in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police said.

BAQUBA - Gunmen attacked a police checkpoint in Baquba killing a police officer, police said.

DHULUIYA - U.S. forces arrested a woman doctor late on Tuesday in Dhuluiya, 40 km (25 miles) north of Baghdad, a day after she accused U.S. forces of stealing $4,000 in gold during a raid on her house, officials said.

BAGHDAD - The bodies of 14 people with bullet holes and signs of torture were found in northern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi soldiers wounded the driver and two escorts of the deputy speaker of Parliament, Khalid al-Attiya, as they refused to stop near an army checkpoint, police said. Attiya was not in the vehicle.

RAMADI - The governor of rebellious Anbar province survived an assassination attempt unharmed but the suicide bombing killed at least 10 civilians, the U.S. military said. - alertnet.org/

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 4

BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed Muhammed Ridha, a brigadier in the Defence Ministry, in the capital's Yarmouk district, police said.

NEAR TIKRIT - Gunmen killed an Iraqi soldier on Wednesday near Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, said the Joint Coordination Centre run by the U.S. and Iraqi militaries.

TIKRIT - Gunmen gunned down a tailor on Wednesday in Tikrit, the Joint Coordination Centre said.

BALAD - Gunmen killed a civilian on Wednesday in Balad, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, the Joint Coordination Centre said alertnet.org/.

Return Of The Death Squads - Iraq's Hidden News

By John Pilger

The lifts in the New York Hilton played CNN on a small screen you could not avoid watching. Iraq was top of the news; pronouncements about a "civil war" and "sectarian violence" were repeated incessantly. It was as if the US invasion had never happened and the killing of tens of thousands of civilians by the Americans was a surreal fiction. The Iraqis were mindless Arabs, haunted by religion, ethnic strife and the need to blow themselves up. Unctuous puppet politicians were paraded with no hint that their exercise yard was inside an American fortress. And when you left the lift, this followed you to your room, to the hotel gym, the airport, the next airport and the next country. Such is the power of America's corporate propaganda, which, as Edward Said pointed out in Culture and Imperialism, "penetrates electronically" with its equivalent of a party line. The party line changed the other day. For almost three years it was that al-Qaeda was the driving force behind the "insurgency", led by Abu Musab al-n seen alive and that only a fraction of the "insurgents" followed al-Qaeda. For the Americans, Zarqawi's role was to distract attention from the thing that almost all Iraqis oppose: the brutal

Anglo-American occupation of their country. Now that al-Zarqawi has been replaced by "sectarian violence" and "civil war", the big news is the attacks by Sunnis on Shia mosques and bazaars. The real news, which is not reported in the CNN "mainstream", is that the Salvador Option has been invoked in Iraq. This is the campaign of terror by death squads armed and trained by the US, which attack Sunnis and Shias alike. The goal is the incitement of a real civil war and the break-up of Iraq, the original war aim of Bush's administration. The ministry of the interior in Baghdad, which is run by the CIA, directs the principal death squads. Their members are not exclusively Shia, as the myth goes. The most brutal are the Sunni-led Special Police Commandos, headed by former senior officers in Saddam's Ba'ath Party. This was formed and trained by CIA "counter-insurgency" experts, including veterans of the CIA's terror operations in central America in the 1980s, notably El Salvador. In his new book, Empire's Workshop (Metropolitan Books), the American historian Greg Grandin describes the Salvador Option thus: "Once in office, [President] Reagan came down hard on central America, in effect letting his administration's most committed militarists set and execute policy. In El Salvador, they provided more than a million dollars a day to fund a lethal counter-insurgency campaign...

All told, US allies in central America during Reagan's two terms killed over 300,000 people, tortured hundreds of thousands and drove millions into exile." Although the Reagan administration spawned the current Bushites, or "neo-cons", the pattern was set earlier. In Vietnam, death squads trained, armed and directed by the CIA murdered up to 50,000 people in Operation Phoenix. In the mid-1960s, in Indonesia, CIA officers compiled "death lists" for General Suharto's killing spree during his seizure of power. After the 2003 invasion, it was only a matter of time before this venerable "policy" was applied in Iraq. According to the investigative writer Max Fuller (National Review Online), the key CIA manager of the interior ministry death squads "cut his teeth in Vietnam before moving on to direct the US military mission in El Salvador".

Professor Grandin names another central America veteran whose job now is to "train a ruthless counter-insurgent force made up of ex-Ba'athist thugs". Another, says Fuller, is well-known for his "production of death lists". A secret militia run by the Americans is the Facilities Protection Service, which has been responsible for bombings. "The British and US Special Forces," concludes Fuller, "in conjunction with the [US-created] intelligence services at the Iraqi defence ministry, are fabricating insurgent bombings of Shias." On 16 March, Reuters reported the arrest of an American "security contractor", who was found with weapons and explosives in his car. Last year, two Britons disguised as Arabs were caught with a car full of weapons and explosives; British forces bulldozed the Basra prison to rescue them.

The Boston Globe recently reported: "The FBI's counter-terrorism unit has launched a broad investigation of US-based theft rings after discovering that some of the vehicles used in deadly car bombings in Iraq, including attacks that killed US troops and Iraqi civilians, were probably stolen in the United States, according to senior government officials." As I say, all this has been tried before - just as the preparation of the American public for an atrocious attack on Iran is similar to the WMD fabrications in Iraq.

If that attack comes, there will be no warning, no declaration of war, no truth. Imprisoned in the Hilton lift, staring at CNN, my fellow passengers could be excused for not making sense of the Middle East, or Latin America, or anywhere. They are isolated. Nothing is explained. Congress is silent. The Democrats are moribund. And the freest media on earth insult the public every day. As Voltaire put it: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 5

DIWANIYA - A police major was killed by gunmen near his house in Diwaniya, 180 km (110 miles) south of Baghdad, on Thursday, police said.

NEAR BALAD - Two Iraqi soldiers were killed by gunmen near Balad, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, on Thursday, police said.

BAGHDAD - Two policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol in eastern Baghdad, police said.

NEAR SAMARRA - U.S. troops killed three people who fired on them as they were arrested three suspects near Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, on Thursday, the military said in statement. alertnet.org/.

British helicopter down in Iraq, troops in clashes

06 May 2006 Source: Reuters

A British military helicopter was brought down in the city of Basra on Saturday, killing four people on board, Iraqi officials said, sparking clashes between troops and angry youths throwing petrol bombs.

Britain's government said "a number of" British military personnel were killed and said the cause was unclear. Police said a rocket hit the helicopter and firefighters said they found four charred bodies in the aircraft, which hit a house.

No one on the ground was hurt in the crash, police said.

Morgue officials said they knew of four Iraqis killed in the confused hours of violence after youths at the crash site chanted victory slogans for the Mehdi Army, a Shi'ite militia opposed to the occupation.

"I can confirm the tragic deaths of a number of British service personnel," said Defence Secretary Des Browne, appointed only on Friday in a cabinet reshuffle.

As troops in Warrior armoured battle vehicles, some with riot shields, cordoned off the area, youths chanting "Victory to the Mehdi Army" threw rocks and petrol bombs. Soldiers used foam to douse fires ignited on their vehicles.

British military spokesman Squadron Leader Al Green said troops counted about 60 rounds fired in the air from the crowd -- not uncommon in Iraq.

In London, a Ministry of Defence statement said British forces fired three live rounds in defence when they came under attack.

A local journalist said he was hit in the leg by a British baton round and saw troops aim their ordinary rifles. He said he saw at least one man dead. Witnesses said a second man may have died in a car, the windscreen of which was smashed and bloodied.

Several people, including children, were wounded when a mortar round later struck a house nearby, witnesses said.

LESS VIOLENCE

Dominated by the Shi'ite Muslim majority now in control in Baghdad, Basra has seen less violence than cities in the north. However, friction between the occupying force and militia groups such as the Mehdi Army of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr does flare up.

British military sources confirmed ground fire seemed the likeliest explanation for the crash, near the local governor's office. The make of the helicopter was not clear.

Basra police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Kareem al-Zaidi said: "A Multi-National Forces helicopter was hit by a rocket."

Dozens have died when helicopters have been brought down in Iraq, many not by guided missiles, of which guerrillas have few, but by gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades. They tend to fly fast and low, to reduce the time attackers have to take aim.

Sadr, a firebrand in his early 30s, demands an end to the U.S. and British occupation. He is a key figure in the Islamist Alliance bloc that will lead a new Iraqi government.

In September last year, British forces clashed with Mehdi Army militants. The British public was startled by images of a soldier escaping an armoured vehicle, his uniform in flames.

Senior British officers have complained that rival Shi'ite militia factions have effectively taken control of different elements of Iraq's second city, close to the Gulf and the border with Shi'ite Iran, 550 km (340 miles) south of Baghdad.

Before Saturday, 104 British service personnel had died in Iraq. About 8,000 are deployed there, with 133,000 Americans.

UNITY GOVERNMENT

There were signs of agreement among Iraqi leaders that a unity government could be formed soon. Shi'ite Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi said: "I expect the announcement will come in the next few days ... There are no serious complications."

Sectarian bloodshed has increased since the destruction of a major Shi'ite shrine in Samarra in February, prompting warnings of civil war and adding to pressure from Washington and London for Iraqis to settle their differences quickly.

Both the United States and Britain are keen to withdraw as many troops as possible as quickly as possible and are building up Iraq's own army and police to that end.

Three Iraqi Army officers, including a lieutenant-colonel, were killed inside their base by a suicide bomber in Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit on Saturday, police said.

It was not the first time an insurgent had dressed in army uniform and evaded identity checks to attack Iraqi soldiers.

(Additional reporting by Alaa Habib in Basra and Ahmed Rasheed, Lutfi Abu Oun, Ibon Villelabeitia, Mariam Karouny, Terry Friel and Alastair Macdonald in Baghdad and David Clarke in London)

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 6

* BASRA - A British military helicopter was hit by a rocket and went down in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Saturday, Lieutenant Colonel Kareem al-Zaidi, spokesman for the Basra police, said.

* SAMARRA - Two policemen were killed and another was wounded when a roadside bomb struck their patrol in Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, on Saturday, police said.

* KIRKUK - Gunmen opened fire and killed a civilian and wounded two in the northern oil city of Kirkuk on Saturday, police said.

* DIWANIYA - A Polish soldier was lightly wounded on Saturday when a bomb went off near the city of Diwaniya 180 km (112 miles) south of Baghdad, Polish Defence Ministry spokesman Zdzislaw Gnatowski said.

BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier was killed on Friday when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb, the U.S. military said on Saturday.

TIKRIT - A suicide bomber wearing Iraqi army uniform detonated his explosives vest inside an Iraqi military base in Tikrit on Saturday, killing three Iraqi army officers and wounding one, Interior Ministry sources and police said.

BAGHDAD - Two children aged five and six were killed and three adult civilians were wounded when a mortar round landed on Baghdad's western district of Shula on Saturday, police said.

BAGHDAD - Police on Saturday found six bodies in different parts of Baghdad with signs of torture and gunshots to the head, police said.

YUSIFIYA - Four civilians were wounded on Saturday when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle in Yusifiya 15 km (9 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

JURF AL-SAKHAR - Two policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb detonated near their patrol in Jurf al-Sakhar 85 km (55 miles) south of Baghdad on Friday, police said.

MAHAWEEL - Three police commandos were kidnapped on Saturday by gunmen in Mahaweel, 75 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

MAHAWEEL - Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms ambushed and kidnapped two truck drivers in Mahaweel on Saturday, police said. - alertnet

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 7

MIQDADIYA - Ten people were wounded when a bomb exploded in a sports goods store, next to a restaurant, in Miqdadiya, northeast of Baghdad, police said.

ADHAIM - Several of President Jalal Talabani's bodyguards were hurt in a car accident while driving between Baghdad and the president's home region of Kurdistan, a spokesman for Talabani said. He denied a report from police sources that the convoy was ambushed and several guards killed near Adhaim, north of the capital. Talabani himself was not present.

FALLUJA - A Marine was killed in combat in restive Anbar province, west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement.

RAMADI - A civilian was killed and three were wounded, including a child and a woman, in clashes between insurgents and U.S. forces in the western city of Ramadi, 110 km (70 miles) west of Baghdad, hospital official Aala al-Dulaimi said.

SAMARRA - U.S. forces detained five suspects -- one believed to be a senior al Qaeda operative -- and killed an unknown number of suspected rebels in raids on Friday near the city of Samarra, the U.S. military said in a statement.

HADITHA - Gunmen set fire to three trucks carrying food to the U.S. military in Haditha, 150 km (95 miles) west of Baghdad, a traffic policeman said. There was no information on casualties.

KERBALA - A suicide car bomb killed 21 people and wounded 52 in central Kerbala, police and hospital officials said. The chief of police and the U.S. military put the toll at two dead and 18 wounded. But police officers and doctors, speaking on condition of anonymity, stood by their figures and suggested the authorities were trying to play down the scale of the attack.

BAGHDAD - Eight people were killed and 15 wounded when a suicide car bomber targeted an Iraqi army patrol in Aadhamiya district of the capital, police said. The casualties included soldiers and civilians.

BAGHDAD - One civilian was killed and six were wounded when a car bomb exploded in northern Baghdad, police said. The blast was close to the offices of a government-run newspaper.

*BAGHDAD - A home-made bomb exploded in the basement of a mosque in the Rusafa district, killing one presumed bombmaker and wounding two, the U.S. military said. Six more bombs were found in the basement.

BASRA - Five people were killed and 42 wounded on Saturday during clashes between British forces and youths after a British helicopter came down in the southern city of Basra, the local health service said. Britain said up to five service personnel died on the helicopter.

BAGHDAD - The bodies of 42 people, many of them showing signs of torture, were found in Baghdad in the 24 hours from Saturday morning, an Interior Ministry source said. These included eight bodies found on Sunday at a garbage dump near the Kindi hospital in eastern Baghdad.

MAHAWEEL - A civilian was wounded on Saturday when Iraqi troops opened fire in Mahaweel, 75 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, police said. Details of the incident were unclear.

MOSUL - Three policemen were killed when a roadside bomb went off near their patrol in the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS:

ARBIL - The Kurdish parliament convenes to ratify a new government of Kurdistan, uniting the governments run by the rival KDP and PUK parties in different parts of the region.

BAGHDAD - President Jalal Talabani and others are engaged in continuing negotiations with Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki, who is trying to form a national unity government. - alertnet

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 8

* HAWIJA - Iraqi police sources said two civilians were killed when U.S. soldiers opened fire after a roadside bomb attack in the northern town of Hawija. No U.S. soldiers were wounded, the police sources added. There was no immediate U.S. comment.

* BALAD RUZ - A roadside bomb in Balad Ruz killed two civilians and wounded three, police in the town northeast of Baghdad said.

BAGHDAD - Heavy clashes erupted between insurgents and Iraqi soldiers in Baghdad's northern Adhamiya district, police said. There was no immediate word on the number of casualties.

BAGHDAD - Five civilians were killed and eight wounded when a roadside bomb went off at al-Tayaran Square, western Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

MAHAWEEL - The corpses of three police commandos, who were kidnapped two days ago, were found in a small river with a single bullet to the head in the town of Mahaweel, 75 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

MUQDADIYA - Gunmen in two cars killed two men in a drive-by shooting in a market in the town of Muqdadiya, 90 km northeast of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Five civilians were killed and another 10 wounded when a car bomb exploded near a courthouse in western Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

BAGHDAD - One U.S. soldier was killed when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb southeast of the capital, the U.S. military said in a statement.

KHALISA - Two Iraqi journalists, who work for the Iraqi al-Nahrain satellite channel, were found dead with a single bullet to the head after they were kidnapped on Sunday in al-Khalisa, a town about 30 km south of Baghdad, police and employees of the channel said.

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military and Iraq's government said Ali Wali, a chemical expert and a Kurdish member of the militant Ansar al-Islam group, was killed on Saturday during a raid operation in Mansour District, west-central Baghdad.

NEAR TAL AFAR - A U.S. soldier was killed and another wounded on Sunday after they came under insurgent fire while helping Iraqi security forces clear a building near Tal Afar, about 420 km northwest of Baghdad, the military said on Monday.

MUSSAYAB - An insurgent was killed and two policemen were wounded during clashes that erupted after a bomb exploded near an oil pipeline in Mussayab, about 60 km south of Baghdad.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb and a car bomb exploded in quick succession wounding 17 civilians, including four policemen, in an apparent ambush, in eastern Baghdad, a source in the Interior Ministry said.

BAGHDAD - The bodies of six people bearing signs of torture and with gun wounds to their heads were found in different areas in Baghdad, a Ministry of Interior source said.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen fired at a bus carrying employees working for the Ministry of Higher Education, killing its driver and wounding three employees in Yarmouk district of the capital, a Ministry of Interior source said.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi army detained 25 suspects on Sunday in the cities of Tal Afar, Kirkuk, Tikrit and Ramadi, the Iraqi army said on Monday. - alertnet

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 9

* TAL AFAR - A suicide bomber killed 17 people and wounded 35 when he blew his car up in a market in the northern city of Tal Afar, police said. A hospital source said the casualties included civilians and Iraqi police and troops.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed a judge who worked in Baghdad's insurgent-stronghold of Adhamiya, police said. Muhaimin Mahmoud Abud was the second judge to be killed in the capital in less than three weeks.

BAGHDAD - One U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb on Monday in eastern Baghdad, the U.S. military said. It did not provide details.

BAGHDAD - Twelve bodies bearing signs of torture and gunshot wounds were found in various areas of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb aimed at police guarding electricity installations exploded in northwest Baghdad, killing two civilians. Two policemen and three civilians were wounded, police sources said.

LATIFIYA - The bodies of three people, one wearing police uniform, were found with gunshot wounds and their hands bound in Latifiya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

SUWAYRA - Iraqi police retrieved the bodies of 11 people, nine of them beheaded, including a 10-year-old boy, in the Sunni town of Suwayra, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

KIRKUK - Gunmen killed an Iraqi soldier and wounded two others on the main road between Tikrit and Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad on Tuesday, police said.

OWJA - Gunmen kidnapped two people on Monday who work in supplying the Iraqi army with food in the town of Owja, near Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

RAMADI - Gunmen killed four police officers while they were driving out of police headquarters in the city of Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

BAGHDAD - Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki said on Tuesday he expected to form a national unity government in the next day or two, ending five months of stalemate since a December election. - alertnet

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 10

*BAGHDAD - Thirteen corpses, bearing signs of torture, were found in different parts of Baghdad, police said.

*BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol exploded on a Baghdad highway, killing a soldier, police said.

*NEAR BAQUBA - U.S. and Iraqi forces detained 24 suspected insurgents and seized money and munitions during joint raids in villages around Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

BAQUBA - Gunmen killed 11 people while they were heading to their work at an electrical equipment factory near Baquba, said Lieutenant Colonel Salman al-Dahlagi of the Iraqi police.

Police had earlier given a different version of the incident, saying seven people were killed when a car bomb exploded. Dahlagi said the initial report was based on an erroneous witness statement.

BAQUBA - Gunmen killed Lieutenant Colonel Kanan Hassan, an aide to the head of Baquba's Criminal Intelligence Directorate, along with two of his body guards, while he was heading to his work in the city, police said.

*BAGHDAD - Gunmen shot dead an employee of the Ministry of Defence in Ammil district, southwestern Baghdad, police and the defence ministry said.

HAWIJA - An army major and two soldiers were seriously wounded when a roadside bomb went off near their patrol in Hawija, 70 km southwest of Kirkuk, police said.

BAQUBA - A policeman and a civilian were wounded when a roadside bomb went off near a police patrol in Baquba, police said.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

BAGHDAD - Iraq's parliament convened to vote on a law regulating the assembly's work. It was the legislature's second normal session since it was elected in December.

But the session was disrupted by a dispute between the Sunni speaker and a Shi'ite Islamist woman parliament member who had tried to lodge a complaint about an alleged attack on one of her aides on Monday by the speaker's bodyguards. - alertnet

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 11

BAGHDAD - Four street cleaners were killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb went off in the Mansour district in west-central Baghdad, police said. The target of the explosion was not clear.

BAQUBA - Iraqi police and army arrested 25 gunmen wearing army uniforms near the religiously mixed city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, a source in the army said.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen shot dead a judicial investigator near a courthouse in central Baghdad, police said.

BASRA - Gunmen killed Khalid al-Sadoun, a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a major Sunni party, along with two aides on Wednesday in the small town of al-Zubeyr, near Basra, 550 km south of Baghdad, an official in the Islamic party and the head of the city council in Basra said.

BAQUBA - Gunmen killed a woman school teacher and wounded her 14-year old nephew, police said. - alertnet

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 12

*BALAD - An Iraqi soldier was killed and five wounded in an attack on their patrol in Balad, north of Baghdad, police said.

*NEAR SAMARRA - U.S. and Iraqi forces detained 281 people in a major sweep against suspected Sunni insurgents in Salahaddin province, north of Baghdad, a provincial security official said.

BASRA - A gunman killed a senior Sunni cleric in the southern city of Basra when he walked up to him and shot him with a pistol after he left his mosque following Friday prayers, a Sunni religious official said.

BAGHDAD - Ahmed Midhat Mahmoud, the son of a senior judge, and two of his guards were killed by gunmen in an ambush in Adhamiya, northern Baghdad, a defence ministry source said.

BALAD RUZ - Gunmen attacked a funeral in the town of Balad Ruz, 50 km (30 miles) northeast of Baquba, killing two civilians and wounding two, police and hospital sources said.

KIRKUK - Two insurgents were killed and one wounded and a fourth was detained by police when a bomb they were placing on a road exploded in Kirkuk, 250 km north of Baghdad, police said.

HAWIJA - One insurgent was killed and another was wounded on Thursday when a U.S. helicopter fired on them while they were placing a roadside bomb east of Hawija, 70 km southwest of Kirkuk, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD - A bomb in a parked car exploded near an office of Dawa, a major Shi'ite Islamist party, in the Zaafaraniya district in the south of the capital, but caused no casualties and little damage, police said.

BAGHDAD - The body of a man with gunshot wounds to the head and showing signs of torture, was found in Sadr City, northeastern Baghdad, an interior ministry source said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in Baladiyat district, eastern Baghdad, wounding one policeman, an interior ministry source said.

DHULUIYA - Four Iraqi soldiers were killed and seven civilians were wounded in clashes between the Iraqi army and insurgents in the town of Dhuluiya, 40 km (25 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

KHAN BANI SAAD - The bodies of four people in military uniform, two of them beheaded, were found in the town of Khan Bani Saad, near Baquba north of Baghdad, police and hospital sources said.

MAHMUDIYA - Mohammed Nasser, a former senior local official in Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, was killed in a drive-by shooting near Mahmudiya, 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

NEAR GARMA - Four U.S. Marines drowned on Thursday when their Abrams tank rolled off a bridge and fell into a canal near the village of Garma in western Anbar province, the U.S. military said. The province is an insurgent stronghold.

TAL AFAR - Iraqi police killed two insurgents on Thursday when they attacked a police patrol in the northern city of Tal Afar, the U.S. military said.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

BAGHDAD - The Fadhila party, a small but influential Shi'ite Islamist group, criticised U.S. interference and said it was pulling out of talks on forming a new government, a move which could help end Shi'ite infighting over the key oil ministry. A senior party official said they could re-join the talks however. - alertnet

Clashes Erupt Between Two Iraqi Army Units

Staff and agencies - 12 May, 2006 BAGHDAD, Iraq - source

Clashes erupted Friday between two Iraqi army units following a roadside bombing north of the capital, and Iraqi police said a Shiite solder was killed in an exchange of fire with a Kurdish unit.

The Americans said one soldier from the Iraqi army's 1st Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 4th Division was killed and 12 were wounded in the attack.

According to both accounts, the wounded were rushed to the U.S. military hospital in Balad. Police said that when the Kurdish soldiers drove up to the hospital, they began firing weapons to clear the way, and one Iraqi Shiite civilian was killed.

The U.S. account said that an Iraqi soldier from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Brigade was killed in a "confrontation" as the other Iraqi troops were trying to remove their wounded. Iraqi police identified the dead soldier as a Shiite. But the U.S. statement did not say what prompted the soldiers to try to take wounded comrades away from a hospital - the best equipped American medical facility in the country.

The U.S. said the Iraqi army was investigating the incident.

The peshmerga also provides security in the three provinces that form the Kurds' self-governing entity in the north.

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 13

*RAMADI - U.S. forces clashed with insurgents in central Ramadi, witnesses said. A doctor said seven people were treated for wounds at the main hospital.

MOSUL - Gunmen ambushed and killed two policemen and wounded two others in the city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. Two civilians were wounded.

BAGHDAD - Three policemen and three civilians were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol in eastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier was killed when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in south Baghdad, a U.S. military statement said.

BAGHDAD - An Iraqi soldier was killed on Friday in a clash between two Iraqi army units in the town of Dhuluiya, north of Baghdad, which prompted intervention by U.S. forces, the U.S. military said on Saturday. Iraqi police and army officials denied any such confrontation happened.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

*BASRA - The governor said he suspended the police chief for failing to ensure security. Observers said the move may reflect a political struggle for control of security in the city.

*HILLA - An aide to the police chief said he would resist a bid by the provincial council to force him to quit.

*BAGHDAD - The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said an Arab League-sponsored national reconciliation conference would take place in Baghdad on June 11-12 or June 21-22. Arab League chief Amr Moussa said in Cairo it would be on June 20. - alertnet

Basra in crisis as governor implicates security chiefs in terror

Sat May 13, BASRA, Iraq (AFP) -

The governor of the southern Iraqi province of Basra suspended the city's police chief accusing him of links to groups involved in terrorism as US President George W. Bush described militias as one of Iraq's main challenges. Governor Mohammed Musabah al-Waili said he was also demanding the resignation of the commander of the Iraqi army's Basra-based 10th Brigade, General Abdul Latif Thaban.

"He is not cooperating with us and is being loyal to his politics and not the law," said the governor in his statement which also suspended police chief Major General Hassan Sawadi.

Waili said the two security chiefs were suspected of links to "sabotage groups, from outside the city and abroad, that are carrying out sabotage and terrorist attacks". "We have noticed that some border guards and some of the leadership in the army have doubtful links to wanted people," Waili said.

The governor also accused two prominent Shiite clerics of sharing the blame for a recent upsurge in violence in the city and warned of impending attacks against the city. The crisis in Basra came amid renewed demands from the White House for a clampdown on the Shiite militias which stand accused of infiltrating the security forces for sectarian ends.

"Perhaps the main challenge is the militia that tend to take the law into their own hands," Bush said following a meeting with US former secretaries of state. "It's going to be up to the government to step up and take care of that militia so that the Iraqi people are confident in the security of their country," he said, making it clear the US military should not be expected to get involved with the militia threat.

British General Robert Fry added in a teleconference from Baghdad on Friday that the key to resolving the militia issue lies in politics. Fry said Maliki must first "engage the political constituencies, which are connected to the main militias, lay out quite clearly what his political objectives are, and invite those political leaders to enter the legitimate political process and not remain outside of it.

"Before any form of military action was to have been taken, you first of all need political and also public consultation," he said.

As talks continue over the formation of prime minister designate Nuri al-Maliki's new government, there is intense scrutiny over the candidate for the interior ministry -- a key institution in any attempt to confront the militias. A number of names have been put forward for the job, including independent Shiite Qassem Dawoud and the current minister, Bayan Baqr Solagh.

Solagh, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), one of the main Shiite parties, has been criticized for his ties to militias and his inability to rein in sectarian-related bloodshed.

A final government line-up is expected to be announced Monday, a day after parliament reconvenes.

The British-patrolled city was long considered more peaceful than the restive centre and west of Iraq, but growing infilitration of the security forces by Shiite militiamen has seen an upsurge in violence.

Two Sunni clerics and a Sunni politician have been murdered in the city in recent days.

Four British service personnel also died last week when their helicopter crashed. British troops who went to their assistance came under attack by an angry mob.

Violence elsewhere in Iraq raged on on Saturday, with at least nine dead in insurgent attacks, five of them in the main northern city of Mosul.

Authorities also recovered six bodies around the country.

In northern Iraq, five prisoners who escaped from a high-security prison jointly run with the US-led coalition have been recaptured by Kurdish forces, a Kurdish security official told AFP.

In south Baghdad, a US soldier on patrol was killed when his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in the pre-dawn hours.

His death brought the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion to 2,431, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.

Basra Police Chief Dismissed
8 Bodies found in Najaf

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 14

*UDAIM - Three bodyguards working for Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari were killed and four were wounded when their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in Udaim, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, police and military officers said. Zebari told Reuters he was not in the motorcade but was aware of the attack.

*FALLUJA - Iraqi police found the bodies of four people, with gunshot wounds and bearing signs of torture, south of Falluja, 50 km west of Baghdad, police and hospital sources said.

*MOSUL - Two civilians were killed and nine wounded when a car bomb went off near U.S. forces in the northern city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

*RAMADI - Three insurgents were killed and four were detained during a U.S. forces raid and search operation on Saturday in the western city of Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

BAGHDAD - A bomb exploded near al-Mustansiriya University in northeastern Baghdad, killing one civilian and wounding 11 people, including three policemen, police said.

BAGHDAD - Six people were killed, including three policemen, and 10 wounded when a roadside bomb went off near a police patrol in the capital's northern Adamiya district, police said.

BAGHDAD - Three people were killed and 15 wounded when a roadside bomb went off in a crowded market in Zafaraniya in southeastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Two car bombs exploded near the entrance to the airport in western Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 14, a hospital source said.

BAGHDAD - Four civilians were killed and five wounded when a roadside bomb went off near a police patrol in northeastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Two civilians were killed and five wounded when a roadside bomb went off near a police commando patrol in central Baghdad, police said.

BALAD RUZ - Two bombs exploded in rapid succession killing a civilian and wounding a police officer late on Saturday in Balad Ruz, about 50 km (30 miles) southeast of Baquba, police said on Sunday.

KIRKUK - Eight Iraqi soldiers were wounded on Saturday when a roadside bomb went off near a patrol in the northern city of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) from Baghdad, police said on Sunday.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

BAGHDAD - Iraqi's parliament met on Sunday for its third normal session since December's election. Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki has until May 22 to present a unity government to the assembly.

BAGHDAD - The small but influential Shi'ite Fadhila Party, which withdrew from government negotiations on Friday, said it would not return to the talks even if it was given the powerful oil ministry. It is a member of the dominant United Alliance bloc. - alertnet

41 die in Iraqi attacks

u.tv SUNDAY 14/05/2006 - A total of 41 people have died in a series of deadly attacks throughout Iraq.

Up to 26 were killed in Baghdad and 15 in the south of the country, including two British soldiers.

Baghdad's deadliest attack involved two suicide car bombs that exploded near a main checkpoint on a four-lane road leading to Baghdad's international airport, killing at least 14 Iraqis and wounding six. The other 12 Iraqis were killed by four roadside bombs, three targeting Iraqi police patrols and one that exploded in an open market.

The surge of violence occurred as Iraq's parliament met in Baghdad, and Prime Minister-designate Nouri al-Maliki met privately with politicians in an effort to form a Cabinet for a new national unity government - one the Americans hope can help reduce sectarian violence and one day make it possible for US forces to withdraw from Iraq.

His effort was set back however when a member of an influential Shiite alliance bloc threatened to unilaterally form a new government, if rival groups did not scale back their demands for Cabinet ministries. At the same time, Sunni Arabs threatened to withdraw entirely from the political process.

An Iraqi girl holds a sibling at the entrance to their tent in a displaced persons camp in Baghdad last week. Three years after "the end of major military operations", Iraq's raging sectarian bloodshed has left nearly 14,000 families homeless

Three years after US President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat, Iraq was on May 1 battling to form its first full-term post-Saddam Hussein government amid a raging insurgency and sectarian strife.

iraq: Battling for peace three years after 'mission accomplished'

14th May 2006 - www.mmorning.com

Three years after US President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat, Iraq was on May 1 battling to form its first full-term post-Saddam Hussein government amid a raging insurgency and sectarian strife.

In comments marking the anniversary of his imprudent declaration proclaiming the end of the war, Bush conceded that tough days were ahead but also hailed a "turning point" in the country's political process.

Providing a glimmer of hope in the long-running efforts to form a new government, the dominant Shiite bloc said it had reached a preliminary deal with minority Sunnites on sharing out the key posts in a national unity government although the details remained to be ironed out.

"We have reached an agreement that the 'sovereign' posts would be distributed fairly", said Shiite politician Salam Maliki, the outgoing transport minister, after talks with Sunnite leaders.

He was referring to the key defense, interior, foreign, oil and finance ministries.

"There is a consensus of views under which independent people should be nominated to the security ministries", the minister added.

Four months after landmark December elections for the country's first full-term cabinet, Iraq is still without a national unity government.

Amid the power vacuum, rebels killed four people across the country on May 1 and set off a series of roadside bombs, underscoring the fact that violence was still raging despite Bush's optimism of 2003.

"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed", Bush triumphantly told some 5,000 sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, of that year. Behind him was an enormous banner trumpeting "Mission Accomplished".

Today, an estimated 35,000 civilian and 2,400 US military deaths later, Iraqis still await a day without bombings and a night of steady electricity.

The insurgency not only continues to kill innocent Iraqis, but has drawn more and more groups into its fold.

But the grim scenario facing Iraqi leaders is the continuation of bitter sectarianism that has threatened to push the country into a full-fledged civil war.

The bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in February triggered the country's worst communal bloodshed since the March 2003 invasion.

Hundreds of people have died in tit-for-tat killings by once powerful Sunnite Arabs and the newly dominant majority Shiites, while about 14,000 families have traded in their homes for makeshift tents in camps out of fear of their neighbors.

Since 2003, Iraq has had two one-year governments and is currently struggling to form its first full-term cabinet under the premiership of Shiite MP Nouri Maliki.

Washington sees the new government as the first true attempt to usher in democracy in an Arab country, apart from envisaging it as a way out to withdraw its 132,000 troops. "We believe this is a turning point for the Iraqi citizens, and it's a new chapter in our partnership", Bush said in Washington, flanked by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, fresh from their surprise visit last month to Iraq.

Bush added that "there's going to be more tough days ahead" but said the US government "is more determined than ever to succeed, and we believe we've got partners to help the Iraqi people realize their dreams".

Tim Robbins: The 'failure' of the US media

For his part, the noted film actor and director Tim Robbins blasted the US government's policy on terrorism -- and the American media's failure to examine it critically -- at a news conference in Athens promoting his stage version of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

"We have right now a media that is willfully ignoring the high crimes and misdemeanors of the president of the United States", the star of Hollywood hits including Mystic River and The Player told reporters.

"Clinton lied about a blowjob, and got impeached by the media and Congress.

"[Bush] got us into [the Iraq] war based on lies that he knew were lies... His war has recruited more Al-Qaeda members than Ossama bin Laden could ever have dreamed for... yet no one in the media is calling for impeachment".

Robbins pointed out similarities between current US policies on terrorism and the authoritarian society described by Orwell.

"Unfortunately, the book and the play is more relevant now than it ever has been", he said. "[It] talks about continuous warfare as a means to control the Western economy, and as a way to control rebel elements within society through the use of fear, constant fear.

"In my country we seem to be sanctioning renditioning of innocent people without trial... put them in jail without telling anyone... and torture them out of suspicion of what we think they might do".

"This is exactly what Orwell was talking about when he spoke of thought crimes", he said.

Orwell's bleak classic, published in 1949, is based on a futuristic society in which the government, known as "Big Brother", spies on its citizens' every move and tortures them on suspicion of dissent.

The play, which Robbins produces and directs, opened in Athens for a five-day run last week. He is hoping to also direct a film version of the play in the autumn.

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 15

RAMADI - Heavy fighting erupted between insurgents and U.S. forces in Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, witnesses said. Doctor Diha al-Hadithi said eight bodies and nine wounded people had been brought to its main hospital.

BASRA - Members of the Garamsha tribe killed three policemen in an attack near Basra, 550 km south of Baghdad, a local official said. Five other policemen went missing. The attack came after a tribal leader was shot dead near Basra.

MOSUL - One policeman was killed and two were wounded when a bomb exploded near a house where gunmen earlier killed six members of the same family, police in the northern city of Mosul said.

MAHAWEEL - A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in the town of Mahaweel, 75 km south of Baghdad, killing one civilian and wounding three policemen, police said.

*LATIFIYA - The U.S. military said Abu Mustafa, wanted for his role in the downing of a U.S. helicopter in Yusufiya on April 1, and 15 other suspected al Qaeda militants were killed during a series of raids near Latifiya south of Baghdad. Iraq's main Sunni religious group, the Muslim Clerics Association, said U.S. troops killed 25 civilians in Latifiya and denounced it as a "brutal atrocity."

YUSUFIYA - U.S. forces killed more than 25 insurgents, detained four others and destroyed three houses on Sunday during coordinated ground and air attacks in Yusufiya, 15 km south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

YUSUFIYA - Insurgents shot down a U.S. helicopter during fighting in Yusufiya on Sunday, killing two soldiers, the U.S. military said.

KERBALA - The body of Emad al-Massoudi, a policeman who was abducted by gunmen two days ago, was found with gunshot wounds, bearing signs of torture, on the outskirts of Kerbala, 110 km southwest of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Iraqi police said they found five bodies from one family near their home in the northern outskirts of the capital. All had been shot dead.

BALAD RUZ - Gunmen killed four primary school teachers as they were heading to work in Balad Ruz, about 50 km southeast of Baquba, police said.

ANBAR PROVINCE - Insurgents killed two U.S. Marines on Sunday in the rebellious western province of Anbar, the U.S. military said in a statement.

MAHAWEEL - One civilian was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb went off near the police headquarters in Mahaweel, 75 km south of Baghdad, police said.

AMARA - Four British soldiers were wounded when a British military base came under mortar attack near the city of Amara, 365 km southeast of Baghdad, the British military said.

WAJIHIYA - A seven-year-old girl was killed and seven members of her family were wounded when a mortar round landed on their house in the small town of Wajihiya, about 30 km east of Baghdad, police said.

POLITICAL AND OTHER DEVELOPMENTS

BAGHDAD - Saddam Hussein was formally charged by a judge with crimes against humanity but he angrily refused to enter a plea. The case stems from the killing of 148 Shi'ites after an attempt on Saddam's life in 1982 in the village of Dujail. - alertnet.org

Iraqis now live like animals

15th May 2006 - tehran times

We are in a terrible situation. I am seeing my children dying in front of me but can do nothing for them but wait and pray," said Nawal Ismail, an Iraqi whose husband got kidnapped.

Sectarian violence sparked by February 22 attack on Al-Askari Mosque, also known as the Goldern Mosque, which serves as a mausoleum to 10th and 11th Imams, Imam Ali al-Naqi and Imam Hasan al-Askari, has led to sustained "sectarian cleansing" with many families forced to take refuge in squalid camps, UK's Telegraph said.

According to The Red Crescent, more than 100,000 Iraqis, both Sunnis and Shias have fled their homes since the bombing of the Shia mosque in the Iraqi city of Samarra, which left the shrine's famous golden dome in ruins.

Iraqis who had to leave their houses now have no choice but live in tent cities like Shu'lah in Baghdad, where 800 families now live.

Dhia Shalal al-Safi, a Shia Muslim, who used to work as a butcher and had a house in the Sunni city of Fallujah, has just arrived in Shu'lah, where he was issued a tent and warned there was no electricity or water supply.

Many tents there had been knocked down by the storms and the ground had been turned into mud.

One night, Shalal heard the door knocking, and when he opened it he found four Sunni Arabs carrying Kalashnikovs who told him; "Why are you still here Shia?" they said. "All the rest of you scum have gone. You have until morning." Shalal's brother had already been killed and many of his friends had already fled.

Shalal, his mother and four brothers went to the house of a Sunni friend who promised to protect them for the night and then- in the morning, they drove to Baghdad to find one of the Shia camps.

"Damn the Sunnis," said Shalal, whose brother had already been killed and many of his friends had already fled, as he stood with the tent in his arms and his mother beside him crying. "We used to live like brothers. Now we are reduced to this - living like animals in the dirt. How we can stay here, but where else can we go?"

The number of displaced Iraqis is rising daily. Last month they were 65,000, and are expected to reach 180,000 by mid-June.

Earlier this week Iraqi president Jalal Talabani said that sectarian attacks during April has killed at least 1,091 people in Baghdad alone.

"We received a report from the morgue about the deaths in Baghdad that 1,091 people were killed between April 1 and 30," he said, urging leaders to try and stop the rising tension between Iraq's Shias and Sunnis. "I urge all political parties and security forces to quickly move to quell this bleeding from crimes aimed to create doubts between sons of Iraq and disrupt national unity," he added.

"We are shocked and angry at the daily reports of unidentified bodies being discovered and of people killed on the basis of their identity," said a statement issued by Talabani's office.

Statistics show that schism between Iraq's Sunnis and Shias has worsened after the U.S. war on Iraq began.

Recently, The Washington Post quoted Rep. John Murtha, a Vietnam veteran first elected in the anti-war fever of 1974, as predicting that the U.S. occupying forces in Iraq will leave the country by 2007.

Mentally Unfit Troops Forced to Battle in Iraq
on Antidepressants: Hartford Courant

- Monday, 15 May 2006 - www.ahrp.org/

An investigative report in The Hartford Courant will undoubtedly lead to a Congressional investigation. The report reveals that mentally unstable soldiers are being deployed to the Iraq front in violation of federal law.

The Courant uncovered evidence of increased suicides by soldiers who were forced to return to battle by their superiors "despite exhibiting signs of significant psychological distress."

"Once at war, some unstable troops are kept on the front lines while on potent antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs, with little or no counseling or medical monitoring. And some troops who developed post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq are being sent back to the war zone, increasing the risk to their mental health." Soldiers' mental instability, coupled with the potential of these drugs to induce severe, hazardous effects [see below] put their lives and the lives of their fellow soldiers at risk.

"What you have is a military stretched so thin, they've resorted to keeping psychologically unfit soldiers at the front," said Stephen Robinson, the former longtime director of the National Gulf War Resource Center. "It's a policy that can do an awful lot of damage over time."

Indeed, the Courant reports: "Military data show that deaths in Iraq due to all non-combat causes, such as accidents, rose by 32 percent from 2004 to 2005."

"Army statistics show that 59 soldiers killed themselves in Iraq through the end of last year - 25 in 2003, 12 in 2004, and 22 in 2005. Twelve Marine deaths also have been ruled self-inflicted." Courant reporters Lisa Chedekel and Matthew Kauffman uncovered the fact that "A spate of six suicides occurred within eight weeks last year, there is no indication that the military took steps to respond to the cluster."

The Army suicide rate in 2005 was about 20 per 100,000 soldiers serving in Iraq - nearly double the 2004 rate, and higher than the 2003 rate that had prompted alarm.

"The spike in suicides among the all-volunteer force is a setback for military officials, who had pledged in late 2003 to improve mental health services, after expressing alarm that 11 soldiers and two Marines had killed themselves in Iraq in the first seven months of the war."

"The Courant's review found that since 2003, the military has increasingly sent, kept and recycled troubled troops into combat - practices that undercut its assurances of improvements. Besides causing suicides, experts say, gaps in mental health care can cause violence between soldiers, accidents and critical mistakes in judgment during combat operations."

The Courant reports: "The use of psychiatric drugs has alarmed some medical experts and ethicists, who say the medications cannot be properly monitored in a war zone. The Army's own reports indicate that the availability and use of such medications in Iraq and Kuwait have increased since mid-2004, when a team of psychiatrists approved making Prozac, Zoloft, Trazodone, Ambien and other drugs more widely available throughout the combat zone."

One has to wonder about the judgment and rationale of the top brass who made the decision to increase the use of mind altering drugs in the military just when their life-threatening, volatile hazard were being disclosed. Black box warnings were added to antidepressant labels to alert doctors about these drugs' violent and destabilizing potential. As GlaxoSmithKline acknowledged, Paxil / Seroxat induced suicide attempts in adults the age of the troops.

Each of the cases described by the Courant is an indictment of U.S. military policy that puts troops' lives in jeopardy.

Jason Sedotal, a 21-year-old military policeman returned home in March 2005 after seven months in Iraq, during which a Humvee he was driving rolled over a land mine, badly injuring his sergeant. After completing his tour, Sedotal was diagnosed with PTSD and placed on Prozac, he said.

Last October he was shipped back to Iraq for a one-year tour with another unit. During a short visit home last week, he described being wracked by nightmares and depression and convinced that "somebody's following me." When he conveyed his symptoms to a doctor at Fort Polk in Louisiana last Tuesday, he said, he was given a higher dose of medication and the sleeping pill Ambien and told that he was to go back to Iraq.

"I can't keep going through this mentally. All they do is fill me up on medicine and send me back," he said. "What's this going to do to me in the future? I'm going to be 60 years old, hiding under my kitchen table? I'm real scared."

Matthew Denton, a Camp Pendleton Marine and helicopter mechanic, said he spent most of his six-month deployment in 2005 quietly contemplating his own death aboard a ship in the Persian Gulf. "My head was in a scary place. I remember thinking, `I can't believe I'm working on a $14 million aircraft. I just don't care about this,'" he said. "When I'd come out of my daze, I was worried about messing up and endangering the life of my guys."

Soldiers prescribed antidepressants are at increased risk of suicide and causing harm to others: Every antidepressant label describes serious adverse events that occur at more than double the frequency on one of the drugs than on placebo in controlled clinical trials:

*anxiety *somnolence, insomnia *agitation *irritability *hostility *fatigue *confusion, *mania *abnormal thinking * akathisia *aggressiveness *suicidality

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 16

BAGHDAD - Four people working at a U.S. military base north of Baghdad were killed when gunmen opened fire on their minibus when they were traveling home, police said.

*BAGHDAD - Iraqi police sources said gunmen broke into a house where an United Arab Emirates diplomat was staying and apparently abducted him. The UAE's state news agency said contact had been lost with one of the diplomats in the UAE embassy in Baghdad.

SHIRQAT - Three militants were killed when the roadside bomb they were planting exploded prematurely in the town of Shirqat, 80 km (50 miles) south of the northern city of Mosul, police said.

BAGHDAD - Nineteen people were killed in a shooting and bombing attack at a bus garage in eastern Baghdad, police said. Gunmen shot five Shi'ite militiamen. When a crowd gathered at the scene a car bomb detonated, killing 14 people and wounding 33.

NEAR BALAD - Two U.S. soldiers were killed on Monday when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb near the town of Balad, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement.

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi army arrested 52 people, including seven insurgents, and killed another insurgent on Monday in the cities of Kirkuk, Kerbala, Ramadi and Falluja, it said on Tuesday.

BAGHDAD - Police arrested an aide to Abu Musab al-Zerqawi, al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, in the insurgent stronghold city of Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, the government said, without specifying when it happened.

BAGHDAD - Police on Monday also arrested a leader of an al Qaeda-linked group, the Tawhid and Jihad Battalion, in southwestern Baghdad and seized weapons in his possession, the government said.

KERBALA - Gunmen killed a former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party in Kerbala, 110 km (68 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

KERBALA - Iraqi police found the body of a man shot dead, blindfolded and handcuffed in Kerbala, police said.

KERBALA - Gunmen shot dead an Egyptian man who worked in a bakery in Kerbala, police said.

BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in southern Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

BAGHDAD - Six civilians were killed during clashes between insurgents and police in the southern Doura district of the capital, police said. The clashes were still ongoing, police added. A source in the Interior Ministry gave a different version of the incident, saying gunmen in a civilian car fired randomly, killing the six civilians.

BAGHDAD - The bodies of three people, bearing signs of torture and with gunshot wounds in the head, were found in different districts in Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A civilian was wounded when a roadside bomb went off in southeastern Baghdad, police said. - alertnet.org/

UAE diplomat abducted in Baghdad

BBC NEWS - A diplomat from the United Arab Emirates has been kidnapped in Baghdad, Iraqi officials say.

They say the unidentified diplomat was abducted by gunmen in the city's Mansour district late on Tuesday.

One of the diplomat's bodyguards, a Sudanese national, was wounded in the attack, officials said.

Last July gunmen abducted and killed Egypt's ambassador-designate in Iraq and - in a separate incident - two Algerian diplomats in Baghdad.

The UAE diplomat was seized by the gunmen during a visit to his embassy's cultural annex, the Iraqi interior ministry said.

Mansour is in central Baghdad, just outside the heavily protected Green Zone where the US-led coalition and Iraqi government have their offices.

The UAE's foreign ministry said contact had been lost with one of its Baghdad-based diplomats, and that he was believed to have been kidnapped.

The abduction comes on a day as at least 29 people were killed in several attacks by suspected insurgents in Iraq.

In the worst violence, at least 23 people were killed and more than 30 injured in a shooting and bombing attack in Baghdad.

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 17

*MOSUL - Two policemen killed in drive-by shooting in northern town of Mosul, police said. Gunmen also killed two students in drive-by shooting, they said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb targeted a police patrol in Baghdad's western Mansour district, wounding four policemen and two civilians.

BAGHDAD - The government of autonomous Kurdistan region accused Turkish forces of shelling an area inside mountainous northern Iraq on Wednesday. Khaled Salih, a senior official of the Kurdish regional government in Arbil, said by telephone that no one was hurt when three shells slammed near the town of Kani Masi. A Turkish government official denied the accusation, saying it was "total fabrication."

NEAR KIRKUK - Police found the body of a woman who was shot dead near the northern oil city of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

KIRKUK - One Iraqi soldier was killed and four wounded when a roadside bomb struck their convoy in Kirkuk, police said.

KIRKUK - Gunmen kidnapped a man in Kirkuk, police said.

BAGHDAD - The body of Muhib Abdul-Razzak, a general director in the Finance Ministry, was found in the morgue after he was kidnapped earlier in the week, police and ministry officials said.

NEAR QAIM - Police found the body of a man, handcuffed, blindfolded, tortured and shot dead near the Syrian border, police said.

KERBALA - Gunmen kidnapped a tribal leader after storming into his house in the sacred city of Kerbala, 110 km southeast of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Eight bodies were found with gun shot wounds in different parts of Baghdad, police said.

BAQUBA - A bombing and shooting attack killed four people and wounded 11 in the religiously mixed city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police said. It started when gunmen shot a bakery owner. A roadside bomb exploded when police and others rushed to the scene, killing two policemen and a civilian. Five policemen and six civilians were wounded.

BAGHDAD - Four civilians were killed when two roadside bombs went off in quick succession in central Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A Sudanese driver for an Arab diplomat in Baghdad has died after being shot as he tried to stop gunmen kidnapping the envoy, police said. Diplomat Naji al-Noaimi of the United Arab Emirates was still missing after being snatched following a short drive from the embassy to visit a colleague on Tuesday evening.

BAGHDAD - Two policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb went off close to their patrol near al-Kindi hospital in eastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Also in eastern Baghdad, two policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near a police check point in eastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Four people were wounded when a roadside bomb went off in eastern Baghdad, police said.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

*BAGHDAD - Iraq's parliament may vote on Saturday on a new government in which the country's main religious and ethnic groups will share power, officials said on Wednesday, signalling an end to months of political paralysis. - alertnet.org

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 18

*NEAR BAGHDAD - Four U.S. soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter were killed when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb northwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement.

BASRA - Major-General Hassan Suwadi, Basra's police chief, escaped unharmed an assassination attempt when a bomb exploded outside his home, police said.

KERBALA - Gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead a high school teacher in central Kerbala, 110 km (68 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

KIRKUK - Najim Abdullah, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), was killed by gunmen in central Kirkuk, said police and party official Mohammed Noshirwani.

NEAR RAMADI - Gunmen abducted 15 martial art athletes near the city of Ramadi on Wednesday as they were travelling by bus to neighbouring Jordan to attend a training course, said Abdul Karim al-Basri, an official of the Youth and Sports Ministry. The driver was also seized, he said.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen opened fire on a minibus carrying labourers, killing six, in southwestern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Seven people, including four policemen, were killed and four people were wounded when a car bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in northern Baghdad, police said.

KIRKUK - Gunmen shot dead a school teacher and a student in the oil city of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

FALLUJA - A policeman and two insurgents were wounded in clashes in Falluja, west of Baghdad, police said.

AL-MALIH - Iraqi police found the bodies of two people, handcuffed, blindfolded and shot dead, in al-Malih village, about 75 km south of Baghdad, police said.

BASRA - Gunmen killed Nazar Abdul-Zahra, a former member of in Iraq's national soccer team, in Basra on Wednesday, a police source said.

MOSUL - U.S. forces wounded nine insurgents who were planting a roadside bomb in the city of Mosul, 390 km north of Baghdad, on Wednesday, the U.S. military said on Thursday. A civilian was also wounded in the incident.

MOSUL - U.S. forces killed three insurgents who were attacking civilians in Mosul, the U.S. military said. Another insurgent was wounded by the Iraqi army as he tried to flee the scene. The insurgents wounded three civilians.

BASRA - Gunmen wounded a military intelligence lieutenant- colonel and his driver in the southern city of Basra, an intelligence source said.

ANBAR PROVINCE - A member of the U.S. Navy was killed on Wednesday during a combat operation in the western Anbar Province, the U.S. military said on Thursday. Most U.S. Navy personnel in that area are attached to Marine units as medics.

NEAR NAJAF - A policeman was killed and three were wounded when a roadside bomb went off near a convoy of U.S. military and Iraqi police vehicles near the Shi'ite city of Najaf, 160 km south of Baghdad, police said.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

*BAGHDAD - Iraqi leaders are closing in on a deal to form a national unity government but negotiators cited a host of names still being discussed for key posts. - alertnet.org

U.S. to use lasers on drivers in Iraq

By James Rainey - Los Angeles Times - Thursday, May 18, 2006 - BAGHDAD, Iraq -

The U.S. military is deploying a laser device in Iraq that would temporarily blind drivers who fail to heed warnings at checkpoints, in an attempt to stem shootings of innocent Iraqis.

The pilot project would equip thousands of M-4 rifles with the 10 ½-inch-long weapon, which projects an intense beam of green light to "dazzle" the vision of oncoming drivers.

"I think this is going to make a huge difference in avoiding these confrontations," said Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the commander in charge of day-to-day operations in Iraq. "I promise you no one - no one - will be able to ignore it."

But so-called tactical laser devices have been controversial in the past. A protocol to the Geneva Convention bans the use of lasers that cause blindness, and human-rights groups have protested previous U.S. attempts to employ such weapons.

A decade ago, the experimental use of tactical laser devices by Marines in Somalia was curtailed at the last minute for "humane reasons," according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, which called their use "repugnant to the public conscience" in a 1995 report.

The Pentagon has canceled several programs for the stronger "blinding" lasers, in adherence with the Geneva protocol, according to Human Rights Watch. But the group has said that even less powerful "dazzling" lasers, similar to the one to be deployed in Iraq, can cause permanent damage.

One Washington-based defense analyst said U.S. troops and commanders should not underestimate how the laser could complicate relations with Iraqis.

"If this 'safe' high-intensity laser damages retinas, we're in for a whole new type of [angry] Iraqi civilians," said Winslow Wheeler, who spent three decades as a Capitol Hill staffer and now outside critic at the Center for Defense Information.

The military, however, apparently has decided the risks can be minimized through proper training and are worth taking, to help U.S. troops ward off suicide attacks and to reduce accidental shootings of Iraqi civilians.

"I have no doubt," Chiarelli said, "that bullets are less safe."

Video of abducted UAE diplomat in Iraq aired

BAGHDAD, May 18 (Xinhua) --

A militant group that has abducted a diplomat of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) released a video on Thursday, demanding the close of UAE's mission in Iraq, the pan-Arab al-Jazeera TV reported.

The video showed a man standing in front of a wall with no audio.

The Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV said that the abductors demanded the UAE close its embassy in Baghdad.

Naji Rashid al-Nuaimi, 28, who was the first secretary in the UAE embassy, was abducted by unknown gunmen on Tuesday in the wealthy al-Mansur district in western Baghdad.

Militants in the past kidnapped foreign diplomats in the Iraqi capital in a bid to cripple the new Iraqi government's effort to rebuild the war-torn country after the Iraq war three years ago. Enditem

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 19

NEAR KIRKUK - The corpse of an unidentified man with gunshot wounds and bearing signs of torture was found 10 km (six miles) from the northern town of Kirkuk, police said.

BAGHDAD - Police Lieutenant Colonel Khairalla Abdul Zahra escaped death when a roadside bomb exploded near his home in the eastern New Baghdad district, police said. Five members of his family were wounded. When police arrived at the scene, a second bomb went off, without causing further injuries.

BAGHDAD - Three policemen were wounded when their patrol was struck by a roadside bomb in western Baghdad, police said.

KIRKUK - Mohammed al-Iqabi, an employee of the northern state-oil company, was gunned down on Thursday night in the rich-oil city of Kirkuk, police said on Friday.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

BAGHDAD - Iraqi leaders are closing in on a deal to form a national unity government but negotiators said a host of names were still being discussed for key posts. - alertnet.org/

U.S. sending reinforcements to violent Ramadi

Iraqi PM-designate to name Cabinet on Saturday

(CNN) -- 19th May 2006 -

U.S. military commanders will order more U.S. troops to the Iraqi city of Ramadi, the volatile Anbar provincial capital where troops and insurgents have been fighting pitched battles, the military said Friday.

The reinforcements, described as a significant number, will come from other areas inside Iraq, but military sources are not saying when the troops will arrive.

Fighting has been raging in the sprawling, largely Sunni Arab province west of Baghdad for days; coalition forces have engaged insurgents in the area every day since May 7, the military said.

Insurgents have hidden and established bases in Anbar towns along the Euphrates River, and some have entered Anbar over the Syrian border. Over the past year, Marine-led forces have been launching offensives against insurgents along the Euphrates.

The largest U.S.-led offensive of the war in Iraq took place in 2004 against insurgents based in the Anbar city of Falluja, which is east of Ramadi.

The military reported earlier this month that U.S. and Iraqi troops had killed more than 100 insurgents in Ramadi the last week of April.

The latest incidents in Ramadi took place Thursday, the military said.

"Marines from 2/28 Brigade Combat Team were attacked multiple times with improvised explosive devices, medium and heavy machine gun fire, and small arms fire from several locations near the Ramadi Government Center," the U.S. military said in a written statement. "Coalition forces responded with small arms fire, medium and heavy machine gun fire, grenades, mortars, shoulder-fired rockets, and precision munitions."

Cabinet to be named

Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki will announce his Cabinet to Parliament on Saturday, said a spokesman for a leading Shiite party. The announcement comes despite no agreement among the sectarian and political coalitions about who should hold the posts of defense and interior ministers. Al-Maliki will make temporary appointments to those two posts until he can broker a deal on permanent ministers, said Haitham al-Husseini of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the larger Shiite parties. An aide to al-Maliki told Reuters that parties have given themselves a week to name permanent ministers, which is seen as an integral step to ending the sectarian violence.

Al-Maliki, a Shiite, will take the helm of the Interior Ministry in the meantime, and Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni, will head the Defense Ministry, the aide told Reuters.

Parliament is scheduled to vote on al-Maliki's Cabinet on Saturday, but the vote is largely seen as a formality because most parties will be represented in the Cabinet, Reuters reported.

U.S.: Give 'angry young men' jobs

A top U.S. military commander in Iraq said Friday the formation of a new Iraqi government will let the country's leaders focus on a key breeding ground for insurgency: unemployment.

Army Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli said the "linchpin of a peaceful Iraq" is a healthy economy. "Take the angry young men off the street" and get them jobs, he said.

Chiarelli, commander of the Multinational Corps-Iraq, briefed reporters at the Pentagon on Friday in a teleconference from Iraq.

"Disillusionment, poverty and hopelessness are the breeding grounds of violence," he said.

If Al-Maliki's four-year-term government is approved, it will be a "historic and decisive moment" in Iraq, Chiarelli said, giving the country's new leaders time and stability to help improve security and develop its economy.

He noted that the new government ministers won't have to be concerned about another election or writing a constitution, the concerns of the past year and longer. Instead, he said, they will focus on governing.

Other developments

A gunbattle between police and insurgents in western Baghdad left two Iraqi civilians dead and two Iraqi police commandos wounded. The fighting broke out in the al-Jihad neighborhood Friday afternoon, Baghdad police said.

Earlier in the day, 10 Iraqi civilians were injured when a gunman opened fire on a moving minibus in the Abu Ghraib section of western Baghdad, police said.

Iraqi kidnappers have released a United Arab Emirates diplomat kidnapped this week in Baghdad, his brother told The Associated Press on Friday. Gunmen kidnapped Naji Noemi in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood Tuesday evening, wounding his Sudanese bodyguard in the process, police said. (Watch the hostage on videotape -- :42)

CNN's Barbara Starr and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.

Nuclear scientist set to head Iraq's oil ministry

Fri May 19, 2006 by Mariam Karouny BAGHDAD (Reuters) -

Nuclear scientist Hussain al-Shahristani, a Shi'ite Islamist, looked set to become Iraq's next oil minister in a unity government expected to be unveiled within the next 24 hours, negotiators said on Friday.

They said the appointment, even though it has been approved by all Iraqi factions, would not be final before the government is formally announced -- leaving the door open for a last-minute development which could deny Shahristani the ministry.

"So far we all agreed it is going to Shahristani for the oil ministry," one senior negotiator told Reuters.

Parliament is due to meet on Saturday to vote on a national unity government, whose line-up has yet to be announced.

Officials from the Shi'ite Alliance, the bloc to which both Shahristani and Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki belong, said they were holding last-minute talks with the small but influential Fadhila party which withdrew from government talks in protest at losing the portfolio to Shahristani.

Shahristani has also faced competition from technocrat Thamir Ghadhban, a secular Shi'ite with no link to major parties, who has 30 years of experience in Iraq's energy sector.

Political sources said Maliki had personally lobbied for Shahristani to get the job, seeing him as someone who would fight corruption in the sector, Iraqi's economic mainstay.

The oil industry, which has yet to see the recovery that Washington had expected would follow the 2003 invasion, suffers from sabotage, smuggling, corruption and political interference.

Shahristani is viewed with mixed feelings by oil industry staffers. Some expressed confidence that his firmness would help control smuggling that is damaging state revenues. Others questioned his willingness to listen to advice.

As for Shahristani, he has told aides that his main focus, if he gets the job, would be to fight corruption.

Iraq's oil sector, crippled by decades of war, sanctions and under-investment, has lurched from crisis to crisis since 2003.

It is now losing millions of dollars to smugglers who ship oil and fuel to Iran and other Gulf states as some government officials turn a blind eye. The losses are compounded by mismanagement and turf battles in the oil ministry.

Cracking down on smugglers is a daunting task amid the constant instability of suicide bombings, shootings, assassinations and kidnappings in postwar Iraq.

Family says UAE diplomat held in Iraq to be freed

Fri May 19, 2006 DUBAI (Reuters) -

The family of a kidnapped United Arab Emirates diplomat in Iraq said he would be released on Friday, Al Arabiya television reported.

The Dubai-based television gave no further details.

UAE diplomat Naji al-Noaimi was abducted in Baghdad on Tuesday. His captors have issued a statement calling on the UAE to withdraw its charge d'affaires and close a UAE-based Iraqi channel, according to Al Jazeera television.

American Marines 'killed Iraqis in cold blood'

By Rupert Cornwell Published: 19 May 2006 - Independent

A respected Congressman with strong ties to the Pentagon has said that US Marines behaved much worse than previously thought in the Haditha incident in western Iraq last November, in which at least 15 civilians were killed.

Last night, Defence Department officials declined to comment, saying that a criminal investigation was still in progress. But they did not deny claims by John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and former Marine who saw combat in Vietnam, that Marines killed women and children "in cold blood".

The Navy is probing allegations of war crimes against about a dozen Marines from the 1st Marine Division at Haditha.

The Marines' account was that a firefight took place after one soldier was killed by an improvised explosive device, which also blew up a bus in which the 15 civilians were travelling. But a videotape of the aftermath, taken by an Iraqi and obtained by Time magazine, showed a different scene: a blood-smeared bedroom floor, bits of what appear to be human flesh, and bullet holes on the walls.

Mr Murtha said: "Our troops over-reacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

Blair flies into Baghdad to back new Iraqi government

By Steve Negus, Iraq Correspondent and FT reporters - Published: May 21 2006 - ft.com

Tony Blair arrived in Baghdad on Monday in a show of support for Iraq's new government, hailing a ‘new beginning' for the country but insisting there was no timetable for the withdrawal of UK troops.

As the British prime minister arrived in the Iraqi capital's green zone amid high security, two bomb attacks killed nine people in other parts of the city.

Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, on Sunday vowed to use ‘maximum force' against the country's mainly Sunni insurgents but also to curtail the militias blamed for the death squad killings of Sunnis, as his national unity government met for the first time.

The statements seemed intended to project both resolution and evenhandedness, appealing to the large numbers of Iraqis from all sects who believed the previous government of Ibrahim al-Jaafari to be either ineffective, partisan, or both.

Although Mr Maliki hails from the same Shia Islamist Dawa party as Mr Jaafari, he put together a government with strong participation from nearly all of the country's main political parties, notably the Sunni Arab Iraqi

Consensus Front and the secular-leaning Iraqi List.

He managed to dislodge ministers considered to be major impediments to moving forward, but his failure to fill the key interior and defense ministries indicates that political pitfalls lie ahead in what often seems to be a zero-sum competition between sectarian communities.

Mr Maliki will temporarily hold the interior portfolio and his deputy prime minister Salam al-Zobaie of the Consensus Front will take defence - suggesting that the two posts will ultimately go to the Shia and the Sunni bloc respectively.

However, the new prime minister will be challenged to find personalities to fill those posts who are accepted by their own sect as a strong defender of communal security, without being perceived by the other group as a threat.

His government will also soon need to tackle security issues on which there will be no easy consensus, such as the status of the thousands of detained suspected insurgents whom Sunnis want released but whom some Shia say must stand trial.

The parliament is also set to review a federal constitution which some Sunnis say will lead to the de facto splintering of the country at the expense of their oil-poor heartland in the center.

In an indication of troubles ahead, over a dozen parliamentarians including the leader of the second Sunni-led party walked out of a Saturday parliamentary session as Mr Maliki was being sworn in.

Meanwhile, although the new cabinet might be inclusive, the negotiations process saw portfolios handed out to parties as the price of their support, leading to accusations that the new government like its predecessors would be an amalgamation of sectarian fiefdoms.

Mr Maliki has yet to show that he can force Iraq's independent-minded parties to follow a central government agenda, rather than use their posts to reward party supporters or in some cases to provide cover for their private armies.

One senior government official said that the "oligarchy'' of parties was as big a problem as the insurgents. He forecast that while the insurgency as a broadbased Sunni political upheaval might be over within a year, the central state would remain weak and terrorism could be a problem for a decade.

US military assessments also made the distinction between building a legitimate government and creating an effective state, acknowledging that while Mr Maliki's failure could bring civil war, his success would still require a foreign military presence to train and support the army and police.

While Mr Maliki on Saturday said he would implement an "objective" timeline for Iraqi forces to take over for foreign troops, one recent assessment suggested that it would take another two to five years of US combat backup before the Iraqi army could stand on its own.

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 21

*DHULUIYA - An Iraqi soldier was killed and 10 wounded when gunmen attacked checkpoints around their army base in Dhuluiya, 60 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraqi officers said. Local police, describing the army unit as made up largely of ethnic Kurds, put the army's casualty toll higher.

RAMADI - U.S. forces killed six insurgents in clashes as they hunted for an al Qaeda leader near the town of Ramadi on May 17, the U.S. military said on Sunday. U.S. forces also detained three suspects and destroyed an insurgent "safe house" where militants were building bombs. It did not say whether the wanted al Qaeda leader was among the dead or detained.

NEAR ISKANDARIYA - One Iraqi policeman and one insurgent died in clashes that erupted near the town of Iskandariya, south of Baghdad, when insurgents tried to blow up a pipeline feeding a power station, police said. Five people were injured in the fighting.

BAGHDAD - Thirteen people were killed and 18 wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a Baghdad restaurant popular with police, police said.

BAGHDAD - Three people were killed and 24 wounded when a roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi police patrol exploded in the capital's eastern New Baghdad district, police said.

BAGHDAD - Three people were killed and six wounded when a car bomb exploded in the northwestern Shula district of the capital, police said.

BAGHDAD - Five people were wounded when a roadside bomb went off in Baghdad's southwestern Bayaa district, police said.

RIYADH - Gunmen killed two policemen working in the Oil Protection Facilities in the town of Riyadh, 60 km (40 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police said.

KIRKUK - Two policemen and a civilian were wounded when two roadside bombs went off in quick succession targeting a police patrol in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, 250 miles north of Baghdad, police said.

NAJAF - Police found the bodies of two beheaded women in the Shi'ite city of Najaf, 160 km south of Baghdad, police said. Separately, Najaf hospital received the body of an engineer who had been shot dead, hospital sources said.

FALLUJA - Police found the body of a policeman on Saturday near Falluja, 50 km west of Baghdad, police said. He was kidnapped hours earlier. Police arrested five suspects in the killing in a raid on Sunday, police added.

POLITICAL PEVELOPMENTS

BAGHDAD - Iraq's new government held its first cabinet meeting on Sunday, a day after parliament approved a unity government that pledged to quell violence. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said he would disband militias and use "maximum force against terrorists" but also said the political process was open to those who renounced violence.

alertnet.org

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 22

*BAQUBA - Gunmen killed three civilians in three separate incidents in the city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

*MUQDADIYA - Two men were killed by gunmen in a shop in Muqdadiya, 90 km northeast of Baghdad, police said.

*HAWIJA - One policeman died in hospital after gunmen shot at him in central Hawija, 70 km southwest of Kirkuk, police said.

*SAMARRA - Gunmen killed Colonel Basheer Qadoori from Samarra police in a drive-by shooting in central Samarra, 100 km north of Baghdad, police said. One of the attackers was wounded and then detained by police, they said.

*KIRKUK - Police detained a man suspected of attempting to poison brigadier general Sarhat Qadir, chief of Kirkuk police, an aide of his said. The suspect admitted that he had received $12,000 from insurgents, the aide added.

JBELA - A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed three people and wounded six in the town of Jbela, 65 km south of Baghdad.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb went off in a crowded street in southeastern Baghdad, killing six civilians and wounding three, an army officer at the scene said. Police earlier said three people had died.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb went off near a market and health clinic in the capital's New Baghdad district killing three people and wounding 12, police sources said.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed a former brigadier general in western Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said. Two of his relatives were also killed, the source added.

JURF AL-SAKHAR - Four policemen were killed when a roadside bomb went off near a joint U.S. forces/Iraqi police patrol in Jurf al-Sakhar, about 85 km south of Baghdad, police said.

BALAD - Five bodies were taken to hospital in Balad, 80 km north of Baghdad, after clashes with insurgents that erupted in the nearby town of Dhuluiya on Sunday, a hospital source said.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

BAGHDAD - British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited Iraq to demonstrate his support for Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's new prime minister, flying in just two days after Maliki's national unity government was sworn in.

BAGHDAD - Iraq's parliament met for the first time after Saturday's swearing in of the new government. It was expected to vote on legislation regulating its internal work.

BAGHDAD - The trial of Saddam Hussein and seven others accused of crimes against humanity resumed in Baghdad, with more defence witness statements. It was later adjourned until May 24. - alertnet.org

Blair hails Iraq's new beginning in Baghdad visit

May 22, 2006 -- Sydney Morning Herald

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday the establishment of a unity government in Iraq means there is no longer justification for insurgency and the best way to get foreign troops out is for insurgents to lay down their arms.

He refused however to set a timetable for the withdrawal of British troops and said their return home was governed by conditions on the ground.

He said that establishing democracy had taken longer than expected following the US-led invasion in 2003, but that prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government was a "new beginning" for strife torn Iraq.

"It has been longer and harder than any of us would have wanted it to be, but this is a new beginning and we want to see what you want to see, which is Iraq and the Iraqi people to able to take charge of their own destiny and write the next chapter of Iraqi history themselves," he said.

Al-Maliki's new national unity government was sworn in Saturday and the prime minister pledged to used all means necessary, including "maximum force" to restore stability and security.

"The important thing is that for the first time we have a government of national unity that crosses all boundaries and divides, that is there for a four year term and that it's directly elected by the votes of millions of Iraqi people," Blair said at a news conference with al-Maliki, who took office on Saturday.

The new government came after months of negotiations following the December 15 elections and is made up of Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds.

"There is now no vestige of excuse for anyone to carry on with terrorism or bloodshed," Blair added. "If the worry of people is that they may be excluded from the political process, we now have Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds in the leadership.

"If the worry of people is the presence of the multinational forces, it is the violence that keeps us here. It is the peace that allows us to go," Blair added.

Bush sees US taking more of a support role in Iraq

CHICAGO, May 22 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush, under pressure to show progress in Iraq, said on Monday the United States will increasingly play a supporting role in Iraq as Baghdad's new unity government gains confidence.

Bush made no pledges about withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq in the wake of Saturday's formation of a new unity government after months of sectarian argument.

But he said to take advantage of a moment of opportunity, "the United States and our coalition partners will work with the new Iraqi government to adjust our methods and strengthen our mutual efforts to achieve victory over our common enemies."

"As the new Iraqi government grows in confidence and capability, America will play an increasingly supporting role," Bush said.

He said in a speech to an association of restaurant operators that he had instructed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to engage Iraq's new leaders to assess their needs and capabilities, "so we'll be in the best position to help them succeed."

Bush said he saw the new government of Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds as a possible turning point in Iraq three years after Saddam Hussein was toppled from power.

"The main reason I've come today is to talk to you about a watershed event that took place in Iraq. On Saturday in Baghdad, Iraqis formed a new government, and the world saw the beginning of something new -- constitutional democracy at the heart of the Middle East," Bush said.

Bush is trying to rebound from sagging poll numbers driven largely by a loss of American confidence in his handling of the Iraq war, where more than 2,400 Americans have been killed.

The United States has about 133,000 troops in Iraq three years after it invaded to oust Saddam Hussein.

Bush heaped praise on the new Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, and other leaders, while noting that the new government is still a work in progress and that it must work to represent all Iraqis, improve security and work for peace.

"The unity government must now seize this moment," Bush said. - alertnet.org

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 23

*BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded at a city square and traffic intersection in the mainly Shi'ite Sadr City district of east Baghdad, causing an unknown number of casualties, police sources said.

*SAMARRA - Assaad Ali Yassin, head of the municipality council, escaped an assassination attempt when gunmen opened fire at his convoy in central Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad, police and Yassin said. His guards responded to the attack, killing three insurgents and wounding a fourth. One of his guards was also wounded in the attack, they said.

BAGHDAD - Five civilians were killed and seven police commandos wounded when a car bomb exploded targeting a police commando patrol in eastern Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL - Four people were killed and another wounded when gunmen opened fire while they were driving in their car in the northern city of Mosul, 390 km north of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A 12-year-old Shi'ite Muslim boy was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head in the southern Dora district of Baghdad, police said. They said he was blindfolded, handcuffed and tortured.

BAGHDAD - A mortar round landed about 100 metres (yards) from the Defence Ministry, killing a civilian and wounding four others, police said.

BAGHDAD - A civilian was killed and four others wounded when a roadside bomb went off in western district of the capital, police said.

BAQUBA - Gunmen killed three old men sitting in front of a house in Baquba, 65 km northeast of Baghdad, police said.

KIRKUK - Gunmen killed a school teacher in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, 250 km north of Baghdad, police said.

RAMADI - Two civilians were killed and three others, including two children, wounded when clashes erupted between U.S. forces and insurgents in the city of Ramadi, 110 km west of Baghdad, police and hospital officials said.

RAMADI - Three mortar rounds landed on a house in the city of Ramadi wounding three people from one family, a source in the civil defence forces said.

ASWAD - Gunmen killed three men and wounded seven among a crowd of labourers looking for work on farms in the small town of Aswad, near Baquba, police said. The workers were from a nearby Shi'ite town. Aswad is mainly Sunni.

AIN AL-TAMUR - Iraqi police found the bodies of four people, handcuffed, blindfolded and shot dead, in the town of Ain al-Tamur, about 90 km south of Baghdad, police said.

NAJAF - Four mortar rounds landed in different districts in the Shi'ite city of Najaf, 160 km south of Baghdad, wounding two people late on Monday, police said.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen killed Ahmed Ali Hussein, a professor at Baghdad's Technology University, in northeastern Baghdad, police said. - alertnet.org

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 24

NEAR THERTHAR LAKE - U.S. forces killed four insurgents and detained two others on Tuesday near Therthar Lake, 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Wednesday. One of the two detainees was Sudanese, it added.

YUSIFIYA - U.S. forces killed three al Qaeda-linked insurgents on Tuesday near Yusifiya, 15 km (nine miles) south of Baghdad, while searching for a wanted militant, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.

NEAR SUWAYRA - Clashes that erupted on Tuesday between two tribes killed 16 people and wounded 18 near the town of Suwayra, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said on Wednesday.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

BAGHDAD - The trial of Saddam Hussein and seven co-accused on charges of crimes against humanity was due to resume on Wednesday with more defence witnesses scheduled to testify. - alertnet.org

U.S.: Usama Bin Laden Tape Authentic

Wednesday, May 24, 2006 CAIRO, Egypt - Fox news

The latest audio tape by Usama bin Laden may be an attempt by the Al Qaeda chief to regain the spotlight for his terror network and raise his profile after being overshadowed by insurgents in Iraq, terrorism experts said Wednesday.

Intelligence experts said a technical analysis of the tape, which was posted on the Internet Tuesday, showed the tape was probably authentic.

On the tape, bin Laden said that neither Zacarias Moussaoui - the only person convicted in the United States for the Sept. 11 attacks - nor anyone held at Guantanamo had anything to do with the Al Qaeda operation.

"I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers and I never assigned brother Zacarias to be with them in that mission," he said, referring to the 19 men who hijacked the four aircraft used in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The tape is the third issued by bin Laden this year - a sharp increase in the volume of propaganda issued by Al Qaeda since August, according to terror experts such as Ben Venzke, head of IntelCenter, a private U.S. company that monitors militant message traffic and provides counterterrorism intelligence services to the U.S. government.

"Al Qaeda messaging volume levels are at the highest now than at any point since the group's inception," Venzke said.

Rohan Gunaratna of the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore said the increase in propaganda was apparently bin Laden's attempt to compensate for his group's loss of ability to mount attacks. The U.S.-led war on terror apparently has severely disrupted the portion of Al Qaeda directly under bin Laden's control, he said.

That has allowed the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to capture the spotlight on the world terrorism stage watched by militant sympathizers, Gunaratna told The Associated Press in a call from Singapore.

"The jihadis are increasingly looking to al-Zarqawi, who is on the ground and every day is killing Americans in Iraq," Gunaratna said. "Al-Zarqawi is stealing the thunder of bin Laden."

By stepping up his propaganda, Gunaratna said he believed "bin Laden is trying to maintain his eminence in the global jihad."

Moussaoui, a 37-year-old Frenchman and admitted AL Qaeda member, was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month after a jury in the United States ruled that he was responsible for at least one death on Sept. 11. On the tape, bin Laden said to Americans: "Since Zacarias Moussaoui was still learning how to fly, he wasn't No. 20 in the group, as your government has claimed." Bin Laden said Moussaoui's confession of involvement in Sept. 11 was "void," and the result of pressure during imprisonment.

"Brother Moussaoui was arrested two weeks before the events, and if he had known something - even very little - about the Sept. 11 group, we would have informed the leader of the operation, Mohammad Atta, and the others ... to leave America before being discovered," bin Laden said.

Bin Laden also said that none of the hundreds of terror suspects held at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks - and said most had no ties to Al Qaeda. "Our brothers in Guantanamo ... have no connection whatsoever to the events of Sept. 11," he said, claiming they were jailed to justify the cost of the war on terror.

But he did say two of the detainees were linked to the Sept. 11 attacks. "All the prisoners to date have no connection to the Sept. 11 events or knew anything about them, except for two of the brothers," bin Laden said. But he did not provide names or elaborate further.

The audio message, which is less than five minutes long, was transmitted with a still photo of bin Laden.

In a tape aired on Arab television in March, bin Laden denounced the United States and Europe for cutting off funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian government, accusing them of leading a "Zionist" war on Islam, and urged followers to fight any U.N. peacekeeping force in Sudan.

In January, bin Laden said in an audiotape that Al Qaeda was preparing new attacks in the United States but offered a truce - though his lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri later issued a video saying Washington had refused to take the offer.

FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 25

YUSUFIYA - An influential Sunni Muslim group, the Muslim Clerics Association, accused U.S.-led forces and Iraqi troops of killing 10 innocent civilians and detaining 40 others near the town of Yusufiya south of Baghdad on Wednesday. The U.S. military and the Iraqi army on Wednesday issued separate statements on clashes in the same area, saying they had killed three and four militants respectively.

NEAR ABU GHRAIB - U.S. forces killed three insurgents who were placing roadside bombs near Abu Ghraib west of Baghdad on Wednesday, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi army arrested 40 suspected insurgents from the cities of Tal Afar, Kirkuk and Ramadi on Wednesday, it said on Thursday.

BALAD - U.S. forces handed over five decomposed bodies to the hospital in the town of Balad north of Baghdad, doctor Firas al-Timimi said. He did not say where they were found, who they were or how they had died.

NEAR TIKRIT - U.S. forces and Iraqi police found three bodies with bullet gunshot wounds, police said.

NEAR KIRKUK - Gunmen kidnapped Ali Hisham, head of the Turkmen Front party in the town of Tuz Khurmato, and his son near Kirkuk when they were returning from Baghdad, a senior party official said.

HAWIJA - The Iraqi army raided the headquarters of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the major Sunni party, in Hawija, 70 km (40 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, arresting two of its guards, Abdul Kareem Izat, a party official said.

BAGHDAD - A bomb planted inside a building wounded 13 people in central Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A general in the Ministry of Defence was seriously wounded along with his driver when gunmen opened fire near his house in southwestern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Two policemen were seriously wounded when a roadside bomb went off near their patrol in the eastern New Baghdad district, police said.

BAGHDAD - Two policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb went off near their patrol in northeastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Four corpses were found in different districts in Baghdad, police said. The bodies showed signs of torture and had gunshot wounds in their heads.

NEAR TIKRIT - Gunmen kidnapped Ahmed Kurdi, the judge of Dujail court, on Wednesday near Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said on Thursday.

TIKRIT - Two bombs exploded inside a Sufi religious building on Wednesday killing two of its bodyguards in Tikrit, police said on Thursday.

MISHAHDA - Gunmen shot dead a tribal leader on Wednesday in Mishahda, a town 50 km (30 miles) north of Baghdad, police said on Thursday. - alertnet.org

A frame grab from a video provided to Reuters on March 21, 2006 by Hamourabi Human rights group shows a body being carried, which Hamourabi says was loaded onto a truck with bodies of a family shot dead in their home in Haditha, in western Anbar province, Iraq. U.S. Marines could face criminal charges, possibly including murder, for their involvement in the deaths of up to two dozen Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November, a defense officials said on May 26, 2006. The investigation involves a November 19, 2005 incident in Haditha, about 140 miles (220 km) northwest of Baghdad.

US Marines may be charged in Iraqi civilian deaths

WASHINGTON, May 26 (Reuters) - U.S. Marines could face criminal charges, possibly including murder, for their involvement in the deaths of up to two dozen Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November, a defense official said on Friday.

A criminal probe by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which handles criminal inquiries involving Marines, has not been completed and no final decisions on charges have been made, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

The Los Angeles Times reported that investigators were expected to call for charges including murder, negligent homicide, dereliction of duty and filing a false report.

The investigation involves a Nov. 19 incident in Haditha, about 140 miles (220 km) northwest of Baghdad. The military has said 15 civilians were killed, while a senior Republican lawmaker last week put the number at about 24.

The Los Angeles Times reported that military investigators had concluded that a dozen Marines acted improperly in an incident in which U.S. troops, after a Marine was killed by a roadside bomb, wantonly killed unarmed civilians, including women and children, and then tried to cover up the incident.