Dozens killed as Iraq fighting rages

Written on 4:50 PM by yahoo

delivers the latest breaking news and info

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's government imposed a weekend curfew in Baghdad on Thursday amid clashes between government troops and Shiite militia fighters, and U.S. Embassy staff were told to remain indoors after days of rocket attacks left two Americans dead.

U.S. Embassy workers in Iraq were told to remain in secure buildings and wear protective clothing as rockets continued to rain down on Baghdad's International Zone.

Iraq's parliament called a special session for Friday to address the crisis caused by three days of fighting between government troops and Shiite Muslim militia fighters, while Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for an end to attacks on his followers.

A U.S. government official was killed in one of those rocket attacks Thursday, an embassy spokesman said. The man's name is not being released; he was the second U.S. government official to die in the attacks this week.

The first, Paul Converse, died Wednesday from wounds he sustained Sunday, officials said.

Such strikes, called indirect fire attacks, have been occurring for days. The military believes that they are being launched by Shiite militants.

"Personnel should only move outside of hard cover for essential reasons. Essential outdoor movements should be sharply limited in duration," an Embassy statement read. "Personal protective equipment is mandatory for all outside movements."

In addition to Thursday's death in the International Zone, a U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad, the U.S. military reported.

The International Zone, often called the Green Zone, is a heavily fortified central Baghdad district housing the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government offices.

Fighting between Iraqi government troops and what officials call rogue or outlaw members of Shiite militias has spread through southern Iraq's Shiite heartland to Baghdad since the launch of a government crackdown in Basra on Tuesday. Three days of fighting have left more than 100 Iraqis dead.

The fighting threatens to unravel a seven-month cease-fire by al-Sadr's Mehdi Army.

Casualty figures from Basra weren't available Thursday, but the number of deaths is expected to rise from the 40 to 50 reported Wednesday.

Al-Sadr issued a statement Thursday urging "all groups to adopt a political situation and peaceful protest and to stop shedding the Iraqi blood," according to a senior member of al-Sadr's movement. The official, Hazem al-Araji, said the statement was being distributed to all the movement's offices across Iraq.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has been overseeing the operation in southern Iraq, has given militants an ultimatum to surrender their weapons by Saturday.

In Washington, U.S. State Department official Richard Schmierer said the rocket attacks appear to be coming from fighters affiliated with al-Sadr who were "trying to make a statement" about the government offensive in Basra.

"We probably won't know for some time exactly what is behind it, but that seems to be the general approach," said Schmierer, the State Department's director of Iraq affairs. But he discounted the prospect that the cease-fire, first ordered in August, was collapsing, blaming the violence on "marginal extremist elements" who have associated themselves with the Sadrist movement.

Iraq's Interior Ministry said mortar rounds killed one person and wounded four in the city's central Karrada district on Thursday evening, and the ministry's own compound was hit by one shell, wounding seven police officers.

"These rogue elements are haphazardly firing rockets and mortars, killing and injuring innocent Iraqi and governmental civilians," Col. Allen Batschelet is quoted as saying in a U.S. military news release. He is chief of staff for the American-led Multi-National Division-Baghdad.

"Most Iraqi civilians want peace and stability," he said. "These few are trying to discredit the government of Iraq and Iraqi Security Forces. Our response will be measured, targeted and precise."

Also Thursday in Baghdad, dozens of gunmen kidnapped the spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, Tahseen Sheikhly. Three of his guards were killed and his house burned in the attack, which an Interior Ministry official said was carried out by "outlaws," a reference to al-Sadr's militia.

Also Thursday, a car bomb killed three people and wounded five others near a police patrol in central Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said. There are no apparent links to the violence in the Shiite regions.

People in Basra report smoke rising and gunfire and explosions ringing out across the city. Iraqi security forces, backed by U.S. and British troops, have been taking on fighters using grenades, mortar rounds and machine guns.

There was fighting Thursday in Jamhouriya, one of five neighborhoods the Mehdi Army controls, and Muqal, according to an official from Basra province and witnesses.

The provincial official said on condition of anonymity that weapons such as machine guns and grenades were stolen from a military post in the Muqal area.

Al-Maliki briefed city and provincial officials Wednesday about the offensive and vowed to finish the job, even if it takes a month.

Provincial officials expressed reservations about the operation, saying Basra will fall into the hands of "outlaws" if al-Maliki fails to restore order.

Since the fighting started, Sadrists and government officials have spoken by phone in efforts to quell the violence, but no face-to-face talks have been scheduled. The Sadrists, who say security forces have unfairly targeted them in recent weeks, have been urging their followers to stage protests against the government. But the cease-fire has not been rescinded.

Basra has been relatively quiet during the war, but the southern city has seethed with intra-Shiite tensions as Sadrists, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Fadhila party have jockeyed for power.

Much of the fighting in the Shiite heartland involves followers of al-Sadr and security forces aligned with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq's militia, the Badr Brigade.

The council dominates the ruling United Iraqi Alliance, but the Sadrist movement left the government last year after al-Maliki refused to demand a timeline for the withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. Both groups have strong contingents in the Iraqi parliament.

A provincial council official also said insurgents sabotaged an oil pipeline Thursday in Zubeir, a town near Basra. The attack sparked a large fire on the pipeline, which transfers crude oil to tanks in the city.

Meanwhile, the FBI identified the remains of two U.S. contractors who had been missing in Iraq for more than a year, a bureau spokesman said Thursday.

Minnesotan Paul Johnson-Reuben, 41, and Californian Joshua Munns, 25, were among four men kidnapped in November 2006 during an ambush in the southern Iraqi town of Safwan. All four worked for the Crescent Security Group, a Kuwaiti-based firm that escorts convoys.

The other two men -- Jonathon Cote, 25, and Bert Nussbaumer, 26 -- are still listed as missing. The FBI has the remains of one more body, which the bureau is trying to identify.
cnn

Posted in BAGHDAD, iran, Iraq | Comment Now!

About 8,000 'surge' troops will remain in Iraq, Pentagon says

Written on 9:02 PM by yahoo

delivers the latest breaking news and info
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- About 8,000 of the 30,000 "surge" troops sent to Iraq in 2007 will not go home as planned this summer, the Pentagon said Monday.
art.troops.iraq.jpg

President Bush ordered nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq in January 2007 as part of a troop surge.

Support troops -- including helicopter crews, supply units, military police and headquarters staff -- will still be needed when the additional combat units return home, said Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, the chief of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In particular, U.S. troops are still needed to guard Iraqi prisons, he said.

"The transfer of responsibility for detention operations has not progressed as rapidly as we would like to the Iraqis, so there's a need to have that force sustained, as well," Ham said.

President Bush ordered nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq in January 2007 to pacify Baghdad and its surrounding provinces. When the last of the five Army combat brigades and two Marine battalions ordered in as part of that campaign leave Iraq by July, 140,000 troops will remain -- about 8,000 more than the 132,000 U.S. troops stationed there before the surge, Ham told reporters at the Pentagon.

"This will be very much conditions-based, but that's our projection as of today," he said.

He said top U.S. commanders are debating whether to make further withdrawals after July. The U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, is scheduled to issue another report on the progress of the war in April, and Ham said it would be "premature" to discuss further withdrawals now.
Don't Miss

* Wheelchair bomber kills 3 in Iraq police station
* Turks claim 41 rebels killed in Iraq mission

The Bush administration has touted a sharp reduction in the sectarian warfare that wracked Baghdad throughout 2006 -- and an accompanying drop in American death tolls -- as signs of the campaign's success. But Ham said the support troops are still needed to preserve that progress.

"Rather than look at this negatively, I would say there is an opportunity now to take advantage of the security that has been established by the five surge brigades," he said. "And you want to sustain that and not jeopardize the gains that have been achieved."

Critics say the political goals of the surge -- an Iraqi settlement of the nearly 5-year-old war -- have not yet been accomplished. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, said Sunday that Iraq remains far from stable.

"If we've had so much success, then why are our commanders concerned about pulling troops down and wanting to freeze them at at least the level that we had before the surge?" Hagel told CNN's "Late Edition."

But Ham said the campaign has encouraged Iraqis to take steps toward reconciliation and to turn against Islamic jihadists loyal to al Qaeda, which is blamed for some of the war's worst attacks on civilians.

"I would say that there is increasing pressure on al Qaeda in Iraq everywhere inside Iraq," he said. "Again, it is premature to declare victory or anything, but it is very clear that, wherever al Qaeda in Iraq tries to operate, they are increasingly being resisted by Iraqi security forces, clearly by the U.S. and other coalition members, and most importantly by the people of Iraq -- and that's really what's making the difference."

cnn

Posted in al Qaeda, iran, Iraq, latest news, news | Comment Now!

U.S. human rights record attacked by Iran

Written on 9:00 PM by yahoo

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- The nuclear issue in Iran is "now closed," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an address Tuesday loaded with broadsides against "selfish and incompetent" powers that have "obedience to Satan."

An agreement reached last month between his country and the International Atomic Energy Agency over its disputed nuclear program has, in the Iranian view, settled the matter, he said. The IAEA is the world's central nuclear technology governing body.

"Iran decided to pursue the issue through its appropriate, legal path, one that runs through the IAEA, and to disregard unlawful and political impositions by the arrogant powers," Ahmadinejad said in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

"I officially announce that in our opinion, the nuclear issue of Iran is now closed and has turned into an ordinary agency matter."

Under the deal brokered in August, the Iranian government agreed to a timetable for resolving outstanding issues with the IAEA over its nuclear program, which the Iranians have said is solely for peaceful power generation. The deal received a tepid reception from the United States and other Western countries that fear Tehran is trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Ahmadinejad said Tuesday the IAEA has taken the "correct approach," as opposed to the U.N. Security Council, which has been "influenced by some bullying powers and failed to uphold justice and protect the rights of the Iranian people." See some of Ahmadinejad's controversial remarks »

The Security Council has repeatedly demanded that Iran suspend enrichment of uranium and has imposed limited sanctions on Tehran for refusing to comply.

Ahmadinejad charged in his speech that the Security Council "ranks first" among ineffective international bodies because it is influenced by "monopolistic powers."

A senior State Department official in Washington, however, said it was "safe to say he is the only one who thinks the file on Iran's nuclear weapons program is closed."

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Iran "knows what the international community is demanding regarding its enrichment and reprocessing programs, and we are going to work with our allies to ensure they do. We believe this can be solved diplomatically."

The outspoken Ahmadinejad also offered veiled but unmistakable criticism of the United States -- not mentioning Iran's long-time adversary by name, but offering blunt critiques of the Iraq war and Washington's larger war on terrorism.

"Human rights are being extensively violated by certain powers," he said in his U.N. address. "Setting up secret prisons, abducting persons, trials and secret punishments without any regard to due process, extensive tappings of telephone conversations, intercepting private mail and frequent summons to police and security centers have become commonplace and prevalent." Watch what Iran's president had to say about human rights »

Ahmadinejad also said Iraq "was occupied under the pretext of overthrowing a dictator and the existence of weapons of mass destruction."

"The Iraqi dictator, who had been supported by the same occupiers, was disposed of, and no weapons of mass destruction were discovered," Ahmadinejad said. "But the occupation continues under different excuses."

Ahmadinejad repeatedly criticized unnamed "powers" that he charged were responsible for insecurity, division and moral decline across the world. "Is it not high time for these powers to return from the path of arrogance and obedience to Satan to the path of faith in God?" said Ahmadinejad, who also invited "all independent, justice-seeking and peace-loving nations" to join Iran in a "coalition for peace."

The Iranian leader did make one specific reference to the United States, saying "the rights and dignity of the American people are also being sacrificed for the selfish desires of those holding power."

U.S. diplomats, however, were not on hand to listen to Ahmadinejad's analysis. The chairs where the American delegation sits were unoccupied, except for one woman taking notes.

Ahmadinejad's visit to the United States has generated controversy and sparked demonstrations. Eighteen protesters were arrested Tuesday outside U.N. headquarters.

Hundreds gathered to protest Ahmadinejad's appearance, incensed that a leader who has publicly denied the Holocaust and called for the destruction of the state of Israel was given a prestigious forum to espouse his beliefs.

by:cnn

Posted in Ahmadinejad, iran, latest news, news | Comment Now!