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| Iraq |
| 99 foreign fighters detained in Iraq (Make them all sing!) |
| 2004-07-12 |
| Associated Press /Philadelphia Daily News Posted on Mon, Jul. 12, 2004 BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq is currently detaining 99 foreign fighters, the majority of whom are Syrians, Iraq’s human rights minister said Monday. Bakhtiyar Amin said the detainees include 26 Syrians, 14 Saudis, 14 Iranians, 12 Egyptians, nine Sudanese, five Palestinians, five Yemenis, five Jordanians, five Tunisians, one Lebanese, one Moroccan, one Turk and one Afghan. (No more jihad for these schmucks!) Amin said last week that the government was holding just 29 foreign guerrilla suspects at the maximum security section of Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, a fraction of the 5,500 suspected fighters being detained. The U.S. military said at the time that some 60 other foreign fighters were being held elsewhere in Abu Ghraib and at Camp Bucca in southern Iraq. (60 others, and how many more of these lice have already been wacked since the Iraqi ground war began?) U.S. officials have long blamed the violence on foreign fighters who crossed into Iraq to wreak havoc. But military officials and analysts said recently the fighters are mainly Sunni Iraqis, angry at the defeat of their patron, Saddam Hussein. |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |
| #2 I think there's a little disinfo going on here. Notice the careful choice of words: it doesn't say how many have been captured, just how many are currently being detained *in Iraq*. (on a more brutal note, I think back to the time of Stalin, when he asked one of his chiefs how many political prisoners there were in Moscow, and he replied to Stalin and his guests "none". He was being quite honest, as Stalin had ordered all of the Moscow prisoners killed the week before.) |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2004-07-12 11:53:56 PM |
| #1 "U.S. officials have long blamed the violence on foreign fighters who crossed into Iraq to wreak havoc." Excuse me? US officials have long blamed the violence on a COMBINATION of former regime elements AND foreign fighters (and once in a while think to throw in the substantial criminal component in much of the festivities). There is no administration position/action WRT to Iraq or the WOT too small or mundane that it doesn't get distorted by Big Media. When is someone going to start up a serious wire service to replace the wrecks that once were AP and Reuters? |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2004-07-12 11:34:43 PM |