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| Iraq |
| US raids al-Qaeda hideout in Balad |
| 2006-05-03 |
| U.S. troops raided a suspected al-Qaeda hideout Tuesday and killed 10 insurgents, three of them wearing suicide vests, as American forces stepped up the hunt for the group's leader, terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. American troops searched for “an al-Qaeda terrorist leader” in the pre-dawn raid at a safehouse about 40 kilometres southwest of the U.S. air base in Balad, north of Baghdad, the military said. The raid unfolded when troops surprised a guard and shot him before he could fire his pistol, the military said. As the insurgent fell, he detonated a suicide vest. Two more insurgents were killed inside the hideout and the others outside as they tried to escape. Two of the dead were also found wearing explosive vests. One insurgent was wounded. The statement did not say whether Mr. al-Zarqawi was the target of the raid or whether anyone escaped. It was the fourth raid reported by the U.S. command against Mr. al-Zarqawi's “al-Qaeda-in-Iraq” network since April 16, when American troops stormed a house in Youssifiyah just south of the capital, killing six people, including a woman, and arresting five people, among them an unidentified al-Qaeda official. However, CNN reported that the captives said Mr. al-Zarqawi had been in a nearby house. Stepped-up operations against Mr. al-Zarqawi's network are taking place as U.S. and Iraqi officials are making overtures to other Sunni Arab groups, hoping to persuade them to abandon the insurgency and join the political process under a new government of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. Last weekend, President Jalal Talabani said officials from his office had met with insurgent representatives and he was hopeful they might agree to a deal. Mr. Talabani also said American officials had met with insurgents. U.S. officials have confirmed meeting Iraqis linked to the Sunni Arab insurgency but have avoided identifying them. Last month, however, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad attributed a sharp drop in U.S. deaths in March to an ongoing dialogue with disaffected Sunnis. On Tuesday, a leading Arabic language newspaper said Mr. Khalilzad had met with insurgent representatives in Amman, Jordan, on Jan. 16 and later in Baghdad on seven occasions. The newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat, attributed the information to an unidentified insurgent official. The official was quoted as saying the insurgents presented several demands, including a halt to military operations, an end to arrests of “innocent Iraqis” and the release of prisoners “who were arrested unjustly.” According to the newspaper, the official said his group presented a memorandum to Mr. Khalilzad, who expressed interest and promised to respond. However, no response was received and the insurgents decided to break off the dialogue after the new government was announced April 22. In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said “we have made it clear that we are interested in talking to people who know somebody who knows somebody who might be involved in insurgent activities in an effort to bring these people into the political process.” Mr. Khalilzad has spoken in several interviews about reaching out to the Sunnis, but U.S. officials have avoided saying publicly that they had met with representatives of insurgent groups. In an interview with the BBC in April, the ambassador also cautioned that the dialogue was “a long way” from a deal to end the fighting. Since the drop in U.S. deaths in March, American casualties have been rising. April was the deadliest month of the year for American forces with more than 70 fatalities. A U.S. soldier was killed Tuesday in a roadside bombing south of Baghdad, the U.S. command said. U.S. overtures to the Sunnis appear to have slowed in recent weeks as American diplomats and Iraqi politicians focused on speeding up formation of the new government, which had been deadlocked until the Shiites agreed to replace Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari with another Shiite, Nouri al-Maliki. Mr. Al-Maliki was officially appointed as prime minister-designate on April 22 and has pledged to complete his cabinet this month. That will be the final stage in establishing the new government. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 The left out some of the best stuff - the bit about the sleeping guard, and the "scattered pieces of charred U.S. bills (after the guy detonated his vest.)" |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2006-05-03 07:43 |