(SomaliNet) Unknown gunmen, presumably supporters of the ousted Islamists have launched mortar attack at the main port in Mogadishu, the Somalia capital over midnight. No casualties have been reported from the latest attack. It is the second mortar attack carried out by the insurgent groups in a week. Last nights attack was aimed at the Ethiopian forces stationing at the seaport. Local residents say the attack happened around 3:45 am local time just shortly before the dawn when everyone in Mogadishu was asleep at the time. We could hear six rounds of mortar shells that slammed near the seaport but caused no casualty, Ali Hassan, one of the residents near the port told Somalinet.
No one has claimed responsibility of the latest attack. Residents near the seaport said heavy exchanges of automatic gunfire followed the mortar attacks. The rocket attacks came as a fuel tanker docked at the port, unloading barrels of patrol and diesel.
Artillery explosions aimed at the government and Ethiopian military positions in and around the capital have risen since the government settled Mogadishu late December last year. The secular government raised suspicion in the deadly nightly attacks against its forces Ethiopian military bases. Some reports say that officials belonging to the government might be behind the nighttime attacks at the bases of the Ethiopian troops.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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(SomaliNet) Two people have been killed and seven others were wounded in armed confrontation in central Somalia on Monday between interim government forces and local militiamen. The fighting occurred in Guri-el town of Galgadud region in central Somalia when local militia clashed with the convoys of the transitional government forces passing the area to near by Mudug region. Witnesses said that the two dead persons were belonging to the government forces while most of the wounded were the local civilians.
The skirmish erupted around 3:15 pm local time and it is not known who started the fighting, reports say. It is not yet clear the cause of the latest clashes but some reports say that local militia suspected the convoys of the forces were originally from Puntland state in northeast Somalia. The forces initially left from the Somalia capital where the interim government is currently working after ousting the Islamist movement. Both sides exchanged heavy artillery and machinegun fires. The injured people were taken to Istarlin hospital in Guri-El where they are being treated. So far, the government officials did not give any comment on the latest gun battle.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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The US Embassy confirmed Monday it had warned Americans of a heightened terrorist threat against Westerners in Sudan. "The US Embassy advises all US citizens in Sudan that the United Nations mission in Sudan has received new information that an extremist group based in the country is likely to target Western interests," said the warden message.
The US message followed a similar warning that the United Nations sent its staff in Sudan last week, said a UN official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not allowed to discuss the issue with the media.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
OK ... just crossed Sudan off my Presidents Week Vacation Spa list.
At least 42 Yemeni soldiers have been killed and 81 wounded in over a week of sporadic clashes with Shiite Muslim rebels in the north of the country, a Yemeni official has said. The official said the casualty toll had been cited in a report presented by Yemen's national security chief, Ali al-Ansi, to the country's consultative council.
Yemeni government forces have clashed with rebels officials say are led by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, son of Sheikh Badr el-Deen al-Houthi and brother of anti-American cleric Hussein al-Houthi who was killed in 2004. Yemen has accused the rebels of wanting to install Shiite religious rule in the country and preaching violence against the United States. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh warned the rebels after the latest bout of violence, which began late last month, to surrender their weapons or face a showdown.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) arrested former vice-president of students council of Chittagong Medical College Rashed-Un-Nabi Biplob and recovered firearms, bullets and explosive materials from his Rangpur resident Sunday night. Biplob is the younger brother of BNP central committee member Habib-Un-Nabi Khan Sohel. A Rab team led by Maj. Abdul Bari arrested him from near a hotel in the town at about 8:30 pm and took him to their camp. "Don't kill me! Please don't kill me!"
During primary interrogation, Biplob admitted that he possessed firearms, bullets and explosives, which he kept hidden at Rangpur BNP office near Grand Hotel, his rented house at Mulatol and his ancestral house at South Guptapara, Rab sources said yesterday. Acting on his confession, Rab recovered a pipe gun, some parts of a point 303 rifle, 6 machine gun bullets, one bullet of pistol and some explosive materials from his Mulatol house, a bomb from the party office and 26 bullets of shot gun from his other residence. No accomplices? No shootout? No corpse? Wotta gyp!
Two cases were filed with Kotwali thana, one under the Arms Act and the other under the Explosives Act. Maj Bari said Rashed-Un-Nabi was an alleged criminal and several arms cases were filed against him with different police stations in Chittagong. He was also arrested in Chittagong with firearms last year but was freed on an interim bail, Rab sources said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
*blinks, rubs eyes* No 'crossfire' and no 'rush to the Chittagong Medical Collegee' - waaaitaminute!, this guys from the fabled Chittagong Medical College. He probably knows too much ;)
Either that or RAB has gone soft - what is the world coming too??
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
02/06/2007 2:42 Comments ||
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#2
Fear not, even now he is being questioned about his lair and colleagues therein.
#3
Acting on his confession, Rab recovered a pipe gun, some parts of a point 303 rifle, 6 machine gun bullets, one bullet of pistol and some explosive materials from his Mulatol house, a bomb from the party office and 26 bullets of shot gun from his other residence.
Technically, bullets were invented long before guns... Perhaps Mr. Biplob intended to to hurl them through the air with a slingshot until his fellow miscreants got around to furnishing him with a suitably fine shutter gun.
(KUNA) -- French police on Monday confirmed the arrest of 13 suspects from the Kurdish, separatist PKK movement and said they were being investigated on charges of illicit financing and association with a terrorist organization. The 13 were rounded up in dawn raids and French security officials confirmed to KUNA that there would be no detailed comment on the operations as more police raids were underway.
The security source said that those detained were indeed "suspected" of being members of the PKK, which is classified as a terrorist organization in France. She also remarked that the operation was linked with a financing network for the PKK. The source said more details of the operation were likely to be revealed in the coming days after the enquiries are completed within the detention period of four days, or if this is extended by a judge. The security source said this was a "terrorism" affair and she confirmed the enquiry was being led by Frances leading anti-terrorism judge, Jean-Louis Brugiere.
Media reports said that the raids followed a lengthy operation to follow PKK suspects who were involved in converting Euros into US dollars over a several month period.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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A bomb detonated at a rail station outside the Basque city of Bilbao early Monday, causing serious damage and igniting a fire, Basque police said. No one was injured. The device exploded in Barakaldo, a town on the outskirts of Bilbao, Basque regional police said. The blast occurred about half an hour after midnight and bore the hallmarks of the kind of attack waged by young supporters of the armed separatist group ETA. But a Basque police official said it was too early to say who was behind the explosion.
On Sunday police detained 18 fugitive members of an outlawed Basque youth group which the Supreme Court ruled last month is a terrorist organization because of its alleged links to ETA. Spanish National Radio suggested the bomb blast on Monday might be in reprisal for these arrests.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Exploded half an hour after midnight? odd time for a bombing, either it was just to get attention, or they mistook AM for PM setting it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/06/2007 10:06 Comments ||
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#2
ETA generally blows up stuff at odd hours -- they try to avoid civilian casualties. Oddly enough when they have killed innocents the Spanish have rised up against them.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/06/2007 10:34 Comments ||
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#3
Hmmm. Honorable Terrorists? Seems an Oxymoron.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/06/2007 11:16 Comments ||
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#4
They aren't. They were, more or less. They have become ever blood-thirstier. Many of them have told they were ready for joint action with Alquaida.
Strong hints (you will not read them in anglo-saxon MSM because these base on the pro-socialist-government El Pais) that they could have helped Al Quida in teh Madrid bombings. An ETA van carrying explosives was stopped on the road to Madrid a few days before teh bombing. Just a few minutes later the Al Quaida transport passed at the very same place. Coincidence?
Spanish police arrested a Moroccan suspected of belonging to an al-Qaida-linked group that allegedly recruited people to commit suicide attacks in Iraq, the Interior Ministry said Monday.
The man, identified as Mbark El Jaafari, was arrested in the town of Reus in northeast Spain on a warrant issued by Moroccan authorities, the ministry said in a statement. His age and the date of his arrest were not given. The ministry said El Jaafari belonged to a group that worked for al-Qaida and an Algerian terrorist organization - the Salafist Group for Call and Combat - by recruiting suicide bombers in Morocco, Iraq and Algeria. Since May of last year the group that El Jaafari allegedly belonged to has sent 32 bombers to Iraq and also planned "operations" inside Morocco, the ministry said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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A U.S. citizen once acquitted of giving aid to the Taliban was convicted Monday of lying to a U.S. grand jury about his training as a jihadist. Sabri Benkahla, 31, was convicted of four felony counts, including making false declarations to a grand jury and obstruction of justice. He faces a maximum of 25 years in prison when he is sentenced April 27.
Prosecutors said Benkahla lied about his training with a militant group in Pakistan called Lashkar-e-Taiba. Benkahla told a grand jury in 2004 he never engaged in any combat training during a 1999 trip to Pakistan, while the government said he trained with Lashkar on the use of rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons. The defense argued that prosecutors, stung by Benkahla's acquittal in 2004 on charges of providing support to the Taliban, laid a perjury trap by summoning him before the grand jury and asking a variety of questions that had no bearing on the grand jury's terrorism investigation.
Benkahla was one of only two defendants who obtained acquittals in the government's prosecution of a dozen Muslim men who participated in what the government called a "Virginia jihad network" that used paintball games in the woods in 2000 and 2001 as a means to train for holy war around the globe. During the more recent trial, an FBI agent testified that Benkahla's testimony was important because they were investigating his links to a variety of suspected terrorists, including Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, also a U.S. citizen, who was convicted of joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate U.S. President George W. Bush.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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NEW DELHI - Police in India have arrested four suspected Kashmir militants after a shootout in the national capital New Delhi, officials said Monday. Nearly three kilogrammes of high-intensity RDX explosive and six hand grenades were seized from the militants belonging to the Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed) after a gun-battle on Sunday night, senior Delhi police official Karnal Singh told reporters.
A police team was tracking the men on a tip-off about their movements. They fired on the policemen near the central Connaught Place area after realizing that they were being followed, Singh said. More than 25 rounds of fire were exchanged before the militants were arrested. There were no injuries in the cross-firing, he added.
That'll never do -- if you're going to stage a cross-fire, do it properly and make sure someone catches a round of bullet behind the ear!
Police said the four - a Pakistani national identified as Shahid Gafur and three Indian nationals from the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir - had admitted that they belonged to Pakistan-based JeM.
Besides the explosives, four detonators and a timer and some arms and ammunition were also recovered from the men, Singh said, claiming the police had foiled a terrorist attack. The large quantity of explosives recovered shows they had bad intentions, but the details would be known only after we complete the interrogation, he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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(KUNA) -- Two separatist guerillas were killed by security forces in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir Monday. The guerrillas were killed today in an encounter at Rajpora town in southern Jammu and Kashmir, news agency Indo-Asian News Service reported. Arms and ammunition were also recovered from the site of the encounter, the news agency said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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A roadside bomb has killed two pro-government tribal elders on Monday in Pakistan's restive north-west region, near the Afghan border, officials say. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack in Bajaur, the most northerly region in Pakistan's tribal belt, though al-Qaeda-linked militants active in these areas have been blamed for such incidents in the past.
The tribal elders were travelling in a car through Sayed Charmangh area, some 20 kilometres east of Bajaur's main town of Khar, when the bomb went off. "The two men died instantly while their third colleague sustained injuries and has been hospitalised," a local government official said.
Bajaur and North and South Waziristan regions, which lie at the southern end of the tribal belt, pose the greatest security threat among Pakistan's seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Up to 20 people were killed in an air strike by Pakistan army helicopters on a militant camp in South Waziristan last month. A spate of suicide bombings in the capital Islamabad and several towns in northern Pakistan after that attack, killing around 28 people, raised fears that the conflict in the semi-autonomous tribal belt was spreading towards the cities.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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A senior figure in an outlawed Sunni Muslim militant group that has been linked to al-Qaida was among six men arrested last week in eastern Pakistan, a police official said Monday.
The suspect was identified as Rizwan Ahmed, 28, head of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni organization banned in 2001 over allegations that it was involved in killing Shiite Muslims, said Omar Virk, a senior detective in the eastern city of Lahore. "He was made Lashkar-e-Jhangvi chief after the arrest of Akram Lahori," another purported head of the group who was detained by police in 2002, Virk said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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On Jan. 29 soldiers from Fort Carson on Baghdad patrol uncovered a huge stash of American uniforms and equipment at a warehouse that could have been used to disguise scores of insurgents for a sneak attack. There was enough gear in there to outfit a battalion, the brigades Capt. James Ojeda said.
The work to uncover the equipment started when a senior sergeant from the brigade spotted the American military items for sale in an open market in eastern Baghdad. Troops moved quickly to gather information about how the equipment was being sold and whether more was stored elsewhere. A search of the neighborhood led soldiers to the warehouse, with enough equipment to stock a stateside Army surplus store. The stash included 200 pairs of military boots, 150 helmets, 150 flak vests, 75 armor plates, remote control for a roadside bomb, meals ready to eat, and a variety of uniforms, including U.S. uniforms, the Army said. In pictures sent by the brigade, some of the loot includes chocolate chip desert camouflage uniforms used by American troops in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and now used by Iraqi Army units.
Ojeda said the equipment in the warehouse appeared to be in storage for later use rather than being prepared for sale. Brigade spokesman Maj. Sean Ryan said where the gear was stolen from remains under investigation.
U.S. forces and other coalition nations have spent millions of dollars outfitting the rebuilt Iraqi Army, but reports from Iraq have shown heavy corruption that has put everything from weapons to fuel on the black market.
In the pre-dawn chill, 1st Lt. Seth Reimers briefed his men. A joint patrol of about 60 soldiers equally divided between Iraqi and U.S. forces would storm a compound outside of town and grab a suspected insurgent financier.
"The Iraqi army is taking the lead," Reimers, 24, explained to the U.S. troops before they climbed into idling Humvees. "We're there to support."
It didn't quite work that way. A couple hours after the briefing, the combined patrol broke through a gate surrounding a compound and burst into the main house. The American soldiers immediately took the initiative. They stormed through, searching rooms and looking for suspects. With their weapons raised to their shoulders, the Americans moved deliberately up the stairs, calling to each other as they cleared rooms.
Meanwhile, many of the Iraqi soldiers hesitated, waiting for someone to tell them what to do. They stood to the side watching the action, their weapons at their sides.
Outside, two American Apache attack helicopters clattered overhead, tracking the locations of suspects who fled across surrounding farm fields. U.S. officers kept in radio touch with the pilots and directed the search.
Capt. Ian Perry, 26, executive officer of Battery A, Task Force 2-15, said later of the Iraqi soldiers, "They hung back a little bit. That's not common. Usually they're really into it." Perry said the Iraqi troops might not have been fully briefed about the mission or the pre-dawn start may have been a little early for them.
Getting Iraqi forces trained, motivated and taking the lead in the fight against insurgents and illegal militias has been a struggle for the U.S. military.
"This is occurring slower than we originally projected," Gen. George Casey, the outgoing top U.S. commander in Iraq, acknowledged last week in congressional testimony.
A major U.S. intelligence report released last Friday said that Iraqi security forces lack the training, equipment and skills necessary to replace U.S. troops. The National Intelligence Estimate said that, if U.S. troops were withdrawn in the next 12 to 18 months, "this almost certainly would lead to a significant increase in the scale and scope of sectarian conflict in Iraq."
To improve the performance of Iraqi forces, the U.S. military is boosting the number of advisers and American units training and living with Iraqi forces, says Maj. Gen. Carter Ham, commander of a new school for training military advisers at Fort Riley, Kan.
Raids such as the one Reimers led illustrate the complexity of their mission. Even the best of Iraqi units still have trouble operating without American assistance. "In my opinion it will take three or four years" before Iraqi forces are capable of functioning without any U.S. assistance, says Sgt. Olan Aldrich, 25, part of the American advisory team here.
It's a risky mission. Since the first military and national police advisers came to Iraq in September 2004, 33 have been killed, according to the Iraqi Assistance Group, which oversees U.S. advisers. Almost half the deaths occurred in the past six months as Iraqis have played a more prominent combat role.
That has exposed advisers, as well as Iraqis, to greater dangers. "The Iraqi security forces are truly more in the lead, and the transition teams are with them," says Brig. Gen. Dana Pittard, commander of the Iraqi Assistance Group. "They're out there in harm's way constantly." There are about 5,000 American advisers in Iraq now.
Since 2004, the U.S. Army and Marines have placed about a dozen advisers with each Iraqi battalion of about 500 troops.
Reimers' unit is part of an experiment to take the partnership a step further, by placing an entire American battalion, in this case about 400 soldiers, with an Iraqi brigade of 3,000 soldiers. Col. Mike Kershaw, 45, says the move puts "more people against the problem."
The brass are watching the experiment closely. "That's the future," Pittard says. "We will see more and more of that."
Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the No. 2 ranking U.S. commander in Iraq, says the Iraqi brigade based here, the 4th Brigade, 6th Army Division, is successful largely because of the decision to place more Americans with the unit.
'It's your call, brother'
Advising is not a role that comes naturally to American officers and non-commissioned officers. Advisers are told to take a back seat during operations, allowing Iraqi leaders to take charge. "We've taken officers and NCOs who for their entire time in the Army were encouraged to be aggressive," Ham says. "Now we're saying, 'Don't do that. I don't want you to lead from the front.' "
Reimers, from Ogden, Iowa, coached his Iraqi counterpart, Maj. Dhamad Shaiah al-Musawy, as the raid unfolded. Reimers and al-Musawy began questioning a suspect found in the compound. He wasn't the man they were looking for, but he might have been related.
Reimers turned to the Iraqi officer. "What do you want to do?" Reimers asked. "It's your call, brother. I recommend we detain him, but it's up to you." The Iraqi officer ordered the suspect detained.
After leaving the compound, the soldiers took off across fields in pursuit of men who had fled the compound moments before the soldiers arrived. Reimers yelled "Yallah," or "Let's go," as he encouraged Iraqi soldiers to keep up as the group dashed across muddy farm fields and jumped across irrigation ditches in pursuit of the men.
Overhead, one of the Apache helicopters dropped flares over locations where the pilots saw fleeing men. The stink of a nearby chicken coop hung in the air, and stray dogs barked at the running soldiers.
After the initial raid, Perry said the Iraqi soldiers did a thorough search of the compound and helped scour the surrounding farm fields for men who fled the compound. "With some guidance from Lt. Reimers, they performed to standard eventually," he said.
About a dozen men were detained during and after the raid. All were later released. It turned out the two informants who told U.S. forces about the suspect were not able to provide enough specifics to hold any of them, including a couple brothers of the suspect. Nor was anything incriminating found in the home.
In order to keep suspects in custody, U.S. and Iraqi forces have to provide evidence to hold up in Iraq's court system, where they are eventually tried. "The evidence was insufficient," Perry says.
No advance briefing for Iraqis
Planning for the Americans started days before the raid. But most Iraqis going on the raid learned about the target only hours before it was launched. The Americans say they don't brief their Iraqi counterparts until the last moment to avoid a leak that might tip off a suspect. Iraqi troops often have ties to the community or can be intimidated by insurgents who regularly threaten the families of Iraqi soldiers.
"There are some leaks," Perry says. "That is recognized by everyone."
Still, the Americans work hard to develop relationships with their Iraqi counterparts. Sipping sweet tea and eating flat bread, American and Iraqi advisers gathered at an Iraqi base here to review satellite photos and discuss details of the plan before heading out on the raid.
"I work with this group (of Americans) like my family," says al-Musawy, 35, who has spent most of his adult life in the Iraqi military. "They're my brothers. They work hard. They know military science."
When the Iraqi brigade commander's father fell seriously ill, his American adviser, Lt. Col. Bob Morschauser, saw to it that he received treatment at an American military hospital.
"The American adviser is not in command," says Col. Timothy Reese, director of the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., which has studied past U.S. adviser missions in Vietnam, Korea and elsewhere. "Your authority is limited to the personal rapport you develop with your counterpart."
'It is their war'
U.S. advisers are encouraged to read the works of T.E. Lawrence, the legendary British author who helped lead an Arab revolt during World War I and became known as Lawrence of Arabia. "Do not try to do too much with your own hands," Lawrence wrote in a 1917 article in The Arab Bulletin. "Better the Arabs do it tolerably than you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them."
"You can't go into this job thinking they're the American Army," says Maj. Matt Zimmerman, the operations officer of the 2-15 Task Force, which advises the Iraqi brigade. "They're not."
During a joint patrol in Mahmoudiya, one Iraqi officer strolled down the road without body armor or a rifle, a violation of normal operating procedures. He carried a handheld radio.
Reimers said he notices improvements and cannot correct every transgression he sees. Before a foot patrol got underway, the Iraqi battalion sergeant major, the top enlisted man, was hustling to get the Iraqi troops prepared when it was clear they were running late. In the past, only Iraqi officers had exercised any leadership. Reimers noted that non-commissioned officers were now taking initiative. "They feel like they're letting us down if they're not ready," Reimers said, watching him scramble after his troops. "That's more progress."
The Iraqi forces are not nearly as well-equipped and protected as their American counterparts.
The lack of equipment and logistical support is the largest problem facing Iraqi forces, say U.S. advisers.
The 566-man Iraqi battalion here in Mahmoudiya, just south of Baghdad, has only 11 Humvees that work. Four were disabled by roadside bombs and are waiting to be fixed. They have five pickups, used in part to ferry troops.
The Iraqi battalion is equipped with AK-47s and machine guns but has no mortars or artillery support.
A U.S. battalion of similar size has about 55 Humvees. American troops travel only in Humvees or other armored vehicles when they drive outside their base. Iraqi and U.S. troops here are regularly attacked by roadside bombs.
Iraq's Defense Ministry has struggled to support its troops. "There is a big problem with the Ministry of Defense," says Lt. Col. Abdul Muhsin Falei Jabar, the Iraqi battalion commander here.
"Iraqis need a little help in getting the wherewithal to run a large army," Ham says. "That is probably the next major undertaking" for the U.S. effort to build up the Iraqi military.
One advantage of placing an entire U.S. battalion with an Iraqi unit is that the Americans can plug the gaps left by Iraq's Defense Ministry. Instead of waiting on the ministry, the Americans fixed the Iraqi Humvees. The U.S. government has paid for new barracks on the Iraqi base here.
"They're trying to get flashlights for their weapons," Aldrich says. "They can't get them, but I can."
Aldrich, an armorer, sat on a wall eating a bowl of rice and meat given to him by Iraqi colleagues.
Pvt. Saif Saad sat next to Aldrich, watching him eat. "We're like brothers," Saad said. "We feel safe when we go with Americans."
Well-fed and equipped American troops are often a source of wonderment to Iraqi soldiers. Iraqi troops who eat at the U.S. mess hall are often amazed at the quantity and variety of food available to Americans.
A couple of Iraqi officers visiting the nearby U.S. base carried trays piled high with food. Chips, pastries and packages of small snacks were balanced precariously on their trays. One of the Iraqi officers expressed surprise, however, that smoking wasn't allowed in the mess hall.
'Officers were like dictators'
Part of the idea behind having the Iraqis work closely with U.S. forces is to have American military values rub off on Iraqis.
In the former Iraqi army, "all the officers were like dictators," Jabar says.
"There were no good relations between officers and soldiers. We understand stuff now," he says.
"They strive to be like we are," Reimers says.
But not all the time. The American military has a tradition of officers serving enlisted troops in the mess hall during holidays. The sight of American officers at a Christmas dinner behind the serving line with small white hats appeared strange to Iraqi officers accustomed to a different, more autocratic, style of leadership.
Said Capt. Jeremy Edge, 26: "I think we lost some face." This sounds very typical of a military training environment, but it is so much more. It is teaching them to discard their civilian culture and embrace the modern military way as a philosophy of life.
#2
Another part of the problem is lack of language/culture skills on the US side, and the lack of domestic security in Iraq. I am surprised the situation isn't a lot worse than it is at present.
#4
didn't we have a post just the other day saying how hard it was to rein in the Iraqi troops? I'd guess some are and some aren't, eh?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/06/2007 12:36 Comments ||
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#5
It takes from three to eight years to train a good NCO, and equally as long to train good officers. Without both, an army is ineffective. I doubt anyone with real military experience expected to fully train an Iraqi army in two or three years.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/06/2007 12:53 Comments ||
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#6
The event describe is not surprising, and can really drive young officers crazy. Our Troops are taught to lead and the LT did just that. His soldiers responded correctly and got out front where he told them to be. Unfortunately the Iraqis were supposed to lead that mission. It is extremely difficult for an American officer to stand and watch a third rate army fumble through a mission. I was not there, so no armchair QB here, it can just be frustrating for a young US officer and his NCO's to stand and watch a mission go sideways in the name of mission training.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/06/2007 13:01 Comments ||
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#7
Patriot,
Yes it takes time to train good NCOs and officers and time to integrate them with their equipment but we (at least I) weren't aiming to make the bulk of their army 'top notch' or even 'very good', just good enough to do the job with the US giving air support some logistics help and once in a while some heavy infantry support. If we get to that point at all, it won't be until 2008 at the earliest.
#8
Doesn't sound like COIN to me. Half a hammer and no anvil.
In the old days we would have had stop-groups walking 20 miles overnight into position behind the area to be spanked, in order to slot the runners. Fire Force cleared, dropped in at the last minute, normally first light.
#9
#8, and where is Rhodesia now? Failure to pave the roads, drill wells, engage friendly African tribal leaders, and operate integrated units {excluding the Selous Scouts} cost Rhodesia the natural allies that existed in-country to fight the communists. And the failure to buyoff Nkomo with seats in the Parliament deprived the Conservatives in Great Britain of the fig leaf needed to accept Zimbabwe-Rhodesia as the evolved multi-racial government to leave in power.
The US is setting up a national army that is designed to crush an internal rebellion/terrorist uprising as the primary goal in Iraq. They don't have to be Islamic Israelis for that to succeed - remember between 1968 and 1972, the ARVN built on US successes against the VC and had eliminated it. The invasion from the North by NVA regulars with heavy tank divisions is what succeeded in 1975, not the pajama-wearing VC of MSM fantasies.
That is all the US is shooting for in Iraq : that the national forces of Iraq crush the rebellion inside the country. The Iraqis will be dependent on US support for the next 10 years to defend against an invasion by Syria or Iran; although the Saudis and the Gulf Arabs seem to be funneling items of support towards the Iraqi government now. The feeling in the Gulf seems to be moving towards that it is better to have an independent Shia-controlled Iraq as a buffer to Iran, than to be wedded to a failing Sunni rebellion.
#10
This article strongly hints/infers that the LT is indeed trying to Lead, Observe, Advise and Instruct, i.e. TO LEAD AND TEACH. Slowly but surely the job will get done. I am sure the holiday goodies of US-Brit forces will impress the locals to no end.
A man sentenced to death in Kuwait for the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies now sits in Iraq's parliament as a member of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's ruling coalition, according to U.S. military intelligence.
Jamal Jafaar Mohammed's seat in parliament gives him immunity from prosecution. Washington says he supports Shiite insurgents and acts as an Iranian agent in Iraq.
U.S. military intelligence in Iraq has approached al-Maliki's government with the allegations against Jamal Jafaar Mohammed, whom it says assists Iranian special forces in Iraq as "a conduit for weapons and political influence."
Repeated efforts by CNN to reach Jamal Jafaar Mohammed for comment through the parliament, through the ruling Shiite Muslim coalition and the Badr Organization -- the Iranian-backed paramilitary organization he once led -- have been unsuccessful.
A Kuwaiti court sentenced Jamal Jafaar Mohammed to death in 1984 in the car bombings of the U.S. and French embassies the previous December. Five people died in the attacks and 86 were wounded.
He had fled the country before the trial.
Western intelligence agencies also accuse Jamal Jafaar Mohammed of involvement in the hijacking of a Kuwaiti airliner in 1984 and the attempted assassination of a Kuwaiti prince.
Jamal Jafaar Mohammed won a seat in Iraq's Council of Representatives in the U.S.-backed elections of December 2005. He represents Babil province, south of Baghdad, in parliament.
A U.S. Embassy spokesman said officials are actively pursuing Jamal Jafaar Mohammed's case with Iraqi officials. Al-Maliki has urged American intelligence officials to share their information with Iraqi lawmakers, who could strip Jamal Jafaar Mohammed of his parliamentary immunity.
"We don't want parliament to be a shelter for outlaws and wanted people," al-Maliki told CNN. "This is the government's view, but the parliament is responsible. I don't think parliament will accept having people like [him] or others currently in the parliament."
Al-Maliki's political party, Dawa, claimed responsibility for the Kuwait bombings at the time but now disavows them. The Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim party was forced into exile under former dictator Saddam Hussein, who was executed in December.
The prime minister says the situation is embarrassing -- not only to his government but to a U.S. administration that holds up Iraq's government as a democratic model for the region.
Top U.S. officials, including President Bush, have accused Iran of meddling in Iraq by fomenting sectarian violence and providing arms to illegal militias. Bush has authorized U.S. troops to use deadly force against Iranian agents in Iraq to defend American or allied forces, and the administration's increasingly tough warnings to Tehran have raised concerns that the four-year-old Iraq war could spread.
Al-Maliki told CNN last week that the United States and Iran should stop using his country as a proxy battleground, accusing Iran of targeting U.S. troops in Iraq but saying he doesn't want U.S. forces to use Iraq as a base to attack Iraq's neighbors.
#5
It will truly be a miracle if the US succeeds in Iraq, given that the Iraqi government & military are rotten with forces working for the other side(s).
It's like, karma, man.
BAGHDAD, Tuesday, Feb. 6 An Iranian diplomat was abducted Sunday evening when his convoy was stopped by men with official Defense Ministry identification in the Karrada neighborhood here, senior Iraqi and American officials said Monday.
Iraqi security forces captured several suspects after pursuing their vehicles through the streets of Baghdad, two of the Iraqi officials said. The vehicle with the diplomat was not caught, though.
The abduction of the Iranian took place in a largely Shiite section of the city not far from where a truck bomb killed at least 135 people on Saturday and where residents have complained that the slow pace of the increase in American troops has left them open to attacks.
The men captured in the chase by Iraqi forces on Sunday were Iraqis with Defense Ministry identification, Iraqi and American officials said, raising serious questions about whether government forces themselves were involved in the abduction. A senior Iraqi official said that the credentials initially appeared to be genuine but that investigators later received conflicting information about whether the men had been dismissed from the ministry but somehow kept their identification.
When asked about indications that an Iranian diplomat had been abducted in Baghdad, Mohammad alHosseini, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman in Tehran, said: We need to investigate, because we have been receiving a lot of news like that these days. I cannot confirm it yet.
If the kidnappers credentials turn out to be genuine, there will be enormous pressure on the Iraqi government to recover the diplomat and capture all of those involved. The Iraqi government has been critical of recent raids by American forces in which Iranians working with diplomatic offices in Iraq have been detained.
The Americans have accused some of those Iranians of supporting illicit armed groups in Iraq, but the raids have been embarrassing to the Iraqi government, which has been encouraging foreign diplomatic missions in particular Irans to increase their presence here. Iraqi officials have distanced themselves from the American raids, while Iran has simply termed those operations kidnappings.
In fact, the American position on those raids was weakened after American forces in Baghdad first announced that they would formally present evidence on illicit Iranian activity in Iraq, then pulled back amid indications that officials in Washington were not persuaded that the case was strong enough.
The Iranian Embassy has not publicly acknowledged the kidnapping. But in an indication of how high tensions between Iran and the United States have risen over the American raids, the embassy privately voiced suspicions that the kidnapping of its diplomat might have been done at the behest of American forces in Baghdad, an Iraqi official said.
Beyond the unsubstantiated suspicions about the involvement of the United States in the kidnapping, there were no clear indications of whether the Iranian diplomat might have been taken by insurgents seeking to cast doubt on the stability of Iraqs government, or simply for ransom.
#6
Why do I have the feeling that the next "fact" reported will be that the kidnappers were wearing American soldier uniforms? Cause you know, it call comes down to American imperialism and torture.
#10
Can someone please do a press conference, smile and say something to the effect of, "At this time, it appears the abductions were carried out by students."
Posted by: Mike N. ||
02/06/2007 8:42 Comments ||
Top||
#11
I love the smell of schaudenfreude in the morning!!! It smells like... like victory!!
(or at least a little payback.)
(KUNA) -- Senior officials denied on Monday reports alleging that the chief of Al-Qaeda in Al-Rafidain Abu Ayyoub Al-Masri was being
fawned over and treated like a pasha in the best bathhouse in Cairo
held in a prison in Egypt. General William Caldwell, spokesman of the Multi-National Forces, said in a statement to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), "We have no information indicating that Abu Ayyoub is being held in a prison in Egypt .. This is the first time we have heard about such reports." Dr. Ali Al-Dabbagh, spokesman of the Iraqi Government, also affirmed that the authorities possessed no information that the chief of the shadowy organization was
being fed dates and honey by dark-eyed beauties
imprisoned in Egypt, but indicated that top leaders of the group were
off to the milliners' to be fitted for the finest silk turbans and curly-toed slippers
embroiled in squabbles and power disputes. Family of Mohammed Hazzaa', also known as Abu Ayyoub Al-Masri, had said that he was being held at the Egyptian prison of Wadi Al-Natroun. The family also said that the 55-year-old man was suffering from multiple illnesses including cardiac diseases. The American military command in Iraq has recently publicized a videotape film showing Al-Masri rigging a truck with explosives.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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(KUNA) -- The Iraqi troops killed one of Al-Mahdi army leaders in north-east Baghdad, the US army said on Monday. A U.S. military statement released here said that the Iraqi Fifth army brigade killed yesterday one of the commanders of Al-Mahdi army in Diala governorate, north- east of here. The US army accused the targeted commander as master minder of violence and criminality in various areas. According to intelligence reports the commander who was killed ysterday had close relations with the evil Al-Mahdi army stated in west Diala and Baghdad.
The release added that two Iraqi soldiers were killed when the deceased commander opened his automatic machinegun fire on them. The Iraqi police said yesterday that the Iraqi and US forces killed Al-Sadr office chief Kazem Al-Hamadani after storming his home in Huwaider village, Diala.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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Iraqi and US forces yesterday prepared to launch a massive crackdown in Baghdad to end the sectarian carnage pushing Iraq toward civil war as at least another 30 people died in a surge of violence. The sustained bloodshed came after nearly 200 people were killed over the weekend, mostly in the war-torn capital. Iraqi forces on Monday stepped up security in some volatile districts on the eastern side of the Tigris river, which runs through Baghdad, an AFP photographer reported.
Iraqi soldiers and National Guard police were deployed on Baghdad's main eastern highway leading to the Shia bastion of Sadr City, a repeated insurgent target, he said. Tanks and other armoured vehicles along with National Guard police were seen at various locations on the road to Sadr City and in districts such as Karrada. New control points were set up in the districts of Karrada, Rusafa, Mustansiriyah, Adhamiyah and Sadr City, all to the east of the Tigris. On some bridges, guard posts were protected by tanks and barbed wire as soldiers stopped and checked drivers, the photographer said.
Thirteen bridges cross the Tigris river in Baghdad, but several have been sealed off to traffic. Access to Sadr City itself was controlled by a barrier manned by army soldiers and police commandos. Sadr City is the stronghold of the Mahdi Army, a Shia militia accused by the US military of leading the killing of Sunni Arabs in the chronic sectarian conflict in the capital. It was not clear however if the new measures were part of a long-awaited security crackdown. A senior Iraqi official, on condition of anonymity, said the security plan would be launched "in the next few days" after "the necessary security preparations have been completed".
The US military also declined to be specific. "We continue to do operations as part of the plan in support of the (Iraqi) prime minister's goals to secure Baghdad," said spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver. "Operations have been going on."
Garver said US military troop movement was continuing as per the needs of the plan. "We are in the process of moving troops here as announced by our president," he told AFP.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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IDF soldiers arrested a Tanzim fugitive south of Ramallah on Monday evening. The suspect was transferred to the Shin Bet (Israel Security Service) for questioning.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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Fatah gunmen abducted a Hamas official in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday, saying they would exchange him for the kidnapped nephew of a Fatah strongman, Palestinian police said.
On Sunday, gunmen in Gaza kidnapped the nephew of Fatah official Muhammad Dahlan, security officials said. Though all those abducted were supposed to be freed under Sunday evening's cease-fire, he was not, security officials said. In retaliation, Fatah gunmen in Ramallah kidnapped Arafat Said, an Interior Ministry official, as he left his office. They also shot a man who was walking with him in the legs, security officials said. Both men were Hamas supporters.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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Insurgents shot dead a government official Tuesday morning in Pattani province when he and his three-year-old daughter were taking his wife to work at a local school, police said.
Mongkol Surakarn, 34, was killed when he was riding a motorcycle on the Na Pradoo-Yala road in Khok Pho district. Mongkol passed away shortly after reaching hospital. His wife and daughter survived, with minor injuries and were being treated at Khok Pho Hospital. Police Lt Col Ampai Chumchuay said Mongkol was shot in the head by two gunmen and in critical condition when he arrived at the hospital.
The Israeli army on Monday said it uncovered four bombs on the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon and accused Hezbollah guerrillas of planting the explosives in recent days. If confirmed, it would mark a violation of a UN-brokered ceasefire by Hezbollah and indicate a failure by international peacekeepers to prevent new attacks on Israel. Both Hezbollah and UN officials said they were looking into the report.
Lt.-Col. Guy Hazoot, the operations officer of Israels northern division, said an Israeli patrol on Monday discovered and detonated the explosives, which were hidden in containers that looked like boulders. He said the bombs were designed to target Israeli military patrols on the border and were planted as recently as Sunday night, under the cover of the stormy weather.
Under the ceasefire, thousands of international peacekeepers, along with Lebanese government troops, police the border to ensure quiet. The deal bars Hezbollah guerrillas from carrying arms in the border area. Hazoot said UNIFIL peacekeepers have thwarted similar Hezbollah attempts to lay roadside bombs in the past, but had failed to do so this time. We view the Lebanese army as responsible for this event, he said, and warned. We will take all the necessary steps to make sure that these such events do not recur.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/06/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
If confirmed, it would mark a violation of a UN-brokered ceasefire
No, it wouldn't. Only Israel (or the US) can break a CeaseFire™.
#3
Well, of course we didn't stop this planting of bombs. I mean, it was bad weather AND a Sunday evening for Pete's Sake! You want us to work weekends too?
#4
Everything south of the Litani River needs to belong to Israel, as punishment for Hezbollah and a weak, ineffectual Lebanese government. Drive the arabs and whoever else is living there out and take over. If Israel did that a few times, the arabs would find their "local support" deeply eroded.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/06/2007 13:12 Comments ||
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#4
I used to think I was a hard-ass. I probably was.
It's tougher and tougher to look at these things.
Maybe when we were all the same age, in the same boat, it was easier.
But now, they look as if they haven't finished high school.
So sad.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
02/06/2007 20:44 Comments ||
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#5
Meeting wounded Marines was one of the most moving and inspiring events of my life. There is so much we can learn from these individuals. They will continue to shape our world for the better.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
(SomaliNet) Unknown gunmen, presumably supporters of the ousted Islamists have launched mortar attack at the main port in Mogadishu, the Somalia capital over midnight. No casualties have been reported from the latest attack. It is the second mortar attack carried out by the insurgent groups in a week. Last nights attack was aimed at the Ethiopian forces stationing at the seaport. Local residents say the attack happened around 3:45 am local time just shortly before the dawn when everyone in Mogadishu was asleep at the time. We could hear six rounds of mortar shells that slammed near the seaport but caused no casualty, Ali Hassan, one of the residents near the port told Somalinet. 
(SomaliNet) Two people have been killed and seven others were wounded in armed confrontation in central Somalia on Monday between interim government forces and local militiamen. The fighting occurred in Guri-el town of Galgadud region in central Somalia when local militia clashed with the convoys of the transitional government forces passing the area to near by Mudug region. Witnesses said that the two dead persons were belonging to the government forces while most of the wounded were the local civilians. 
At least 42 Yemeni soldiers have been killed and 81 wounded in over a week of sporadic clashes with Shiite Muslim rebels in the north of the country, a Yemeni official has said. The official said the casualty toll had been cited in a report presented by Yemen's national security chief, Ali al-Ansi, to the country's consultative council. 
Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) arrested former vice-president of students council of Chittagong Medical College Rashed-Un-Nabi Biplob and recovered firearms, bullets and explosive materials from his Rangpur resident Sunday night. Biplob is the younger brother of BNP central committee member Habib-Un-Nabi Khan Sohel. A Rab team led by Maj. Abdul Bari arrested him from near a hotel in the town at about 8:30 pm and took him to their camp. 
(KUNA) -- French police on Monday confirmed the arrest of 13 suspects from the Kurdish, separatist PKK movement and said they were being investigated on charges of illicit financing and association with a terrorist organization. The 13 were rounded up in dawn raids and French security officials confirmed to KUNA that there would be no detailed comment on the operations as more police raids were underway.
A bomb detonated at a rail station outside the Basque city of Bilbao early Monday, causing serious damage and igniting a fire, Basque police said. No one was injured. The device exploded in Barakaldo, a town on the outskirts of Bilbao, Basque regional police said. The blast occurred about half an hour after midnight and bore the hallmarks of the kind of attack waged by young supporters of the armed separatist group ETA. But a Basque police official said it was too early to say who was behind the explosion. 
Spanish police arrested a Moroccan suspected of belonging to an al-Qaida-linked group that allegedly recruited people to commit suicide attacks in Iraq, the Interior Ministry said Monday. 
A U.S. citizen once acquitted of giving aid to the Taliban was convicted Monday of lying to a U.S. grand jury about his training as a jihadist. 
NEW DELHI - Police in India have arrested four suspected Kashmir militants after a shootout in the national capital New Delhi, officials said Monday. Nearly three kilogrammes of high-intensity RDX explosive and six hand grenades were seized from the militants belonging to the 
(KUNA) -- Two separatist guerillas were killed by security forces in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir Monday. The guerrillas were killed today in an encounter at Rajpora town in southern Jammu and Kashmir, news agency Indo-Asian News Service reported. Arms and ammunition were also recovered from the site of the encounter, the news agency said.
A roadside bomb has killed two pro-government tribal elders on Monday in Pakistan's restive north-west region, near the Afghan border, officials say. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack in Bajaur, the most northerly region in Pakistan's tribal belt, though al-Qaeda-linked militants active in these areas have been blamed for such incidents in the past. 
(KUNA) -- Senior officials denied on Monday reports alleging that the chief of Al-Qaeda in Al-Rafidain 
(KUNA) -- The Iraqi troops killed one of Al-Mahdi army leaders in north-east Baghdad, the US army said on Monday. A U.S. military statement released here said that the Iraqi Fifth army brigade killed yesterday one of the commanders of Al-Mahdi army in Diala governorate, north- east of here. The US army accused the targeted commander as master minder of violence and criminality in various areas. According to intelligence reports the commander who was killed ysterday had close relations with the evil Al-Mahdi army stated in west Diala and Baghdad.
Hamas gunmen kidnapped six members of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' Security Force 17 late Monday, Palestinian sources reported.
Fatah gunmen abducted a Hamas official in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday, saying they would exchange him for the kidnapped nephew of a Fatah strongman, Palestinian police said. .JPG)
The Israeli army on Monday said it uncovered four bombs on the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon and accused Hezbollah guerrillas of planting the explosives in recent days. If confirmed, it would mark a violation of a UN-brokered ceasefire by Hezbollah and indicate a failure by international peacekeepers to prevent new attacks on Israel. Both Hezbollah and UN officials said they were looking into the report. 
