''An al Qaeda battleground''
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| Thu, 07-29-2004 - 3:50pm |
Has everyone forgotten about Iraq & Afghanistan?
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/12244715?source=PA
Iraq has become a "battleground" for al Qaeda and more troops are desperately needed to stop the war on terror going into reverse, a powerful report by MPs warns today.
The Commons foreign affairs committee blames too few soldiers and a "failure" by the coalition to impose law and order from the start of the occupation.
In a major 170-page report, it also warns that Afghanistan could "implode with terrible consequences" unless troops numbers are bolstered urgently.
The warnings are the strongest yet from the Labour-dominated committee. They come a day after a suicide bomber killed 70 people and injured 56 more in the worst atrocity in Iraq since the handover of power a month ago.
The committee paints a vivid picture, of the war on terror being at grave risk of losing ground. More effort is needed, it says, to stabilise the two countries.
"Iraq has become a battleground for al Qaeda with appalling consequences for the Iraqi people," the MPs say. "The failure to bring law and order to parts of Iraq created a vacuum into which criminal elements and militias have stepped."
This happened because an " insufficient number of troops" was deployed after last year's invasion - and because other countries gave a "disappointing" response to pleas by Britain and America for peacekeeping forces.
The committee urges Islamic countries to give military support, particularly in the run-up to elections due next year.
A major blunder, severely criticised in the report, was the decision by US occupation leader Paul Bremer to disband the old Iraqi army and purge members of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party, triggering counter-attacks.
The MPs call for more effort to improve living conditions, saying many Iraqis feel unsafe and lack necessities. "The failure to meet Iraqi expectations, whether realistic or not, risks damaging the credibility of the United Kingdom in
Iraq," the report says. It also rebukes government officials for "withholding" critical intelligence from ministers - in particular, details of the 45-minute claim about Iraqi chemical weapons and a Red Cross warning of human rights abuses by British troops.
Conservative committee member Sir John Stanley said Afghanistan was "absolutely on knife-edge". If the country did not get more help with security "everything we have achieved could be put back to square one," he said.
Committee chairman Donald Anderson said Iraq could also "go either way".
Iraq at Risk of Becoming 'Failed State' - MPs.
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3271381


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I will never, ever understand the Pro Iraqi war movement, nor the lengths they go to defend the biggest Blunder of the United States in my lifetime.
Oh, but good things are happening there! Keep on truckin...
Edited 8/6/2004 1:15 pm ET ET by go_left
"Keep on truckin... "
Yes...... 'bring
U.S. marines clash with Iraqi militia
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=560836§ion=news
U.S. marines say they have killed 300 fighters loyal to a firebrand Iraqi Shi'ite cleric in fierce clashes that pose a stern test for an interim government struggling to stamp its authority over the country.
A spokesman for Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr denied that many fighters had been killed in the holy city of Najaf in the past two days.
He said 36 militiamen had died in several Iraqi cities from clashes that have fuelled fears of a new rebellion of radical Shi'ites. By late on Friday, Najaf was quiet, residents said on Friday.
The fresh fighting marks a major challenge for U.S.-backed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and appears to have destroyed a two-month-old ceasefire between U.S. forces and Sadr's Mehdi militia.
"The number of enemy casualties is 300 KIA (killed in action)," Lieutenant Colonel Gary Johnston, operations officer for the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, said at a military base near the city, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad.
"The marines are here and I think you know how they operate. If you kill a marine, the marines are going to fight back."
Johnston said two marines had been killed and 12 wounded.
He told reporters that the Mehdi fighters were badly coordinated and shot at random against the heavily armed marines who were backed up by F-16 fighter jets, AC-130 gunships and helicopters.
Much of the fighting took place around the mausoleums and small caves of Najaf's ancient Shi'ite cemetery, the largest in the Arab world and a popular sanctuary for Mehdi fighters.
In Najaf's streets, market stalls burned as ordinary Iraqis cowered in their homes. Thick black smoke rose over the city.
Despite the marine onslaught, hundreds of Mehdi militia carrying AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades roamed the city near Najaf's shrines, some of the holiest in Shi'ite Islam.
Gunfire damaged the dome of the Imam Ali shrine, some said.
GOVERNOR ORDERS MILITIA OUT
U.S. military officials said there were indications that foreign fighters had joined the militia.
The U.S.-appointed governor of Najaf put the militia death toll at 400, with 1,000 captured. He said he had information 80 Iranians were fighting alongside Sadr's militia, whom he ordered to leave the city in 24 hours.
Sheikh Raed al-Qathimi, a spokesman for Sadr, rebuffed the American version of the death toll.
"I categorically deny these American lies," he said.
Tension had been rising in Najaf since Iraqi security forces surrounded Sadr's house earlier this week.
But U.S. officials said fighting escalated when marines came to the aid of badly outgunned Iraqi police who were attacked by insurgents wielding heavy weapons early on Thursday.
Colonel Anthony Haslam, the marine base commander and chief of operations in Najaf, estimated the number of Mehdi fighters at more than 2,000.
The U.S. military added it was not pursuing Sadr.
British and Italian troops also fought the Mehdi militia across Shi'ite-dominated southern Iraq -- in Basra, Amara and Nassiriya -- while fighting raged in Sadr City and Shoula, two Shi'ite districts of Baghdad.
The Health Ministry said fighting in Sadr City alone had killed 20 Iraqis and wounded 114 since early on Thursday, while in Nassiriya six were dead and 13 wounded.
The flare-up of tension with radical members of Iraq's majority community comes after Shi'ite militants rose up across south and central Iraq in April and May.
Iraq's interim government expressed confidence it could deal with the crisis. It is already grappling with a spate of car bombings, assassinations and kidnappings of foreign hostages.
"We have every confidence in our new government, our security forces and our allies to contain this conflict," Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said.
In the previous uprising, hundreds of Iraqis and dozens of U.S. troops were killed.
TRUCE OFFER?
Yet Sadr, a young cleric with an ardent following among poor, disaffected youths, appeared keen to stop the latest fighting. Via another spokesman in Baghdad, he called for a resumption of a truce struck in June.
"We have no objections to entering negotiations to solve this crisis," Mahmoud al-Sudani told reporters. "As I have said in the name of Sayed Sadr, we want a resumption of the truce."
Colonel Haslam said he had heard nothing of the offer.
While Sadr may be popular with frustrated young Shi'ites, many of Iraq's mainstream community follow Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shi'ite cleric in Iraq who has carefully and quietly tried to keep a lid on Sadr's agitating.
In a worrying move for his followers, Sistani, a 73-year-old Iranian-born cleric, flew to London on Friday for treatment for a heart problem, sources said.
U.S. marines recently replaced the U.S. Army in Najaf and analysts have suggested the upsurge in violence is linked to the marines taking a more aggressive approach with Sadr's militia.
At the same time, attempts by the interim government to draw Sadr into the mainstream appear to have faltered, which may have prompted the cleric to redouble his militant approach.
American beheaded in Iraqi hostage video.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/07/uweb.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/08/07/ixportaltop.html
An American hostage held in Iraq has apparently been beheaded by a group linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an al-Qa'eda ally.
The hostage, from San Francisco, is shown being killed in a 55-second video posted on a website this morning.
He said: "We need to leave this country right now. If we don't everyone is gonna be killed in this way.
"I have been offered for exchange for prisoners here in Iraq. We need to leave this country alone. We need to stop this occupation." He was then beheaded.
The death comes after the United States said it would not make any concessions to kidnappers. "We understand that conceding to terrorists will only endanger all members of the multinational force, as well as other countries who are contributing to Iraqi reconstruction and humanitarian assistance," the policy statement said.
It is not clear when the video was made and there is some confusion over the hostages' name: he identified himself as either Benjamin Dan Ford, or Benjamin Danforth.
Pictures of the hostage are cut with images of Iraqis hurt or killed; voices chanting from the Koran can be heard in the background.
Zarqawi is linked to the Tawhid and Jihad Group, which has also claimed responsibility for the killings of American Nicholas Berg, South Korean translator Kim Sun-il and Bulgarian Georgi Lazov
At least 10 hostages have been killed, sometimes by beheading, in the last four months. At least 20 hostages are still being held in Iraq.
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