US troops kill No. 2 leader of al-Qaida

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-22-2004
US troops kill No. 2 leader of al-Qaida
12
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 9:09am

This story must not be true! There's no Al-Qaida in Iraq!

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 9:12am
LOL - there wasn't any Al Queda there until we overthrew Saddam - now of course it's a haven - Nice try though!!!
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 9:14am

don't really feel like getting into the whole political aspect of this .... so I'll just say ... good.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2008
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 9:15am

No, what we've said - ROFL - is that there WASN'T any Al Qaeda in Iraq until the Bush-led war of choice allowed the near-anarchy they created there to be the perfect breeding ground to CREATE what hadn't existed previously. Find me any post on this board - or any news report from the last few years - that says there IS no Al Qaeda in Iraq.

I also found it vastly amusing that your post's title DOESN'T say that US forces killed the #2 leader of AQI....instead, it just says "#2 leader of Al Qaeda." That would be Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the man who is apparently so comfortable that he's been answering a sort of Jihadist Dear Abby (Ask Ayman, LOL) column for people to WRITE IN and ask questions of senior Al Qaeda leadership. "AQI" would have taken less real estate than even "Al Qaeda".....but somehow, your post just says "Al Qaeda's" #2 guy had been killed.

Pretty funny.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-22-2004
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 9:20am

First, title of post is title of article.


Obama has said numerous times that there was no reason to go to Iraq because the people responsible (aka al-qaida)

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 9:21am
why of course overthrowing Saddam and his execution was a bad thing ...........

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iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 9:23am
At the cost of over 5000 lives, 50,000 maimed and billions of dollars, yes.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 9:28am

1. I'm glad they got him

2. People are saying that there was no Al Quaeda in Iraq BEFORE the invasion but there is now (the invasion and ensuing anarchy and chaos opened the door to them getting a foothold).

The surge helped to quell that for a while. There are signs of Al Quaeda still possibly being a factor.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3522088.ece

Al-Qaeda's deadly return raises fears for success of Baghdad troop surge

{PHOTO}
A Marine honor guard carries the coffin containing the remains of 2nd Lt. John T. Wroblewski

Funerals such as this one at the Arlington National Cemetery have been less frequent recently, but the blast today could signal a new upsurge in attacks

Deborah Haynes in Baghdad

Five American soldiers were killed and three wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the middle of a foot patrol in Baghdad yesterday in the deadliest strike against the US military in the city since last June.

The explosion, along with a rare car bombing outside a hotel in the Kurdish north of Iraq and a suicide blast against a key tribal figure west of Baghdad, came as fears rose of a resurgence in attacks by al-Qaeda after months of relative tranquillity.

The attacks underscored the fragility of a 60 per cent drop in violence across the country at a time when US commanders are studying plans to reduce force levels further after July when more than 20,000 troops will have redeployed.

The suicide bomber walked up to the Americans as they patrolled the upmarket Mansour neighbourhood of west Baghdad yesterday afternoon, detonating his charge outside a clothes shop. An interpreter was injured in the blast along with another nine Iraqis, including a policeman.

Colonel Allen Batschelet, chief of staff of US forces in Baghdad, said: “We remain resolute in our resolve to protect the people of Iraq and kill or capture those who would bring them harm.” Four of the American soldiers were killed outright, while the fifth died later from his injuries.

At least 3,979 American troops have been killed in Iraq since the invasion five years ago. The worst previous single attack on US forces in Baghdad was last June, when a roadside bomb killed five troops.

The overall casualty rate has slowed significantly in recent months, however, in line with the decline in violence, which has been attributed to a surge of 30,000 extra American soldiers and a ceasefire by the powerful Shia al-Mahdi Army.

A decision by Sunni Arab tribes to turn against al-Qaeda and side with US forces is another pivotal factor. Forming civilian security groups, these men work in their own neighbourhoods under the payroll of the US military, but have become a favourite target for extremists wanting to undermine the partnership.

In the latest attack, a female suicide bomber killed a prominent tribal chief who headed such a security unit in the restive province of Diyala. Sheikh Thaeir Ghadhban al-Karkhi’s five-year-old niece, a cousin and a security guard also died.

Al-Qaeda has increasingly used women wearing suicide vests to carry out attacks, in what US officials believe is a sign of desperation.

Violence even shook Iraq’s Kurdish north when a suicide bomber blew up a car packed with explosives outside the luxury Sulaimaniyah Palace Hotel in the normally peaceful city of Sulaimaniyah. Three people were killed and up to 30 were wounded.

American and British commanders have said that they do not believe the recent spate of bombings, such as a twin attack in central Baghdad on Thursday that left 68 people dead, is the start of a wider trend, noting that violence remains down overall.

Referring to Thursday’s double bombings in Karrada, Lieutenant-General Bill Rollo, Britain’s most senior officer in Iraq, said he did not think that the surge policy was at risk.

“I would think so if this was happening on a daily basis but it is not. It stands out I think now more by exception than as the rule,” said the British commander who is based in Baghdad as one of General David Petraeus’s two deputies.

“We and the Iraqis are going to go on trying to drive down the number and level of these attacks as much as we can,” he told The Times in an interview at the weekend.

In a sign of challenges ahead, an American commander warned yesterday that al-Qaeda may be plotting one of its trademark spectacular attacks in Anbar province, a former insurgency stronghold west of Baghdad.

“We have some indicators that they may be planning on executing kind of a large media-type event,” said Major General John Kelly, commander of the I Marine Expeditionary Force in western Iraq. “The good news is we don’t believe they are at liberty to build some of these large bomb-type devices inside the province. They have to kind of import them in.” He added that this raised the chances of any potential attack being foiled by one of the many official Iraqi checkpoints.

General Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the American Ambassador, are due to present a new report on the country to Washington early next month. Commanders have indicated that it would be best to decide on further cuts after the phased pullout is completed in July.

At present 2,000 US soldiers are being withdrawn from Baghdad under an existing plan to pull out five brigades from Iraq by July 31. A second brigade in the capital is also due to be withdrawn.

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2008
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 9:30am

Nope, he said there was no reason to go into Iraq because the people responsible for 9/11 *were* not there.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-04-2003
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 9:34am
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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-14-2008
Wed, 10-15-2008 - 9:49am
No. Obama does NOT say - and HAS not said - "there was no reason to go to Iraq because the people responsible (aka al-qaida) for 9-11 are not there." What he HAS said is that they WERE not there at the time we DID go in. They most certainly are there now, as a result of the fallout FROM our having gone in. No one - least of all Obama - denies that. Get it straight.

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