Free Iraq

"US forces sent out military vehicles equipped with loudspeakers to roam the streets of all the cities of al-Anbar Province – ar-Ramadi, al-Khalidiyah, al-Habbaniyah, Hit, al-Hadithah, al-Qa’im, ar-Rutbah, Hasibah, Wujbah – to issue an appeal to local people “not to miss the opportunity” to turn in weapons and receive monetary rewards from the occupation troops. The rewards, large by local standards, ranged from a minimum of US $1,000 up to as much as US$30,000.
People who listened to the American announcement told Mafkarat al-Islam that the Americans gave the people a grace period of three days, starting Thursday, during which they could turn in their weapons to puppet police stations and municipal puppet government offices and receive a reward.
The American announcement warned of harsh penalties for anyone refusing to respond to the call. The Americans demanded that residents turn in Grad, Katyusha, and Tariq rocket launchers – all varieties of surface-to-surface rockets that the Resistance uses in its attacks on American occupation bases. The Americans also demanded that Strela, SAM-7 and SAM-9 anti anti-aircraft rockets be tunred in, as well as shoulder-fired pipe rockets such as RPG7s and C5Ks, as well as heavy 120mm mortars, and medium-weight 82mm and 62mm mortars. Bombs, land mines, defensive and offensive hand grenades, light, medium, and heavy machine guns, including RBKs, BKCs, and Kalashnikov assault rifles were also called in.
The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam in ar-Ramadi reported that the Americans promised to hand out money and guaranteed secure lives and not to carry out night raids and to lift the curfew in the city if the people handed in their weapons.
The Iraqi Resistance responded to the Americans’ call by firing an RPG7 rocket propelled grenade at one of the Humvees that was broadcasting the appeal. The Resistance attack set the Humvee ablaze and destroyed it, killing four US troops aboard along with their Egyptian-American translator who was doing the actual broadcasting."
Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Thursday, 28 April 2005

Weapons of M .. ass Destruction (of the American weapons)

"Two US attempts were made to destroy this symbol of defiance last year. The first, in April, fizzled out after Iraqi politicians, including many who supported the invasion of their country, condemned the use of air strikes to terrorise an entire city. The Americans called off the attack, but not before hundreds of families had fled and more than 600 people had been killed.
Six months later the Americans tried again. This time Washington's allies had been talked to in advance. Consistent US propaganda about the presence in Falluja of a top al-Qaida figure, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was used to create a climate of acquiescence in the US-appointed Iraqi government. Shia leaders were told that bringing Falluja under control was the only way to prevent a Sunni-inspired civil war.
Blair was invited to share responsibility by sending British troops to block escape routes from Falluja and prevent supplies entering once the siege began.
Warnings of the onslaught prompted the vast majority of Falluja's 300,000 people to flee. The city was then declared a free-fire zone on the grounds that the only people left behind must be "terrorists".
Three weeks after the attack was launched last November, the Americans claimed victory. They say they killed about 1,300 people; one week into the siege, a BBC reporter put the unofficial death toll at 2,000. But details of what happened and who the dead were remain obscure. Were many unarmed civilians, as Baghdad-based human rights groups report? Even if they were trying to defend their homes by fighting the Americans, does that make them "terrorists"?"
This is our Guernica April 27, 2005

DAHR JAMAIL: Fallujah, which was the symbol of the resistance in Iraq to the U.S. occupation and throughout the Middle East at that point is now 70% estimated to be bombed to the ground, no water, no electricity. People who want to go back into that city have to get retina scans, all ten fingers fingerprinted, then they're issued an ID card. People inside the city are referring to it as a big jail. It is a horrendous situation, and we still have hundreds of thousands of refugees as a result. And the goal of the mission of sieging Fallujah as announced by the U.S. military was to capture the phantom Zarqawi and to bring security and stability for the elections, and what's left is a situation where Fallujah is in shambles, and the resistance has spread throughout the country.
AMY GOODMAN: Who is doing the retina scans, the fingerprinting?
DAHR JAMAIL: The U.S. military is doing all of this.
AMY GOODMAN: And how many people are kept out of Fallujah now? How many people actually live there? How many were there to begin with?
DAHR JAMAIL: The latest estimate is of a city of 350,000 people, that 50,000 now have returned back inside the city.
AMY GOODMAN: And what's happened? Where have the others gone?
DAHR JAMAIL: They are still in refugee camps. There are refugee camps all around the outskirts of Fallujah, throughout many areas of Baghdad, even parts of Iraq south of the capital city. They are living in, of course, horrible conditions. There's running water at some of these refugee camps, none at others. No electricity. They are depending primarily on other Iraqis for aid, which is a very difficult situation, because now we have an estimated 65% unemployment in Iraq. Basic infrastructure remains in shambles. ......
Iraq Through the Eyes of Unemebedded, Independent Journalist Dahr Jamail April 28, 2005

... Dahr Jamail didn’t like the news, so he went out and reported it himself.
A citizen journalist in Iraq April 21, 2005

Fallujah's Liberation

… ''One of the insurgency's strengths is its capacity to regenerate," said retired Army General John Keane, who returned recently from a fact-finding mission in Iraq. ''We have killed thousands of them and detained even more, but they are still able to regenerate. They are still coming at us."
… ''Right now, everybody's worried about it, so we're watching to see if that trend continues," a senior coalition military official told reporters Friday in Baghdad.
… ''The Iraqi government, as well as the commanders, are working very hard to make sure that they can truly understand [if] there something more here that we need" to learn about the nature of the insurgency, (emphasis added) he told reporters.
US military worried over change in Iraq attacks April 24, 2005

'... Iraqi army and police units are deserting their posts after the recent escalation in insurgent attacks, according to reports from around the country yesterday.
The failure of the victors of January's election to form a government has resulted in the defence and interior ministries being placed in limbo, and security experts cite this as partly responsible for the subsequent fall in army and police morale.
... Ministerial initiatives against insurgents have all but ceased, many senior officials are due for replacement and recruitment has been hampered by confusion over future selection policies.'
Iraqi forces desert posts as insurgent attacks are stepped up April 25, 2005

'... The U.S. military has established an intelligence team to find bombmakers and their support cells in Iraq.
... U.S. officials said the intelligence team began operations in late 2004 as part of an effort to use the Iraqi military to identify and track producers of so-called improvised explosive devices. IEDs comprised nearly 22 percent of all attacks against coalition forces in 2004 and the leading cause of casualties.
... U.S. Central Command chief Gen. John Abizaid said "We are attempting to deny the enemy access to bomb-making materials, are focusing on technologies that provide persistent surveillance along our likely routes of travel, that help neutralize undiscovered IEDs and detect them outside their intended blast zone."
U.S. Establishes IED Intel Team in Iraq April 25, 2004

Vietnam lessons notwithstanding, an Iraqi proverb states: "The chicken pecks in the dung looking for watermelon seeds".

Cockeyed US Intelligence


PS: See how much fun it is spreading 'Liberty and Freedom' to a row of apparently residential homes (video).
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"The Army has cleared four top officers -- including the three-star general who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq -- of allegations of wrongdoing in connection with prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, officials said Friday."
Army clears top brass in Abu Ghraib scandal April 22, 2005

"This report provides a new look at the evidence made public to date about the role played by senior leaders most responsible for setting U.S. interrogation policies, including Secretary Rumsfeld, CIA Director Tenet, Gen. Sanchez, and Gen. Miller. Human Rights Watch expresses no opinion about the ultimate guilt or innocence of these or other officials, particularly because so much evidence has been withheld and so many questions remain unanswered. We also do not purport to offer a comprehensive account of the possible culpability of these men, let alone a legal brief. More evidence is needed for that. What we do conclude, a conclusion that we believe is compelled by the evidence, is that a criminal investigation is warranted with respect to each."
Impunity for D. Rumsfeld and other state terrorists Report by Human Rights Watch April 2005 ; and Human Rights Watch Calls for Accountability Into U.S. Abuse of Detainees April 25, 2005

"... documents the government did not want the general public to read"
Government Documents on Torture Freedom of Information Act American Civil Liberties Union April 25, 2005

"The images, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress, depict "acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel, and inhuman." After Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) viewed some of them in a classified briefing, he testified that his "stomach gave out." NBC News reported that they show "American soldiers beating one prisoner almost to death, apparently raping a female prisoner, acting inappropriately with a dead body, and taping Iraqi guards raping young boys." Everyone who saw the photographs and videos seemed to shudder openly when contemplating what the reaction would be when they eventually were made public.

But they never were. (added emphasis)

After the first batch of Abu Ghraib images shocked the world on April 28, 2004, becoming instantly iconic—a hooded prisoner standing atop a box with electrodes attached to his hands, Pfc. Lynndie England dragging a naked prisoner by a leash, England and Spc. Charles Graner giving a grinning thumbs-up behind a stack of human meat—no substantial second round ever came, either from Abu Ghraib or any of the other locations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay where abuses have been alleged. ABC News broadcast two new photos from the notorious Iraq prison on May 19, The Washington Post printed a half-dozen on May 20 and three more on June 10, and that was it.
"It refutes the glib claim that everything leaks sooner or later," says the Federation of American Scientists' Steven Aftergood, who makes his living finding and publishing little-known government information and fighting against state secrecy. "While there may be classified information in the papers almost every day, there's a lot more classified information that never makes it into the public domain."
The Pentagon's Secret Stash : Why we'll never see the second round of Abu Ghraib photos April 2005.

This is the 'other' report that is 'making it into the public domain'
Bombing of mess hall in Ghizlani Camp, (video) ,Mosul, Decemebr 21, 2004,
21 dead (plus bomber) . Accountability being served.

Am not sure where exactly is the below sign carried, or where it might be posted.

It states: 'Please, A Very Serious Warning - We are authorized to fire on any vehicle that approaches the convoy less than 50 meters'

If placed on a moving Humvee, then you must be able to read it from 50 meters afar, assuming that the gunner on a fast moving Humvee can himself measure accurately the distance of objects moving towards him at a distance of 50 meters, and not being at 55 meters, for yet another easily discarded statistic in the horrifically ignored "collateral damage" carnage.

Sovereignty is : There is a 50 meters distance between you
and death every time you leave your home in your own country.


Perhaps this sign is a response to this incident, captured on video, which occured in Al-Mashahda, near Hawijah on April 8, 2005. Note the white car interjecting itself in the middle of the American convoy. The U.S. Department of Defense reported the death of only one soldier in that area for that day , would you believe.

For those that have requested a source on Resistance video clips, please refer to the Oxford AntiWar site, from which the above video clip is loaded.

An Update:
Terrified US Soldiers Are Still Killing Civilians with Impunity, While the Dead Go Uncounted April 24, 2005

Also, the set of eight Rafidan video clips and documents on 'businessman' Stofell, are now complete. Kindly refer to The Demise of CIA Shadow Director in Iraq posted on April 2, 2005.
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First, have the “Salvador option” :

“In devising a strategy to defeat Iraq’s insurgents, the Pentagon may be gaining the upper hand but at the cost of pushing Iraq toward civil war. A report by the Wall Street Journal from Feb. 16 revealed that “pop-up militias” are proliferating in Iraq. Not only is the U.S. aware of these illegal militias, but the Pentagon is arming, training and funding them for use them in counter-insurgency operations.
Most disturbing, one militia in particular – the “special police commandos” – is being used throughout Iraq and has been singled out by a U.S. general as conducting death squad strikes known as the “Salvador option.”
Greg Jaffe, the Journal reporter, identified at least six such militias. Yet these militias owe their allegiance not to the Iraqi people or state, but to their self-appointed leaders and associated politicians such as interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Even the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, admitted to Congress on March 1 that such militias are “destabilizing.”
Of these militias, at least three are linked to Allawi. Jaffe writes, “First came the Muthana Brigade, a unit formed by the order of … Allawi.” The second is the Defenders of Khadamiya, referring to a Shiite shrine on the outskirts of Baghdad, which appears to be “closely aligned with prominent Shiite cleric Hussein al Sadr,” who ran on Allawi’s ticket in the January elections.
"Let A Thousand Militias Bloom" April 21, 2005

“… The U.S. is saying, like, well, these are a bunch of Ba'athist dead-enders in the insurgency, but at the same time they're using the ex-Ba'athists themselves, who they said they were freeing Iraq from, to hunt down insurgents. But they are also just rounding people up willy-nilly, and there appears, like I said, to be extensive use of torture, much of it coming from this TV show that is now appearing on Iraq called, Terror: The Grip of Justice. There have been many accounts of this in the media, where a number of times a week on this television station set up by the Pentagon, Al-Iraqiya, they parade insurgents before the TV. And these reports are all noting that the suspects have swollen faces, bruised, that they're very cowed. And they're also admitting to the most absurd charges, that they are participating in gay orgies, that they get drunk inside mosques, that they're pedophiles engaging in rape, that they practice beheadings by cutting off the head of sheep. And the interesting thing is, one commentator noted, it's the exact same tactic Saddam Hussein used under his government of airing televised confessions.
And there’s one Ba'athist in particular who is at very much the center of this. It's a General Adnan Thavit, who was involved in the 1996 coup against Saddam Hussein that the former interim prime minister who just resigned, Iyad Allawi, headed up. And this character Thavit keeps popping up all over the place. He is the head of the special police commandos, which are said to number ten to eleven thousand, which would actually make them the second largest security force in Iraq, larger than the British. He was also the source for this raid a few weeks ago on this insurgent camp on Lake Tharthar, that turned out to be bogus pretty much. A reporter went there and found that there were all these insurgents still there, even though Thavit was saying something like 85 insurgents were killed. He is also now involved in this dispute over what's going on in this town south of Baghdad, claiming there wasn't any kidnapping and now there's reports of these bodies being dragged out of the river. And the Interior Ministry a couple of days ago even said he was assassinated, and then retracted the report the same day. He is a very shady character, and the U.S. general staff under Petraeus notes that he's very powerful, and that if he is removed, he could take his militias with him, this huge force. And right now, there's a power struggle going on. Donald Rumsfeld flew into Baghdad last week and warned the new government not to purge these Ba'athists. This largely escaped the notice of many in the media. And Talabani, who is the new president, has said that, no, we are going to purge them, and we want to use our militias.”
U.S. Funding Iraqi Militias Led by Baathists As Part of Counter-Insurgency Operation April 21, 2005

The preparations for these ‘militias’ have been long ongoing:

“The Iraqi authorities, with the help of American intelligence agencies, are creating an intelligence service here that will focus on rooting out guerrilla fighters, especially those from outside the country, Iraqi and American officials said Friday. The service will employ some former agents of Saddam Hussein's security apparatus and will probably receive financing from the American government, the officials said.
Many of the agents will work in the border towns of Iraq to identify foreign fighters who have slipped into the country and will monitor their activities, said Ibrahim al-Janabi, a senior member of the Iraqi Governing Council's security committee. The service will employ 500 to 2,000 people, he said, and is expected to be formed well before the Bush administration transfers sovereignty to an Iraqi government on June 30.
The Central Intelligence Agency is taking the lead in helping put together the new service, American officials said. The C.I.A. has close ties to the Iraqi National Accord, an opposition group founded by former Baath Party members who worked from London and Jordan to try to overthrow Mr. Hussein's government.
The head of the group, Iyad Alawi, heads the Governing Council's security committee and met in December with the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet, at C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va., to discuss the new intelligence service, officials said. Mr. Janabi, also a senior official in the group, is a leading candidate to head the new service.”
New Iraq Agency to Hunt Rebels January 31, 2004

Second, have some foreign Mercenaries (minus eight - six Blackwater mercenaries and their two Fiji bodygurads - and a Bulgarian hellicopter**):

According to Ahmad Al-Chalabi:
".. you know, each one of those 22,000 [mercenaries] makes $1,000 a day. This is $22 million a day, or $7 billion a year (By the way, their wages are being paid for with Iraqi money, my comment). Why is that necessary? They are not answerable to anyone and move around bearing weapons in a provocative manner.’
Q: Do you use any of them?
Not one. All my bodyguards are Iraqis."
Man of many colours April 20, 2005

Thirdly, for deserts have some local ‘security’ business:

For whom the 'dollar' tolls: Iraqi Disneyland for the American tourist and Iraqi mercenaries for the American army March 4, 2005

Bloody indigestion, eh?


** PS: A video clip (which is still availbale) has already surfaced of the Bulgarian hellicopter downing on April 21, 2005.
WARNING
Gruesome images,
as gruesome as that of the execution of the wounded old man leaning against a wall in the Fallujah mosque last November 2004.
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I keep wondering what makes 'Intelligence' so unintelligent, notwithstanding the recent revelations of their 'failure', or rather long 'shortcomings', concerning Iraq's posession of WMDs.
When Iraq embarked on a ten-years nuclear weapon program in 1981, they had little inkling on the voluminous scope of this program when the 1991 Gulf war commenced, as explained in my first article (November 21, 2002).

Yet, after the devastation of that war and the spread of IAEA inspectors and CIA agents all over Iraq, they claimed that Iraq was rejuvenating a decapitated nuclear weapon program. They were even (encouraged) to hoist that 'evidence' in 2002 as the linch pin for the American-English invasion and occupation of Iraq, when in fact that program had ceased to exist since the first night of bombardment in 1991.

And now,

"Strategists who keep close tabs on the war in Iraq are scratching their heads over a sudden shift to large-scale attacks on American bases by the insurgents who heretofore have primarily bedeviled U.S. forces with their roadside bombs and hit-and-run attacks."
Iraq insurgents switch strategy, go for major attacks April 20, 2005

Do they read any Blogs (referring to my March 12, 2005 article)? Notwithstanding the undigested Vietnam experience, believe it or not.

After, if you would, view the video of the attack on Camp Gannon (April 11, 2005)
near Al-Qaim, which was the second of these 'well planned and coordinated mass attacks on U.S. facilities', and wondering whether really:

'Only three Marines were lightly wounded' while 'The insurgents .. were thrown back after losing an estimated 19 killed and 15 wounded as fighter-bombers and helicopter gunships summoned by the Marines raked their positions',

then you might well ask when and where, indeed, will be the third attack, and the fourth, and the .....

Somehow 'Intelligence' and their Think-Tanks are becoming too septic for me.

By the way, there are many more damning videos, and not from 'CNN and FOX' , if anybody is interested in seeing where her/his tax money is being blown up.

Video grabs showing the attack near Al-Qiam

The Iraqi women conference will end on Wednesday [on the Dead Sea resort, Jordan], perhaps the American newspapers will write about it. They will say it was great, superb, the Iraqi women loved it, it was very useful to them, and they thanked its organizers, the American government. Ha,Ha,Ha… When you read about it, remember me
http://afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com/ Sunday, April 17, 2005

Further to the earlier news (translated yesterday from Arabic from Mufakirat Al-Islam) concerning the control of Al-Qaim by the Iraqi Resistance, the following are news developments of the raging battle as reported by Mufakirat Al-Islam's correspondents and an Al-Hurra Arabic TV channel correspondent who is embedded with the American army:

- The Iraqi Ministry of Health has warned the American army against the repeated use of chemical, nerve and mustard munitions that was used in the November 2004 attack against Fallujah, whose traces are still evident there (this news item is belatedly denied by the US government but well rebutted) . It asked that International agencies be permitted to transport food, water and medicine to the civilian population in Al-Qaim and surrounding villages.

- By early afternoon on Tuesday April 12, 2005 , the Resistance has spread its control over all sectors of Al-Qaim after the morning retreat of the American forces and their 'Iraqi army' from the city. They have regrouped to the north of the city and are supported by more than 300 military vehicles while many drone planes are flying over the city. The hospital at Al-Qaim has appealed to the civilians to donate cloth, cotton, cleansers, sewing needles and portable beds. The women have been asked to report to the mosques to prepare food for the fighters. Electricity and water have been cut off by the Americans and they have stationed several snipers near the Euphrates river to prevent anybody from reaching its bank to obtain supplies of water.

- In an interview with an embedded correspondent of the American supported Al-Hurra Arabic TV channel, and after enquiring about the messages that are emanating from the mosques' loudspeakers, an American commander responded: "We will defeat them even if Mohammad and the God of Mohammad is with them". Three youths have surrendered themselves to the Mayor of Al-Qaim claiming that they have been paid thousands of dollars to spy on and have reported some Resistance fighters' names to the Americans. They had recanted after witnessing the martyrdom of 40-years old Nofa Garkan, the Resistance woman fighter from Ramadi, and seeing the blood running over her face.

- At 3pm, the Americans staged their attack on all four sides of Al-Qaim using more than 400 military vehicles, attack helicopters and mid-range rockets. An American Apache helicopter was downed. A pre-emptive attack was carried out by the Resistance on the Eastern American attack force. Four martyrs have been reported, a Saudi, a Jordanian and two Iraqis. The city is turned into a ball of flame and hot iron. The Al-Qaim hospital was bombed.

- By 7pm, the American forces again retreated to within 3-4 kilometers distance on all four fronts, to the east, west, north and south of Al-Qaim withdrawing their disabled military vehicles. The Resistance immediately started a rocket bombardment on the retreated American positions with Grad and Katyousha rockets. A statement by the Resistance threatened to kill four American prisoners of war that they had captured during the afternoon battle, one of them being a Major (Update: they have been found dead - April 15, 2005). Drone planes are flying all over the city.

It is now past midnight on Wednesday April 13, 2005 at Al-Qaim.

An Update:

This is a very belated and cryptic news item, posted April 14, 2005, of the fighting as reported by AlJazeera.net (their reporters have been banished from Iraq by PM Alawi more than six months ago):

"Al-Qaim fighting rages
Meanwhile, fighting in the western border town of al-Qaim continued for the sixth consecutive day with a US military statement reporting nine fighters killed on Tuesday.
"During sporadic fighting around Camp Gannon yesterday, nine insurgents were killed by marines," it said in a statement. "All nine insurgents were killed as they attacked the camp with various types of small arms weapons."
The fighting raged eight kilometres east of the border with Syria in the Al-Qaim-Husaybah region.
On Monday, three US marines and three Iraqis were wounded when car bombs were set off outside the camp.
Sources in the town reported heavy clashes again on Wednesday."

"It's important that the new government be attentive to the competence of the people in the ministries and that they avoid unnecessary turbulence," Rumsfeld told reporters on his plane before arriving on his ninth visit to Iraq since the invasion.
"We have an opportunity to continue to make progress politically, economically ... anything that would delay that or disrupt that as a result of turbulence, or lack of confidence or corruption in government, would be unfortunate (emphasis added)".
Rumsfeld Warns Iraq Against Purges, Corruption April 12, 2005

"U.S. oil services giant Halliburton Co. may have overcharged by at least $212 million to get fuel to Iraqi civilians under a no-bid deal with the U.S. military, said Pentagon audits released on Monday."
US Audit Probes $212 Mln in Halliburton Iraq Work April 11, 2005

Further to an earlier posting on April 3, 2005 More, surely, are to follow, this is the very sanitized news about Al-Qaim that has finally filtered out in the corporate media:

"Insurgents claiming links to al Qaeda tried to overrun a U.S. Marine base near the Syrian border Monday using gunmen, suicide car bombs and a firetruck loaded with explosives, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
The assault was the second time in less than two weeks that foreign insurgents have massed an organized, military-style offensive, U.S. officials said. Insurgents typically have staged smaller-scale bombings and attacks.
The raid Monday was on Camp Gannon, a U.S. base at Husaybah, a few yards from the Syrian border near the Euphrates River. U.S. Cobra attack helicopters fired on the insurgents to repel simultaneous attacks by suicide bombers and armed fighters, officials said. A second car bomb exploded 15 minutes after the first assault, "at the same entrance, while the soldiers were busy rescuing the wounded," Capt. Saad Abdul Fattah of the Iraqi army said.
The U.S. military said three Marines were wounded and at least three bombers were killed. Witnesses and a hospital spokesman reported 10 to 15 dead, including foreign and Iraqi insurgents.
Camp Gannon is an abandoned railway station that houses hundreds of Marines along a border long used by smugglers and other outlaws. Insurgents have operated openly in some towns in the area. (added emphasis)
The suicide bombers, driving a firetruck, a pickup truck and one other vehicle, "attempted to breach the perimeter of Camp Gannon," the U.S. military said in a statement.
... Marines came under small-arms fire at the same time, the military said. A 25-year-old student who witnessed the attack said at least 40 Arab and Iraqi fighters took part in the assault.
Cobra attack helicopters fired on a vehicle carrying an unknown number of gunmen, destroying it, the military said.
The attack came nine days after the group, led by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian, asserted responsibility for an unsuccessful attempt to breach the walls of the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in a concerted attack involving mortars, rockets, car bombs and ground fighters. U.S. officials said the two attacks were well-planned and mark an operational shift for foreign groups that have been known for individual suicide bombings and kidnappings.
An Iraqi insurgent commander with Zarqawi's group who claimed he helped lead the Abu Ghraib assault said in a recent interview that the movement had been scouting Anbar province, the area of Monday's assault, in search of a U.S. base to attack with suicide bombers and heavy weapons.
The commander, who goes by the name Abu Salim, did not cite other possible targets for insurgent strikes. Another commander, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Jalal, a member of the Sunni Muslim-led insurgent group Mohammed's Army, said in a separate interview that Zarqawi's group intended more assaults on U.S. installations in an effort to strike fear among the 138,000 U.S. troops here. "
Insurgents Attack US Base In Iraq April 12, 2005

The following is the 'other side' of the same news that has been daily reported since last Thursday, in Arabic, by Mufakirat Al-Islam's four reporters on the ground in Al-Qaim (their news items are often translated to English the same or next day in www.jihadunspun.com and http://uruknet.info/ . Yesterday's massacre at Al-Rummana has also just been reported by Al-Jazeera.net , which is barred from having reporters in Iraq).

Below are my translated highlights, as reported by Mufakirat Al-Islam since last Thursday:

- Thursday and Friday April 7, 8 2005: Resistance fighters took over Al-Qaim and forced 'Iraqi army' units and police to leave the city.

- Sunday April 10: Rocket attack on American military base near Al-Qaim. With an Egyptian accent, an American announcer challenged the fighters: "If you are brave men, then come out and fight us. If you want paradise, come out from your hiding and fight us face to face and man to man and don't be like women by striking us and withdrawing like cowards". The challenge was not heeded.

- Monday April 11: Fierce fighting erupted since 7am. More than 70 'Iraqi policemen' deserted their positions. An influx of 150-200 Resistance fighters from the neighboring cities of Hit, Haditha and Fallujah join the battle, including 16 women Resistance fighters.

- Monday April 11: Americans destroy water treatment plants, cold-storage food warehouses, cut off electricity from Al-Qaim and besieged it preventing food from reaching the city. They also threatened to bomb its hospital if wounded Resistance fighters are admitted to it.

- Monday April 11: An attack, by a Tariq rocket, on the A22 American military base near Al-Qaim resulted in the death of 5 American soldiers, according to Lietenant Loai Khalid from the 'Iraqi Army'. This led to an American counter attack by rockets and bombs on the city centre.

- Monday April 11: 100 American military vehicles advanced on Al-Qaim from Ain-Assad American military base in Hit. American leaflets warned women and children from aiding or hiding Resistance fighters. "Our bullets do not discriminate between women and children in the war which will crush the insutgents. Therefore, stay in your homes and do not give them aid".

- Tuesday April 12: All involved Resistance groups (Jaish Ansar Al-Sinna, Mohammed's First Army, Qaida Jihad in Raqfidain, Legions of the twenties Revolution, Legions of Al-Nasir Salah Al-Din, Abu Bakir Salafi Legions, Rahman Salafi Legions, and the Islamic Anger Legions) issued a joint statement giving the Americans 12 hours to withdraw from the perimeter of Al-Qaim to allow food and water to flow in to the civilians. Otherwise, a spike in attacks throughout Iraq will follow. In a seperate statement, an unknown group, calling itself Legions for Unifying Iraq has threatend to attack many targets, including churches, in response for prominently manifesting the Cross on American tanks.

-Tuesday April 12: Nofa Garkan, a 40-years old woman Resistance fighter from Ramadi is martyred. Nofa is the 137th Iraqi woman Resistance fighter to die in battle.

- Tuesday April 12: "Twenty Iraqis have been killed and 22 injured after US helicopters and heavy artillery bombed houses in al-Rummana village, north of al-Qaim city, Aljazeera reported. Seven children, six women and three old men were among the dead, witnesses said, while the injured included 13 children, seven women and two old men. (emphasis added)
The witnesses added that the shelling started after US forces, who landed near al-Qaim on Monday night, came under repeated attack. Early reports indicated one house was completely destroyed and three others partially damaged in the bombing, according to Aljazeera.
On Monday, five car bombs hit US military targets in the western Iraqi city of al-Qaim near the border with Syria, wounding at least two US soldiers.
Iraqi journalist Ahmad Khalid told Aljazeera two of Monday's attacks in al-Qaim were simultaneous. Three bombs hit a building used as US military headquarters while a fourth targeted a US troop convoy.
Clashes erupted later between fighters and US soldiers in the city, damaging a number of houses, the journalist said. However, no civilians were injured in those clashes as they had fled.
A spokesperson for the US Marines said on Monday three of their soldiers were wounded in the attack, which occurred outside Camp Gannon, a base in al-Qaim, about 300km west of Baghdad in Anbar province."
Many Iraqis killed in US air attack April 12, 2005

Pictures of 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' that you do not see on CNN, FOX and other corporate media

Further to the earlier April 2, 2005 posting on the CIA's Shadow Director in Iraq (which has been now updated to eight Rafidan video clips (last one dated April 26, 2005), in Arabic, and their associated documents in English), the following are for those still faint of heart (thanks to a Comment by Evelyn, and to Lindy-JJ) :

"The following timeline describes just a few of the hundreds of atrocities and crimes committed by the CIA.
CIA operations follow the same recurring script. (emphasis added)
First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment.
So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition. First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: "We'll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us." The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy). It uses every trick in the book: propaganda, stuffed ballot boxes, purchased elections, extortion, blackmail, sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration and disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture, intimidation, economic sabotage, death squads and even assassination. These efforts culminate in a military coup, which installs a right-wing dictator.
The CIA trains the dictator’s security apparatus to crack down on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture and murder. The victims are said to be "communists," but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor union leaders, political opponents and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human rights abuses follow.
This scenario has been repeated so many times that the CIA actually teaches it in a special school, the notorious "School of the Americas." (It opened in Panama but later moved to Fort Benning, Georgia.) Critics have nicknamed it the "School of the Dictators" and "School of the Assassins." Here, the CIA trains Latin American military officers how to conduct coups, including the use of interrogation, torture and murder.
The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, 6 million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this an "American Holocaust."
1929 ...
...........
Late 40s
Operation MOCKINGBIRD — The CIA begins recruiting American news organizations and journalists to become spies and disseminators of propaganda (emphasis added). The effort is headed by Frank Wisner, Allan Dulles, Richard Helms and Philip Graham. Graham is publisher of The Washington Post, which becomes a major CIA player. Eventually, the CIA’s media assets will include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service and more. By the CIA’s own admission, at least 25 organizations and 400 journalists will become CIA assets.
...........
... 1993
A Timeline of CIA Atrocities, By Steve Kangas who met death, February 8, 1999.

And its activities are being updated daily, especially now that J. Negroponte is to be added to the mix, after his short sojourn to Iraq where he participated in the below mentioned reserve plan, his typical fingerprint as in the 80's in Honduras:

"In the face of this risk of a clerical-backed alliance of Shia Islamists in collaboration with Iran, the US has not been idle. Time magazine (27 September 2004) reported before the elections on a covert CIA operation to aid candidates favoured by Washington. It reported US officials as saying that the idea was to help such candidates, but "not necessarily" to go so far as to rig the elections. In the event, the United Iraqi Alliance of mainly Shia Islamist parties won only 48 per cent of the total vote, well below their share of the population. Interestingly, Reuters (13 February) reported a few hours before the election results were officially announced that "the United Iraqi Alliance said today it had been told by Iraq's Electoral Commission that it had won around 60 per cent of the vote in the country's election". This was later confirmed by the former US chief Unscom weapons inspector in Iraq, Scott Ritter, who announced to a packed meeting in Washington state on 19 February that the United Iraqi Alliance actually gained 56 per cent of the vote, and that "an official involved in the manipulation was the source".
The significance of this voting manoeuvre is revealed in a Washington Post report (14 February): "A senior State Department official said yesterday that the 48 per cent vote won by the Shia slate deprives it of an outright majority. 'If it had been higher, the slate would be seen with a lot more trepidation'."
A second US device to thwart a Shia ascendancy was adopted by the former US proconsul in Iraq, Paul Bremer, a year ago. His Transitional Administrative Law in effect gave the Kurds a veto over the new constitution. However, both Shias and Sunnis are now committed to getting the new parliament to cancel it. The TAL itself states that it can only be amended by a three-quarters vote in parliament, which the Kurds, with more than a quarter of the seats, would be expected to block. The Shia Alliance nevertheless argues that the new parliament has greater authority than the law because the latter was passed under pressure of military conquest.
Yet the US has a third ploy ready. There is already evidence of a strong movement in southern Iraq to establish autonomous Shia provinces as a precursor to introducing clerical rule in the whole country.
To forestall a clerical-driven religious regime, Washington has a plan in reserve, according to Asia Times (15 February), to arm small militias backed by US troops. The report states that "in a highly clandestine operation, the US has procured Pakistan-manufactured weapons, and consignments have been loaded in bulk on to US military cargo aircraft at Chaklala airbase in the past few weeks". The same report says that these US supported militias would comprise former members of the Baath party, which has already split into three factions, and would receive assistance from the interim prime minister Iyad Allawi's Iraqi National Accord."

America is usurping the democratic will in Iraq April 5, 2005

And is perhaps nourishing budding Al-Qaida clones.

Oh, no ... Not U.S.

"I don't really care for the desert, the flies, the dust storms, the trash on the side of the road with kids playing in it," he said as he sat on his bunk this week in the dank, 25-foot-wide room he shares with 13 other Marines. "I'm ready to get out. I'll have a taste of the freedom I've been fighting for." (humorless emphasis added)
Battle-Weary Marine Unit Awaits 'Taste Of Freedom' April 10, 2005

…. Some of the exchanges [at Guantanamo Bay tribunal] grew heated.
"You are not the master of the Earth, Sir,'' Saifullah Paracha, a Pakistani businessman, told a tribunal president.
Feroz Ali Abbasi was ejected from his September hearing because he repeatedly challenged the legality of his detention.
"I have the right to speak,'' Abbasi said.
"No you don't,'' the tribunal president replied.
"I don't care about international law,'' the tribunal president told Abbasi just before he was taken from the room.
"I don't want to hear the words `international law' again. We are not concerned with international law.'' (humorless emphasis added)
Documents give detainees a voice April 9, 2005

"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is criticizing Venezuela's reported efforts to purchase 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles from Russia, suggesting that Venezuela's possession of so many weapons would threaten the hemisphere." (humorless emphasis added)
Rumsfeld criticizes Venezuelan arms bid March 24, 2005

Grab the children and run!

"[Zalmay] Khalilzad’s story – from aid to Paul Wolfowitz in the 1980s, to neocon theorist in the 1990s, to top official under George W. Bush – is the story of the rise of a group of imperialist strategists, with a sordid history drenched in blood, determined to solidify, deepen and extend U.S. global dominance by any means necessary.
Khalilzad’s nomination (he must now be confirmed by the Senate) highlights both the centrality of Iraq to that agenda, and the U.S. imperialists determination to press forward with their global plans, despite enormous difficulties in Iraq and the potential for even greater upheaval in the future. For them, their system’s place in the world and its long-term survival are at stake.
Khalilzad is considered a protégée of Wolfowitz and Vice President Dick Cheney. He was born in Afghanistan, emigrated to the U.S., educated at the University of Chicago (a hotbed of Straussian theory). In 1984 he began working in the State Department during the Reagan administration under now Deputy Defense Secretary and notorious war hawk Wolfowitz. During this period, he helped organize the arming of Afghan fighters – including Osama bin Laden – who were waging war against the Soviet Union, then the U.S.’s main imperialist rival, which had invaded Afghanistan in 1979.
In 1995, Khalilzad spelled all this out in his brief for U.S. global hegemony – From Containment to Global Leadership. His book stressed that the U.S. faced both opportunities – and new dangers – following the Soviet collapse and that it had to act decisively to solidify and extend its empire – all over the world."
What Khalilzad's Nomination Reveals About U.S. Plans For Iraq -- And The World April 07, 2005

"Abdel Mahdi is an economist and a politician who currently serves as the finance minister of Iraq and also served on the Iraqi Governing Council. He was the leader of the United Iraqi Alliance ticket, the Shiite Party pegged to be the prime minister of Iraq. Then through the negotiations that happened after January 30, he, as you said, has become one of the vice presidents and part of the Presidency Council. He can be considered the Bush administration's economic man on the ground in Iraq. After Paul Bremer, who was the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority of the US Government of occupied Iraq, left, Abdel Mahdi essentially took over to implement the economic transformations that Paul Bremer had set into place in his 100 Bremer orders which fundamentally restructured the Iraqi economy. Mahdi essentially implemented those ideas and moved them forward. He has taken two trips to DC. He took two trips prior to the January 30th elections, one in October and one in December. Both times he met, or at least one of the two visits, with both President Bush and Vice President Cheney. And he announced, in a press conference while in DC, negotiations on a new oil law for Iraq that he said would be very good for US Oil companies that would look at privatization of the oil. And he also talked about all of the economic reforms that he had put into place to fundamentally shift Iraq from a state controlled economy to an economy completely open to foreign investment, free trade, and the like. He wasn't elected president, and won't be prime minister, however remaining in a key leadership post makes it very likely at a minimum that he will continue to work, try to work to push all of those economic reforms. Just to also be clear, he is in the position to keep doing that for one simple reason which is that the Bremer orders, those economic changes, stay in effect unless they are specifically overturned by the new national assembly, meaning they did continue. They continue on unless they're specifically overturned. And Mahdi will be in a position to see those move forward. He is definitely somebody who is very much supported by the Bush administration, and has continually expressed his commitment to US corporations. (added emphasis) "
Washington's Trojan Horse in the New Iraqi Government: Vice President Abdel Mahdi April 07, 2005

Two years of

................ and Counting Down .......while


An Update:
By 11 a.m., the massive but orderly demonstration assembled in Firdos Square, where on April 9, 2003, several hundred Iraqis - with the help of U.S. forces - toppled Saddam’s statue.
“The American people need to know that they can’t suppress us anymore, even with all their strength and power,” said Mohammed Salih Khalaf, 54, a day laborer from Sadr City.
Raising fists and shouting in unison, protesters chanted, “No, No to America! No, No to Occupation!” Many waved Iraqi flags and carried pictures of al-Sadr and his revered father, Mohammed al-Sadr, who was assassinated during the Saddam regime.
One protester dragged a picture of Saddam through the gutter. A few Iraqi police officers observing the scene raised their own fists in unity.
Munaf Abbas, 25, a chemical engineer from the southern city of Amara, blamed the presence of U.S. troops for rising violence in Iraq.“America is the mother of terrorism,” he said. “All the explosions are happening because they are here.”
Iraqis protest American invasion April, 10, 2005

Mafkarat al-Islam journalist, Khalid ‘Abd al-Jabbar , killed by US fire in Samarra’, given top journalism awards posthumously by Iraqi Journalists Union.
Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Sunday, 10 April 2005

"U.S. forces subdued the city [Samarra] on the Tigris last October [2004], but some of the city's resistance fighters regrouped in Fallujah, the City of Mosques, which was of course destroyed by a ferocious attack in November. Samarra itself has been a site of ongoing military action, so the U.S. troops who now own it have naturally sought to employ its highest buildings as lookout posts. Appropriating everything they wished, they established a lookout atop the minaret, and posted snipers there. According to Reuters, "Crouched behind sandbags, U.S. snipers sometimes fired at militants from the minaret." Local people wrote letters of protest about this abuse of the holy place. (added emphasis)
According to al-Jazeera, U.S. forces left the post two weeks ago, but Iraqi police report that after their departure the top floor was blasted by insurgents. The Boston Globe reported that two men were observed entering the structure and that they placed a bomb that produced the explosion before fleeing the premises. Debris of crumbled brick and clay was blown down onto the ramps, and Agence France Press reported a jagged hole on the top level.
It's hard to understand why any insurgent faction would target the mosque. It is a Sunni mosque, but respected by the Shiites, and Shiites haven't been attacking Sunni mosques anyway. A colleague in Middle Eastern history suggests that insurgents might have wanted to prevent it from being used as a sniper position in future.
... What I was raised to consider "Judeo-Christian ethics" are conspicuously absent in occupied Mesopotamia. U.S. troops have tortured and sexually abused innocent civilians, and killed tens of thousands. From the bizarre killing of the Baghdad Zoo's prized Bengal tiger to the contamination of land, rivers and atmosphere, to the doubling of child malnutrition, the invasion piles up crime upon crime. It is as though it were seeking to so impress the subject population with arbitrary cruelty that it will be terrorized into submission (added emphasis). Indeed, Iraqis compare this occupation with the Mongol invasion led by Hulegu Khan in the 1250s, which destroyed Baghdad's canal network, sacked the library, and slaughtered 80,000 men, women and children. Hulegu (grandson of Genghis Khan) had demanded that the last Abbasid caliph, al-Mutasim, recognize Mongol sovereignty, rather like George W. Bush demanded Saddam grovel before U.S. imperial demands. Al-Mutasim refused, thinking the Muslim world would rally to his side should the Mongols invade. He miscalculated.
Today's barbaric occupiers display Mongol-like disrespect for their imperial prize. "Let's take over the minaret," they reason, and if that usage makes a precious monument a target, and it gets damaged, well, it's the Iraqis' just desserts. (added emphasis) The foot soldiers of the new Golden Horde are encouraged to believe that Iraqis must be subdued in order to protect the U.S. from more 9-11s. Better their buildings get blown up that ours, even those of theirs that have been there for hundreds or thousands of years. History doesn't matter. Like Bush told CBS's 60 Minutes last April: "History? We don't know. We'll all be dead." And what will the dead (or the "raptured" (added reference)) care about Iraq's National Library or the Ishtar Gate or the Malwiya Minaret?"
The Bombing of the Malwiya Minaret April 4, 2005

The 52-metre (170-foot) Malwiya tower in City of Samarra has been Damaged

… Where is the free American media and their kind hearted patrons when their G.I. Joes are pumping up Iraq with depleted uranium, napalm bombs, cluster munitions and poisonous gases even as these lines are being written? Is death less camera-friendly in Iraq or is it less worthy of the Americans' attention? Are Iraqis children of a lesser god? Go talk of Schiavo's right to live or die.

… When they were shedding tears on Schiavo like events, not very long back an Iraqi girl Fatima was being repeatedly raped by the beasts that guarded Abu Ghareeb prison. Here is an excerpt from her heart rending letter to Iraqi resistance fighters;

"…I say to you: our wombs have been filled with the children of fornication by those sons of apes and pigs who raped us. Or I could tell you that they have defaced our bodies, spit in our faces, and tore up the little copies of the Qur’an that hung around our necks? ….By God, we have not passed one night since we have been in prison without one of the apes and pigs jumping down upon us to rip our bodies apart with his overweening lust. Kill us along with them! Destroy us along with them! Don’t leave us here to let them get pleasure from raping us….Leave their tanks and aircraft outside. Come at us here in the prison of Abu Ghurayb."
The United Vegetative States of America by Anwaar Huusain, April 6, 2005

A truly fitting title for a poignant article. Did you ask: 'Why do they hate us?'.
===
"Please provide the date, location, and names of persons involved in the abuse and we will attempt to conduct a search"

Last year, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he had viewed the contents of three compact disks containing "blatantly sadistic, cruel, and inhuman" acts of torture and abuse committed by some U.S. personnel at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. After Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) viewed some of them in a classified briefing, he testified that his "stomach gave out." NBC News reported that they show "American soldiers beating one prisoner almost to death, apparently raping a female prisoner, acting inappropriately with a dead body, and taping Iraqi guards raping young boys." Everyone who saw the photographs and videos seemed to shudder openly when contemplating what the reaction would be when they eventually were made public.
But they never were. Almost none of those images have been released into the public domain, and they may never be if the government has its way.
The Pentagon's successful efforts to deflect Freedom of Information Act requests for disclosure of the images – with identifying features obscured if necessary. Most recently, the Army has said that it has no idea what images are being requested, and that requesters must supply more details. "Please provide the date, location, and names of persons involved in the abuse and we will attempt to conduct a search," wrote Phillip J. McGuire, Director of the Army Crimes Records Center on March 7, 2005.

…"We've seen virtually no criminal investigations or criminal prosecutions," says ACLU staff attorney Jameel Jaffer, who plans to challenge the nondisclosure in court. "The vast majority of those photographs and videotapes don't relate to ongoing criminal investigations; on the contrary they depict things that the government approved of at the time and maybe approves of now."
Legalities are one thing, but the real motivation for choking off access is obvious: Torture photos undermine support for the Iraq war. In the words of Donald Rumsfeld, “If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse.” (added emphasis)
"The Pentagon's Secret Stash: Why we'll never see the second round of Abu Ghraib photos," April 2005.

Erring