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(04/11/09 8:03pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>NAIROBI, Kenya — They've been described as "noble heroes" by sympathetic Somalis, denounced as criminals by critics. But the adjective most used to describe the men holding an American captain off the Horn of Africa is "pirate" — a word that conjures images of sword-wielding swashbucklers romanticized by Hollywood.The 21st century reality, though, is a far cry from that. There are no treasure-laden islands or Blackbeards in this part of the world, no wooden schooners flying skull and crossbones flags.Instead: a vigilante movement that years ago tried to defend Somali shores morphed into full-blown pirate scourge — after fishermen on defense stumbled upon an astoundingly lucrative bounty waiting to be had on their doorstep: around 25,000 ships, most unarmed, transiting the Gulf of Aden each year.Picture ragged Somali fishermen armed with rocket launchers, GPS systems and satellite phones. Picture tiny skiffs cruising the coast of a war-infested nation crawling with gunmen. Picture bandits with sunglasses in worn shirts firing machine-guns at cruise ships, scampering aboard captured trawlers with crude ladders.And most of all, picture ransoms, huge ransoms."I think when most people think of pirates, they think of Johnny Depp and the Pirates of the Caribbean," said security consultant Crispian Cuss of the London-based Olive Group. But these guys are "just fishermen paid to act as pirates by warlords and armed gangs who have taken over a lawless state."The plight of an American captain, seized from the U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama and held by Somali pirates since Wednesday on a drifting lifeboat out of fuel, is only one of the latest examples of a problem that has plagued the region for years.The American, Capt. Richard Phillips, Underhill, Vt., is believed to have been the first U.S. citizen taken by pirates since 1804, when U.S. Navy Commodore Stephen Decatur battled the infamous Barbary pirates off the northern coast of what is now Libya, dispatching U.S. Marines to the shores of Tripoli.The modern piracy scourge in the Horn of Africa arose from the ashes of Somalia's government, overthrown in 1991.Since then, Somalia has suffered nearly 20 years of anarchy, chaotically ruled by rival clans backed by pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns. Its nominal government controls barely a few blocks.With no coast guard to defend its shores, Somalis began complaining that vessels from Asia and Europe were dumping toxic waste in their waters and illegally scooping up red snapper, barracuda and tuna. The rampant illegal fishing began destroying the livelihoods of local fishermen.According to a memo prepared last month by the staff of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, Somali clans began resorting "to armed gangs in an attempt to stop the foreign vessels. Over time, these gangs have evolved into hijacking commercial vessels for ransom as an alternative source of income."Attacks in the Gulf of Aden and along Somalia's coast have risen dramatically, from 41 in 2007 to 111 in 2008, according to the International Maritime Bureau. Since January, pirates have staged at least 66 assaults and currently hold more than a dozen ships and more than 200 foreign crew members.According to the House memo, pirates operating off Somalia earned $30 million in ransom through the seizure of 42 vessels in 2008. Other estimates put the figure at $80 million.The memo cited one captured pirate as saying pirates only take 30 percent of ransoms — on average $1 million to $2 million per boat.Twenty percent goes to group bosses, 30 percent is spent on bribing local officials, and 20 percent goes for capital investment like guns, ammunition, fuel, food, cigarettes. (Cuss said pirates were becoming more sophisticated and in the last two months have, for the first time, begun launching nighttime attacks, possibly indicating pirates have obtained night-vision goggles).U.S. officials have found no direct ties between East African pirates and terror groups, but the illegal trade is believed backed by an international network of Somali expatriates who offer funds, equipment and information in exchange for a cut of ransoms.The House memo said Somali buccaneers operate in five well-organized groups, drawing members from large clans, which are extended family networks. Cuss said the industry is controlled by "warlords and criminal gangs who recruit local fishermen and take a lion's share of the profits."Andrew Mwangura of the Mombasa-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Program described the pirates as "desperate people taking desperate measures to earn a living."Today, they number around 1,500, up from around 100 five to seven years ago, Mwangura said."They're earning a lot of money and everyone wants to join," Mwangura said. "They're getting new recruits every day."On the ground in Somalia, some pirates are seen as "flamboyant middle aged men," said Mahad Shiekh Madar, a car salesman living in the northeastern port town of Bossaso on the tip of Africa's horn. "They always travel in beautiful four-wheel-drive luxury cars and look like people who are working for a big business company."Abdulahi Salad, a 43-year-old former pirate in central coastal village of Gaan, said pirates were "different from the ordinary gunmen in Somalia. They are not thin, and they have bright faces and are always happy."Indeed, they are often regaled for bringing wads of cash into impoverished communities.A local elder in Gaan, Haji Muqtar Ahmed, said "being a pirate is not shame ... it is believed to be a noble profession."Ahmed said people there used to make a living fishing, "but now the only livelihood they have is the income from the piracy."
(04/26/06 3:50am)
RAMADI, Iraq -- As U.S. and Iraqi troops marched through alleyways and families retreated indoors, Army Capt. Joe Claburn glanced at his watch and predicted exactly how long it would take for insurgents to attack.\n"Within 15 minutes the spotters usually come out and they'll identify your position," Claburn said at the start of a patrol in this troubled Iraqi city, explaining that guerrillas were probably maneuvering unseen in the surrounding villas.\n"Within 30 minutes the weapons get brought in," he said. "And usually about 45 minutes after being on the ground, you can pretty much guarantee that you're going to get shot at."\nWar is often said to be unpredictable. But in Ramadi, Iraq's most dangerous city for American forces, Sunni Arab insurgents are so active that U.S. troops are learning gunbattles often come right on schedule.\nClaburn, it turned out, was three minutes off.\n"Did I call it or what?" the 29-year-old asked with a grin as automatic weapons-fire snapped overhead. "Forty-two minutes on the ground. It's a science."\nLt. Col. Ronald Clark, commander of the 101st Airborne Division's 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, said his units average "five or six" firefights with insurgents per day in eastern Ramadi.\nAnd that's not counting roadside bombs, mortar attacks -- or the Marine-patrolled western part of town, much less the suburbs of the city, 70 miles west of Baghdad.\n"It's surreal," said Clark, 39, of Leesville, La., using a green laser pointer to tick off recent engagements on a large satellite map of Ramadi on the wall of his office.\n"Here we have an enemy that does not mind coming out and fighting with us," he said. "We always have the advantage when that happens. They take heavy losses, but the bottom line is, it doesn't change things."\nEstimates differ on how long it typically takes for insurgents to start shooting. Claburn's Charlie company figures 45 minutes is the norm. Delta company reckons they'll be fired at within 37 minutes, Clark said. Some Marines in western Ramadi say attacks can come in eight minutes.\nThat doesn't mean there's a gunbattle every time troops go out.\nOne Marine tasked to help train the Iraqi army, Lt. Ryan Brannon, said he's been on 30 to 40 patrols in central Ramadi in the last three months. Asked how many times there had been exchanges of fire, the 26-year-old native of Gulf Breeze, Fla., shrugged and said: "Oh, about half."\nGuard towers at the U.S. Army's Camp Corregidor base are shot at daily -- one was hit by rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire on Tuesday. Across the city, Army and Marine observation posts -- entire buildings taken over by U.S. forces -- are regularly attacked.
(03/10/05 4:08am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi officials said Wednesday that 41 bodies have been found at two sites, and they believe some of the corpses are Iraqi soldiers kidnapped and killed by insurgents. At least 30 American contractors, meanwhile, were wounded by a suicide bombing near a hotel.\nInterim Planning Minister Mahdi al-Hafidh escaped assassination after gunmen opened fire on his convoy in Baghdad. One of his guards was killed and two others were wounded, police said.\nA U.S. soldier was killed and another was injured Wednesday when a roadside bomb detonated as they were patrolling in the capital, the military said.\nAuthorities found 26 of the corpses late Tuesday in a field near Rumana, a village about 12 miles east of the western city of Qaim, near the Syrian border, police Capt. Muzahim al-Karbouli and other officials said.\nEach of the bodies had been riddled with bullets. They were found wearing civilian clothes, and one of the dead was a woman, al-Karbouli said.\nSouth of Baghdad in Latifiya, Iraqi troops on Tuesday found 15 headless bodies in a building inside an abandoned former army base, Defense Ministry Capt. Sabah Yassin said. The bodies included 10 men, three women and two children. Their identities, like the others found in western Iraq, were not known.\nYassin said some of the dead men in Latifiya were thought to have been part of a group of Iraqi soldiers who were kidnapped by insurgents in the area two weeks ago, Yassin said.\nIn the Baghdad suicide bombing, a garbage truck packed with explosives blew up outside the Agriculture Ministry and the Sadeer Hotel, which is used by Western contractors, killing at least three people and wounding the 30 Americans, officials said. The bomber also died.\nThe U.S. Embassy said the 30 injured Americans were among 40 people hurt in the blast, but no Americans were killed. In an Internet statement, al-Qaida in Iraq purportedly claimed responsibility for the attack on the Sadeer, calling it the "hotel of the Jews."\nThe bombing shook nearby buildings in the heart of the capital, injuring dozens of people and sending up a huge column of acrid black smoke. Volleys of automatic weapons fire could be heard before and after the explosion.\nPolice said a group of insurgents wearing police uniforms first shot to death a guard at the Agriculture Ministry's gate, allowing the truck to enter a compound the ministry shares with the adjacent Sadeer hotel. Guards in the area then fired on the vehicle, trying to disable it before it exploded.\nOfficials at al-Kindi hospital said at least three dead and eight wounded were taken there. Ibn al-Nafis hospital counted at least 27 wounded, said Dr. Falleh al-Jubouri.\nThe truck blew up in a parking lot, where several burning vehicles were in flames and 20 others were damaged.
(02/28/05 3:59am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi officials said Sunday that Syria captured and handed over Saddam Hussein's half brother, a most-wanted leader in the Sunni-based insurgency, ending months of Syrian denials that it was harboring fugitives from the ousted Saddam regime. Iraq authorities said Damascus acted in a gesture of goodwill.\nSabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, who shared a mother with Saddam, was nabbed along with 29 other fugitive members of the former dictator's Baath Party in Hasakah in northeastern Syria, 30 miles from the Iraqi border, the officials said on condition of anonymity. The U.S. military in Iraq had no immediate comment.\nAl-Hassan's capture was the latest in a series of arrests of important insurgent figures that the government hopes will deal a crushing blow to the violent opposition forces. A week ago authorities grabbed a key associated and the driver of Jordanian-born terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaida in Iraq and believed to be the inspiration of the ongoing bombings, beheadings and attacks on Iraqi and American forces. Iraqi officials said they expect to take al-Zarqawi soon.\nIraqis welcomed news of al-Hassan's capture.\n"I hope all the terrorists will be arrested soon and we can live in peace," said Safiya Nasser Sood, a 54-year-old Baghdad housewife. "Those criminals deserve death for the crimes they committed against the Iraqi people."\n"I consider this day as a victory for Iraqis," said Adnan al-Mousawi, a resident in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad. "By God's will Saddam will stand in court with his officials and this will be the end of the unjust dictatorship."\nAl-Hassan was believed to be operating from the northern Syrian city of Aleppo to help organize and finance the insurgency that has killed untold thousands of Iraqis and more than 1,000 U.S. troops since the overthrow of Saddam in April 2003.\nThe Iraqi officials did not specify when al-Hassan was captured, only saying he was detained after the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut, Lebanon, in a blast that killed 16 others. Syria fell under suspicion in the killing because of its military and political domination of the country, where it maintains 15,000 troops. Hariri had quit the premiership over Syria's continued presence in Lebanon.\nThe United States, France and the United Nations have applied extreme pressure on Damascus to withdraw from Lebanon, and the Syrians recently said they were pulling their forces back to the border, but not leaving the country.\nDavid Satterfield, a U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, was to meet Syrian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud on Monday to reiterate U.S. demands for the withdrawal and a thorough inquiry into the Hariri assassination.\nSyria must have felt additional pressure after Israel on Saturday accused Damascus of harboring Palestinian militants responsible for a Friday night suicide bombing in Tel Aviv in which four Israelis were killed, shattering a hard-won truce.\nDespite al-Hassan's arrest, the death toll mounted in Iraq on Sunday with two U.S. soldiers killed in a roadside ambush southwest of the capital -- the second and third American deaths over the weekend that pushed the overall U.S. toll to nearly 1,500 since the war began in March 2003.\nBomb attacks and ambushes killed nine people near the northern city of Mosul, while five headless bodies -- including that of an Iraqi woman -- were discovered in and just south of Baghdad. Gunmen, meanwhile, killed two policemen in an ambush as the officers were driving to work in western Baghdad.\nIn the capture of the Iraqi fugitive, Capt. Ahmed Ismael, an Iraqi intelligence officer, said al-Hassan was handed to the Iraqis Sunday. Another Iraqi official said Syrian security forces expelled al-Hassan after he and his supporters had been turned back in an earlier attempt to cross the Syrian border into Lebanon and Jordan. Officials in interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's office confirmed al-Hassan's capture but gave no other details.\nAl-Hassan was No. 36 on the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis complied by U.S. authorities after American troops toppled Saddam in April 2003. Eleven from the deck remain at large. The half brother also was named as one of the 29 most-wanted supporters of the Iraqi insurgency. The United States had offered $1 million for his capture.\nAllawi's office said the arrest "shows the determination of the Iraqi government to chase and detain all criminals who carried out massacres and whose hands are stained with the blood of the Iraqi people, then bring them to justice to face the right punishment."\nIraq's postelection Shiite Muslim power broker, United Iraqi Alliance leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, told AP al-Hassan's arrest signaled troubled times for the insurgency.\n"Those criminals are on the run and we will chase the rest of them. We will work on arresting all the criminals, either those inside Iraq, or those in other neighboring countries, so that they can stand fair trial and be punished for the crimes they have committed against the Iraqi people," he said.\nUnder Saddam, al-Hassan led the dreaded General Security Directorate, which was responsible for internal security, especially cracking down on political factions that opposed the Iraqi leader. Al-Hassan was accused of the widespread torture of political opponents. He later became a presidential adviser, the last post he held in the former regime.\nThe government statement on his capture said al-Hassan had "killed and tortured Iraqi people" and "participated effectively in planning, supervising, and carrying out many terrorist acts in Iraq."\nAl-Hassan was also thought to have been responsible for setting up shadowy companies in neighboring Jordan to overcome U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait, prompting the first Gulf War in 1991. Internationally, al-Hassan's name was linked to attempts to sell looted Kuwaiti treasure.\nHis son, Yasser al-Sabawi, was mentioned by Iraqi security officials last year in the beheading of Nicholas Berg, the 26-year-old American from West Chester, Pa. Suspicion later fell on al-Zarqawi. It was unclear if the two men had any connection.\n"This is a great achievement for the Iraqi security forces," National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie told Dubai's al-Arabiya TV. "It is also a lesson for others to give themselves up to the Iraqi authorities."\nSaddam's two other half brothers, Barzan and Watban, were captured in April 2003 and are expected to stand trial along with Saddam at the Iraqi Special Tribunal. Both appeared before the special court in Baghdad along with Saddam and other captured regime during preliminary hearings to hear the charges against them.
(02/25/05 6:15am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A suicide bomber wearing a police uniform blew up his car at police headquarters in Tikrit, killing at least 15 people in Saddam Hussein's hometown in the bloodiest of several attacks Thursday that claimed 30 lives. Two American soldiers were among the dead.\nThe suicide bombings and other attacks came as politicians negotiated behind the scenes to forge the alliances needed to win enough backing in the 275-seat National Assembly for the post of prime minister.\nThe U.S. command said two American soldiers were killed and two wounded in separate bomb attacks, one northeast of Baghdad in Qaryat, and a second near Samarra, west of Qaryat.\nIn the Sunni Arab stronghold of Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, a man dressed as a police lieutenant drove through the station's gates and blew himself up just as dozens of policemen were arriving to relieve colleagues who had worked through the night, police Col. Saad Daham said.\n"He waited until the shift change, then he exploded the car," Daham said, adding the aim was "to kill as many as possible." At least 22 people were wounded.\nTwenty cars were set ablaze after by the blast, sending up clouds of smoke. An Associated Press photographer saw at least 10 charred bodies on the ground, which was splattered with pools of blood.\nA suicide bomber killed five other people in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of the capital, when he blew himself up in front of the local headquarters of a key Shiite alliance member, the Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.\nPolice initially said the attack targeted the police chief, Col. Salman Ali, who escaped unharmed.\nIn Baghdad, gunmen fired on a bakery, killing two people and wounding a third, police said. Several blasts echoed through the capital at midday and several more after nightfall. Their cause was not known.\nTwo roadside bombs in Qaim, near the Syrian border, killed four Iraqi National Guardsmen, Iraqi Lt. Col. Abid Ajab Al-Salmani said.\nElsewhere, insurgents ambushed a police patrol in the northern city of Kirkuk with a roadside bomb, killing two policemen and injuring three.\nU.S. Marines and Iraqi troops, meanwhile, pressed a joint operation to root out insurgents in parts of the so-called Sunni triangle. The military said it detained 17 suspected insurgents and seized several weapons caches.\nPoliticians of all stripes sought out representatives of Iraq's Sunni minority, whose support they need to isolate the insurgency. Many insurgents are thought to be loyalists of Saddam's outlawed Sunni-dominated Baath Party.\nA powerful Sunni organization believed to have ties with the insurgents, the Association of Muslim Scholars, rejected any role in the government -- or even in writing a new constitution. Another Sunni group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, also rejected offers, but agreed to help with the constitution.\n"Our stand is so clear because it represents the stand of the national forces which stand against the occupation, and have come to an agreement not to take part in the political process until the withdrawal of the occupiers," said the association's spokesman, Muthana Al-Dhari.\nThe dominant United Iraqi Alliance, which nominated Ibrahim al-Jaafari, leader of the Islamic Dawa Party, for prime minister claimed Thursday it won the support of eight members of three tiny parties and boosted its parliamentary strength to 148.\nAlliance member Salama Khafaji said the groups were the Iraqi Turkoman Front, the National Independent Elites and the Islamic Labor Movement in Iraq.\nBut a splinter group thought to represent about 30 seats in the alliance, and which once supported onetime Bush administration favorite Ahmad Chalabi, renewed threats to withdraw its support. Although they issued no demands, it was unclear what Chalabi -- who withdrew from the race -- had promised them for their support.\nInterim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, the secular Shiite who has about 40 seats, tried to take advantage of the rift by attempting to open talks with the Shiite splinter group just one day after announcing he would form a broad coalition to try to hold onto his post.\nTwo days after al-Jaafari was nominated by the clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite Political Council once allied with Chalabi again threatened to withdraw. The group claims to control 30 members of the National Assembly.\nAli Faisal, the council's political coordinator, said his group received two phone calls from Qassem Dawoud, a senior Allawi party member and interim national security adviser. He said Allawi was trying to win their support.\n"Qassem Dawoud called twice and I didn't answer him because I know what they want," he said. "Several members of the alliance met with Allawi after the al-Jaafari nomination and in the coming few days we will decide our position. We might form a bloc in the assembly."\nTo make any headway, however, Allawi must also win support from a Kurdish coalition controlling 75 of the 275 seats.\nThey Kurds have indicated they will support al-Jaafari and the alliance if it meets key demands, including giving the presidency to one of their leaders -- Jalal Talabani.\nA two-thirds majority of the assembly is required for approval of the presidency -- the first step in a complicated process of filling the top positions. For al-Jaafari to become prime minister, he must win the approval of his own Shiite alliance, including Chalabi's supporters, and an additional 44 legislators.
(08/31/04 4:46am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for his followers across Iraq to end fighting against U.S. and Iraqi forces and is planning to join the political process in the coming days, an al-Sadr aide said Monday.\nIraqi oil exports came to a halt after a rash of insurgent attacks on the country's petroleum infrastructure, the country's main source of income, senior oil company officials said.\nOil prices edged higher in advance of the opening of trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. October contracts for light crude were up 26 cents at $43.44 a barrel. That was well below peaks of over $48 a barrel in mid-August.\nThe announcement by al-Sadr came as his aides were trying to negotiate an end to fighting in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City and in the southern city of Basra, where clashes have continued even after a peace deal was reached in Najaf, the holy city where al-Sadr militiamen battled U.S. and Iraqi forces for three weeks.\nAl-Sadr also called for U.S. and Iraqi forces to withdraw from the center of Iraqi cities, Sheik Ali Smeisim told The Associated Press. However, that did not appear to be a condition for the unilateral cease-fire.\n"I call on the interim Iraqi government to have patience ... and to pull back the American and Iraqi forces from the center of Iraqi cities," Smeisim said, speaking on behalf of al-Sadr. "At the same time, I call on the forces of the Mahdi Army (militia) to ... stop firing until the announcement of the political program adopted by the Sadrist movement."\nWhen asked if the cease-fire would take effect immediately, he said: "I hope so."\nThe announcement could provide a major boost to the government of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Al-Sadr has fiercely opposed the continued U.S. presence in Iraq and has denounced Allawi's government as dependent on the Americans -- but if he decides to join politics, it would suggest al-Sadr's acceptance of the U.S.-backed political process due to lead to elections in January.\nAllawi has also demanded al-Sadr disband his Mahdi Army militia, but the aides did not say the cleric was considering doing so. The militia has emerged intact from the weeks of fighting with U.S. forces, and al-Sadr has gained popularity among some sectors of Shiites, particularly the poor.\n"This latest initiative shows that we want stability and security in this country by ending all confrontation in all parts of Iraq," said Sheik Raed al-Khadami, al-Sadr's spokesman in Baghdad. "Al-Sadr's office in Najaf will call within the next two days to join the political process."\nAl-Sadr visited the Imam Ali Shrine in the city of Najaf for the first time since his militia left the holy site Friday after weeks of using as a stronghold and refuge during the fighting with the Americans.\nAl-Sadr asked religious authorities for permission to enter the shrine and made a brief visit Monday, according to the office of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric.\nUprisings by al-Sadr's fighters this month and in April increased the security problems faced by Allawi's government, on top of the Sunni Muslim-led insurgency that has plagued Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein more than a year ago.\nOpposition fighters have been attacking oil pipelines in both the north and the south of the country for months. Late Sunday, oil ceased flowing from southern pipelines.\nTwo senior officials of the South Oil Co. speaking Monday on condition of anonymity, said the lines were not likely to resume operations for at least a week.\nIraq's other export avenue, a northern pipeline to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, also carried no oil Monday, according to an oil official in Ceyhan.\nAllawi condemned the pipeline attacks, saying they were making ordinary Iraqis suffer.\n"This is causing a great loss for the Iraqi people in terms of revenues, which could be used in the reconstruction of the country and to pay the people and get the economy back on track again," Allawi said in an interview with CNN aired Monday.\nA halt in southern oil exports costs Iraq about $60 million a day in lost income at current global crude prices, said Walid Khadduri, an oil expert who is chief editor of the Cyprus-based Middle East Economic Survey.\nThe latest strikes, which hit five pipelines linked to the southern Rumeila oil fields on Sunday, immediately shut down the Zubayr 1 pumping station, forcing officials to use reserves from storage tanks to keep exports flowing for several hours. The reserves ran out late Sunday, the South Oil Co. official said.\nBefore the attack, Iraq's exports from the south were about 600,000 barrels a day. The pipelines were still ablaze Monday, the official said.\nSaboteurs last brought southern oil exports to a halt in June.\nThe job of guarding oil pipelines primarily falls to the U.S.-trained Iraqi infrastructure protection service, although some U.S. soldiers continue to be to be involved. But the military has repeatedly said protection is difficult since oil facilities are so spread out, and the entire network of pipelines can't be constantly watched.\nIn Baghdad, insurgents fired three mortar rounds into an eastern neighborhood early Monday but there were no immediate reports of casualties, Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman.\nSouth of the capital, gunmen fired on the motorcade of the government's top official in charge of Shiite religious affairs, Sheik Hassan Baraka al-Shami, wounding two of his bodyguards, his spokesman said Monday.
(06/26/03 12:30am)
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Two journalists accused of publishing articles that defamed Islam were released Wednesday after a week in prison but will still face trial, President Hamid Karzai said.\nThe weekly newspaper Aftab printed an article June 11 saying the Muslim world had not seen progress in 1,400 years and accused leaders in Afghanistan's north of building palaces with "bloody hands."\nChief editor Sayed Mahdawi and his Iranian deputy, Ali Riza Payam, were arrested June 17. Karzai said he ordered them released but they will still go to trial.\n"We don't consider what they have written to be the freedom of the press," Karzai said before leaving for Poland. "Freedom of the press does not mean that you can go and attack the beliefs of millions of people."\nThe case has exposed fault lines between Islamic conservatives and liberals within Karzai's U.S.-backed administration.\nDefamation of Islam is an extremely sensitive topic in Afghanistan, a pious Muslim country that has been led by fundamentalist religious conservatives since the 1990s. Many of them are back in power following the ouster of the Taliban in 2001.\nAftab has also published articles calling for a secular government -- bringing anonymous death threats.\nKarzai said he did not mind when the press was critical of him or his government, but religion was another matter.\n"The press has been critical of the government, the press has been critical of me personally for all these times, they've even abused us, but I have not taken action against them," Karzai said. "But when it comes to the Afghan people's religious beliefs ... it is also our job to protect that."\nDeputy Justice Fazel Ahmed Manawi said the trial could begin next week.
(05/22/03 12:34am)
KABUL, Afghanistan -- In a rare confrontation between U.S. forces and their Afghan allies, U.S. Marines guarding the American Embassy exchanged fire Wednesday with Afghan troops. Four Afghans were killed.\nAfghan officials called the shooting "a misunderstanding," saying jittery Marines opened fire believing they'd come under attack. The U.S. Embassy said only that the loss of life was regrettable and an inquiry was under way.\nThe shooting came a day after the United States raised its terror alert level, warning of possible attacks on Americans worldwide.\nThere have been few signs of serious tension between the U.S. military and its Afghan allies since American forces were deployed in the country after ousting the Taliban regime in 2001.\nTrouble was first reported Tuesday night when an Afghan soldier lobbed a grenade at Marines guarding the embassy, diplomatic and peacekeeping officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The grenade did not go off, and the soldier retreated to a barracks across the street.\nKabul Police Chief Basir Salangi said Afghan authorities were investigating Wednesday's shooting and it was too early to know what caused it. But he said he believed Afghan soldiers were transferring weapons to an intelligence agency compound across the street from the embassy when American soldiers opened fire in the belief they were about to be attacked.\n"It was a misunderstanding between the American guards at the U.S. Embassy and our soldiers who were unloading weapons," Salangi told The Associated Press.\nHe said three Afghan soldiers were killed and two wounded. Officials at the military hospital in Kabul said another soldier died shortly after being brought in. There were no reported U.S. casualties.\nA spokesman for the international peacekeeping force that patrols Kabul, Dutch Lt. Col. Paul Kolken, said there were unconfirmed reports Afghan soldiers fired several shots at a vehicle passing by the embassy, perhaps because it had failed to stop at a checkpoint.\n"In doing so, they fired in the direction of the American Embassy, and the American soldiers standing guard there returned fire," Kolken said.\nAnother spokesperson for the multinational force, British Maj. Sarah Wood, said several heavy bursts of fire were heard, followed by as much as five minutes of "fairly light" gunfire.\nFrench peacekeepers traveling down the road at the same time stopped and intervened to calm the situation, Wood said. Afterward, French forces treated some of the wounded.\nAnother peacekeeper, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said French soldiers fired two shots, but it was not clear whether they were warning shots fired into the air or at the Afghan forces.\nU.S. Embassy spokesman Alberto Fernandez issued a statement confirming only that "heightened tensions led to a live fire incident between U.S. Marines defending the embassy and Afghan military forces."\n"Both sides will continue to meet and work to ensure security in the area. The U.S. Embassy regrets the loss of life in this incident," Fernandez said, refusing further comment.\nIn Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said of the shooting: "We do think our Marines were responding to what they perceived as a threat. There was firing .... we'll just have to see exactly how the whole thing came about."\nThe embassy compound is heavily guarded and its high walls are topped with barbed-wire and sandbagged guard towers manned by U.S. Marines. By nightfall, Afghan security forces and peacekeepers still were blocking streets leading to the compound.\nAfghan soldiers with assault rifles are a frequent sight across the street, where they guard the intelligence barracks, the entrance to the peacekeeping headquarters and, farther down the road, the presidential palace.\nNo previous serious security incidents have been reported outside the embassy in Kabul since it was reopened in December 2001 for the first time since 1989.
(11/01/02 8:59pm)
KABUL, Afghanistan -- The International Red Cross is helping three Afghans freed from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay rejoin their families in far-flung regions of Afghanistan, an ICRC spokeswoman said on Thursday.\nThe men were freed from the U.S. base last weekend and returned to the Afghan capital, Kabul.\n"We've been requested by the authorities to provide assistance to return the former detainees back to their families, to organize their transport back home," said ICRC spokeswoman Caroline Douilliez.\nTwo of the men were flown from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar, where the ICRC would arrange transport to their homes in Helmand and Uruzgan provinces, Douilliez said. A private car was hired to take the third man to Paktika province.\nThe ICRC declined to disclose further details on the transfer, saying it was out of respect for the men's privacy.\n"We want to ensure discretion and respect for their privacy during the transfer. We want to ensure everything goes smoothly," Douilliez told The Associated Press.\nThe three men arrived back in Afghanistan on Sunday and were handed over to Afghan authorities in the presence of ICRC delegates, who provided them with warm clothes.\nThey are the first group of detainees to be cleared and released from the U.S. military's high-security island prison in Cuba because they no longer posed a threat.
(09/19/02 4:48am)
KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Afghan government rejects the findings of a U.S. military report that cleared an American warplane crew in the deaths of dozens of civilians at a wedding party, but it doesn't plan to press the matter because of its sensitivity, officials said Wednesday.\nTribal Affairs Minister Mohammed Arif Noorzai, who headed a joint Afghan-U.S. team that conducted a separate investigation of the July 1 attack, said the American raid was "a mistake."\n"All our people reject this report. Anybody with any common sense would reject this report," he told The Associated Press.\nAfghan authorities say 48 civilians were killed and 117 wounded when an Air Force AC-130 gunship strafed five villages in Uruzgan. The dead included 25 members of an extended family celebrating a wedding, the Afghans said.\nA summary of the U.S. military inquiry, released Sept. 6, said American authorities confirmed 34 dead and about 50 wounded. The U.S. report acknowledged the dead were civilians, but said the attack was justified because the plane had come under hostile fire.\nAfghan officials and survivors, however, say celebrants at a wedding party were firing rifles into the air -- a tradition in Afghanistan -- when the Americans flew over and mistook it for an attack, unleashing a hail of return fire.\nThe attacks strained relations between the United States and the Afghan government. President Hamid Karzai said "all necessary measures" should be taken to avoid future civilian casualties and urged closer coordination between U.S. and Afghan forces.\nHowever, few government officials have come out publicly against the U.S. report, and the government had previously issued no statement about it.\nKarzai's government relies heavily on the United States for political, military and diplomatic support. U.S. officials helped engineer Karzai's rise to the presidency because they wanted a prominent figure from the majority Pashtun community who was not tainted by Taliban membership.\nMore than 7,000 American troops remain in the country, conducting operations in search of senior Taliban leaders and suspected terrorists.\nKarzai, who survived an assassination attempt Sept. 5, is protected by American bodyguards.\nNoorzai said President Bush apologized to Karzai for the July 1 attack when the two met in New York earlier this month. There has been no such acknowledgment by U.S. authorities.\n"The Americans made a mistake, but they apologized. That's enough," Noorzai said.\nThe investigative report put the blame for the attack on those who fired at U.S. gunship crew. It also said reconnaissance patrols heard gunfire and explosions throughout the day and night, indicating the area "appeared to support enemy military training." Helicopters inserting those patrols also came under fire, the report said. The Uruzgan region is home to the extended families of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, though none of the victims are known to be his relatives.\n"The operators of those weapons elected to place them in civilian communities and elected to fire them at coalition forces at a time when they knew there were a significant number of civilians present," the report said.\nU.S. investigators found no evidence of anti-aircraft weapons at the two compounds where the casualties occurred, but they did find about a dozen shell casings for heavy machine guns.\n"They wanted to find some Taliban or al Qaeda members, but they didn't find anything. There were no Taliban or al Qaeda there, which shows it was a mistake," Noorzai said.\nThe Cabinet minister said the Americans made the raid based on false intelligence given to them by Afghan informants.\n"Americans are our friends and they are here because they want to help us. Everyone makes a mistake. The matter is behind us now." Noorzai said.
(05/03/02 2:37am)
BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- British troops are leading a force of 1,000 allied troops in a major new sweep in a mountainous region of southeastern Afghanistan that is thought to have been a key al-Qaida base, the British military said Thursday.\nThe troops deployed four days ago by air and by land into the region -- a "very rough terrain" of peaks between 8,000-13,000 feet high, British Marine Spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Harradine said, adding the troops had not encountered any enemy fighters since the start of the operation.\nThe officials would not say exactly where the operation was taking place or how long it would last, but it appeared to open up a new front in the search for fighters from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida movement.\nIn recent weeks, that search has concentrated on an area straddling the border just southeast of Kabul, around the Afghan towns of Khost and Gardez and the Pakistani region of Waziristan. Allied troops have been sweeping through villages in the region, trying to track down small groups of al-Qaida or Taliban fighters, and there have been unconfirmed reports of top al-Qaida leaders in the border area.\nHarradine said the latest operation, called Operation Snipe, was not taking place in the Khost-Gardez region or near the Pakistani border.\nThe force of 1,000 troops, "equipped with the full range of combat power," has a mission to secure and search a large area "in what is a strategic key location for our enemy," Brig. Roger Lane told reporters at Bagram air base.\nLane said the new region was "one of the few remaining areas in Afghanistan that has never before been investigated by coalition ground forces. We have good reason to believe that it is, or has been, a key base for the al-Qaida terrorist network."\nU.S. air power and U.S. special operations troops will support the British-led operation, U.S. military spokesman Maj. Bryan Hilferty said. Lane said Afghan ground troops were also involved.\nEarlier, Pentagon officials in Washington spoke of a buildup of multinational forces along the border with Pakistan -- raising the possibility of a new major thrust against remaining al-Qaida and Taliban fighters.\nThe officials said several hundred Afghans, Australians, British and soldiers from the United States' 101st Airborne Division were deploying for missions aimed at finding enemy fighters.\nOn Wednesday, U.S. troops participating in the search on the Pakistani side of the border came under hostile fire for the first time since their operations began in recent days.\nA rocket attack in the early morning apparently targeted a building where U.S. special forces were sleeping in the town of Miram Shah, near the border and about 40 miles south of Khost. The rocket missed, striking a building about 300 yards away. No one was hurt.\nA local official in Miram Shah, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the rocket apparently came from the Afghan side of the border.\nIt wasn't clear who fired the rocket, but local residents found pamphlets in the morning saying Pakistan's rulers had "challenged the faith and Islamic honor ... by bringing American commandos" to the area. The pamphlets were signed by a previously unknown group called Mujahedeen of North Waziristan.\nU.S. special forces troops have been working in small groups alongside Pakistani forces in the tribal-run region along the Afghan border -- an area that that has been a stronghold of support for bin Laden. How many U.S. soldiers are operating in Pakistan is unknown; both sides have said little about the operations, trying to avoid angering Islamic groups in Pakistan.\nBritish officials would not say what size an al-Qaida force was thought to be in the region being searched by Operation Snipe.\n"The success of this operation will not be measured solely in a count of the number of dead terrorists," Lane said. "We will first seek out and destroy all the terrorist infrastructure in this region and, of course, do likewise for any al-Qaida forces that we encounter."\nBritain has about 1,700 troops deployed at the Bagram air base north of Kabul. Harradine said that for the new mission, four British fighting companies were deployed from Bagram, supported by 105 mm howitzer gun batteries.\nU.S. led forces have been focusing heavily on the eastern part of Afghanistan since Operation Anaconda in the first two weeks of March. That campaign, the biggest ground operation of the war, sought to flush fighters out of an area near Gardez. Since it ended, commanders have continued to send teams and patrols through provinces along the border to find fighters and weapons caches.