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(11/27/06 4:04am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders called for an end to Iraq's sectarian conflict Sunday and vowed to track down those responsible for the war's deadliest attack.\nBut as they went on national television to try to keep Iraq from sliding into an all-out civil war, fighting between Iraqi security forces and Sunni Arab insurgents raged for a second day in Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province north of Baghdad.\nBy the end of the day, the province's latest casualty figures were a microcosm of the brutality in Iraq: 17 insurgents killed, 15 detained, 20 civilians kidnapped, three bodies found, one U.S. Marine killed and two wounded. The mayor of a municipality also narrowly escaped an assassination attempt that killed one of his guards and wounded three.\nDuring Saturday's fighting in Baqouba, police had killed at least 36 insurgents and wounded dozens after scores of militants armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades attacked government buildings in the city center, police said. The fighting raged for hours in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.\nOn Saturday, officials including Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obaidi and Gen. George Casey, Iraq's top U.S. commander in Iraq, met and decided to fire Diyala's police commander, saying he was unable to stop infiltration of the force by Sunni insurgents, two Iraqi officials said on condition of anonymity as is often the case in areas subjected to widespread fighting and revenge killings.\nOne of the main challenges for U.S. and British forces in recruiting and training Iraqi military and police forces is that soldiers and police often are attacked by insurgents and militias, which also have infiltrated some security forces to kill and kidnap in disguise.\n"We promise the great martyrs that we will chase the killers and criminals, the terrorists, Saddamists and Takfiri (Sunni extremists) for viciously trying to divide you," Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Sunni Parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani and Kurdish President Jalal Talabani said in their joint statement on state-run TV. In addressing "the great martyrs," they were referring to the 215 people who died when suspected Sunni insurgents attacked Sadr City, the capital's main Shiite district, Thursday.\nAl-Maliki also urged his national unity government of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds to end their public disputes and curb sectarian violence.\n"The crisis is political, and it is the politicians who must try to prevent more violence and bloodletting. The terrorist acts are a reflection of the lack of political accord," al-Maliki said.\nHe is facing strong criticism from top Shiite and Sunni Arab leaders alike as he prepares for a summit in neighboring Jordan with President George W. Bush on Wednesday and Thursday.
(05/25/06 2:33am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Wednesday that Iraqi forces are capable of taking control of security throughout the country within 18 months, but still need more recruits, training and equipment.\nDrive-by shootings killed 17 people, including a provincial official in northern Iraq and two of his bodyguards, and authorities found the bodies of nine people who apparently had been kidnapped and tortured.\nMeanwhile, U.S. forces killed seven insurgents in two operations outside the capital, and a bomb set fire to an oil pipeline south of Baghdad, officials said.\nAfter meeting with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, al-Maliki issued a statement saying: "Our forces are capable of taking over the security in all Iraqi provinces within a year and a half."\nThe statement praised Iraqi forces for their fight against insurgents but said his military needs more manpower, training and equipment.\nIt was the latest of several deadlines regarding Iraq's plans to take over more of the security duties from the U.S.-led coalition.\nThe White House said the establishment of the new government was an opportunity to reassess the need for American military forces but that it was premature to talk about troop withdrawals.\nPresident Bush is under political pressure to withdraw U.S. troops, and Iraq will be a primary topic when he and British Prime Minister Tony Blair meet late Thursday at the White House.\n"I do not believe that you're going to hear the president or the prime minister say we're going to be out in one year, two years, four years -- I just don't think you're going to get any specific prediction of troops withdrawals," Bush spokesman Tony Snow said. "I think you're going to get a restatement of the general principles under which coalition troops stay or go."\nBush said Tuesday he would make a fresh assessment about Iraq's needs for U.S. military help now that the new government has taken office.\n"We haven't gotten to the point yet where the new government is sitting down with our commanders to come up with a joint way forward," Bush told a news conference in Washington. "However, having said that, this is a new chapter in our relationship. In other words, we're now able to take a new assessment about the needs necessary for the Iraqis."\nDuring Blair's visit to Baghdad on Monday, al-Maliki said Iraqi security forces would start assuming full responsibility for some provinces and cities next month, beginning a process leading to the eventual withdrawal of all coalition forces.\nBlair and al-Maliki declined to set a timetable, but British media quoted an unidentified senior British official as saying coalition forces should be out of Iraq within four years.\nThe British and Iraqi leaders said "responsibility for much of Iraq's territorial security" should be transferred to Iraqi control by December. Al-Maliki said two of Iraq's most violent provinces, Baghdad and Anbar, may be the last where coalition forces maintain control.\nWednesday's deadliest drive-by shooting killed Adel Issa, a member of Diyala provincial council, and two of his bodyguards in their convoy in northern Iraq, said Dr. Mansour Ali at Muqdadiya General Hospital. Issa, a Kurd, was a member of the region's main Kurdish coalition.\nIn Baghdad, 10 drive-by shootings killed 14 people. The victims included a member of Iraq's national tennis team and two of his friends, a college student, two day laborers, a police officer, two street vendors, a university professor, two taxi drivers, a builder and the owner of a grocery store, police said.\nDrive-by shootings, a common form of killing in Baghdad, often happen so quickly police can't tell whether they were motivated by sectarian hatred or personal vendettas. Insurgents, private militias and petty criminals sometimes disguise themselves as policemen and soldiers, making it difficult to identify the killers.\nAt a news conference, Fogh Rasmussen, a staunch Bush supporter, said he hopes the new government can improve security and begin to rebuild the country.\nHe said al-Maliki's government can count on Denmark's help. "We will not let the Iraqi people down," said Fogh Rasmussen.\nTwo roadside bombs wounded nine Iraqis, including two soldiers, in Baghdad, and gunmen killed one Iraqi soldier and wounded two at an Iraqi military highway checkpoint near the a U.S. military base north of Baghdad, officials said.\nBaghdad police found the bodies of two Iraqis who had been shot in the head, Hussein said.\nIn Dayera, a rural area about 35 miles south of Baghdad, police found the bodies of seven Iraqis who had been shot in the head, said police Capt. Muthana Khalid.\nOn Tuesday, a gunbattle between U.S. forces and insurgents killed four militants and detained two, one of whom was wounded, northwest of Baghdad near Lake Thar Thar, the U.S. command said Wednesday. It said one of the detained insurgents was Sudanese.\nIn a separate operation Tuesday near Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad, U.S. forces searching for a wanted al-Qaida in Iraq insurgent killed three members of the group who were riding in a vehicle equipped with grenades, small arms, a suicide bomb vest and foreign passports, the U.S. command said.\nNo U.S. soldiers or Iraqi civilians were hurt in the two operations, the military said.\nA bomb set fire to an oil pipeline in Latifiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad, said police Capt. Rashid al-Samarie. The pipeline carries oil from a storage area to the Dora refinery in Baghdad, which often is bombed by insurgents.
(05/22/06 2:14am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A suicide bomber killed at least 12 other people and injured 17 when he blew himself up Sunday in a downtown Baghdad restaurant frequented by police. The attack came as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged to soon fill vacancies in his two key security ministries.\nThe attack against the Safar restaurant was part of a spree of roadside bombs, mortar rounds and a drive-by shooting that killed at least 18 Iraqis and wounded dozens.\nThe 12 dead in the restaurant attack included three police officers, said Police Col. Abbas Mohammed. The explosion occurred at 1:20 p.m. during the crowded lunch hour in Baghdad's mixed Karradah neighborhood.\nBlood was splattered on the restaurant's white tile walls, and wrought iron chairs were scattered throughout the corner store.\nAl-Maliki's new government met for the first time Sunday. The prime minister hopes the government will eventually improve Iraq's military and police forces, persuade the insurgents to lay down its weapons and disband militias, reduce sectarian violence and restore stability to Iraq.\nIf all that can be done, it would set the stage for the eventual withdrawal of 132,000 American and thousands of other foreign troops.\nBut political infighting left three important posts in the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish Cabinet temporarily filled -- the very ones responsible for managing Iraq's army, police forces and national security.\nAl-Maliki, a Shiite, has said he was determined to soon find independent, nonsectarian officials to fill those three portfolios in his government.\n"I do not think that the naming of defense and interior ministers will take more than two or three days," he said at a news conference.\nThe new government was welcomed by President Bush and key leaders in the Middle East and Europe. Bush said Sunday "the formation of the unity government in Iraq begins a new chapter in our relationship with Iraq."\nIn an interview with The Associated Press, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the next six months would be critical for Iraq as the new government seeks to win public confidence and improve security.\nArab leaders worry that the violence in Iraq could spill over to its neighbors and that their own militant Islamists may find fertile training ground in Iraq and eventually return to their homelands to wreak havoc.\nIn neighboring Jordan, King Abdullah II, said he hoped the development would be a "significant step toward building a new Iraq that would be able to fulfill the aspirations of its people for a better life, democracy, (political) pluralism and stronger national unity."\nAbdullah conveyed those sentiments to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani by telephone, the Jordanian Royal Palace said.\nKuwait's leader, Emir Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, whose country was invaded by Saddam Hussein's forces in 1990, wished the Cabinet "success in serving the brotherly Iraqi people." He also expressed hope that the Cabinet members would succeed in "closing their ranks and using their capabilities in building Iraq," the state-owned Kuwait News Agency reported Al Sabah as saying in a telegram to Talabani.\nArab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa was hopeful that with the new Cabinet in place, a conference bringing together representatives of Iraq's ethnic and political-based forces could finally be held in Iraq, possibly as early as next month, Egypt's semi-official Middle East News Agency reported.\nBush said he called Talabani, al-Maliki and parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani to congratulate them on working together.\n"I assured them that the United States will continue to assist Iraqis in the formation of a free country because I fully understand that a free Iraq will be an important ally in the war on terror, will serve as a devastating defeat for the terrorists and al-Qaida and will serve as an example for others in the region who desire to be free," Bush said in Washington.\nBritish Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged that his country's troops would remain in Iraq until they were no longer needed.\n"The timetable is governed by the job being done. The new prime minister today made it very clear he, like us, wants to see Iraq in control of its own destiny," Blair said.\n"We have both got the same objectives. We want a transfer to the Iraqis as soon as we can but it has got to be based on the Iraqi force capability being up to the job. We need to make sure that we stay until the job is done," he said.\nThe prime minister said his government would use "maximum force in confronting the terrorists and the killers who are shedding blood" in Iraq.\nBut he also said it would try to reduce public support for insurgent groups by promoting national reconciliation, improving the country's collapsing infrastructure, and setting up a special protection force for Baghdad, one of Iraq's most violent cities.\nHe said Baghdad "must end its crisis of sectarian violence that is causing many families to flee their homes."\nTwo roadside bombs exploded nearly simultaneously in a crowded fruit market in New Baghdad, a mixed Shiite, Sunni Arab and Christian area in an eastern part of the capital, said police Lt. Ali Abbas.\nPolice found the first bomb and detonated it after trying to evacuate the market, Abbas said. But a second hidden bomb exploded a moment later, killing three civilians and wounding 23, all of whom had ignored the evacuation order, Abbas said.\nAt about 8 a.m., four gunmen in a speeding BMW killed Ali Abdul-Hussein al-Kinani, 57, who was standing outside his food store in the mostly Shiite neighborhood of Ubaidi, said police Maj. Mahir Hamad Moussa.\nIn southwestern Baghdad, a roadside bomb missed its target -- a police patrol -- but wounded five civilians at 8 a.m., in the mostly Sunni Arab neighborhood of Saidiyah, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein.\nThree other attacks took place in Dora, one of Baghdad's most violent areas. Mortar rounds hit two separate houses, killing a 4-year-old girl and wounding her mother in one dwelling, and injuring a man and his son in the other, police said. A roadside bomb narrowly missed a U.S. convoy but wounded three civilians.\nAl-Maliki's national unity government took office Saturday, five months after the election of Iraq's parliament and following prolonged bitter wrangling over the Cabinet posts.\nAt least 33 people were killed in a series of attacks across Iraq on Saturday, and police found the bodies of 22 Iraqis who apparently had been kidnapped and tortured by death squads that plague Iraq.
(10/26/05 4:43am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq's constitution was adopted by a majority in a fair vote during the Oct. 15 referendum, as Sunni Arab opponents failed to muster enough support to defeat it, election officials said Tuesday. A prominent Sunni politician called the balloting "a farce."\nIraq's most feared terror group, meanwhile, claimed responsibility for Monday's suicide attacks that targeted hotels housing Western journalists and contractors in central Baghdad, as well as two suicide bombings in a Kurdish area of northern Iraq on Tuesday.\nThe referendum results, announced after a 10-day audit following allegations of fraud, confirmed previous indications that Sunni Arabs failed to produce the two-thirds "no" vote they would have needed in at least three of Iraq's 18 provinces to defeat the constitution.\nThe charter is considered a major step in Iraq's democratic reforms, clearing the way for the election of a new, full-term parliament on Dec. 15. Such steps are important in any decision about the future withdrawal of U.S.-led forces.\nSome fear the victory could enrage many members of the minority and fuel their support for the country's Sunni-led insurgency.\nCarina Perelli, the U.N. elections chief, praised a "very good job" with the audit of results by election officials and said "Iraq should be proud of the commission."\nIraq's top two coalition partners, the United States and Britain, also welcomed the results.\n"It's a landmark day in the history of Iraq," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "We congratulate the Iraqi people. ... The political process is continuing to move forward in Iraq, and it is an encouraging sign to see more and more people participating in the process."\nBritish Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Iraqis "have shown again their determination to defy the terrorists and take part in the democratic process." Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini also welcomed the results, saying Italy would keep supporting the political process in the country.\nTwo suicide car bombs exploded Tuesday in the generally peaceful Kurdish province of Sulaimaniyah, killing 12 people. Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility in a statement posted on an Islamic Web site.\nThe group led by Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi also said it was behind the three suicide car bombs aimed at the Palestine and Sheraton hotels.\nIt said it carried out the attack to target a "dirty harbor of intelligence agents and private American, British and Australian security companies," according to a posting on a Web site that carries extremist material.\nIn other Baghdad violence, bombings and shootings killed six people and wounded 45 Iraqis, officials said.\nIraqi and U.S. forces were refortifying the hotel complex, which houses offices of the AP, Fox News and other media organizations, repairing a breach in the blast walls that surround it.\nDeputy Interior Minister Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal told the AP that 17 people were killed and 10 wounded in the attack.\nFarid Ayar, an official with the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, said the audit had turned up no significant fraud.\nSaleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni Arab member of the committee that drafted the constitution, called the referendum "a farce" and accused government forces of stealing ballot boxes to reduce the percentage of "no" votes in several mostly Sunni provinces.\n"The people were shocked to find out that their vote is worthless because of the major fraud that takes place in Iraq," he said on Al-Arabiya TV.\nAdnan al-Dulaimi, a spokesman for the General Conference for the People of Iraq, a largely Sunni coalition of politicians and tribal leaders, said the audit took so long it left many Sunnis suspicious of possible fraud and manipulation. He said his group "will work to educate Iraqis and get them to participate" in the December vote.\nThe charter was drafted after months of bitter negotiations that ended with some Sunni leaders agreeing to support it with provisions that future changes were possible.\nThe militants kept up their deadly attacks Tuesday.
(10/07/05 5:11am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- On Thursday, Iraqis began picking up copies of the draft constitution they will vote on next week, after the country's Shiite-led parliament ended a bitter dispute with Sunni legislators about how the referendum will be conducted.\nLamia Dhyab picked up her copy at the small shop where she presents her ration card in south Baghdad each month to get government-subsidized food for her family.\n"We are going to read the draft constitution. If we like it, we will vote yes. If we don't, we'll say no," said Dhyab, who was wearing a chador, the traditional head-to-toe black outfit Muslim females often wear.\nUnder U.S. and U.N. pressure, parliament Wednesday reversed its last-minute electoral law changes, which would have ensured passage of the new constitution in the Oct. 15 referendum, but which the United Nations called unfair.\nSunni Arab leaders, who had threatened a boycott because of the changes, said they were satisfied with Wednesday's reversal and are now mobilizing to defeat the charter at the polls. Some warned they could still call a boycott to protest major U.S. offensives launched over the past week in western Iraq, the Sunni heartland.\nA suicide car bomb hit a police patrol near the Oil Ministry on Thursday, killing nine Iraqis and wounding nine, police said. The bomb exploded about 400 yards from the ministry, said police Capt. Nabil Abdul Qadir. The dead included five policemen and four civilians.\nA roadside bomb hit a U.S. Army patrol in Baghdad on Thursday, killing one soldier, the military said. The attack raised the number of U.S. military members who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003 to at least 1,944, according to an Associated Press count.\nA suicide car bomb also exploded Thursday near a four-car convoy of foreign private security contractors in eastern Baghdad, killing three Iraqi bystanders, police said.\nAt least 271 people have been killed by insurgents in Iraq in the past 11 days.\nOn Wednesday, a bomb exploded at the entrance of a Shiite mosque in Hillah, a city south of Baghdad, killing at least 25 and wounding 93, as hundreds of worshippers gathered there for prayers at the start of the Islamic month of Ramadan and for the funeral of a man killed two days ago in a bomb blast at his restaurant.\nIt was the latest in a string of insurgent attacks aimed at wrecking the referendum. Al-Qaida in Iraq, which has declared "all-out war" on Shiites, has called for stepped-up violence during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month now under way.\nInsurgents also bombed an aboveground pipeline near the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk early Thursday. The pipeline connects oil fields with Kirkuk's refineries, said police Capt. Farhad Talabani.\nThousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops were waging two major offensives in western Iraq, the Sunni heartland, in an attempt to put down insurgents ahead of the vote.\nAt least 42 insurgents have been killed in the Iron Fist offensive, which began Saturday near the Syrian border. At least four U.S. servicemen have died in Iron Fist and River Gate, the offensives that began further to the east Saturday, the U.S. military said.
(09/28/05 4:56am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. and Iraqi authorities said Tuesday their forces had killed the No. 2 official in the al-Qaida organization in Iraq in a weekend raid in Baghdad, claiming to have struck a "painful blow" to the country's most feared insurgent group.\nAbdullah Abu Azzam led al-Qaida's operations in Baghdad, planning a brutal wave of suicide bombings in the capital since April, killing hundreds of people -- including police, army recruits and day laborers, officials said. According to an Associated Press tally, 698 people have been killed and 1,579 have been wounded since April 1 in suicide attacks in Baghdad.\nHe also controlled the finances for foreign fighters that flowed into Iraq to join the insurgency.\nAbu Azzam, who a government spokesman said was an Iraqi, was the top deputy to Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Abu Azzam was on a list of Iraq's 29 most-wanted insurgents issued by the U.S. military in February and had a bounty of $50,000 on his head.\nAl-Qaida in Iraq denied that Abu Azzam was the No. 2 leader of the organization and said "it was not confirmed" that he was killed. \n"Abu Azzam was one of al-Qaida's many soldiers and is the leader of one of its battalions operating in Baghdad," the group said in an Internet statement by its spokesman, Abu Maysara al-Iraqi.\nIt called the U.S. and Iraqi claims that he was the group's top deputy "a futile attempt ... to raise the morale of their troops."\nElsewhere, a suicide bomber attacked Iraqis applying for jobs as policemen Tuesday in Baqouba, 30 miles north of Baghdad, killing nine and wounding 21.\nThe U.S. military also said a Marine was killed Monday by a roadside bomb in the town of Khaldiyah, west of Baghdad. The death brought the number of U.S. troops who have died since the Iraq war started in 2003 to 1,918, according to an AP count.
(07/21/05 9:27pm)
LONDON -- Prime Minister Tony Blair said Wednesday he was considering calling an international conference on how to eliminate Islamic extremism following the London suicide bombings, while Britain's Muslim leaders demanded a judicial inquiry into what motivated the four "homegrown" suicide bombers.\nA Pakistani intelligence official said investigators there arrested a man that he said had direct links to the July 7 bombings that killed 56 people, including the four bombers.\nThe proposed international conference, Blair said, would focus on the possibilities of taking "concerted action right across the world to try to root out this type of extremist teaching," particularly in religious schools, known as madrassas.\nBlair told the House of Commons he recently spoke with Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and was satisfied there was a "real desire and willingness on part of Pakistan's government to deal with madrassas preaching this kind of extremism."\nHe said 26 countries had been attacked by al-Qaida and associated groups, "so there is obviously a huge well of support and understanding for the problems that we have faced in this country just recently."\nBritish Islamic leaders Wednesday called for a judicial inquiry into what motivated the bombers.\n"The scale of disenchantment amongst Muslim youth is very clear to see," said Inayat Bungalwala of the Muslim Council of Britain.\n"Various factors are at play: underachievement in education; a high rate of unemployment; discrimination in the workplace; social exclusion, and also the government's own policies, especially in Iraq. The process of how we get four homegrown suicide bombers must be understood and that is why we are calling for an inquiry."\nHome Secretary Charles Clarke would consider the merits of an inquiry and make a decision in September, his office said.\nClarke told lawmakers that police identified all 56 people known to have died in the July 7 attacks on three Underground trains and a double-decker bus.\nSpeaking in the eastern city of Lahore, the Pakistani intelligence official declined to say when the man was arrested or elaborate on his alleged links to the London bombings except to say those links were direct. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media and because of the secretive nature of his job.\nPakistani police earlier reported arresting seven people with links to the bombings.\nTwo Pakistani intelligence officials said British authorities had asked that about 100 Pakistani telephone numbers be checked out for possible links to the suicide bombers. Authorities had concluded that nearly 80 numbers did not provide information useful to the case, said the officials, who did not want to be named because of the sensitive nature of their work.\nThe remaining 20 numbers, which included both fixed lines and cell phones, were under investigation, the officials said. Some were no longer in use, and authorities were trying to establish who had registered them originally.\nThe officials said Britain also provided names of several people in Pakistan who allegedly received calls from the suicide bombers in the past year.\nBritish detectives continued to hunt for the masterminds of the attacks, but The Times newspaper reported Wednesday that authorities remain uncertain whether an organizer slipped out of Britain just before the blasts.\nPolice in London removed a shattered carriage from a subway station late Tuesday. The train carriage was removed from the Edgware Road station, one of two attack sites on the Circle Line around central London. The 20-ton car, shrouded in blue tarpaulins, was taken to a secure police facility for further investigation.\nLondon Underground said it hopes to resume full service on the line by Aug. 2.\nKey questions remain unanswered in the investigation, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said Tuesday, including: "Who is the chemist? Who are the people who trained them? Who facilitated their trip to Pakistan?"\n"Whoever is doing that is still out there," Ian Blair told a meeting of Christians, Muslims and Jews.\nThe Times quoted unidentified police sources as saying they believe a man visited London and the hometowns of the four suspected suicide bombers but left hours before the attacks.\nIt quoted unidentified security sources as saying they had ruled out one suspected organizer as a case of mistaken identity.\nThe Egyptian government said Tuesday that Magdy el-Nashar, a biochemist who taught at Leeds University and is wanted for questioning by Britain, had no links to the attacks or to al-Qaida. Leeds is the hometown of two men identified by police as suicide bombers.\nThree of the London suspects -- Hasib Hussain, 18, Mohammed Sidique Khan, 30, and Shahzad Tanweer, 22, all Britons of Pakistani descent -- traveled to Karachi in southern Pakistan last year, and Pakistani security officials believe Tanweer spent a few days at a religious school in Lahore, where many militant groups have clandestine operations.\nFearful of another attack, British Transport Police have dispatched dogs to search for explosives on the Underground. Dogs have been used before on the train connecting Heathrow airport to the capital, but police said this was the first time they were being sent into the subway system.\nTony Blair met Tuesday with two dozen representatives of the Muslim community to discuss anti-terror legislation the government plans to introduce by year's end.\nThe Muslim leaders will be "able to talk to the Muslim community and confront this evil ideology, take it on and defeat it by the force of reason," the prime minister said.
(06/27/05 6:41pm)
LONDON -- U.S. officials recently met secretly with Iraqi insurgent commanders at a summer villa north of Baghdad to try to negotiate an end to the bloodshed, a British newspaper reported Sunday.\nSecretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, asked about the report, suggested that meetings between Iraqi officials and insurgents "go on all the time" and said "we facilitate those from time to time."\nThe insurgent commanders "apparently came face to face" with four American officials during meetings on June 3 and June 13 at a summer villa near Balad, about 25 miles north of Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, The Sunday Times newspaper in London said.\nThe report, which quoted unidentified Iraqis whose groups were purportedly involved in the meetings, said the insurgents at the first meeting included the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which claimed responsibility for suicide bombings in Iraq and an attack that killed 22 people in the dining hall of a U.S. base at Mosul last Christmas.\nTwo others were Mohammed's Army and the Islamic Army in Iraq, which in August reportedly killed Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, the newspaper said.\nOne American at the talks introduced himself as a Pentagon representative and declared himself ready to "find ways of stopping the bloodshed on both sides and to listen to demands and grievances," The Sunday Times said.\nThe official indicated that the results of the talks would be relayed to his superiors in Washington, the newspaper said.\nRumsfeld sought to play down the report, saying the Shiite-dominated government was reaching out to the disaffected Sunni minority -- believed to be the driving force behind Iraq's insurgency -- and the Americans were helping them.\n"The Iraqis have a sovereign government. They will decide what their relationships with various elements of insurgents will be. We facilitate those from time to time," he said on "Fox News Sunday."\n"My understanding is some London paper reported this and everyone is chasing it. I would not make a big deal out of it. Meetings go on frequently with people," Rumsfeld said.\nDiscussing the report on ABC's "This Week," the defense secretary said: "I get reports on dozens of meetings. If you're asking: 'Are the Iraqis -- whose country it is -- reaching out to the Sunnis?' Yes, they are."\n"Are our people involved in helping them? Sure. We talk to people all the time," he added.\nThe U.S. officials tried to gather information about the structure, leadership and operations of the insurgent groups, which irritated some members, who had been told the talks would consider their main demand, a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, the newspaper said.\nDuring the June 13 talks, the U.S. officials demanded that two other insurgent groups, the 1920 Revolution and the Majhadeen Shoura Council, cut ties with the country's most-feared insurgent group, al-Qaida in Iraq, according to the report.\nA senior U.S. official said earlier this month that American authorities have negotiated with key Sunni leaders, who are in turn talking with insurgents and trying to persuade them to lay down their arms. The official, who did not give his name so as not to undercut the new government's authority, did not name the Sunni leaders engaged in dialogue.\nIraq's former electricity minister, Ayham al-Samarie, has told The Associated Press that two insurgent groups -- the Islamic Army in Iraq and the Army of Mujahedeen -- were willing to negotiate with the Iraqi government, possibly opening a new political front in the country.\nAl-Samarie, a Sunni Muslim, said he had established contact with the groups which account for a large part of the Sunni insurgents and were responsible for attacks against Iraqis and foreigners, including assassinations and kidnappings.\nA senior Shiite legislator, Hummam Hammoudi, also told AP recently that the Iraqi government had opened indirect channels of communication with some insurgent groups.\nThe contacts were "becoming more promising and they give us reason to continue," Hammoudi said, without providing details.\nU.S. and Iraqi officials also are considering amnesty for their enemies as they look for ways to end the country's rampant insurgency and isolate extremists wanting to start a civil war.
(04/25/05 4:21am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- An emboldened Iraqi insurgency staged carefully coordinated dual bombings in Saddam Hussein's hometown and a Shiite neighborhood of the capital Sunday, killing at least 21 people. \nAn American soldier was killed in a separate attack.\nMilitant violence over the weekend took at least 38 lives, including those of three Americans.\nA vehicle packed with explosives was driven into a crowd gathered in front of a popular ice cream shop in Baghdad's western al-Shoulah neighborhood Sunday, police Maj. Mousa Abdul Karim said. Minutes later, as police and residents rushed to help the victims, a second suicide car bomber plowed into the crowd. At least 15 people were killed and 40 wounded.\nIn Saddam's hometown of Tikrit on Sunday, two remotely detonated car bombs exploded in quick succession outside a police academy, killing at least six Iraqis and wounding 33, police and a hospital official said. The blasts occurred as recruits were about to leave the station and travel to Jordan for training, said police Lt. Shalan Allawi.\nInsurgents also attacked U.S. forces. A roadside bomb hit one convoy in eastern Baghdad, killing one American soldier and wounding two, the U.S. military said. Iraqi police said two civilians also were wounded in the attack.\nAn American sailor was killed Saturday when the Marine convoy he was traveling with was hit by a roadside bomb in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, the military said.\nAt least 1,568 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.\nAl-Qaida in Iraq, the country's most feared militant group, claimed responsibility for the Tikrit and eastern Baghdad attacks in statements posted on militant Web sites.\nThe group also claimed responsibility for a roadside bomb targeting a U.S. patrol near the Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad. The U.S. military said no one was hurt in that attack.
(04/20/05 5:01am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraqi lawmakers adjourned in protest Tuesday and demanded an apology after a Shiite legislator linked to a radical anti-American cleric tearfully said he was handcuffed and humiliated at a U.S. checkpoint.\nIt was the third consecutive day that Iraq's interim parliament was sidetracked from its job of setting up a government and writing a constitution.\nBeyond the sandbags and blast walls of the U.S.-protected Green Zone, where the National Assembly meets, at least a dozen Iraqis were killed and more than 60 wounded in a series of attacks, including two that targeted the army and its recruits.\nAl-Qaida in Iraq, the nation's most feared terrorist group, claimed responsibility for the worst attack, a suicide bombing near an army recruitment center in Baghdad that police said killed at least six Iraqis and wounded 44.\nA car bomb in western Baghdad targeting a U.S. patrol wounded seven Iraqis, police and hospital officials said.\nLaith Abdullah, the husband of a woman injured in the attack, angrily criticized the legislature for worrying more about its rights than the violence. \n"The government should be concerned about all the people getting hurt," Abdullah said.\nBut in the National Assembly, lawmaker Fattah al-Sheik stood and cried as he described being stopped at a checkpoint on the way to work Tuesday. He claimed an American soldier kicked his car, mocked the legislature, handcuffed him and held him by the neck.\n"What happened to me represents an insult to the whole National Assembly that was elected by the Iraqi people. This shows that the democracy we are enjoying is fake," al-Sheik said. "Through such incidents, the U.S. Army tries to show that it is the real controlling power in the country, not the new Iraqi government."\nAl-Sheik's small party has been linked to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who led uprisings against the U.S.-led coalition in 2004. On his way home after the session, gunmen fired on al-Sheik's convoy, but he escaped unharmed, police and his party said.\nThe U.S. military said its initial investigation indicated that in the morning, al-Sheik got into an altercation with a coalition translator at the checkpoint. U.S. soldiers tried to separate them and "briefly held on to the legislator" while preventing another member of al-Sheik's party from exiting his vehicle, a military statement said.\n"We have the highest respect for all members of the Transitional National Assembly. Their safety and security is critically important," U.S. Brig. Gen. Karl R. Horst said in the statement. "We regret this incident occurred and are conducting a thorough investigation."\nDuring a one-hour adjournment to protest al-Sheik's treatment, lawmaker Salam al-Maliki read an assembly statement demanding an apology from the U.S. Embassy and the prosecution of the soldier who allegedly mistreated the legislator.\nHajim al-Hassani, the parliament speaker, said, "We reject any sign of disrespect directed at lawmakers."\nEach day this week, the legislature's opening session on current affairs has extended well beyond the scheduled 30 minutes. Legislators have discussed traffic jams in Baghdad, Saddam Hussein's alleged war crimes, claims that hostages were being held south of Baghdad and al-Sheik's complaint.\nCoffee breaks, lunch and lengthy debates over issues such as how long each legislator should be allowed to speak have taken up the rest of the day.\nTuesday's attacks followed an Iraqi security operation in Madain, a town south of Baghdad where Sunni insurgents were believed to be holding Shiite hostages. No captives were found, but officials said they seized weapons and detained 10 suspects.
(02/09/05 5:36am)
LONDON -- The British government Tuesday gave the creator of Dolly the Sheep a license to clone human embryos for medical research into the cause of motor neuron disease.\nIan Wilmut, who led the team that created Dolly at Scotland's Roslin Institute in 1996, and motor neuron expert Christopher Shaw of the Institute of Psychiatry in London, plan to clone embryos to study how nerve cells go awry to cause the disease. The experiments do not involve creating cloned babies.\nIt is the second such license approved since Britain became the first country to legalize research cloning in 2001. The first license was granted in August to a team that hopes to use cloning to create insulin-producing cells that could be transplanted into diabetics.\nDr. Brian Dickie, director of research at the London-based Motor Neuron Disease Association, said the latest decision by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority means "we are a step closer to medical research that has the potential to revolutionize the future treatment of neuron disease," an incurable, muscle-wasting condition that afflicts about 350,000 people and kills some 100,000 each year.\nThe study of the stem cells is expected to help in developing future treatments. The cells would not be used to correct the disease.\nAlthough the latest project would not use the stem cells to correct the disease, the study of the cells is expected to help scientists develop future treatments, according to the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, which regulates such research and approved the license.\nStem cells are the master cells of the body. They appear when embryos are just a few days old and go on to develop into every type of cell and tissue in the body. Scientists hope to extract the stem cells from embryos when they are in their blank state and direct them to form any desired cell type to treat a variety of diseases ranging from Parkinson's to diabetes.\nGetting the cells from an embryo that is cloned from a sick patient could allow scientists to track how diseases develop and provide genetically matched cell transplants that do not cause the immune systems to reject the transplant.\nSuch work, called therapeutic cloning because it does not result in a baby, is opposed by abortion foes and other biological conservatives because researchers must destroy human embryos to harvest the cells.\nCloning opponents decried the license Tuesday, saying the technique is dangerous, undesirable and unnecessary.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
SHANGHAI, China -- Pacific Rim leaders called for international cooperation with the U.S.-led battle against terrorism, but stopped short Sunday of endorsing the military campaign in Afghanistan. \nNevertheless, President Bush said he won "strong support" at the economic forum for the fight against terror on all fronts, financial, diplomatic and military. \nFollowing a two-day summit that brought Bush together with leaders from countries including China, Russia and Japan, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit issued an unprecedented statement about the unfolding world crisis, calling the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon "murderous deeds." \nBut to appease the political sensibilities of two large, mostly Muslim APEC members, Indonesia and Malaysia, the statement made no mention of the war in Afghanistan or the refusal of its hard-line Taliban rulers to hand over the chief suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden. \n"Leaders consider the murderous deeds as well as other terrorist acts in all forms and manifestations, committed wherever, whenever and by whomsoever as a profound threat to the peace, prosperity and security of all people, of all faiths, of all nations," the statement said. \nIndonesia and Malaysia have expressed concern about the deaths of Muslim civilians in Afghanistan and have called for an end to the bombing. They fear a backlash across the Muslim world could spread instability, especially if the U.S.-led attacks continue through the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins in mid-November. \nAt that time, the situation could become "explosive," Indonesian Foreign Minister Hasan Wirayuda told reporters. Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, while opposed to the military action, said the use of ground troops was preferable to air raids because civilians are less likely to be killed by soldiers than by bombs. \nBush got backing for the military effort from Russia and China, and at a news conference Sunday following a private meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he said he was encouraged by the overall support at the APEC forum. \n"There was a very strong support for our activities, strong support for sharing intelligence; strong support for the diplomatic front we're waging; strong support to disrupt the financial operations of the terrorists; and strong support for our military operations in Afghanistan," Bush said. \nPutin said the military campaign should continue until Afghanistan's Taliban militia is defeated, adding that "otherwise terrorists will feel invincible." \nAfter a meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin on Saturday, Putin's spokesman had said the two agreed that military operations should stop quickly so a political solution can be found in Afghanistan.
(09/25/01 6:02am)
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- With Osama bin Laden exhorting followers to stay "steadfast on the path of jihad," holy war, the hard-line Taliban government warned the Americans Monday they were "igniting a fire that will burn them" if they attack Afghanistan. \nIn signs of an intensifying showdown over Afghanistan's refusal to surrender bin Laden, the prime suspect in the devastating terror attacks on the United States, the Taliban drastically curtailed the activities of the remaining United Nations relief workers inside Afghanistan, and neighboring Pakistan pulled its diplomats out of the Afghan capital, Kabul, in what could be a prelude to severing diplomatic ties. \nThe Taliban, who control more than 90 percent of Afghan territory, have been battling a northern-based opposition alliance for control of strategic areas north of Kabul. Heavy exchanges of mortar and artillery fire could be heard Monday in the Panjshir Valley, 45 miles north of the Afghan capital. \nThe United States and its allies have increased contacts with those forces in preparation for a possible assault on both bin Laden's bases and his Taliban hosts. \nBin Laden's latest call to arms came in a statement provided Monday to Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite channel, which the exiled Saudi multimillionaire and accused terrorist mastermind often uses to communicate with the outside world. \n"I announce to you, our beloved brothers, that we are steadfast on the path of jihad with the heroic, faithful Afghan people," said the statement, signed by bin Laden and dated Sunday. \nBin Laden called on "our Muslim brothers in Pakistan" to do their utmost "to push the American crusader forces from invading Pakistan and Afghanistan." \nThe Taliban have rebuffed U.S. demands to hand over bin Laden in the wake of Sept. 11 suicide strikes that toppled the twin towers of the World Trade Center and wrecked one wing of the Pentagon. The Taliban have said they do not know where he is, a claim ridiculed by American officials, and that they were trying to pass on a request that he leave the country. \nBin Laden has twice denied involvement in the terror attacks. The United States has said it will produce evidence implicating him. \nIn several separate statements Monday, the Taliban adopted a bellicose tone. The defense minister said Taliban fighters have all the weapons and ammunition they need to fight off a U.S. ground or air assault, and that volunteers were swelling militia ranks. \n"Around 300,000 experienced mujahedeen (holy warriors) are guarding the borders and all other important places in Afghanistan," said the minister, Mullah Obaidullah Akhund. He instructed the Afghan people to "remain vigilant and prepare for jihad," holy war. \nThe Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, said killing bin Laden would not protect America against terrorism. \nIn a statement faxed to news agencies from his headquarters in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Mullah Omar called on the United States to withdraw troops from the Persian Gulf, eliminate its "bias" against the Palestinians and refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of Islamic countries. \n"America wants to eliminate Islam, and they are spreading lawlessness to install a pro-American government in Afghanistan," Mullah Omar said. "This effort will not solve the problem, and the Americans are igniting a fire that will burn them if they indulge in this kind of activity." \nSeparately, the Taliban warned its northern neighbor, Uzbekistan, against aiding any U.S.-led coalition that moves against Afghanistan, saying that in the past, "imperialist forces" invading the country had met with defeat. \nIn Islamabad, however, the Taliban ambassador, Abdul Salam Zaeef, struck a somewhat more conciliatory note, recalling U.S. support to Islamic fighters during the Cold War battle with Soviet troops for control of Afghanistan. Zaeef said that assistance was still remembered and appreciated by the Afghan people. \nBut, he added: "We want to say once again that the people of America should urge their government to realize the grave consequences of war." \nInternational agencies have been warning of a burgeoning humanitarian crisis inside Afghanistan, with civilians suffering from hunger and displacement. On Monday, a U.N. spokeswoman in Islamabad, Stephanie Bunker, said Taliban militia had begun entering U.N. offices in Afghanistan and threatening to kill workers unless they stopped using their communications and transportation equipment. \nThe move sharply reduced the relief work being done by Afghan staffers who were left behind when all foreign U.N. workers were withdrawn from Afghanistan recently. \n"The U.N. has ordered its staff to obey the Taliban directive to avoid risking their lives," Bunker said. "This will have a very serious impact on our operations." \nWith Pakistan's withdrawal of its dozen diplomats from Afghanistan, the Taliban's diplomatic isolation grew. The United Arab Emirates severed diplomatic links over the weekend, leaving Afghanistan with formal ties only to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. \n"In view of the abnormal situation, they were withdrawn over the weekend," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Riaz Khan. \nPakistan has agreed to support the expected U.S. military campaign against bin Laden and his Taliban allies, and the removal of diplomats appeared to reflect concerns over their safety if the United States launches airstrikes.