Further Proof Al-Zarqawi Myth Created By The U.S.

[Gold9472]

I feel like they're killing off someone in a "Soap Opera".

[Partridge]

U.S. Forces Depart House in Northern Iraq
AP


U.S. forces left a cordoned area around a house in the northern city of Mosul on Monday where eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight over the weekend. The White House said it was "highly unlikely" that terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead. (Partridge: Of course not... you can't kill something that doesn't exist!)

North of the capital, Diyala provincial police said a car bomb targeting U.S. Humvees killed five civilians and wounded 12 bystanders in the town of Kanan. At least 145 Iraqi civilians have died in a series of attacks over the last four days, including two bombings at Shiite mosques and another at a funeral.

In Baghdad, three people, including one police officer, were killed by gunmen, police said Monday.

Over the weekend an American soldier near the capital and a Marine in the western town of Karmah were killed in separate insurgent attacks, the military said.


During the intense gunbattle with suspected al-Qaida members on Saturday, three insurgents detonated explosives and killed themselves to avoid capture, Iraqi officials said. Eleven Americans were also wounded, the U.S. military said.

Police Brig. Gen. Said Ahmed al-Jubouri said the raid was launched after a tip that top al-Qaida operatives, possibly including al-Zarqawi, were in the house.

However, Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said Sunday that reports of al-Zarqawi's death were "highly unlikely and not credible." Eyewitnesses in Mosul said the U.S. military, which had cordoned off the area around the two-story house, left the area early on Monday.

"We have no indication that Zarqawi was killed in this fight and we continue operations to search for him," Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman, said Monday.


Al-Zarqawi has narrowly escaped capture in the past. U.S. forces said they nearly caught him in a February 2005 raid that recovered his computer.

The U.S. military also said Sunday that 24 people - including another Marine and 15 civilians - were killed the day before in an ambush on a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol in Haditha, west of Baghdad in the volatile Euphrates River valley.

The three American deaths brought to at least 2,094 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday on ABC television's "This Week" that commanders' assessments will determine the pace of any military drawdown. About 160,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq as the country approaches parliamentary elections Dec. 15.

The Pentagon has said it plans to scale back troop strength to its pre-election baseline of 138,000, depending on conditions. Rumsfeld said the number of Iraqi security forces, currently at 212,000 troops, continues to increase.

Rumsfeld also said talk in the United States of a quick withdrawal from Iraq plays into the hands of the insurgents.

"The enemy hears a big debate in the United States, and they have to wonder maybe all we have to do is wait and we'll win. We can't win militarily. They know that. The battle is here in the United States," he told "Fox News Sunday."

In Cairo, Egypt, Iraq's president said Sunday he was ready for talks with anti-government opposition figures and members of Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath Party, and he called on the Sunni-led insurgency to lay down its arms and join the political process.

But President Jalal Talabani, attending an Arab League-sponsored reconciliation conference, insisted that the Iraqi government would not meet with Baath Party members who are participating in the Sunni-led insurgency.

"I want to listen to all Iraqis. I am committed to listen to them, even those who are criminals and are on trial," Talabani told reporters, but adding that he would only talk with insurgents if they put down their weapons.

In Baghdad, hundreds of Sunnis on Sunday demanded an end to the torture of detainees and called for the international community to pressure Iraqi and U.S. authorities to ensure that such abuse does not occur.

Anger over detainee abuse has increased sharply since U.S. troops found 173 detainees, mainly Sunnis and some malnourished and with torture marks on their bodies, at an Interior Ministry prison in Baghdad's Jadriyah neighborhood.

Iraq's Shiite-led government has promised an investigation and punishment for anyone guilty of torture.

[Gold9472]

U.S. military says it ‘just missed’ al-Zarqawi
‘His days are numbered,’ ambassador says of Iraq’s most feared terrorist

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10107233/

Updated: 6:01 p.m. ET Nov. 21, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq’s foreign minister said Monday that tests were being done to determine if terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been killed in a gunfight with U.S. forces over the weekend, but U.S. military sources told NBC News that troops likely “just missed” capturing him.

A U.S. government official confirmed that DNA from the insurgents’ bodies had been taken for testing. The official in Washington spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

However, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq cast doubt on whether al-Zarqawi was killed.

“Unfortunately, we did not get him in Mosul,” Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said of Iraq’s most feared terrorist.

The raid took place in a mostly Kurdish area of eastern Mosul where attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces less common than in the western, mostly Sunni Arab part of the city. However, U.S. soldiers say many insurgents live in eastern Mosul and launch attacks elsewhere.

Shahwan Fadhl Ali, a neighbor, said eight Arabs — four men, a woman and three children — had been living quietly there since last year. “They might have been Syrians or Jordanians but not Iraqis,” he said.

On Saturday, police Brig. Gen. Said Ahmed al-Jubouri said the raid was launched after a tip that top al-Qaida operatives, possibly including al-Zarqawi, were in the house. In Moscow, visiting Iraqi Foreign Minister Hohshyar Zebari told Jordan’s official Petra news agency that authorities were testing DNA samples from several corpses to determine if al-Zarqawi was among them.

‘His days are numbered’
But U.S. officials avoided linking al-Zarqawi to the Mosul raid and sought to dispel speculation that the terror mastermind was dead.

“I don’t believe that we got him. Of course, his days are numbered, we are after him, we are getting ever closer,” Khalilzad said.

At the Pentagon, Army spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable said U.S. forces “employ whatever means required” — presumably including DNA — “to identify suspected or known terrorists or insurgents.”

The elusive al-Zarqawi has narrowly escaped capture in the past. U.S. forces said they nearly caught him in a February 2005 raid that recovered his computer.

Separately, U.S. soldiers fired on a civilian vehicle Monday because they feared it might hold a suicide bomber, killing at least two adults and a child northeast of the capital, American and Iraqi officials said.

The troops fired on the car because it was moving erratically outside a U.S. base in Baqouba, 35 miles from Baghdad, said Maj. Steven Warren, a U.S. spokesman. “It was one of these regrettable, tragic incidents,” Warren said.

Dr. Ahmed Fouad at the city morgue and police officials gave a higher death toll, saying five people — including three children — were killed while driving home from a funeral.

Iraqi officials have long complained about American troops firing at civilian vehicles that appear suspicious. U.S. officials note that suicide car bombers often strike U.S. and Iraqi checkpoints.

The shooting took place in a province that has experienced at least four major bombings in the last three weeks — including a suicide car bomb Monday that missed U.S. vehicles but killed five civilians outside Baqouba.

Iraqis, soldiers killed

In other incidents:

• North of the capital, Diyala provincial police said a car bomb targeting U.S. Humvees killed five civilians and wounded 12 bystanders in the town of Kanan. At least 145 Iraqi civilians have died in a series of attacks over the last four days, including two bombings at Shiite mosques and another at a funeral.
• Gunmen killed a Sunni cleric, Khalil Ibrahim, outside his home in the largely Shiite southern city of Basra, police Capt. Mushtaq Talib said. Ibrahim was a member of the Association of Muslim Scholars, a group of influential Sunni clerics that has been sharply critical of the Shiite-led government.
• In Baghdad, three people, including one police officer, were killed by gunmen, police said Monday.
• Over the weekend an American soldier near the capital and a Marine in the western town of Karmah were killed in separate insurgent attacks, the military said.
• The U.S. military also said Sunday that 24 people — including a Marine and 15 civilians — were killed the day before in an ambush on a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol in Haditha, west of Baghdad in the volatile Euphrates River valley.

The three American deaths brought to at least 2,094 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Rumsfeld on withdrawal
In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday on ABC television's "This Week" that commanders' assessments will determine the pace of any military drawdown. About 160,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq as the country approaches parliamentary elections Dec. 15.

The Pentagon has said it plans to scale back troop strength to its pre-election baseline of 138,000, depending on conditions. Rumsfeld said Iraqi security forces, currently at 212,000 troops, continue to grow.

Rumsfeld also said talk in the United States of a quick withdrawal from Iraq plays into the hands of the insurgents.

"The enemy hears a big debate in the United States, and they have to wonder maybe all we have to do is wait and we'll win," he told "Fox News Sunday."

Iraq president’s plea
In Cairo, Egypt, on Monday, leaders of Iraq’s Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis wrapped up a conference by condemning terrorism but saying the opposition had a “legitimate right” to resistance. Their statement omitted any reference to attacks on U.S. or Iraqi forces, and delegates in Cairo said the omission was intentional. They spoke anonymously, saying they feared retribution.

The gathering organized by the Arab League also said there should be a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq, a key demand of Sunni Arabs.

The differentiation between terrorism and legitimate resistance was an overture to some Sunni Arab insurgent groups, which the Iraqi government believes might be ready for talks. The plan would be to drive a wedge between those groups and extremists such as al-Qaida.

“Though resistance is a legitimate right for all people, terrorism does not represent resistance. Therefore, we condemn terrorism and acts of violence, killing and kidnapping targeting Iraqi citizens and humanitarian, civil, government institutions, national resources and houses of worships,” the document said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

[Gold9472]

bump

[Gold9472]

US 'allowed Zarqawi to escape'

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/...335608444.html

By Chris Evans
May 1, 2006

The United States deliberately passed up repeated opportunities to kill the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, before the March 2003 US-led invasion of that country.

The claim, by former US spy Mike Scheuer, was made in an interview to be shown on ABC TV's Four Corners tonight.

Zarqawi is often described as a lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, whose supporters masterminded the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Mr Scheuer was a CIA agent for 22 years - six of them as head of the agency's Osama bin Laden unit - until he resigned in 2004.

He told Four Corners that during 2002, the Bush Administration received detailed intelligence about Zarqawi's training camp in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Mr Scheuer claims that a July 2002 plan to destroy the camp lapsed because "it was more important not to give the Europeans the impression we were gunslingers".

"Mr Bush had Zarqawi in his sights almost every day for a year before the invasion of Iraq and he didn't shoot because they were wining and dining the French in an effort to get them to assist us in the invasion of Iraq," he told Four Corners.

"Almost every day we sent a package to the White House that had overhead imagery of the house he was staying in. It was a terrorist training camp . . . experimenting with ricin and anthrax . . . any collateral damage there would have been terrorists."

During the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, Zarqawi's presence in the north of the country was used by US officials to link Saddam Hussein to terrorism.

Zarqawi has twice been sentenced to death by Jordan's state security court.

He was first sentenced in absentia in November 2004 for planning the murder of a US diplomat in Jordan. The second sentence, last December, concerned plans to attack a border post between Iraq and Jordan.

[lopakhin]

It also should be noted that when Powell talked about Zarqawi during his U.N. speech, he refered to him as a Palesinian who had his leg amputated in Bagdad.

In fact, just to say, I've just read Powell's UN speech, and he didn't say he had had his leg amputated.

[PhilosophyGenius]

In fact, just to say, I've just read Powell's UN speech, and he didn't say he had had his leg amputated.

Oh, but that what was being said by the govnt at the time. When that info was corrected it didnt make any news.