Al Qaeda's largest attack yet in Iraq kills 150

[nonesuche]

If no one is watching I wanted to ensure as Congress debates our pull-out timeline in the war in Iraq.......that everyone should be rethinking this.

Al Qaeda will decimate Iraq if they can, over half of the Iraq parliament isn't even showing up for sessions, the only reason possible is growing fears of retaliation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/09/world/middleeast/09iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

July 9, 2007
Around 150, Death Toll in Iraq Attack Among War’s Worst

By STEPHEN FARRELL
BAGHDAD, July 8 — The death toll from a suicide truck bombing in a remote village in northern Iraq rose to around 150 on Sunday, making it one of the deadliest single bombings, if not the deadliest, since the 2003 invasion.

The attack, in the impoverished Shiite Turkmen village of Amerli, 100 miles north of Baghdad in Salahuddin Province, has highlighted fears that Sunni insurgents facing military crackdowns in Baghdad and Diyala Province are simply directing their attacks to areas outside the concentration of American troops.

The police in Amerli said that the truck used in Saturday’s attack concealed 4.5 tons of explosives beneath watermelons. The blast leveled dozens of houses and shops, trapping and killing many residents beneath the rubble.

Casualty counts conflicted. Some officials put the toll between 130 and 150, but Col. Abbas Mohammed Ameen, the police commander of Tuz Khurmato, a town about 15 miles away, said the toll was 155 dead and 265 wounded.

If that is correct, the Amerli attack would be the single worst bombing in the war, deadlier than the March truck bombing in Tal Afar that killed 152 people.

Tahsin Kahea, a member of the provincial council and a prominent member of the Turkmen community, said he believed that the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and religious extremists had “started to attack the Shiite towns outside the main cities after they have been suffocated in Baghdad and Diyala.”

“This happened previously in Daquq, Tal Afar and Bashir, and now in Amerli,” he said.

The American ambassador, Ryan C. Crocker, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the American forces in Iraq, issued a joint statement on Sunday in which they condemned the attack, praised the Iraqi security and emergency services, and promised to help the investigation. “We send our thoughts and prayers to the victims’ families and those injured,” the statement said. “This attack is another sad example of the nature of the enemy and their use of indiscriminate violence to kill innocent citizens.”

Near the town of Haswa, about 30 miles west of Baghdad, another suicide truck bomber killed more than 20 new Iraqi Army recruits and wounded 27 others on Sunday, Iraqi security officials said.

They said the recruits were killed as they were being driven to a recruitment center in Baghdad from Anbar Province. They were joining the Iraqi security forces as part of a drive by Sunni tribal leaders to fight the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which had seized control of some areas of the overwhelmingly Sunni province.

Two nearly simultaneous car-bomb blasts on Sunday in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Karrada killed at least eight Iraqis and wounded 12, the United States military said.

On the outskirts of Amerli on Sunday, fluttering black flags bore the names of the dead — in some cases more than half a dozen from a single family.

In the middle of the sprawl of rubble that was once the town center, a 12-foot crater gaped. Villagers said 50 houses and 55 shops had been destroyed and scores more badly damaged, with debris piled alongside shattered buildings — a testament to where rescuers, their efforts now ended, had tried to dig out survivors. The town has been cut off from electricity and water since the blast.

The village’s medical services — one small treatment center — were immediately overwhelmed after the attack, and many of the wounded were sent to Tuz Khurmato, Kirkuk and Sulaimaniya. Some were even flown to Turkey.

The governor of Salahuddin Province, Hamed Hamoud, arrived along with his police commander to console residents on Sunday. But the villagers refused to meet with them, instead throwing stones and cursing them for failing to protect Amerli.

As he arrived at work in Amerli on Sunday, Imad Abdul Hussein, a policeman, said: “I came to do my job and to take revenge for my uncle killed yesterday. We will fight Al Qaeda organization to the last drop of our blood; we will destroy them or they will destroy us.”

No group claimed immediate responsibility for the attack, but Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the jihadist group Islamic State in Iraq, issued an audiotape warning Iran to stop supporting Iraq’s Shiites. The tape, posted on a Web site, said, “We are giving the Persians, and especially the rulers of Iran, a two-month period to end all kinds of support for the Iraqi Shiite government and to stop direct and indirect intervention.” He added, “Otherwise, a severe war is waiting for you.”

The attack on Amerli came 12 hours after a blast in a Shiite-dominated farming district in neighboring Diyala Province, close to the Iranian border. That attack, in Zakoosh, killed 17 people, and came as further evidence of the bombers’ ability to attack outside Baghdad and Baquba, where tens of thousands of American troops have been waging an offensive to reduce insurgent activity.

American commanders conceded that 80 percent of the insurgents’ leadership in Baquba evaded the siege and are thought to have escaped the city.

It is rare for insurgents to mount such large attacks in remote villages like Amerli, often preferring to strike in crowded city centers and at religious sites and Iraqi security forces. But since the start of the Baghdad security plan in February, they have frequently struck outside the capital within major cities or targets that are less well defended.

In May, for instance, two truck-bomb attacks in the Kurdish region — including one in the center of Erbil — killed at least 69 people. In April, two suicide car bombings about two weeks apart killed 42 and 71 people well south of the capital, near Shiite shrines in the holy city of Karbala. A month earlier a double car bombing in the Shiite town of Hilla killed 90 pilgrims, with 28 more killed elsewhere on the same day.

All these bombings came after the Feb. 14 start of the new Baghdad security plan, which brought tens of thousands more American troops into the city as part of the latest crackdown aimed at restoring order to the capital.

Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Amerli and Baghdad.

[mrs. red]

As I have stated over and over... if we pull out we will effectively create the killing fields all over again.

I read an article, I will see if I can locate it again talking about how they are calling for the Iraqi's to stand up and fight, and Lord knows I hope they do.

[Sam]

As I have stated over and over... if we pull out we will effectively create the killing fields all over again.

I read an article, I will see if I can locate it again talking about how they are calling for the Iraqi's to stand up and fight, and Lord knows I hope they do.

I wish they would as well Mrs. Red but one of the problems I see in that is they did not resist against Saddan or his regime. So they became pacifist. It is hard to change that mind set once ingrained in them.

I am starting to think if we pull out of Iraq the people will just accept the status quo whatever it is. Of course the scary thing  is Al Quaida with that Victory will think they can go further and further to try to get us. JMHO

Sam

[mrs. red]

Sam,
I don't think they are Pacificist, I think they want to stay alive and have it ingrained that any standing up for themselves will result in death as it did under Saddam.  I think the Iraqi people were like those in Iran prior to all the fanantics that took over using religion as their guise.

[mrs. red]

well the Iraqi government is not wanting us to go anywhere....

http://www.charter.net/news/read.php?ps=1018&id=13836880&_LT=HOME_LARSDCCLM_UNEWS


I don't know if it's a good thing or not, that they are being to tell the Iraqi's to take matters of their security into their own hands.

[crazybabyborg]

US: Top al-Qaida in Iraq figure captured 2 hours, 17 minutes ago
 


The U.S. command said Wednesday the highest-ranking Iraqi in the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq has been arrested, adding that information from him indicates the group's foreign-based leadership wields considerable influence over the Iraqi chapter.

Khaled Abdul-Fattah Dawoud Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, also known as Abu Shahid, was captured in Mosul on July 4, said Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner, a military spokesman.

"Al-Mashhadani is believed to be the most senior Iraqi in the al-Qaida in Iraq network," Bergner said. He said al-Mashhadani was a close associate of Abu Ayub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born head of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Bergner said al-Mashhadani served as an intermediary between al-Masri and Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.

"In fact, communication between the senior al-Qaida leadership and al-Masri frequently went through al-Mashhadani," Bergner said.

"Along with al-Masri, al-Mashhadani co-founded a virtual organization in cyberspace called the Islamic State of Iraq in 2006," Bergner said. "The Islamic State of Iraq is the latest efforts by al-Qaida to market itself and its goal of imposing a Taliban-like state on the Iraqi people."

In Web postings, the Islamic State of Iraq has identified its leader as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, with al-Masri as minister of war. There are no known photos of al-Baghdadi.

Bergner said al-Mashhadani had told interrogators that al-Baghdadi is a "fictional role" created by al-Masri and that an actor is used for audio recordings of speeches posted on the Web.

"In his words, the Islamic State of Iraq is a front organization that masks the foreign influence and leadership within al-Qaida in Iraq in an attempt to put an Iraqi face on the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq," Bergner said.

He said al-Mashhadani was a leader of the militant Ansar al-Sunnah group before joining al-Qaida in Iraq 2 1/2 years ago. Al-Mashhadani served as the al-Qaida media chief for Baghdad and then was appointed the media chief for the whole country.

Al-Qaida in Iraq was proclaimed in 2004 by Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who led a group called Tawhid and Jihad, responsible for the beheading of several foreign hostages, whose final moments were captured on videotapes provided to Arab television stations.

Al-Zarqawi posted Web statements declaring his allegiance to bin Laden and began using the name of al-Qaida in Iraq. Al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Diyala province in June 2006 and was replaced by al-Masri.

The degree of control and supervision between bin Laden's clique and the Iraq branch has been the subject of debate, with some private analysts believing the foreign-based leadership plays a minor role in day to day operations.

However, the U.S. military has released captured letters from time to time, suggesting the foreign-based leaders provide at least broad direction.


Does anyone else find it uncanny that simultaneously with US intelligience revealing 9/10 monitoring conditions for terror attack on US soil, and simulatanously with the capture of such an important al-Qaida figure in Iraq, our congress is having a slumber party dictated by the far left to set a withdrawal date NOW?

How encouraging to terror forces in Iraq that such a publicity stunt was staged in the US! With the successes of the surge mounting, they've had to look toward Pakistan and elsewhere as a viable stronghold, but with the help of far left wingers in Congress, they are probably rethinking things............"maybe we CAN win!"

How can ANY responsible elected leader talk openly of a specific timeline? Do they believe we are the only ones listening or do they just not care about the Iraqi people or our own troops? How can political rhetoric be allowed to undermine our own and aid our enemy? The parents, wives, husbands, and children of our troops deserve to be fear free that the danger to their loved ones will not be escalated by the US congress!

There will be a review and evaluation in September of the surge effects. I hate to be this cynical, but I really do believe that some folks on the Hill are staging this charade because they'll do anything to keep the war the thrust of the Presidential election. The economy is booming and they need an emotional touchstone to rally around. God Forbid the surge should be shown successful and popular opinion shift! That would be a Democratic nightmare!

[mrs. red]

CBB... you always state with such eloquence just what I am thinking.  

I think that too many in the Congress in the US have completely left behind any semblance of what it means to be free as long as they can blather on and pull at the emotions of the people.

NOT that I think one military life should ever be shed, but if we pull out now then the deaths of these young men and women will be for nothing.  Also if the liberals really want to protect young people, more kids died last year from traffic accidents and drinking... where the cry about those children?

I am sure that what I am trying to say will be twisted by some as unfeeling, and I certainly support the military 100%, but the point is we have to stay and finish what we started or we will indeed all be doomed to wearing burkas!