Homeland Security Focus Areas

Terrorism, Terrorists and Counter-Terrorism

NYTimes.com

June 25, 2008 

Baghdad Blast Kills Four Americans

By ALISSA J. RUBIN and MUDHAFER AL-HUSAINI

BAGHDAD — American soldiers and civilians had a surprise for the Sadr City District Council on Tuesday, and gathered in the office of its acting chairman to make the presentation just before the weekly meeting.

As one of the soldiers unfurled photographs of the council members, an explosion ripped through the room, knocking one member, Qasim Abdul Zahra, to the floor. As he looked up, he could just make out the forms of bloodied Americans through the smoke, he said. Unwittingly, they had become human shields, he said.

“The explosion happened just outside the room, near the Americans,” who were standing by the door, he said. “They were the ones that received the most shrapnel, and that’s why we are still alive,” he said of himself and the three other council members who were present.

While the four Iraqi council members in the room survived, four Americans, an Italian interpreter and six Iraqis, who were outside the room, were killed.

Two of the dead Americans were soldiers. The other two were a civilian contract worker for the Defense Department and a State Department employee who worked for Sadr City’s provincial reconstruction team. The interpreter, who was born in Iraq, was working under a Defense Department contract.

“This is a tragic loss and one we all mourn,” Ryan C. Crocker, the United States ambassador, said in a statement. “We and all who believe in a brighter future for Iraq condemn this heinous attack in the strongest possible terms.”

The State Department worker, Steven L. Farley, a native of Guthrie, Okla., served for several years in the Navy Reserve and volunteered to join the State Department in April 2007, according to a statement by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He was at least the fourth State Department employee to die in Iraq.

Tuesday was the second consecutive day that Americans who met with local leaders in Iraq were killed. In Madaen, southeast of Baghdad, two American soldiers died shortly after leaving a meeting at the local council building on Monday.

The military blamed “special groups,” the term used to describe militias backed and trained by Iran or its surrogates. “Special groups are afraid of progress and afraid of empowering the people,” said Lt. Col. John Digiambatista, an operations officer with the Third Brigade Combat Team, Fourth Infantry Division.

This “will only harden the determination of this council, the citizens of Sadr City, the Iraqi Army and coalition forces,” he said.

Despite a six-week truce in Sadr City, power struggles have emerged over who will represent its two million to three million mostly impoverished residents in elections in November. Many factions are involved, some allied with the rebel Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr and some with his opponents.

Disputes are also occurring about whether to allow the American-financed neighborhood guards, known elsewhere as Awakening Councils, to assume responsibility for security in some parts of Sadr City. The District Council where the bombing occurred opposed the Awakening Councils.

Mr. Sadr has said he continues to support attacks on American forces, but he has asked his followers to refrain from attacking other Iraqis.

It was unclear if the attack on Tuesday was intended to kill the Americans, the Iraqis on the District Council or the acting council chairman.

“The American forces don’t attend regularly every Tuesday, and that’s why we were surprised this morning because they paid an unexpected visit to the council at 9 a.m.,” Ahmed Hasan, a council spokesman, said.

The bomb exploded 20 minutes later. Windows shattered, and smoke and dust poured from the large building. Its facade bears a huge picture of the turban-covered head of Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, the father of Moktada al-Sadr.

Council members blamed the Iraqi security forces, the Facility Protection Services and American soldiers, some of whom were nearby at the time, for allowing a bomb to be smuggled into the building. But others said it was an inside job aimed at killing council members.

“There’s infiltration inside the local council,” said Mr. Zahra, whose legs were broken in the bombing. “I don’t want to accuse anyone, but this was a conspiracy. We put good security inside the local council. I don’t know how a bomb hidden in a bag could get inside.”

American military officials said that they had caught a suspect near the site of the bombing who had tested positive for explosive residue.

On the southern outskirts of Baghdad, the leader of the security committee of Abu Dshir, a majority Shiite district, confirmed that the chairman of the local council was killed Monday.

“Unknown gunmen knocked on the door of Mahdi Atwan, the chairman of the local council in Abu Dshir,” said Sayyid Malik Hussein, the leader of the security committee.

“The gunmen shot him dead with nine bullets in his chest as soon as he opened the door,” Mr. Hussein said. “The local councils are being targeted these days because they are working very well and they represent the government.”

Mohamed Hussein contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Baghdad and Mosul.

Suicide bombing kills 15 north of Baghdad

By Doug Smith

Tribune Newspapers

2:39 AM CDT, June 23, 2008

BAGHDAD—A woman pretending to seek assistance from police detonated an explosives belt under her traditional robe Sunday, killing 15 people in the busy civic center of Baqouba, police said.

At least seven police were killed, and five other officers were among the 40 injured in the blast in Diyala province's capital, police said.

The woman, about 35 years old, parked her car near the provincial council building Sunday afternoon and was led by two policemen to a checkpoint where she detonated the explosives, said Muhi Deen Auda, the owner of a nearby restaurant.

Although attacks across Iraq have fallen to their lowest level since 2004, U.S. officials warn that insurgent groups still have the ability to launch deadly attacks, particularly in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

Despite attempts by U.S. and Iraqi forces to pacify the area, Sunni insurgents maintain a persistent presence around Baqouba.

Once rare, suicide attacks by women have become more common as the insurgent ranks have thinned, U.S. officials have said. This year at least 21 women have killed themselves in 19 attacks, including Sunday's bombing, the military said.

Elsewhere in Iraq, three people were killed and two injured when a roadside bomb exploded in downtown Kirkuk, police in the northern city said.

In Mosul, also in the north, a car bomb went off at a police checkpoint Sunday evening, injuring 14 people, authorities said. Four police officers were among those hurt.

Los Angeles Times

NYTimes.com

June 19, 2008 

U.S. Blames Shiite Leader for Deadly Baghdad Blast

By ANDREW E. KRAMER

BAGHDAD — The American military on Wednesday blamed a Shiite militia leader for detonating a car bomb that killed 63 people in a Shiite district a day earlier, saying he had intended to set off sectarian violence against Sunnis returning to the area as security improved.

Shiite militias drove Sunni residents from the area 18 months ago, when Baghdad was gripped in a cycle of revenge killings that ultimately divided the city between the sects. Enraged residents had blamed either American soldiers, who had been nearby, or Sunni insurgents from Al Deel, the bordering Sunni district. But the United States military blamed Haydar Mehdi Khadum al-Fawadi, and identified him as a leader of the Iranian-linked Shiite fighters known as special groups.

“We believe he ordered the attack to incite Shiite violence against Sunnis,” Lt. Col. Steven Stover, an American military spokesman in Baghdad, said by e-mail. He said the military had corroborated its information from more than one source. “He’s an all-around bad guy.”

Perhaps to quell potential sectarian vendettas, the American military sent a convoy of Humvees with loudspeakers on their roofs to the area on Wednesday. The convoy traveled slowly down one street around noon, blaring a recorded message in Arabic: “The criminal Haydar Mehdi has committed the bombing. He does not care about your life.”

The convoy stopped at an intersection for a funeral procession of young men carrying a coffin, then resumed its crawl.

Residents and some Shiite politicians were skeptical. Interviewed as the convoy passed, a man who identified himself only as Abu Gaith, or the father of Gaith, scoffed at the message.

“Nobody will believe them,” he said. “They are the occupiers. It is propaganda.”

An Iraqi government statement avoided placing blame, saying only, “This crime will not influence our determination and resolve to defeat the terrorists.”

A spokesman for the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr rejected the American version as “completely away from reality.”

Jabir Habeeb Jabir, a mainstream Shiite lawmaker, also questioned the assertion that a Shiite had killed Shiites to provoke revenge killings against Sunnis. “We never heard of such actions,” he said.

The car bomb, the most deadly in Baghdad since March, detonated near a group standing on the street drinking tea to celebrate a Shiite holiday, witnesses said. Azhar Sadiq, a survivor, said she had taken her 3-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son to the shopping district because the children had few opportunities to leave the house. She had stopped to drink tea for the celebration when the bomb exploded.

“I hugged my two kids, and my body was full of shrapnel,” she said in an interview at the Kadhimiya Teaching Hospital. “I only realized that in the hospital, because I was focusing on my kids.”

In Kirkuk, in the north, a roadside bomb killed a policeman and wounded three civilians on Wednesday. Farther north in Mosul, a car bomb wounded eight people. Police in Kut, south of Baghdad, seized what they said were 27 Iranian-made improvised explosive devices.

Mohamed Hussein and Mudhafer al-Husaini contributed reporting.

Blast in Baghdad Market Kills Dozens
Bombing Was City's Deadliest Since March

By Ernesto Londoño and Dalya Hassan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 18, 2008; A07

BAGHDAD, June 17 -- Dozens of people were killed Tuesday evening when a car loaded with explosives blew up at a crowded market in northwestern Baghdad, the deadliest attack in the capital since March.

The attack killed 46 people and wounded more than 80, according to an Interior Ministry official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The U.S. military put the death toll at 27.

The explosives, strapped onto a Kia pickup truck, detonated shortly before 6 p.m., set two buildings on fire, trapped residents in apartments and ravaged several shops in the Hurriyah market, which is frequented by women and children.

Salam Hashim, 28, a clothing merchant at the market, said he was in his shop when the blast occurred. As he hobbled outside, making his way through piles of shattered glass and rubble, he saw smoldering bodies and scores of wounded people lying on the ground.

"Many people were screaming," Hashim said. "They were cursing al-Qaeda in Iraq and the security forces because they were not there to protect their lives."

Iraqi and U.S. officials said they did not know who was responsible for the attack. It was reminiscent of other large bombings at markets in predominantly Shiite areas that have been attributed to Sunni insurgent groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Mass casualty bombings, which were routine last year, had become rare in Baghdad in recent months as an influx of Iraqi and U.S. troops succeeded in reducing violence and disarming extremists.

In March, about 90 people were killed in two bombings targeting markets.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office issued a statement Tuesday night calling the Hurriyah bombing an "ugly crime" committed by "monsters."

The statement said the attackers were trying to exacerbate "sectarian strife to uplift the fallen spirits of their assistants after continuous defeats in Baghdad, Basra and Mosul," where U.S. and Iraqi forces have pursued insurgents aggressively. "This crime will increase our efforts to rescue the capital and the other provinces of terrorists, murderers and outlaws," the statement added.

Three of Hashim's friends, who were working a few feet from him, were killed, he said.

"I feel very tired, physically and emotionally," he said Tuesday night in a phone interview. "I don't want to eat. I just want to smoke. I feel very tired and sad. They were very close to me."

Hashim said several U.S. soldiers had visited the market about 15 minutes before the explosion. Soldiers routinely patrol the market and buy chicken there, he said. No U.S. troops were wounded in the attack, according to a U.S. military spokesman.

Ali Kadhim, 20, another merchant who witnessed the bombing, said U.S. and Iraqi security forces had set up concrete barriers in the district two days earlier to improve security.

Hurriyah, a sector of the Kadhimiyah district, is one of several areas of the capital where U.S. and Iraqi troops have targeted Shiite militia leaders recently. As a result, the two merchants said, many have fled the area or maintained a low profile.

Hashim, who said he dislikes militiamen, said their departure has made residents vulnerable to attacks. "The Mahdi Army were trying to provide some kind of protection," he said, referring to the militia of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. "They prevented cars from being stopped near markets."

Still, Hashim said, people in Hurriyah had begun to move around more freely and stay out later as security improved. "Six months ago, the situation wasn't good," he said. "Now I would return home at 11 p.m."

U.S. military officials have said the security gains that have heartened Baghdad residents are fragile and reversible, asserting that insurgent groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, though weakened, remain capable of large-scale attacks.

"This is a senseless and tragic event," said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. "What's to gain by terrorizing the population when what 99 percent of the Iraqi people want is peace, stability and security and the opportunity to raise their families and make a living? This is simply an evil act."

Also Tuesday, the police chief in Kut, a city southeast of Baghdad, was killed in a roadside bombing, Iraqi officials said. Col. Salih Mahdi al-Shimari and one of his deputies, 1st Lt. Mohammed Wali, were in a convoy that was hit with an armor-penetrating bomb, according to Hameed Chaati, the director of the city's health center.

Meanwhile, in the northern city of Mosul, Muhieddin Abdul-Hamid, 50, an Iraqi state television journalist, was assassinated near his home, colleagues said. Nearly 130 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

NYTimes.com

June 14, 2008 

Taliban Free 1,200 Inmates in Attack on Afghan Prison

By CARLOTTA GALL

In a brazen attack, Taliban fighters assaulted the main prison in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Friday night, blowing up the mud walls, killing 15 guards and freeing around 1,200 inmates. Among the escapees were about 350 Taliban members, including commanders, would-be suicide bombers and assassins, said Ahmed Wali Karzai, the head of Kandahar’s provincial council and a brother of President Hamid Karzai.

“It is very dangerous for security. They are the most experienced killers and they all managed to escape,” he said by telephone from Kandahar.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said that the attack was carried out by 30 insurgents on motorbikes and two suicide bombers, and that they had freed about 400 Taliban members, The Associated Press reported.

The breakout from Sarposa Prison will present enormous security challenges for Afghan and NATO forces surrounding Kandahar, President Karzai’s home city but also the spiritual capital of the Taliban. Traditionally, Kandahar is home to the rulers of Afghanistan, and control of it is seen as critical to the government’s hold on the entire country.

The city has been in a precarious situation since Taliban forces massed in the nearby district of Panjwai in 2006. Since then Canadian forces have struggled to secure the area, and the Taliban have repeatedly sought to gain a foothold in the districts surrounding the town.

The prison break is also likely to increase pressure on President Karzai, who is coming under increasing criticism at home and abroad for his faltering leadership and his inability to manage the country. Even as international donors pledged $21 billion in aid for Afghanistan this week, many of them have criticized his failure to tackle the problems of security and corruption.

The attack began at 9:20 p.m., when two truck bombs exploded at the prison gates, breaking down a part of the mud walls, Ahmed Karzai said. It seemed to be well planned, officials said. After the bombings, a group of fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles mounted an attack, said a spokesman for the provincial governor. They then ran through the prison, breaking open the cell doors.

The prison lies on the west side of the city. Residents living about a half mile away in the center of town said the explosions broke windows in their street and that they could hear fighting raging for an hour after that.

Mr. Karzai said that the attackers focused their efforts on the political section of the prison, where the Taliban suspects were being held. There is also a section for ordinary criminals and one for some 80 female prisoners. Mr. Karzai said that the police and prison guards managed to prevent around 200 prisoners from escaping, but other officials contacted in the town said that every last prisoner had escaped.

While there were also ordinary criminals in the jail, families of many of the prisoners have said their relatives were swept up in military operations and wrongly imprisoned.

Villagers living near the prison said they saw prisoners running along the roads, and scattering into nearby villages, generally heading north and east to the districts of Dand and Argandab outside the city, a security official in the city, Abdul Haleem, said. He warned that the Taliban could be sheltering very close to the city.

Canadian troops, part of the NATO force that is based outside Kandahar, were deployed to the prison but arrived after the prisoners had escaped. Afghan Army, police and intelligence personnel were pursuing the prisoners in the surrounding villages, Mr. Karzai said.

The prison was recently the scene of unrest, with some 400 prisoners staging a hunger strike in May to protest their long detention without trial. Some had been held for as long as two years without trial, and some were being refused the right to appeal very harsh sentences, they said. More than 40 of the prisoners stitched their lips together with needle and thread to demonstrate their determination.

Some 300 women who came to protest outside the prison at the time said their relatives inside had been picked up by NATO and American military sweeps and were innocent but nevertheless held without trial for months and even years. Local elders and government officials negotiated an end to the protest and promised better conditions and justice. Yet, the jailbreak is likely to prove popular with many local families.

Taliban prisoners staged another escape from the prison several years ago by digging a tunnel from a cell. Officials at the time said some of the guards had been bribed to look the other way.

Carlotta Gall reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Abdul Waheed Wafa contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.

NYTimes.com

June 6, 2008 

16 Monks Arrested in Tibet Bombings

By KEITH BRADSHER

HONG KONG — The police in Tibet have arrested 16 Buddhist monks and accused them of involvement in three bombings, a police spokesman in northeastern Tibet said Thursday.

All three bombings involved homemade explosives and caused only property damage, the spokesman said in a telephone interview.

The spokesman, in Qamdo, declined to give his name, and he referred further questions to the Tibet Department of Public Security headquarters in Lhasa, where a press officer said he had no information.

Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, reported on Thursday that the Tibet Department of Public Security had arrested the 16 monks on May 12 and 13 in connection with bombings on April 5, 8 and 15 in villages near Qamdo.

All of the monks have said they are guilty, according to Xinhua.

Human rights activists and Tibetan exile groups have repeatedly accused Chinese security forces of using torture to extract confessions. The police in China also frequently delay announcing arrests until confessions have been obtained.

Nicolas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, said that while he had no specific information on the monks under arrest, he doubted that their treatment would meet international standards.

“We have no confidence that these people get due process, and in particular the issue of confession is always tricky because of the use of pretrial torture and coercion in China,” he said.

Judges in Tibet have also been outspoken in saying that their goal is to try cases as quickly as possible and to preserve the territorial integrity of China. “They don’t pretend that they’re giving people a fair trial,” Mr. Bequelin said. “They say they are fighting separatism.”

Australia curtails role in Iraq

Combat duty ends; Iraq sees tough talks over security pact

By Ned Parker

Tribune Newspapers

12:42 AM CDT, June 2, 2008

BAGHDAD — Australian troops ended their main combat mission in Iraq on Sunday, handing over their responsibilities in southern Iraq to U.S. forces.

About 550 Australian troops, who served in a training and backup role to Iraqi forces in the provinces of Dhi Qar and Muthanna, made the transfer during a ceremony at a camp near Nasiriyah, said Capt. Chris Ford, a British military spokesman in southern Iraq.

The hand-over came as Iraq's chief spokesman acknowledged differences with the United States over a proposed long-term security agreement and pledged Sunday that the government will protect Iraqi sovereignty in the negotiations.

Opposition has been growing in Iraq to the proposed security pact, which will replace the current UN mandate and could provide for a long-term U.S. military role in this country.

Much of the opposition comes from anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, but statements critical of the deal also have been issued by mainstream Sunni and Shiite figures who fear it will undermine Iraqi sovereignty.

Also Sunday, U.S. officials announced that a bomb killed an American soldier in Baghdad. The military said the blast was caused by an explosively formed penetrator, an armor-piercing bomb that the U.S. Army associates with hard-line Shiite militants and suspects are supplied in part by Iran. It was the first American death this month.

In May, the U.S. military said 19 soldiers were killed, the lowest monthly total since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

At least 4,085 U.S. military personnel have died in Iraq since the war began.

The U.S. military says violence in Iraq has dropped to its lowest level since March 2004. The current calm relies on fragile arrangements: a deal struck by the American military with former Sunni insurgents to pay them to guard their neighborhoods or regions, as well as the decision by Sadr to freeze his powerful militia's armed activities.

In March and April, violence soared as Sadr's militia clashed with U.S. and Iraqi forces. The bloodshed dropped after Sadr commanded his followers again to observe a truce.

The Australian flag was lowered Sunday at the ceremony in Dhi Qar province. Ahead of his election in November, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had pledged to end his country's frontline military role in Iraq.

Australia has said it will keep several hundred troops in Iraq to guard its diplomats and act as liaisons on security and headquarters functions. It also intends to commit two maritime surveillance aircraft and a warship to help guard oil platforms.

Australia follows in the footsteps of other U.S. allies that have ended or drastically curtailed their work in Iraq amid domestic discontent over the war.

Poland has announced its intention to end its military presence in Iraq by year's end. Spain was the first of the Western allies to withdraw its forces in 2004.

British troops in Basra province serve in a backup role at the request of Iraqi forces. British numbers have dropped from 18,000 troops in May 2003 to 4,000 currently.

Italy, which once stationed combat troops, now serves in a training capacity to the Iraqi national police.

In other violence Sunday, a car bomb exploded in a parking lot near the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, claiming the lives of three civilians, police said.

A traffic police colonel was badly wounded and his bodyguard killed when a bomb was planted beneath their car as the police officer patrolled a central district of the capital, police said.

Los Angeles Times; The Associated Press also contributed to this report.

Afghan militants' attacks kill 13 police officers, 11 civilians

Wednesday,  May 28, 2008 4:24 AM

By Amir Shah

Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Roadside bombings and insurgent attacks killed 24 people in Afghanistan yesterday, including 13 police officers, while U.S.-led-coalition operations killed several militants, officials said.

In southern Kandahar province, Taliban insurgents killed nine policemen in a two-pronged attack before dawn in Shorabak district, said provincial Police Chief Sayed Agha Saqib. Insurgents first attacked a police checkpoint, killing five officers, Saqib said. Then two roadside bombs hit two vehicles carrying police reinforcements, killing four more officers and wounding three.

Another roadside bomb in Logar province, south of Kabul, killed four policemen, said Deputy Police Chief Abdul Majid Latifi.

Militants regularly target the country's fledgling police force, which is seen as weaker than the better-trained and -equipped Afghan army. At least 72 police officers were killed in insurgent ambushes and bombings in April. More than 900 policemen were among the 8,000 people killed last year. The United States has spent $4 billion to train and equip the police in the past three years.

In western Farah province, a roadside bomb hit a bus yesterday, killing eight civilians and wounding another, said Farah's deputy governor, Younus Rasuli. All the casualties were men.

In Kandahar, a Taliban insurgent was planting a mine under a bridge in Daman district when it prematurely exploded, killing the insurgent and three children who were playing nearby, Saqib said.

In Logar, protesters blocked a road after foreign troops killed a cleric during an operation before dawn yesterday, local leaders said.

NYTimes.com

May 23, 2008 

Suicide Bomber Attacks Gaza Crossing

By ISABEL KERSHNER

JERUSALEM — A Palestinian suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives early Thursday just short of the Erez crossing on the northern Gaza-Israel border, killing himself and causing damage, but no injuries, on the Israeli side.

It was the latest in a series of attacks at the border crossings, which have been admitting only the barest of essentials under the blockade Israel imposed last June, after the Islamic militant group Hamas took control of Gaza.

Islamic Jihad and the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, an unruly offshoot of the Fatah movement of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, claimed responsibility, but Israeli officials said the suicide attack could not have taken place without the complicity of Hamas.

Later on Thursday, hundreds of Palestinians answered a Hamas call to protest the blockade, gathering on the Gaza side of the Karni crossing, an almost entirely closed commercial terminal on the territory’s eastern edge.

Soldiers on the Israeli side fired on a group of armed men in the crowd, one of whom was carrying an antitank missile, an Israeli military spokesman said. Palestinian medical officials reported one 22-year-old protester killed and at least 17 wounded.

Hamas and other militant groups have stepped up attacks on the crossings, as they also demand an end to the blockade in Egyptian-mediated negotiations for a cease-fire with Israel. The crossings are lifelines for Gaza, with its population of 1.4 million fenced into an area barely 6 miles wide and 25 miles long. A Hamas delegation was set to return to Gaza from Cairo on Thursday after another round of talks.

Ismail Haniya, who leads the Hamas administration in Gaza, said in a statement, “The Palestinian groups will not give a truce to Israel if Israel does not accept our demand to end the closure, open borders and stop aggression.”

Like the United States and Europe, Israel defines Hamas as a terrorist organization and hoped that its Gaza blockade would squeeze the group out of power. Israel has imposed additional sanctions in response to constant rocket fire from Gaza, but does not rule out easing the embargo in the context of a cease-fire deal.

“In the current reality of daily attacks, it is simply not on the cards,” said Mark Regev, a spokesman for Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister. “But if we were to enter a period of quiet, then things that are impossible today could become possible.”

The Erez crossing used to be the main passageway for thousands of Palestinian day laborers going to work in Israel. It is now used mostly as a crossing point for aid workers and for Palestinians who need medical treatment in Israel. The Israeli military said it would be closed until Sunday as a result of the attack.

A spokesman for the United Nations special coordinator Robert Serry strongly condemned the bombing in a statement. “Incidents of this kind are totally unacceptable,” the spokesman, Richard Miron, said. “We are extremely concerned about the implications of attacks of this nature on our operations.”

Islamic Jihad identified the bomber as Ibrahim Nasser, 23, of Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, and said the truck had contained hundreds of pounds of explosives. The blast left a large crater in the ground.

The truck approached the crossing in heavy fog. In April, in similar conditions, Palestinian suicide bombers drove three explosives-laden vehicles into the Kerem Shalom crossing, through which some goods pass, to the south. Three militants were killed, and 13 Israeli soldiers were wounded in that attack, for which Hamas claimed responsibility. There have been several other shooting attacks on or near the crossings, including at Nahal Oz, the sole transfer point for fuel into Gaza.

Israeli officials have accused the militant groups of deliberately trying to create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza by stopping the supplies, in order to create pressure on Israel. The militants have warned that they will act to lift the embargo by any means.

NYTimes.com

May 15, 2008 

2 Baghdad Attacks Attributed to Teenagers Kill 11 Others

By ALISSA J. RUBIN

BAGHDAD — Two suicide bombers described as teenagers carried out attacks Wednesday in suburban Baghdad as the prime minister went to the northern city of Mosul to encourage Iraqi soldiers fighting in a new offensive to rid that area of Sunni Islamic extremists.

The Mosul operation follows two other offensives, in Basra and the Sadr City district of Baghdad, that the government has carried out in recent months; the other two offensives focused on Shiite militias.

Iraqi and American security forces believe that Mosul is the last urban stronghold of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which American intelligence says is a homegrown militant group led by foreigners.

The Iraqi Army began the offensive over the weekend and is being aided by American troops. There has long been support in Mosul for the Sunni insurgency because many former members of Saddam Hussein’s security forces live there.

“The goal of this operation is to clean Mosul of the terrorist and criminal groups,” said Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who was accompanied by the ministers of interior and defense. “The operation will open a new page for civilians in Mosul, and the security forces should do everything to make this operation successful just as they are doing in Baghdad and Basra.”

Basra has recently settled into relative calm, although it remains unclear if the Shiite militias are finished fighting or simply planning to resume the battle later. Clashes are still going on in Sadr City, although the past few days have been quieter since a cease-fire agreement was reached.

The more damaging of the suicide bomb attacks on Wednesday occurred west of Baghdad about 5 p.m. in Abu Ghraib. It killed at least 10 people and wounded 50, some of them seriously, according to spokesmen for the Falluja and Jordanian hospitals, both in Falluja. By nightfall mosques in Falluja were calling people to donate blood, and police cars were ferrying donors to the hospitals.

The bomber’s victims had been mourning the death of Taha al-Zobaie, who was killed two days ago, said Abu Mustapha, a relative who had shrapnel wounds and who would give only his nickname. The Zobaie tribe has opposed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

“He was a child about 15 years old, and he was crying,” Abu Mustapha said, describing the bomber. “I don’t think he exploded himself because I did not see him move his hands. I think someone exploded him by remote control.”

The suicide bomb attack south of Baghdad occurred near Yusufiya, a town that was once heavily dominated by extremists connected to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The bomber, who was female, killed an Iraqi Army captain and wounded seven Iraqi soldiers, the American military said.

Iraqis in the area described the bomber as being 8 to 12 years old, but an American military spokesman said the bomber appeared to be 16 to 18 years old. The bomber waited four hours for the captain to return to the company’s headquarters, telling soldiers there that she needed to talk to him, according to an Iraqi officer who was in the same brigade as the captain. He said Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia had put a price on the captain’s head.

In Baghdad, the convoy of one of the leaders of the Iraqi Islamic Party was attacked by a car bomb in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Yarmouk. The leader, Ayad al-Sammaraie, was not in the convoy, but three of his bodyguards were killed and 23 people were wounded, according to the Ministry of Interior.

Marine Charged in Iraq Shooting

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) — Camp Pendleton’s commanding general has ordered a marine to be tried for murder in the killing of an unarmed detainee in Falluja, Iraq.

Sgt. Jermaine Nelson, of New York, is among three marines accused of shooting unarmed captives in November 2004.

Sergeant Nelsa, 26, is charged with unpremeditated murder and dereliction of duty. He told investigators in March 2007 that his squad leader had demanded help shooting four detainees after guns were found in the house where the Iraqis were held.

Sergeant Nelson’s attorney, Joseph Low, has said he obeyed what he perceived as an order.

Sergeant Nelson faces life in prison if convicted.

Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Falluja, Mahmudiya and Baghdad.

May 5, 2008

Iraqi President’s Wife Not Hurt by a Roadside Bomb

By ALISSA J. RUBIN

NYTimes.com

BAGHDAD — Four marines were killed in Anbar Province by a roadside bomb, and in Baghdad, the Iraqi president’s wife narrowly escaped an attack on her motorcade, officials said Sunday.

Hiro Ibrahim Ahmed, the wife of President Jalal Talabani, was in a motorcade heading to a cultural festival at the National Theater on Sunday, when a roadside bomb in the Karada district hit the car carrying her bodyguards. She was not wounded, but four of her bodyguards were hurt.

The death of the marines in Anbar, in an attack on Friday that the military reported Sunday, was one of the deadliest in months on American troops in the province. For much of the past 18 months, Anbar, once one of the most violent places in Iraq, has been mostly quiet. But recently there have been several suicide bombings and other attacks, primarily aimed at Iraqis who have joined the Awakening movement, groups of former fighters and tribal members who decided to work with the American military to fight Islamic extremists.

Clashes continued in the capital’s Sadr City district and nearby areas, with the American military reporting that it had killed nine “criminals” — five in Sadr City and four in the neighboring district of New Baghdad. In Sadr City, three of those killed were believed to have been preparing an attack on soldiers building a wall between the American-held southern part of the neighborhood and the northern section, held by Shiite militias.

In Baghdad, two bombs went off in succession in Nisour Square, in what appears to have been a coordinated attack on the deputy chief of the traffic police for the west side of Baghdad, according to witnesses.

Eight mortar shells struck the government’s Green Zone in Baghdad on Sunday night, according to an Interior Ministry official.

In Mosul, a journalist, Sarwa Abdul-Wahab, 35, was killed by gunmen as she was driving in the eastern part of the city. A spokesman for the journalists’ union in Baghdad said he was unsure whether Ms. Abdul-Wahab had been attacked because she was a journalist or for other reasons.

Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Baghdad and Mosul.

35 die as suicide bombers strike wedding celebration

Friday,  May 2, 2008 3:05 AM

By Selcan Hacaoglu

Associated Press

BAGHDAD -- Two suicide bombers attacked a wedding caravan in Balad Ruz yesterday as it drove through a crowded market district past bystanders cheering the bride and groom. At least 35 people were killed and 65 wounded, officials said.

In the capital, a parked car exploded in a crowded area when a U.S. patrol went by, killing a U.S. soldier and at least nine Iraqis. The attack wounded 26 Iraqis and two American soldiers.

The attacks came amid heightened worries that al-Qaida in Iraq is regrouping despite recent security gains by U.S.-led forces, which find themselves facing intensified fighting with Shiite extremists, particularly in Baghdad's militia stronghold of Sadr City.

In the suicide assault, a female bomber blew herself up as people were dancing and clapping while members of the passing wedding party played music in Balad Ruz, a predominantly Shiite town 45 miles northeast of Baghdad.

A male bomber attacked minutes later as police and ambulances arrived, said Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim al-Rubaie, leader of the Diyala province operations center.

The two explosions tore through stalls and stores that line the area, and al-Rubaie said at least 35 people were killed and 65 suffered wounds, including the bride and groom.

The U.S. military in northern Iraq said only that there were multiple explosions in Balad Ruz and gave a lower casualty figure: 26 dead and 52 wounded.

The car bomb that targeted the U.S. patrol in Baghdad also exploded in a crowded market district. Iraqi police said nine civilians were killed and 25 people wounded. The U.S. military said a soldier died later of wounds.

Iraqi civilians chased and captured a militant who was seen detonating the bomb with a mobile phone and turned him over to Iraqi police, the U.S. military said. Two accomplices also were detained, it said.

Clashes between U.S.-backed Iraqi troops and Shiite militiamen continued in Baghdad.

The U.S. military said an airstrike in Sadr City killed 18 militants, including a senior member of what they called Iranian-backed forces.

Health officials said 10 people, including at least two women and a child, were killed and 27 people wounded in the fighting. It could not be determined whether any of the militants killed were among them.

Six al-Qaida militants also were killed in the northern city of Mosul, the military said.

The Washington Times

Article published Apr 30, 2008

U.S. troops attacked from roofs

April 30, 2008

By Richard Tomkins - BAGHDAD — The Baghdad stronghold of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr exploded with violence for the third consecutive day, with militants taking up positions on rooftops and alleys to attack U.S. troops.

Lt. Col. Steve Stover said U.S. forces targeted gunmen in the area with rockets fired from a guided multiple-launch rocket system, which fires high-explosive warheads weighing 200 pounds. He said 28 extremists were killed.

"We have every right to defend ourselves," Col. Stover, a spokesman for the U.S. military, told the Associated Press. "The problem is they're using houses, rooftops and alleyways [as cover]."

Six Americans were wounded in yesterday's battles.

The attack took place along a road through the Shi'ite slum of Sadr City, where U.S. and Iraqi troops are attempting to build a concrete barrier.

The barrier is part of a strategy to push militants farther north, where rockets and mortars are out of range of the Green Zone in central Baghdad.

In another attack, Shi'ite militants hit a U.S. military station in southern Sadr City with explosive canisters, badly damaging a tactical operations center and injuring 15 troops.

None of the 15 suffered life-threatening injuries, said Maj. Michael Humphreys, spokesman for the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, who was at the facility at the time of the attack. The most serious injury, he said, was a broken leg.

Maj. Humphreys, speaking by telephone from Joint Security Station (JSS) Sadr City, said the attack was conducted about 1:20 p.m. Monday, when most U.S. troops and Iraqi police with whom they share the base were out on patrol and on other duties away from the two-story building.

"We had some bad guys draw up in a truck behind the JSS with eight [rocket] launching rails on the back of it," he said. "They launched acety-lenelike canisters from them and then took off."

Five canisters were lobbed over the back wall of the JSS. Four detonated. One blew out the wall on the southwest side of the station's main building where U.S. forces had located their tactical operations center. Another destroyed a billeting area where, had it occurred at night, soldiers would have been sleeping.

One canister that was lobbed over the wall failed to explode. Three others were found in the vehicle after the attack.

JSS Sadr City is located near the Tharwa district of southern Sadr City, an area where U.S. and Iraqi forces are determined to maintain security.

The militants ended a week of relative calm on Sunday, using cover from a sandstorm in the area to bombard the Green Zone with rockets and mortars. Fighting has continued ever since.

Sheik al-Sadr, thought to be in a seminary in Iran, declared a cease-fire between his Mahdi Army militia and U.S. and Iraqi security forces in August. That truce ended in late March, however, when Iraq's Shi'ite prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, sent troops into the southern port city of Basra to crack down on Shi'ite militias, including Mahdi Army members and criminal gangs riding roughshod over it.

• This article is based in part on wire service reports.

Fierce barrage pounds fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad

By Kim Gamel

Associated Press