Iraq residents rise up against al-Qaida

**MTAFFI** · 05-31-2007

Iraq residents rise up against al-Qaida By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writers
1 hour, 50 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - A battle raged Thursday in west Baghdad after residents rose up against al-Qaida and called for U.S. military help to end random gunfire that forced people to huddle indoors and threats that kept students from final exams, a member of the district council said.

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Meanwhile, a suicide bomber hit a police recruiting center in Fallujah, killing as many as 25 people, police said — though the U.S. military said only one policeman was killed and eight were wounded. Elsewhere, three policemen and three civilians were killed and 15 civilians were wounded when a suicide truck bomber struck a communications center on the western outskirts of Ramadi, according to Anbar provincial security adviser Col. Tariq Youssef Mohammed.

The American military also reported the deaths of three more soldiers, two killed Wednesday in a roadside bombing in Baghdad and one who died of wounds from a roadside bomb attack northwest of the capital Tuesday. At least 122 American forces have died in May, the third-deadliest month of the Iraq conflict.

U.S. forces backed by helicopter gunships clashed with suspected al-Qaida gunmen in western Baghdad's primarily Sunni Muslim Amariyah neighborhood in an engagement that lasted several hours, said the district councilman, who would not allow use of his name for fear of al-Qaida retribution.

Casualty figures were not immediately available and there was not immediate word from the U.S. military on the engagement.

But the councilman said the al-Qaida leader in the Amariyah district, known as Haji Hameed, was killed and 45 other fighters were detained.

Members of al-Qaida, who consider the district part of their so-called Islamic State of Iraq, were preventing students from attending final exams, shooting randomly and forcing residents to stay in their homes, the councilman said.

U.S. forces also continued a search for five Britons who were kidnapped Tuesday in Baghdad, as well as for two of its soldiers who have been missing since a May 12 ambush south of the capital.

The Fallujah suicide bomber killed at least 10 policemen in the attack, which occurred about 11 a.m., according to a police official in the city who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. The rest of the dead were civilians, many of them in line seeking jobs as policemen. He said as many as 50 were wounded.

Fallujah General Hospital had received 15 bodies and 10 wounded, according to a doctor there, who would not allow the use of his name because he feared retribution. The physician said he believed other casualties were taken to the nearby Jordanian Hospital and private clinics.

A member of the Fallujah city council, who also asked for anonymity for fear of attack by insurgents, said there were at least 20 killed and 25 injured.

The coordination of information in Fallujah was particularly difficult because the mobile telephone system has been working only sporadically.

Maj. Jeff Pool of the Multi-National Force-West said the Anbar province governor's office and the provincial police put the total number of dead at one Iraqi policeman, with six police and two civilians wounded in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad.

Police said the bomber detonated explosives in his vest at the third of four checkpoints, standing among recruits who were lining up to apply for jobs on the force. The center had only opened Saturday in a primary school in eastern Fallujah.

The U.S. military and Iraqi army and police were running the center along with members of Anbar Salvation Council, a loose grouping of Sunni tribes that have banded together to fight al-Qaida.

Police stations and recruiting posts have been a favorite target of Sunni insurgents and al-Qaida throughout the war.

U.S. forces, meanwhile, pressed on with the search for five kidnapped Britons, and a procession of mourners, some of them women wailing and beating their chests, marched through Sadr City behind a small bus carrying the coffins of two people who police said were killed in a U.S. helicopter strike before dawn.

The U.S. military said it had no report of airstrikes in Sadr City and that there were no civilian casualties in the second day of a search for the Britons, who were abducted Tuesday from a Finance Ministry data processing building in eastern Baghdad.

A U.S. military statement, however, said U.S. and Iraqi forces had arrested two "members of the secret cell terrorist network" in Sadr City. There was no mention of fatalities.

AP Television News videotape from Sadr City showed the coffins of the victims atop a small bus with men and women walking behind, crying. A young boy could be seen sitting next to the coffins.

A car in the area was punctured with big holes, as if hit by an airstrike.

A police officer in Sadr City, who refused to allow use of his name because he feared retribution, said the helicopter hit a house and car at 4:30 a.m., killing two elderly people sleeping on the roof of their home — a common practice in Iraq's extreme heat through late spring and summer.

The officer said a 13-year-old boy was wounded.

Also in Sadr City raids, which the U.S. has been conducting with a select unit of Iraqi army forces, Shiite cleric Abdul-Zahra al-Suwaidi claimed his home was raided and ransacked by American forces at 3 a.m. Thursday. The military said it had no report of the incident.

Al-Suwaidi, who runs the Sadr City political office of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said he was sleeping elsewhere at the time of the raid, expecting that he would be targeted. He said his home was badly damaged and a small amount of money was taken.

Dozens of U.S. Humvees and Bradley fighting vehicles had taken up positions around Sadr City at nightfall Wednesday.

The five kidnapped Britons included four bodyguards working for the Montreal-based security firm GardaWorld and one employee of BearingPoint, a U.S.-based management consulting firm.

In Washington, Brig. Gen. Perry Wiggins, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military believed a helicopter that crashed Monday north of Baghdad was brought down by small-arms fire. The Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida front group, claimed responsibility.

Wiggins also said that more than 100 patrols a day were being launched to search for two missing troops who vanished after a May 12 ambush near Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad. Four Americans and one Iraqi soldier were killed in the attack and the body of another American was later found in the Euphrates River.

"Our determination and resolve to locate our missing soldiers is unwavering," Wiggins said.

**islamirama** · 06-02-2007

THE MYTH OF AL QAEDA IS NOW ALMOST TOTALLY EXPOSED.

The label ‘Al Qaeda’ has been used, or rather abused, ever since 11 September 2001 when the finger of blame for that terrifying day was pointed at bin Laden and his ‘al Qaeda’ organisation. Indeed, according to George Tenet in his book, At the center of the storm: My years at the CIA, bin Laden was blamed for the attacks by at least three-thirty in the afternoon of 11 September 2001.[1]

Ever since 11 September 2001 bin Laden and/or al Qaeda have been used as an excuse for nigh on every attack that the US and the Israelis have made on Islamic peoples and their nations. An alleged relationship between Saddam Hussein and ‘al Qaeda’ was used as the casus belli for the US and its allies to invade Iraq. **** Cheney even asserted that Saddam Hussein, with al Qaeda, was responsible for the events of 11 September 2001. But it turned out that there was no such connection at all.

As the insurgency against the occupiers in Iraq gained momentum and US and allied casualties began to mount, so the blame for the increased resistance was placed on ‘al Qaeda in Iraq’ and all those that resisted the occupation were labelled ‘terrorists’. The hate figure devised by the allies to perpetuate the propaganda myth of ‘al Qaeda in Iraq’ was ‘Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’. He gave something that young and gullible US and allied troops could go after. And when he was supposedly ‘killed’ in June 2006 there was much propaganda fanfare and mileage gained from his ‘death’ which was hailed as a ‘great victory’ against al Qaeda.

The ‘great victory’ was short-lived however, and a new hate figure, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, previously Zarqawi’s number two in Iraq, was quickly promoted before people started to believe that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s death may actually have signalled the end of the ‘war against terrorism’. It had been reported that he too had also been killed, not by allied forces but by Sunni insurgents in factional fighting, though this has not been confirmed by the US authorities in Iraq.

For some time Mossad, the Israeli intelligence organisation, have tried to plant stooges in the Gaza and West Bank among Palestinians who have tried to pass themselves off as ‘al Qaeda’. The Israelis have failed miserably in their attempts at this. For one thing, the Gaza resistance community is a very tight knit one where everyone just about knows everyone and strangers are very quickly pointed out. The same applies in the west Bank. Of late, however, the Israelis and the US have taken a new tack playing on the friction that has evolved between Hamas and Fatah. Despite the fact that Hamas was popularly elected to govern the Palestinian peoples the Israelis have constantly thwarted Hamas’ ability to so do and have attempted, almost successfully, to polarise the two groups and Palestinians. The US has been active in playing off one against the other by supplying arms to Hamas’ opposition, Fatah.

Meanwhile, in Lebanon, the same US officials responsible for working with the Israelis to undermine Hamas have also been arming and supplying a Sunni Palestinian refugee group in an effort to wedge the influence of the Shia Hizbollah predominate in southern Lebanon. The problem here is that the arrangements have backfired on the US. The group, known Fatah al-Islam, has taken on an aggressive role against the Lebanese government. The western propaganda machine is trying to say that the Fatah al-Islam group are an ‘al Qaeda inspired’ group. In fact they are more like an ‘Elliot Abrams inspired’ group. The US is now desperately flying in big weapons to deal with this tiny group – which brings us to the next anomaly in this saga.

The group are said to be only five hundred strong at most, probably nearer three hundred, yet the US are going to a huge amount of effort to airlift a lot of weapons for the Lebanese government army. This is more than just a hammer to crack a nut. It’s more like a 300 tonne hydraulic press to squash a pea; unless, of course, the US knows something that the Lebanese don’t.

In raising the ante in Iraq, Lebanon, the West Bank and the Gaza by again raising the empty spectre of ‘al Qaeda’ in order to get at Iran, Syria and Hizbollah, the US and the Israelis have exposed their hand about the myth of ‘al Qaeda terrorism’ in the Middle East.

ENDNOTES
[1] George Tenet, At the center of the storm: My years at the CIA. (New York: Harper-Collins, 2007.) p. 169.

http://lataan.blogspot.com/2007/05/m...t-totally.html

**Zman** · 06-03-2007

/Peace To All

If Al Qaeda and OBL were such a global threat & and inspiration to others, why did the CIA disband the OBL Desk?

**Keltoi** · 06-03-2007

Originally Posted by Zman

/Peace To All

If Al Qaeda and OBL were such a global threat & and inspiration to others, why did the CIA disband the OBL Desk?

There was an OBL desk? Did it have a big picture of OBL on it?

**MTAFFI** · 06-03-2007

Sami

What took you so long, I was waiting for you waste of forum space to be added to this thread. Now to the topic, first I will tell you that you are wrong about everything you "thought" I would say. However here we go:

Originally Posted by Sami Zaatari

lol mtaffi is very funny, yes a few sunnis may be fighting al-qaeda, but ummm those same sunnis next week will be planting roadside bombs to kill a few of your marine terrorists, did you forget that part lol?

Very few huh, where do you get your numbers exactly, I never claimed that all of the Sunnis were against Al-Qaeda, I was simply illustrating the fact that the Iraqis are wisening up and driving Al-Qaeda out of Iraq. Also did you forget that the US may also be fighting some of these same people should they choose to turn against the US?

Originally Posted by Sami Zaatari

as for negotiation with shia and sunni groups, lol isnt this the same propaganda garbage we heared back in 2004, then 2005, then 2006, now 2007? wow it seems i will have kids and grandkids until this truce and treaty is complete!

Perhaps it is just nonsense to you to try and form a truce, but what if it did work? It is called "hope" Sami, you should look it up, some people actually do "hope" for peace.

Originally Posted by Sami Zaatari

lol you also seem to forget that marines in iraq are dying at a higher rate than ever, seems very strange if u ask me especially with your propaganda claims that you are now almost in truce with insurgent groups, i mean why are your marine terrorists dying in such high numbers when your army propaganda keeps claiming your so close to a truce?!

what is strange about it, if you knew anything you would look back at the news, that specifically stated this is exactly what would happen when we increased our troop count in Iraq and sent them into high risk insurgent populated areas. Yes perhaps more troops are dying, but there are also many many more insurgents dying as well. Also just because there is a truce negotiation taking place doesnt mean that fighting will quit in the interim, as you said the truce talks have been going on for a while.

Originally Posted by Sami Zaatari

you see folks, its called propaganda and dis-information, the us goverment are trying to pit insurgent groups against others, and it is 'slightly' working but not being very effective since their marines are actually dying in quite a fast number now, as they say divide and conquer, now offcourse mtaffi the braindead neocon will come say haaaaaaaaaaaaaa look at these ppl always saying everythings propaganda! hey i say let the ground facts speak for themselves, not your rubbish media which always contradicts ground events, marines are dying at a higher pace than ever, insurgent groups which are supposedly in talks with US are comming out saying ummmm no were not and were still fighting them!

really, so this is propoganda and disinformation?LOL how exactly is that Sami, all of these articles are from unbiased sources who are speaking directly with the people of Iraq.. What is misleading about it to you? Is it that it contradicts your efforts to pit Muslims against non Muslims. I believe you are the one trying to divide and conquer. Labeling me as a "Braindead neocon" just because I take a different perspective than yours. I expected it from you though, since whenever you try to make any point you resort to insults, there are many things I could call you, but I will not stoop to your level.

So lets let the ground facts speak for themselves, show me an article where a Sunni or shia, (since they are actually both fighting against Al-Qaeda) that same out and said "Ummm no we were not in talks with the US and we are still fighting them". I would love to see that

Originally Posted by Sami Zaatari

now offcourse mtaffi will probaly reply by saying heyyyyyyyyy sunnis in baghdad are fighting al-qaeda so you are wrong! ummmmmm one neighborhood doesnt really count as a large scale sunni insurgency fighting al-qaeda, as usual they like to blow everything out of proportion lol, one neighborhood now means all sunnis in iraq love th us and have sided with them!

Do you know that it is only one neighborhood? Do you not believe that this will eventually spread throughout baghdad, I know if Al-Qaeda keeps blowing up markets and making it unsafe for people to leave their houses it will. Also I didnt blow anything out of proportion, in fact, most of my comments on this thread have been at most a couple sentences accept this one, it seems you are the one blowing things out of proportion

Originally Posted by Sami Zaatari

so mtaffi you can only dream of this, but fact is, sunnis in iraq and the majority of sunni groups nor shia groups will EVER unite and side with US, and thats a fact and groun facts says it all.

keep dreaming.

Keep dreaming of peace huh, as long as there are people like you I am sure there never will be. Really I dont care if the Iraqis "unite" with the US, I care that the Iraqis drive the terrorist organizations out of their country, so that they do not have a safe haven. I care that the Iraqis have a market or voting booth they can go to without dying. Hopefully this movement will progress and they will drive these people out and our troops can leave Iraq in at least a somewhat stable state.

Now everyone take note of Samis post. Take note of the constant insulting, condesending, arrogance, ignorance and hatefilled words that he uses. This is the type of person that gets represented for Muslim people. I am sure anyone reading his message could easily see (muslim and non muslim alike) why it is so easy for Muslims in general get labeled as they do. Any Joe Schmo that happened to read his post would immediately think "extremist". Knowing that Al-Qaeda has bombed markets, mosques, killed women and children, all of which are unislamic, he still insists on the US being the only bad guy in Iraq. Still insists that no one in Iraq would want to fight them, still insists that it is only a few isolated incidents, and then after his insistance he laughs. Sami, the difference between me and you is this, I dont care who is american, Iraqi or whatever in Iraq, I just hope for peace, you on the other hand wish for war, as is clearly implicated in your post. Now go ahead Sami, reply back with you arrogance and insults and condesending attitude, I know what you are and I laugh at you and your posts with friends, because of your attitude. And if you cant respond with some fact or proof to back your statements then dont. Either way, I dont care because you are just a minority and I know that not everyone shares your same sadistic views.

**Sami Zaatari** · 06-03-2007

lol what a bunch of rambling garbage, theres no need to quote your garbage ill just refute your few points, you ask me to show you where the insurgents who are supposedly negotiating with you say ummmmmmm no were not, LOL the very same source you use quotes the 1920 revulition brigades saying that! they even spoke out against the inner fighting in baghdad! WOW either your blind, or you though your so smart that i perhaps didnt know about that article.

secondly, i said YOUR ARMY is spreading propaganda and dis-information, the media just says what your army reports to them, so its not the innocent naive journalist who is lying, hes doing his job which is reporting what one side says, and that side is reporting lies, propaganda, and dis-information to pit insurgents against insurgents since your army has lost all hope of beating them.

lol and i know you dont laugh at my post with your friends, and if you do then you really need to get a life if you get your friends over to show them my forum posts and then you all laugh, lol talk about needing help!

also didnt you say you dont care for my opinions? so why do you keep replying to me? thanks for showing your a liar and cant keep your word since you said you wouldnt reply to me,

i guess i always get on your nerves that you have to break your word!

lol and what sadistic views do i have? saying that the majority of sunnis arent actually siding with the US is a sadistic view? lol so reporting a fact is all of a sudden a sadistic view? hmmmmmmmm thats strange i never knew that! perhaps i should then become like you and lie and make up facts right?

and as for being arrogant, condesending, rude etc etc, you should be the one to talk with all your attacks on muslims and making several anti-Islamic threads, once again YOU show your own typical arrogance acting like you want peace and all that rubbish when you are the one who is always attacking, as usual even on a forum the american shows why ppl despise you so much because you attack, insult etc etc and then you want peace! we know you dont want peace, your just lying to everyone, anyone can just go read your previous posts and will see what a true 2 faced person you are.

so go on keep replying back to me so i can keep making a complete fool out of you as i normally do.

**MTAFFI** · 06-03-2007

Originally Posted by Sami Zaatari

lol what a bunch of rambling garbage, theres no need to quote your garbage ill just refute your few points, you ask me to show you where the insurgents who are supposedly negotiating with you say ummmmmmm no were not, LOL the very same source you use quotes the 1920 revulition brigades saying that! they even spoke out against the inner fighting in baghdad! WOW either your blind, or you though your so smart that i perhaps didnt know about that article.

secondly, i said YOUR ARMY is spreading propaganda and dis-information, the media just says what your army reports to them, so its not the innocent naive journalist who is lying, hes doing his job which is reporting what one side says, and that side is reporting lies, propaganda, and dis-information to pit insurgents against insurgents since your army has lost all hope of beating them.

lol and i know you dont laugh at my post with your friends, and if you do then you really need to get a life if you get your friends over to show them my forum posts and then you all laugh, lol talk about needing help!

also didnt you say you dont care for my opinions? so why do you keep replying to me? thanks for showing your a liar and cant keep your word since you said you wouldnt reply to me,

i guess i always get on your nerves that you have to break your word!

lol and what sadistic views do i have? saying that the majority of sunnis arent actually siding with the US is a sadistic view? lol so reporting a fact is all of a sudden a sadistic view? hmmmmmmmm thats strange i never knew that! perhaps i should then become like you and lie and make up facts right?

and as for being arrogant, condesending, rude etc etc, you should be the one to talk with all your attacks on muslims and making several anti-Islamic threads, once again YOU show your own typical arrogance acting like you want peace and all that rubbish when you are the one who is always attacking, as usual even on a forum the american shows why ppl despise you so much because you attack, insult etc etc and then you want peace! we know you dont want peace, your just lying to everyone, anyone can just go read your previous posts and will see what a true 2 faced person you are.

so go on keep replying back to me so i can keep making a complete fool out of you as i normally do.

blah blah blah insult insult arrogance ignorance and deception.. Thanks for the laugh as usual Sami. Maybe you should take a look at all of my posts, I am glad you take the time to sit and read them. I have said many times on this forum that I have nothing against Muslims, I hate extremist and terrorist, of any kind. Some may agree with that and others may not, but guess what, I am a non muslim on a muslim board and have been here for some time, if I were constantly insulting people like you, I would have probably had my privileges revoked at least once by now, like you have before. So who is the one who insults people and childishly attempts to degrade people. You are and that is all you will probably ever be, as far as your above post, you simply proved my post right, you show everyone what type of person you are. You simply cant reply without a childish hatefilled message. So go on Sami please reply again, prove me right again, continue to make a fool of yourself as you normally do.

(Everyone knows you will respond back now for the simple reason that I said "prove me right again", so respond now like a little monkey would)

**Muezzin** · 06-03-2007

Guys, the insults and hostility stop now. From this post onwards. I don't care who started it. I don't care who posted before me. Just stop it, or it will be deleted.

Thank you.