The Iraq Thread 2

[-TU--33ker 0]

I find it hard to believe that this violence is brought on by citizens disgruntled by a lack of power.  Granted, it's an inconvenience, but is it really a reason to take a gun or bomb and kill people?  I doubt it.  I'd understand protesting, but violence?  I don't think so.

Not violence, but the destruction of the infrastructure. I saw an interview a while ago with an Iraqi man who was busy ripping out power and telephone cables. He was selling them so he could feed his family.

And while it certainly aren't regular Iraqi citizens that plant bombs, it deteriorates the relations with the Americans. US troops are supposed to uphold law and order in Iraq and they are doing a terrible job. And disgruntled people provide a good recruiting base for terrorists.

That's the point! now that there is no Saddam anymore, all kinds of factions try to take his place. Religious leaders train their own armies, former generals stock weapons, al quaeda blows up the infrastructure, the fedayin kill US soldiers. ordinary people steal wires and cables to melt the copper and sell it to feed their families because there's no law and order in Iraq. The new police and administration has no other support besides the US and no one really cares what they say! Everybody blaims the US because they don't stop it. and the USA are unable to stop it!

US soldiers raid villages in the night and take prisoners who are suspected to be terrorists or saddam loyalists. and this doesn't make the people happier because it leads to nothing. The ones who cooperate with the US are set free. but the therrorists kill them because they know that they betrayed them. just like sddams cousin who told the US where saddam's sons are hiding, he was killed by his own clan. the chaos is still going on.

[Badgerboy 0]

Arab news stations have been broadcasting what seems to be a new Saddam tape, in which he denies he had anything to do with the car bombing that killed 100 people.

[Crazysheep 1]

Arab news stations have been broadcasting what seems to be a new Saddam tape, in which he denies he had anything to do with the car bombing that killed 100 people.

Either he's lying or it was Al Queda. Either would make sense.

[Warin 0]

Arab news stations have been broadcasting what seems to be a new Saddam tape, in which he denies he had anything to do with the car bombing that killed 100 people.

Either he's lying or it was Al Queda. Either would make sense.

I love how one news report claimed that the UN bombing might have involved AQ, and now some people just assume that was correct. After all, if Terrorism happens, it couldnt be people who hate what is happening. After all, who would dare be ungrateful for their 'liberation'?

I think most of these terrorist actions will end up being traced to Iraqi people and groups who are pushing their own agendas.

[Badgerboy 0]

Arab news stations have been broadcasting what seems to be a new Saddam tape, in which he denies he had anything to do with the car bombing that killed 100 people.

Either he's lying or it was Al Queda. Either would make sense.

I love how one news report claimed that the UN bombing might have involved AQ, and now some people just assume that was correct.  After all, if Terrorism happens, it couldnt be people who hate what is happening.  After all, who would dare be ungrateful for their 'liberation'?

I think most of these terrorist actions will end up being traced to Iraqi people and groups who are pushing their own agendas.

Quite, don't under estimate the lengths people will go to stab each other in the back or to seize power for personal gain in local disputes. (Look at Afghanistan)

[Crazysheep 1]

Arab news stations have been broadcasting what seems to be a new Saddam tape, in which he denies he had anything to do with the car bombing that killed 100 people.

Either he's lying or it was Al Queda. Either would make sense.

I love how one news report claimed that the UN bombing might have involved AQ, and now some people just assume that was correct.  After all, if Terrorism happens, it couldnt be people who hate what is happening.  After all, who would dare be ungrateful for their 'liberation'?

I don't think disgruntled civilians would go that far to kill all those people, although I agree that some of the attacks on troops are regular Iraqis.

And I didn't get the idea that AQ was in Iraq from a news station; AQ is primarily against US interference in the middle east, and it's in their interests to stop an American administration becoming stable in Iraq. Plus, it is also a perfect environment to carry out attacks amongst the chaos.....I'm almost certain AQ would have carried out some attacks.

[turms 0]

In a Finnish newspaper it was suspected that the bomb attack was carried out by young shiite extremists, who condemn the pro US policy of the "old wing" leaders of shiia party including the shiia party top leader who was killed.

[The Frenchman 0]

Why is there a yellow yeild sign next to the Iraq thread?

[brgnorway 0]

Why is there a yellow yeild sign next to the Iraq thread?

Don't know but ask one of the mods.

A hot topic sign of some sort would be my best guess!

[denoir 0]

Police station bombed in Baghdad. Also two US MP:s killed.

[SKULLS_Viper 0]

Quote[/b] ]The deaths raised to 286 the number of American forces killed in the Iraq war. Of those, 148 died since President Bush declared an end to major fighting on May 1. Seventy soldiers have died in combat since Bush's declaration.

Yikes.

[ralphwiggum 6]

Lynch signs book deal

what about others who actually fired back?

nevermind.

[Badgerboy 0]

Lynch signs book deal

what about others who actually fired back?

nevermind.

Only in America!

Haven't the media ripped her to pieces over this? Isn't it blatently obvious this is a PR exercise. Aren't people upset that the glorification of this little incident diminishes the achievements of everyone else?

Or are they all on the bandwagon?

[Tex -USMC- 0]

Lynch signs book deal

what about others who actually fired back?

nevermind.

]http://i.cnn.net/cnn....]

Only in America!

Haven't the media ripped her to pieces over this? Isn't it blatently obvious this is a PR exercise. Aren't people upset that the glorification of this little incident diminishes the achievements of everyone else?

Or are they all on the bandwagon?

Just pipe down and go get your yellow ribbon.

[Badgerboy 0]

Don't worry, I plan to get involved in a car crash tomorrow, and then arrange for my friends to rescue me from the accident and emergency department wrapped in a union jack.

Then I'll sell my story for millions!

[theavonlady 2]

Then I'll sell my story for millions!

I'll wait for the movie.

[denoir 0]

Lynch signs book deal

what about others who actually fired back?

nevermind.

http://i.cnn.net/cnn....ook.jpg

   

OMG. That's so wonderful! I'm considering to put this book cover as my avatar or at least in my sig!  

[EiZei 0]

Hell, I want to move to US if THAT makes me a "national hero".

[theavonlady 2]

Hell, I want to move to US if THAT makes me a "national hero".

In the eyes of the US or your home country?

[The Frenchman 0]

[USSoldier11B 0]

I need to fall out a truck and expend 9 magazines in ammo and hit nothing. A book deal would be great. Wait....I'm a male...those are expendable.

[ralphwiggum 6]

i don't know if it is against Geneva convention to torture your captors.

one of those who survived the ambush and was taken prisoner sang Tobey Keith's song. if that wasn't bad enough, he is a horrible singer.

[USSoldier11B 0]

Unclassified info I received from a member of our HUMINT section.

Quote[/b] ]This week, Al Qaeda came out with a claim of responsibility for the huge truck bombing at UN Baghdad headquarters on August 19, in which 23 people lost their lives including senior UN representative in Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello and some 150 were injured. The al Qaeda message appearing on an Arabic Web site accuses the United Nations of being a branch of the American State Department and against Arabs and Muslims.US officials are reporting their sense that hundreds of Osama bin Laden’s members are now operating inside Iraq alongside Baathists in their bid to undermine the US presence and reconstruction efforts in Iraq.In its last issue, Number 122, bDEBKA-Net-Weekly reported a surge of electronic messages calling on every al Qaeda adherent in the world to mobilize for the battle in Iraq. â€Victory over the United States will be far

quicker than many think,†say the messages.

Never before, according to <bDEBKA-Net-Weekly’sb> counter-terrorism sources, has al Qaeda staged a general mobilization. It is no propaganda exercise. The response has been enthusiastic and its impact noticeable. Al Qaeda combatants have been racing towards Iraq in large numbers along four main routes. The most surprising and most recent is the path from western Saudi Arabia through Iran, about which more hereunder.

The Pakistani-Iranian route: Claims by senior Iranian leaders of having thwarted Al Qaeda attacks inside Iran are but a smokescreen for the mass influx of Osama bin Laden’s men into the Islamic Republic from the east: The group entering from the Pakistani border region of Baluchistan forms up at the Iranian cities of Zabol and Zahedan; the group from the Afghan town of Herat foregathers near the north Iranian city of Mashhad. Iran’s all-powerful Revolutionary Guards have their intelligence units conduct “security checks†at both assembly points to establish the terrorists’ real identities and origins. They are watched by men loyal to al Qaeda operations expert Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, who is thought to have set up his base in Tehran. Once they reach northern Iraqi Kurdistan, they join the Ansar al-Islam extremists heading south to Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle towns of Ramadi,Tikrit, Balad and Fallujah. Ansar is held responsible for the Jordanian embassy bomb attack in Baghdad last month. This Iraqi al Qaeda affiliate, once no more than 600 to 800 fighters, has swelled and set up two new units: Jund al-Allah, or “Soldiers of Allahâ€, and al-Usad, or “The Lionsâ€, indicating a Syrian connection. (Bashar Assad’s name means lion.) Its members are deployed along the northwestern Iraqi-Syrianborder, attaching themselves to the al Qaeda arrivals from Syria.

The two groups have already executed joint strikes in the northern Iraqi

oil city of Mosul. In one, they attempted to assassinate the local chief of police, but only seriously wounding him.

The Syrian route: At least 1,000 al Qaeda men have traveled along this busiest of all the corridors into Iraq, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s counter-terrorism sources report. Damascus International airport is logistical hub and main distribution point for Al Qaeda operatives flying in from Central Asia, Chechnya, the Balkans – mainly Kosovo and Bosnia – Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and even Iran. Many Al Qaeda fighters turned back by Iran for security reasons go round through Damascus, some hosted at the teeming medressas, or religious schools, other at Palestinian terrorist training camps operating in Damascus. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command receive a large part of their operational funding from Tehran and moreover collect a fee per head for every Al Qaeda operative they train.On their way into Iraq, Osama bin Laden’s men transit Syrian-Iraqi frontier lands dominated by nomadic Saudi-Iraqi-Syrian Sunni tribesmen. For almost a decade, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence and military sources reveal, Saddam sent monthly stipends to tribal, clan, business and clerical leaders ruling an area roamed by two million of these tribesmen. Once a year, Saddam resettled several thousand demobilized Iraqi officers and their families in the region with orders to assimilate and set up familial relations with the local tribes. Since the money dried up from Baghdad, Syrian-administered Iranian funds have been disbursed to those tribal leaders. As a result Saddam loyalists are still in control of the tribal regions which US intelligence has found impenetrable. A rare intelligence source knowledgeable about the region told DEBKA-Net-Weekly: “It is true that guerrilla attacks against the Americans are launched from the Sunni Triangle. However the logistics and the consignment of fighting strength to the Triangle are directed from the tribal territories.†In the last week, the flow of Syrian and Al Qaeda fighters across the frontier into Iraq has doubled.

The Saudi route via Iran: This is the newest channel, first set up in mid-July but also one of the busiest, believed to have accommodated 1,500-2,500 Saudi al Qaeda combatants transiting Iran at the rate of almost a thousand a week. Some are thought to be on the run from the Saudi hue and cry conducted against these fundamentalist terrorists since the May 12 Riyadh bombings. Another group appears to consist of Afghan-Pakistan combat veterans obeying the call to arms and eager for the chance of revenge for their rout in Afghanistan. They are also looking forward to an advance base from which to strike down the Saudi throne.The opening of this route means that for the second time in two years Iran is granting Saudi al Qaeda combatants free passage from one anti-American battle arena to another. Like Syrian president Bashar Assad, who claims to know nothing of the al Qaeda fighters passing through Damascus, Tehran too says it is powerless to halt their through-passage into Iraq as tourists on valid Saudi passports. They all head to the western Ilan region, where local smugglers help them cross over to the Iraqi towns of al Kut in the south or Baquba in the center.The Saudi route via Syria. The same Syrian-Saudi Sunni Muslim tribes who crisscross the Iraqi-Syrian frontier also trek along a north-south route between Syria and Saudi Arabia via Jordan. En route, they collect Saudi, Yemeni, Sudanese and other al Qaeda fighters all heading towards the Iraqi battlefront.

Despite this surge of al Qaeda traffic into Iraq, Washington is reluctant to send reinforcements to the 140,000-strong force shouldering the extra

burden and casting about for foreign troop increments. US administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer and American military commanders have asked the Bush administration for two more divisions at full strength to meet the fresh contingencies. President Bush has promised a decision in early October.

US field commanders fear the six-week delay will exact a heavy toll on security in Iraq. They predict -

A. The guerrilla war will intensify and the infiltrations of Al Qaeda and other anti-American elements further build up.

B. Strategic parts of Iraq will fall under the control of the Islamist terror group as it ranks are beefed up by unimpeded infiltrations.

C. Tehran will intervene on the side of the Sunni Muslim campaign against the Americans by sponsoring more terrorist attacks like the bombings of the Jordanian embassy and UN HQ in Baghdad. This intervention may draw Iraqi Shiites into the conflict whereas at present they view it as a “purely a

Sunni warâ€.

[hellfish6 7]

You supported the war, didn't you 11B? Do you still think it was worth it?

Edit: Honest questions, not trying to poke you with a stick to see a reaction.

[denoir 0]

Unclassified info I received from a member of our HUMINT section.

[....]

I hope you are joking. That's an article from DEBKA, a conspiracy theorist right wing Israelli news magazine.