War news effort today

[Moses]

It's been really difficult to tell what is going on-- there has apparently been alot of violent activity the past three days, but the reports are scattered and vague and it is difficult to pinpoint. For those of us who may have family/friends in Iraq, this has been very frustrating-- the way the Pentagon doesn't inform:

Here's DOD today:
www.defenselink.mil/news/Apr2005/20050405_485.html

Two Servicemembers Killed During Iraq Military Operations

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, April 5, 2005 – Two U.S. servicemembers were killed during military operations in Iraq, military officials in Baghdad reported today.

A soldier assigned to Task Force Baghdad was killed today when his patrol hit an improvised explosive device in southern Baghdad. Four other soldiers were wounded by the blast and were evacuated to a nearby coalition treatment facility.

Also, a Marine assigned to the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force was killed April 4 during combat operations in the Anbar province. No further details on the cause of the Marine’s death were provided due to security reasons.

The names of both servicemembers are being withheld pending notification of next of kin. Military officials also reported that a detainee who was being treated for gunshot wounds at a military treatment facility died of injuries April 4. The detainee was wounded in an attack on coalition forces two weeks ago.

In other developments, Task Force Baghdad soldiers detained nine suspected terrorists during early-morning raids on several objectives south of Baghdad April 4.

The military said one detainee is a suspected leader of a terror cell. Another is believed to be an improvised explosive device engineer for another terror organization. Weapons and bomb-making materials, as well as materials used for recruiting and training terrorists were also confiscated during the raids, the military reported.

“Anti-Iraqi forces have taken a major hit here," Army Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, a Task Force Baghdad spokesperson, said in a statement. “Through continued cooperation from the public, Iraqi police and the Iraqi army, combined with Task Force Baghdad soldiers, we are stopping violence at the source, before it spills into the streets."

Elsewhere, coalition forces and Iraqi army soldiers met resistance from dozens of insurgent fighters during a search for weapons east of Baghdad in the lightly populated Diyala province April 4.

During an ensuing firefight, coalition forces, including Army and Air Force aviation assets, provided fire support to Iraqi soldiers. A quick response force from Task Force Liberty’s 278th Regimental Combat Team supported the Iraqi army attack on the ground.

The military did not say whether injuries or deaths occurred during the attack.

Also today, the military reported that an uprising at a coalition internment facility at Camp Bucca April 1 ended with only minor injuries to four guards and 12 detainees. The Camp Bucca facility houses some 6,000 detainees.

Military officials said the disturbance began when detainees protested the transfer of unruly prisoners to another compound. The protesters began chanting, throwing rocks and setting several tents on fire, the military said.

(Compiled from Multinational Force Iraq news releases.)

[Moses]

Lord Black's UK paper:

Iraq rebels hit back after US offensive
By Adrian Blomfield in Baghdad
(Filed: 06/04/2005)

The US military claimed a fresh victory in its offensive against Iraq's insurgency yesterday, striking a militant hideout with helicopter gunships and artillery.

But the insurgents kidnapped a senior Iraqi general, one of their most notable coups in the past two years, and detonated bombs across the country.

US troops deploy in Baghdad after an explosion

The violence seemed typical of the seesaw security situation recently. US gains in the coalition's struggle to impose its authority were balanced by setbacks elsewhere. Two Iraqi battalions mounted an operation to search for weapons in eastern Diyala province on Monday but insurgents returned fire from well-entrenched positions. Fighting lasted most of yesterday.

As the Iraqis became bogged down, US Bradley fighting vehicles moved in to reinforce the assault. Two American infantrymen were killed but no details of rebel casualties were released.

Forty US servicemen were killed in March, the lowest monthly total since February last year, as rebels focused attacks on members of the Iraqi security forces. But a senior American officer said that the fighters had again stepped up attacks on coalition targets this week.

Nine US soldiers have been killed in five days and 44 were hurt in an assault on Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad at the weekend.

There has been no respite in attacks against Iraqi military targets. Gunmen dragged Gen Jalal Mohammed Saleh, the commander of the interior ministry's armoured brigade, and his bodyguards from their cars in the Baghdad suburb of Mansur.

Insurgents are holding dozens of foreigners but most of the seized are Iraqis. The interior ministry said that 5,000 Iraqi citizens had been taken hostage since the end of the war was declared two years ago but many had been freed after ransoms were paid.

Al-Qa'eda's wing in Iraq released a video of a young Iraqi soldier being beheaded. A second group posted footage of the execution of another Iraqi serviceman.

[Moses]

Tuesday, April 5, 2005  

---

Prisoners, guards clash at detention center in Iraq
16 injured in latest prison violence

MARIAM FAM

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Prisoners at Iraq's largest detention facility protested the transfer of several detainees deemed "unruly" by authorities, throwing rocks and setting tents on fire in a disturbance that injured four guards and 12 detainees, the military said Monday. Friday's protest was the first of at least three violent incidents at Iraqi prisons during the past four days, with the latest occurring Monday at the notorious Abu Ghraib facility. A suicide bomber driving a tractor blew himself up outside the prison, wounding four civilians.

On Saturday, insurgents attacked Abu Ghraib with rocket-propelled grenades and two car bombs, wounding dozens of U.S. service members and prisoners, the U.S. military said.

Friday's protest at Camp Bucca -- which holds about 6,000 prisoners, nearly two-thirds of all those in Iraq -- caused minor injuries before being brought under control, authorities said.

Protesting treatment

Murtadha al-Hajaj, an official at Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's office in the southern city of Umm Qasr, near Camp Bucca, said several al-Sadr supporters were wounded during the confrontation. He said they were protesting a lack of access to medical treatment, and he claimed U.S. guards opened fire, although he did not know if they wounded prisoners.

U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Guy Rudisill said he did not know whether the guards opened fire, but he denied that any detainee was deprived of medical treatment.

Last month, the U.S. military said guards discovered a 600-foot tunnel -- dug with makeshift tools -- leading out of Camp Bucca. The tunnel reached beyond the compound fence, with an opening hidden beneath a floorboard, but no one had escaped, authorities said.

Abu Ghraib bombing

The other facility targeted by insurgents, Abu Ghraib, was at the center of the prison abuse scandal last year after photographs were publicized showing U.S. soldiers humiliating Iraqi inmates, including having them pile naked in a human pyramid. The United States holds nearly 3,500 prisoners at Abu Ghraib and about 7,000 elsewhere in Iraq.

Rudisill said prison officials heard Monday's explosion, but he said it wasn't close enough to cause any damage to the prison. The blast killed the tractor's driver and injured four Iraqis, police 1st Lt. Akram al-Zubaeyee said.

Al-Qaida in Iraq said 10 of its fighters died in Saturday's assault on Abu Ghraib, while the U.S. military put the insurgents' casualties at one dead and about 50 wounded. Forty-four U.S. soldiers and 13 prisoners were injured in the fighting -- the latest in a series of large-scale attacks by insurgents in Iraq.

In an Internet posting, Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed about 20 militants scaled the prison's walls and one of them reached a prison tower and yelled: "God is great!" It said two of its fighters were wounded and 10 were killed, including seven suicide bombers.

The statement, which appeared late Sunday, was impossible to independently verify, and it conflicted with the U.S. account.

The U.S. military denied anyone got inside the prison and said no inmates escaped. It said only one suicide bomber participated, while others fired assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

Rudisill said he did not believe any attackers were captured. He said the wounded insurgents either escaped on their own or were dragged away by other militants.

The military said the insurgents staged simultaneous assaults on multiple locations at the prison, focusing on two guard towers and then using a car bomb to try to penetrate a gate.

Combat helicopters helped push back the attack, which was the largest at Abu Ghraib since insurgents fired mortar rounds into the compound nearly a year ago, killing more than 20 detainees and injuring nearly 100.

Also, the military said a detainee evacuated from an unnamed facility to the 115th Field Hospital died Monday after suffering gunshot wounds two weeks ago during an attack on U.S.-led coalition forces. The incident is under investigation, the military said in a statement.

Some Iraqi lawmakers have called for the release of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and the National Assembly's newly elected speaker, Hajim al-Hassani, told Al-Jazeera television the topic will be among the first discussed by lawmakers.

"There are some problems regarding the security issue and troubles concerning Abu Ghraib detainees," he said. "These issues will be the main subject we are concerned about in the National Assembly."

President Bush called al-Hassani on Monday to congratulate him on becoming parliament speaker.

"The two leaders expressed confidence that democracy will succeed in Iraq," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "The president reiterated our commitment of continued support for Iraq as they move forward."

Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, also congratulated al-Hassani, saying his election was "a hopeful sign as you begin the assembly's tasks, including laying down the constitution."

The selection of al-Hassani, a Sunni Arab, ended weeks of bickering and cleared the way for the formation of a government more than two months after Iraq's first free election in 50 years. Legislators next meet Wednesday, when they plan to name Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as Iraq's president.

Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan said Monday that most of Iraq's neighbors -- including Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia -- are helping Iraq's government fight terrorism.

"The terrorist attacks have been limited now because of the cooperation of the neighboring countries," said Shaalan, who previously accused Iran and Syria of supporting insurgents in Iraq.

He also welcomed an edict issued Friday by Sunni clerics that called for Iraqis to join the police and army. "The Iraqi army will accept the new waves of volunteers," Shaalan said.

The edict, read by a cleric in the Association of Muslim Scholars, instructed enlistees to refrain from helping foreign troops against their own countrymen. It said Sunnis should join to prevent the police and army from falling into "the hands of those who have caused chaos, destruction and violated the sanctities."

On Monday, a bomb exploded at a cafe in the northern city of Talafar, killing two civilians and injuring 13, local official Salem al-Haj Eissa said. He speculated the bomb was intended for Iraqi army soldiers who frequent the cafe but said no soldiers were thought to be there.

In the same city, on Saturday, an American soldier was killed and another was wounded by insurgent gunfire, the U.S. military said Monday.


Fort Lewis soldier killed


The death of a soldier from Fort Lewis was announced Monday.

Staff Sgt. Ioasa F. Tavae, Jr., 29, of Pago Pago, American Samoa, died April 2, in Mosul, Iraq, when his unit was attacked by enemy forces using small arms fire. Tavae was assigned to the Army's 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Lewis.

A service for Sgt. Rocky Dennis Payne will be Thursday at the post. Payne, whose hometown is Howell, Utah, was killed March 16 in Iraq when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee.

---

Iraqi men watch an oil pipeline fire burning Monday in Hawija, near Kirkuk, Iraq. Armed attackers planted two bombs at the scene, causing the fire, according to an Iraqi oil security official. The Associated Press

[Moses]

 Two killed as three blasts rock Baghdad


[World News] Baghdad, April 5 : Three car bombs exploded in separate areas in this Iraqi capital Tuesday, killing two people and wounding several others while insurgents abducted an army general, Xinhua reported.

Two civilians were killed and several injured when a car bomb blew up at an army checkpost in the city's Ameriyah neighbourhood, witnesses said.

The car bomb detonated as a US convoy was passing by and it destroyed two US Humvees, but the casualties among US soldiers were not known.

The blast was the second in the same neighbourhood, where another car bomb was detonated targeting a convoy carrying an Iraqi army general.

Brigadier General Jalal Mohammed Saleh, commander of the first armoured unit of the new Iraqi army, escaped the assassination attempt but was abducted by gunmen who pulled him from his car.
A third car bomb exploded near a US military patrol in the southern part of the city, injuring one Iraqi civilian.

The US military said it lost one soldier Tuesday "when his patrol in south Baghdad hit an improvised explosive device", but added that it was not known if he died in the same attack.

In another statement, the US military said 12 Iraqi inmates and four US guards were wounded in a riot at a prison in southern Iraq last week.

"A disturbance occurred at the Camp Bucca internment facility on April 1. The disturbance was brought under control with only minor injuries to four guards and 12 detainees," the statement said.
Camp Bucca is the largest US-run prison in Iraq, housing approximately 6,000 detainees.

Another statement said two US soldiers and one Iraqi soldier were killed Monday when the forces encountered and attacked dozens of insurgents in a remote area east of the city.

One US marine was killed Monday in an explosion during combat operations in the western Anbar province, the US military said.

Over 1,530 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003.
--Indo-Asian News Service

[Moses]

CBS stringer wounded by U-S troops in Mosul



MOSUL, Iraq A videographer working for C-B-S News in northern Iraq has been shot by U-S troops in the city of Mogul (MOH'-sul).
The cameraman was photographing a crowd facing American soldiers when a man waved an assault rifle at the troops.


Captain Mark Walter says soldiers mistook Abdul Amir Younis Hussein's camera for a gun and accidentally shot him in the hip. He is expected to recover. The man with the weapon was killed.

The incident followed a car bombing in Mosul that injured five American soldiers. [Did anyone see anything from DoD re: a car bomb in Mosul injuring 5 US soldiers?-- I can't seem to find anything about this from DoD.]

[Moses]

Print  Email <br>
Last Update: Wednesday, April 6, 2005. 3:19pm (AEST)

US soldier killed in Baghdad ambush

A US soldier was killed when insurgents ambushed a patrol in Baghdad with a roadside bomb and small arms fire early Wednesday, the US military said in a statement.
"A Task Force Baghdad soldier was killed when his patrol hit an improvised explosive device and took small arms fire from anti-Iraqi forces," the statement read.

---

- AFP/Reuters

[Moses]

Published on TaipeiTimes
www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/04/06/2003249355

Prisoners and guards injured as Iraqi detainees riot
CONFIRMING DETAILS: The US military had denied a riot at Camp Bucca in which 16 people were injured until it was reported by Moqtada al-Sadr's movement

AFP , BAGHDAD
Wednesday, Apr 06, 2005,Page 7


An Iraqi policeman looks at a shrapnel scared vehicle that crashed into a tree following an explosion along the road leading to Abu Ghraib, west of Baghdad yesterday. A civilian was killed and two others wounded by a car bomb targeting an Iraqi army convoy at 9:45am in Amariyah a defense ministry official. A high-ranking Iraqi army officer escaped unscathed from the attack.
PHOTO: AFP

Twelve Iraqi prisoners and four US prison guards were wounded when inmates rioted at Camp Bucca last week, torching tents and hurling rocks at Iraq's largest US-run detention center, the US military said yesterday after initially denying any knowledge of the incident.

The riot on Friday at the desert camp in southern Iraq where more than 6,000 prisoners are held was first reported by radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's movement and confirmed by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The US military had said initially it was unaware of the violence and only came forward with details after the ICRC revelations.

The violence erupted last Friday when inmates "protested the transfer of unruly detainees to another compound," the military said in a statement.

"During the disturbance, the detainees chanted, threw rocks and set several of their tents on fire. The disturbance was brought under control with only minor injuries to four guards and 12 detainees," the statement said.

On Monday, Christophe Beney, the head of the ICRC's Baghdad delegation, said a team from the organization had been at Camp Bucca near the southern port of Umm Qasr last Friday when the riot erupted.

It was a rare confirmation from the ICRC, which is normally sworn to silence about events transpiring during its visits to prisons around the world.

Al-Sadr follower Saheb al-Ameri, secretary-general of the Shahidallah (God) charitable organization, said the unrest was provoked by the refusal of prison authorities to give medical treatment to a detainee who had fallen sick and who was a member of the al-Sadr movement.

Other inmates became violent and US soldiers then fired rubber bullets and beat some prisoners up, wounding 70 to 100 of them, he said, adding that since the riot, inmates have had no water or electricity.

Al-Ameri said the riot was uncovered during a visit to Camp Bucca by members of the al-Sadr movement, adding: "We condemn these acts and we ask that human right organizations intervene quickly."

When first asked about the incident, Lieutenant Colonel Guy Rudisill, spokesman for the US-run detention centers in Iraq, said: "There have been no reports of mistreatment of detainees. Nothing like that happened down there. Nobody is denied medical attention down there."

Camp Bucca, home to 6,054 detainees, was the site of a huge riot on Jan. 31 that spread through four compounds, housing more than 2,000 detainees, and ended with US soldiers firing bullets into a crowd and killing four detainees.

The latest violence comes almost one year after details emerged of the torture of detainees by US troops at Abu Ghraib prison, which dealt a crippling blow to US efforts to win sympathy in Iraq.

The US military arrested hundreds of al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia men during a revolt led by the radical cleric from last April to October.

The latest numbers of detainees in US custody in Iraq is 10,708, Rudisill said.

Camp Bucca is the largest prison in Iraq located in a barren desert plot where temperatures can soar to 60<>C.

The US military wants to expand and transform Bucca, named after a firefighter who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York's World Trade Center, [notice how the US Military carries out the pretense/lie that Iraq had something to do w/ 9/11- this is extremely disheartening. They are lying and incompetence go hand in hand, when it comes to military quality. ] into a long-term detention facility for the most serious offenders that would include those held in Abu Ghraib.

The army had planned to tear down the facility after the official end of hostilities in May 2003, but scrapped this idea due to the scale and intensity of an insurgency that flared up afterward.

---

Copyright ´´ 1999-2005 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved.

[Moses]

Hidden Angle
April 05, 2005
Bad News Bears Go Into Hibernation

Over the past two years, the media has taken plenty of heat for reporting only the "bad" news coming out of Iraq. With the weekend's coverage (or lack thereof) of a major attack by insurgents, that criticism is looking a little ragged around the edges.

On Saturday, in what has been called the largest and most sophisticated insurgent attack in Iraq to date, a group of between 40 and 60 members of al Qaeda attacked Abu Ghraib prison, wounding 44 Americans and 13 prisoners. The attack, which employed mortars, rockets, several coordinated ground assaults and a car bomb, took the Marines guarding the prison over an hour to beat back with the help of Apache helicopters and artillery.

One might think that a major engagement with a high casualty rate (at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, no less) would grab some headlines back home -- after all, even saturation coverage of the pope's death leaves some room for other news. Yet the story has been largely buried on the back pages of our major dailies.

The attack merited a brief mention in Sunday's papers, with the Washington Post dumping it on page A16, and the New York Times publishing a story on A11 that clocked in at a paltry 393 words.

The Post redeemed itself a bit with a front page story this morning which laid out the details of the attack, while finally providing correct casualty figures (the initial reports were off by about half). The Times however, hasn't revisited the attack, other than to include it as a footnote to other Iraq stories.

The reporting on the story has been generally sloppy as well. Today, the Los Angeles Times runs an AP story that pegs the number of insurgents wounded at "about 50," despite the general consensus among all other sources that only 40 to 60 insurgents were involved in the attack in the first place. This, while the paper itself on Sunday -- in its only piece on the attack -- wrote that 40 to 60 insurgents were involved. Fifty wounded out of an attacking force of "40 to 60" is hard to believe, considering that no one was left behind and no prisoners were taken.

There's no doubt that reporting from a war zone is a messy, confusing business, and military authorities have reasons for withholding certain information. But the utter disregard the American media have shown this story is astonishing. Even with other news elbowing lesser stories out of the media spotlight, a major attack on an American military installation in an ongoing war seems like something that might be worth hearing as much about as, say, the latest accusations against a certain Southern California pop star.

--Paul McLeary

[camaxtle]

By keeping it out of the papers, or at least on the back pages, it is easier for amerikans to swallow, and easier for the sheep to swallow when we go after Iran. The governments attitude towards the populace is what they don't know won't hurt them, and apparently it is working. We don't want reality to intrude on our shopping at walmart and watching our reality tv programs. BAAA BAAAA

[Moses]

The media complicity becomes more and more chilling on a daily basis. It is so clear that we live in an era where the world media is controlled, in the model of the National Socialist Party control of German media.

The New York Times has become nearly as unreadable as the Post. NPR is nothing but propaganda-- it turns one's stomach to listen to it. The Post is a straight-up neocon cabal. The networks and cable-- who even watches them anymore? I don't know anyone who does. I guess they have driven off all but the trailer trash.

[Moses]

www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/Casualty_Report.asp?CasualtyReport=20050412.txt

April 8, 2005
Release Number: 05-04-12C
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TASK FORCE LIBERTY SOLDIER KILLED BY IED
TIKRIT, IRAQ -- One Task Force Liberty Soldier was killed when an IED detonated around 12:00 p.m. on April 8. The attack occurred near Hawijah in the Province of Kirkuk. The name of the Soldier is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.