Air Strikes Kill 17 Iraq Al Qaeda Fighters

(CBS/AP)  Hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi troops, under cover of F-16s, fought their way into three neighborhoods of besieged Baqouba on Friday to help clear Diyala province of entrenched insurgents. To the north of the city, American helicopters killed 17 al Qaeda gunmen trying to sneak past a checkpoint.

As the 10,000-troop mission to take back the volatile and extremely dangerous province intensified in its fourth day, so have concerns about keeping al Qaeda fighters on the run. The terrorist fighters and their allies already have been run out of Fallujah and Ramadi in Anbar province, only to regroup in Diyala's capital of Baqouba and surrounding districts.

The U.S. ground forces commander, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, said more than three-quarters of Baqouba's al Qaeda leadership fled before the Americans moved into the city this week. At the time, drone observer planes spotted fighters planting dozens of roadside bombs on the main highway into Baqouba.

Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek, assistant commander for operations with the 25th Infantry Division, estimated that several hundred low-level al Qaeda fighters remained.

"They're clearly in hiding, no question about it. But they're a hardline group of fighters who have no intention of leaving, and they want to kill as many coalition and Iraqi security forces as they possibly can," Bednarek said Friday.

"It's 24/7 for us here, and it's probably the same for our adversary as well," he said. "It's house-to-house, block to block, street to street, sewer to sewer — and it's also cars, vans — we're searching every one of them."

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki's government is also under threat from within. After dozens of interviews with Iraqi political leaders both inside and outside the government, it's clear a broad-based movement is underway to bring down al-Maliki, reports CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan.

Called the "Iraq Project," the movement's manifesto outlines a plan to overthrow al-Maliki using constitutional means: a no-confidence vote in the Iraqi parliament that will force the prime minister to resign.

In other developments:

Intelligence agencies have come to an ominous conclusion: Al Qaeda fighters in Iraq who slip away are ready to expand their fight to Europe and the Gulf, CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar reports.

The U.S. military reported another American soldier killed, raising to at least 16 the U.S. death toll over the past three days.

In Fallujah, a suicide attacker wearing an explosives vest struck a police patrol, killing two officers.

A British soldier was wounded Friday when a roadside bomb struck a convoy in the southern port city of Basra, the British military said.

An Associated Press employee in Baqouba reported heavy fighting as U.S. troops swept into three eastern neighborhoods in Friday's operation, which began after U.S. forces warned residents to leave or stay indoors.

The American military said the 17 al Qaeda fighters were killed trying to flee past Iraqi security blockades on the road to Khalis, a predominantly Shiite city northeast of Baqouba.

Earlier this week, creeping house-to-house through western Baqouba, U.S. soldiers made a startling discovery: a suspected al Qaeda field hospital stocked with oxygen tanks, heart defibrillators and other medical equipment.

The find displayed al Qaeda's sophisticated support network in Baqouba, a mostly Sunni town of about 300,000 people, located 35 miles north of Baghdad.

That may presage great problems in an outright defeat of al Qaeda even if U.S. forces succeed in ousting the group from Baqouba. The city has received little aid or other services from the central government, which feared supplies would end up in al Qaeda hands.

As the al Qaeda field hospital proved, much assistance did bypass residents and found its way to the terrorist organization. Until trust is mended, U.S. military commanders say, any success they have in this offensive could be lost on a city unable or unwilling to reconcile sectarian differences.

Historically a mixed province, Diyala has become predominantly Sunni as Shiites fled an influx of Sunni militants from Anbar province. The militants were welcomed by many of Saddam Hussein's former Baath party members.

The shifting population balance only increased tension between local Sunni tribal leaders and the Shiite-dominated federal government in Baghdad.

"There are a multitude of systematic functions that aren't working," said Maj. Robbie Parke, 36, of Rapid City, S.D., a spokesman for the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. "The Iraqi government has to say, `Look, Baqouba is in trouble, and we need to help.'"

So far that has not happened, U.S. officials say. But there are signs of hope.

"The (Iraqi) government is very immature, but they're getting better and saying the right things. We've got to hold them to that," said Odierno.

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[j-whitman]

radio,,, Looks like a good link, thanks... I haven't read it all yet. But it is unbiased so far

[honest_news]

AJMarine:

Testimony of Raymond Cafferata, British Police Chief in Palestine, August 1929:

"On hearing screams in a room I went up a sort of tunnel passage and saw an Arab in the act of cutting off a child's head with a sword. He had already hit him and was having another cut, but on seeing me he tried to aim the stroke at me, but missed; he was practically on the muzzle of my rifle. I shot him low in the groin. Behind him was a Jewish woman smothered in blood with a man I recognized as a[n Arab] police constable named Issa Sherif from Jaffa in mufti. He was standing over the woman with a dagger in his hand. He saw me and bolted into a room close by and tried to shut me out-shouting in Arabic, 'Your Honor, I am a policeman.' ... I got into the room and shot him."

Sixty-seven Jewish men, women and children were massacred in Hebron alone. It should be noted that several dozen Jewish residents of Hebron were hidden by their Arab neighbors, but most of the Jews were left unprotected or even attacked by the Arab police force and were forced to flee for their lives.

"One result of this calculated and deliberate Arab violence against Jews in 1929 (and in subsequent years) was that the British rewarded both the mobs and the Arab leadership that had done little, if anything, to stop the violence (indeed, they often facilitated it) by, among other things, curtailing Jewish immigration to the area."

-- editor, The Blue Octavio Notebooks

[radiob-2009]

This is about the most unbiased history of Israel that I have read.

http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm

[ajmarine1]

Honest-News,

It's been interesting, but I gotta go. Again, I'm not taking sides, just looking for points of view.

Live Long and Prosper.

[hungry1968]

Again - how do we know that they are Al Qaeda fighters? Were they wearing name tags or other identifying marks?

[ajmarine1]

Honest-News,

Part 2

Had Britain remained in the Palestinian Mandate longer, rather of having been driven out by violence, the Jews would undoubtedly still have achieved independence, just like Burma and Ceylon achieved it in 1948 and just as Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand had earlier received complete independence within the Commonwealth in 1939. Instead, continued terrorism by the Irgun and their sympathizers led Britain finally to dump the unwanted problem of Palestine unceremoniously onto the United Nations. Without the intense pressure exerted by America, it is questionable whether the U.N. would have followed through and created a Jewish state at all. Abandonment of the Palestinian Mandate to the U.N. by the British, although accelerated by terrorism, ultimately resulted in the creation of a state that was much smaller than it otherwise might have been

[ajmarine1]

Honest-News,

This will be the last two.

Within weeks of the establishment of the Jewish state, terrorism on the part of Jewish extremists completely disappeared. The implications for Palestinian terrorism, should a Palestinian state be created, seem obvious. However, there are significant differences. The Palestinians rejected the territory offered to them in 1948, as they have consistently done to this day. Thus, their objective in committing terrorist acts cannot be to create a Palestinian state, but rather is part of their long-standing attempt to destroy Israel. In other words, the Palestinians seem not to want a Palestinian homeland; they want the Jewish homeland instead.

Part 1

[ajmarine1]

Honest-News,

More examples:At the end of the war, when it became clear that the British Labour government, despite its pre-election promises, was intent on continuing Britain's anti-Zionist policy, the three Jewish resistance groups Haganah, Irgun, and Lohamei Herut Yisrael-Lehi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) (known as Lehi for short) reacted by forming the Unified Jewish Resistance Movement, for the purpose of ending the British Mandatory rule

On November 1, 1945, the Unified Resistance conducted its first joint attack, known to the Israelis as the "Night of the Trains"

On February 25, 1946, the Lehi attacked an airfield near Kfar Syrkin

On October 30, the Irgun under Begin blew up the Jerusalem Railway Station

On Saturday, March 1, 1947, Jewish terrorists attacked the British Officers' Club within a security zone at Goldschmidt House on King George Street in Jerusalem.

[ajmarine1]

Honest-news,Under Raziel, the Irgun stepped up terrorist activities against the Arabs. The most significant acts were explosions in the Arab markets of Haifa and Jerusalem. On July 6, 1938, a member of the Irgun, disguised as an Arab, went to the Arab market in Haifa, placed a large parcel beside one of the barrows in the center of the market and left. Shortly afterwards there was a heavy explosion, which killed 21 Arabs and injured more than 50. A week later a similar incident took place in Jerusalem. A member of the Irgun concealed an electric mine in the Arab market in the Old City. It exploded shortly after the end of the prayer service in the mosque, when a large crowd had emerged onto the street. Eight Arabs were killed and more than 30 injured.

On July 26, 1938, Yaakov Raz was sent by the Irgun to the Old City of Jerusalem disguised as an Arab and carrying a basket of vegetables in which a mine was concealed. However, he was stabbed by Arabs before he could detonate the bomb and committed suicide after being arrested by the British CID.

Part 2

[ajmarine1]

Honest News,

The sources I am using are "The Origins of Middle Eastern Terrorism" T.J. Nelson

Times Online-"British Anger at Terror Celebrations"

Don't get me wrong, I am not taking sides; I just don't understand alot of things and I ask questions. I am an Independent, not a "Lib" or "Con".


On Sunday, November 14, 1937 Irgun units started attacks against Arabs. This date came to be known as "Black Sunday" because it was the day on which the principle of havlaga was abandoned. The British police responded by carrying out large-scale arrests among the Revisionist party activists.


On March 28, 1938, in retaliation for an Arab terrorist attack, the Irgun started committing terrorist acts of its own against Arabs. Shlomo Ben-Yosef (Tabachnik) was executed by the British for one such act, whereupon Jabotinsky relieved the relatively moderate Rosenburg from command of Irgun and replaced him with David Raziel.

Part1