Iraq Detains 1,000 In Militant Crackdown

U.S. House Speaker Pelosi Makes Surprise Visit With Officials To Promote Elections

(AP)  Nearly 1,000 people have been detained in a sweep to break al Qaeda in Iraq's sway in Iraq's third largest city, Mosul, but many of the fighters have fled to nearby areas, where troops are hunting for them, Iraqi officials said Saturday.

Iraq's leaders presented the crackdown as a success so far in depriving the terror network of what has been its most prominent urban stronghold since it lost hold of cities in Iraq's western Anbar province.

But the flight of al Qaeda fighters raises the concern they can regroup elsewhere, as has often happened in the past.

Yassin Majid, an adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said most of the leading insurgents had fled to the outskirts of Mosul or to a neighboring country amid the operations. He did not name the neighboring country. Mosul is about 60 miles from the Syrian and Turkish borders.

"Operations will continue and the Iraqi army will not leave Mosul until security and stability have been accomplished," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling, the top U.S. commander in northern Iraq, whose forces are working with the Iraqi troops in the operation, said he didn't believe significant numbers of militants had escaped. He said Iraqi forces have surrounded the city with a circle of berms and checkpoints controlling entry and exits.

But he said some al Qaeda leaders, who directed their Mosul followers from outside the city, may have stayed away from Mosul ahead of the sweep to avoid arrest, he told The Associated Press.

"It's been very successful," he said. "I think the combination of the arrests plus the uncovering of a number of weapons caches will reduce the number of attacks in Mosul."

But he warned insurgents could try to strike back in the coming days with suicide bombings in the city.

The sweep was launched Thursday, after five days of preparatory operations and arrests in the city. U.S.-backed Iraqi police and soldiers have been conducting raids on homes and have fanned out with checkpoints on city streets, though no clashes have been reported in the city, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani said 1,068 people have been detained over the past week, but 94 were cleared and have since been released. Hertling said those detained included several high- and mid-level al Qaeda figures, including leaders of cells that organized suicide car bombings and facilitators for foreign fighters entering the country.

The assault on the Sunni al Qaeda in Iraq group was launched in the wake of two other major crackdowns against Shiite militiamen in the southern city of Basra and the Baghdad district of Sadr City in the past two months. Those two sweeps continue but uneasy truces with the powerful Shiite Mahdi Army militia have eased the heavy violence they sparked.

Al-Maliki said Saturday the series of crackdowns would bring a boost to reconciliation efforts, saying it has "reflected positively on the political process."

Al-Bolani told a gathering of some 300 former Saddam Hussein-era officers in Mosul that the army and police would make room for them and that al-Maliki was urging them to return. Many in the crowd cheered the announcement.

Mosul's Sunni Arab population was once a major source of officers for Saddam's army, many of whom were removed because of their ties to his regime in a purge that followed the 2003 U.S. invasion. Their bitterness is believed to have fueled the Sunni-led insurgency.

On Friday, al-Maliki offered amnesty and cash to fighters in Mosul who surrender their weapons within the next 10 days. Al-Bolani said no one has surrendered any weapons yet and warned they had "no other choice" but to comply or face being targeted by security forces in the coming days.

Al-Maliki made a similar offer to Shiite militias in Basra during the sweep there, but few surrendered weapons.


Rep. Pelosi Visits To Promote Elections

The prime minister returned to Baghdad from Mosul - where he has been overseeing the crackdown - to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who made a surprise visit to Iraq on Saturday.

Pelosi, a top Democratic critic of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, expressed confidence that expected provincial elections will promote national reconciliation.

She welcomed Iraq's progress in passing a budget as well as oil legislation, and a bill paving the way for the provincial elections in the fall that are expected to more equitably redistribute power among local officials.

"We're assured the elections will happen here, they will be transparent, they will be inclusive and they will take Iraq closer to the reconciliation we all want it to have," said Pelosi. She also met with Iraq's parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq.

Pelosi, who also traveled to Iraq in January 2007 shortly after the Democrats assumed congressional control, has been a sharp critic of the Bush administration's conduct of the war and has pressed for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country this year.

She also has called for the Iraqi government to contribute more money to the reconstruction of the country.

President Bush's Iraq war funding request failed in the House on Thursday as anti-war Democrats and Republicans unhappy about added domestic funding formed an unlikely coalition to kill, for now, $163 billion to support U.S. troops overseas.

In Other Developments:

On Saturday, a female suicide bomber blew herself up near an office for a U.S.-allied Sunni group, then a suicide car bomber struck an Iraqi police patrol heading to the scene in the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad.

Police said at least 15 people were wounded in the attacks, including two children.

[prinzowhales]

What did Ms. Palfrey and her employee know that got them killed?

[prinzowhales]

In the white slavery rackets all roads lead to Dyncorps and Israel...just as Ecstasy is an Israeli drug speciality. Despite end user agreements, IDF copters are in the service of the drug cartels in Columbia and IDF forces provided a body guard for Bush41''s former partner in narcotics trafficking, Manuel Noreiga.

http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3166377,00.html

[j-whitman]

jamesm12341,,,, In fact none of the Bush - McBush policies are worth a squat --- It''s More of the Same

[j-whitman]

jamesm1234,,, Bush''s policie''s in Iraq aren''t anything to write home about as an example of leadership to follow

It''s the same as you spanking your monkey in front of your childen & telling the not too hair will grow in their palms

[j-whitman]

jamesm12341,,,, Stop licking Bush''s butt... It has everything to do with Bush ----- Our Iran Contra idiots are still developing their own intelligence in Iraq & feeding it to both them & us.

Here we are trying to set an example for Iraq''s goverment & we claim the right to hold Iraq''s indefinatly & refuse to prosecute our own contractors and reward them with more contracts..

[zykracosmos]

Good for Iraq. The stronger the central government gets, the quicker we can leave.

[ajaxtheleast]

"FIVE DAYS OF PREPARITORY OPERATIONS"

That would be:

four days of creating four creative

press releases, the fifth day choosing

the most creative press release and

jumping in their loud speaker trucks with:

"HERE WE COME READY OR NOT!"

(Five days advance warning must have
resulted in their detaining some
very ''high value'' BRIGHT militants.)

[prinzowhales]

Israeli terrorists have been arrested and deported from this country by the hundreds. See Carl Cameron''s series of reports for FOX news on the arrest and deportation of the Israeli ''art students'' who were trying to infiltrate US government offices and the homes of high-ranking officials.

Read the reports of Israelis captured with plans to nuclear plants and in vans with traces of explosives detected.

Where will the next false flag attack occur?

[prinzowhales]

demslie--Our troops have been saying nothing of the kind. The Washington Regime cancelled a propaganda event recently when it turned out that none of the "Iranian" weapons they were going to show came from Iran. You and the other ennablers of Israeli terrorists should be ashamed of your lies that have already cost over 4000 Americans their lives in Iraq. Now you want more to die in another war based on lies and BS.

[demslie]

"The top 12 Americas enemies"

1 - Feelfree1 (JAILED)

2 - j-whitman

3 - hungry1968 (JAILED)

4 - Iceman1960 (JAILED)

5 %u2013 FloyZepp (CUT&RAN)

6 - MCVet

7 - IRAN

8 - CHINA

9 - Muqtada Al-Sadr

10 - Hugo Chavez

11 - IOWEIGN

12 - Prinzowhales

Posted by BagdadsHere

I agree 100% but you forgot brianbwb.

When you read that 1,000 people have been "detained", that is not a "militant crackdown".
That is "eliminating the opposition" party.

Posted by brianbwb

Isn''t it amazing that our troop have been saying for two years now that IRAN has been suppling Weapons, Money and Trianing that has killed thousands of women, children and American soldiers but, the only time Anti-American Democrats like brianbwb get mad is when their friends the terrorists are attacked or jailed. So you don''t need a list. Angry Hateful Democrats are the enemy of America.