MIKEMUN

Militant Strikes in Iraq Kill at Least 6

39 minutes ago Middle East - AP


By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents targeted Iraqi and U.S. security forces with gunfire, suicide attacks and mortar rounds Sunday, killing six people — including a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi corruption official — as the conflict moved into its third year since the U.S.-led invasion.


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Militant Strikes in Iraq Kill at Least 6
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Neighbors Iraq (news - web sites) and Jordan also withdrew their highest-level diplomats from each others' territory as tensions between the two countries increase over the alleged involvement of a Jordanian in a deadly suicide bomb attack in the city of Hillah.


Separately, a Jordanian court sentenced Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, in absentia to 15 years in prison.


A bomb exploded early Sunday near the northern city of Kirkuk, killing a U.S. soldier and wounding three others, the U.S. military said in a statement.


Elsewhere in northern Iraq, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a government compound in Mosul, killing Walid Kashmoula, the head of the Iraqi police anti-corruption department, officials said. Three others were wounded.


Al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq group purportedly claimed responsibility for the attack in a message posted on an Islamic Web site known for carrying statements from extremist militant groups.


"The renegade Walid Kashmoula has been assassinated by a martyrdom operation, thanks to God, and he is the No. 1 American agent in Mosul," said Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, the designated "media coordinator" for al-Qaida's affiliate in Iraq. The statement could not be verified.


Insurgents have increasingly targeted Iraqi security and government officials they see as collaborators with the U.S.-led mission.


People in Baghdad said saboteurs blew up a municipal building in a western neighborhood, reducing the two-story building to rubble. No injuries were reported. A Humvee also was overturned on the highway to the airport. Witnesses said it was hit by a roadside bomb, but U.S. military officials were not available to comment. U.S. troops sealed off the area.


Iraq's fledgling security force has been struggling to build its ranks and fight the lawlessness that has gripped the country in the two years since President Bush (news - web sites) ordered the U.S.-led invasion on March 19, 2003. The anniversary of the invasion falls on March 20 in Iraq, because of the time difference.


Assailants leapt from their vehicle and unleashed gunfire on a policeman walking to work in Samarra, killing the man, said Maj. Sadoun Ahmed, a police official in the Sunni Triangle town some 60 miles north of Baghdad.


Police who went to collect the man's body also came under attack, sparking a gunfight that left three police injured along with a trio of attackers, who were arrested, police Lt. Qassim Mohammed said.


In the southern city of Basra, attackers targeted a police patrol with a roadside bomb, killing one civilian and injuring a policeman, police Col. Karim al-Zeidi said.


Insurgents also lobbed mortar fire into a neighborhood just outside the walls of an Iraqi army base in the town of Mahmoudiyah, south of Baghdad, killing one civilian and injuring two others, said Ikbal Sabir, an official at the Yarmouk Hospital where the bodies were taken.


The name of the U.S. soldier killed Sunday was not released pending notification of relatives. At least 1,520 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war, according to an Associated Press count.


Explaining the tit-for-tat diplomatic withdrawals, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Iraq's ambassador to Amman was being recalled for "consultations." Earlier, Jordan said it was doing the same to its highest official in Baghdad.


The decision followed a week of mounting anti-Jordanian sentiment after a newspaper reported that Jordanian Raed Mansour al-Banna carried out the bombing in Hillah, the single deadliest attack of Iraq's insurgency. Al-Banna's family has denied his involvement.





Iraqi politicians also have accused Jordan of not doing enough to prevent terrorists from slipping into Iraq.

"Iraqis are feeling very bitter over what happened. We decided, as the Iraqi government, to recall the Iraqi ambassador from Amman to discuss this," Zebari told The Associated Press.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Hani al-Mulqi said Sunday the Jordanian charge d'affaires in Baghdad also had been recalled to Amman, "for consultations." He said other Jordanian diplomats will remain in Baghdad.

Also in Jordan, a military court sentenced al-Zarqawi, whose whereabouts are unknown, to 15 years in jail and a detained associate to three years behind bars Sunday for planning an attack on the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad, the offices of the Jordanian military attache in Baghdad and unspecified American targets in Iraq.

The court was told that the two Jordanians met in Iraq in November 2003 to plan an attack on the embassy following an August bombing on the same building that killed 18 people. Al-Zarqawi has also been accused of carrying out the August bombing.

The United States has slapped a $25 million bounty on the Jordanian-born militant, who is believed responsible for numerous beheadings, hostage-takings and other attacks in Iraq.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor..._re_mi_ea/iraq

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Confed999

Good, it will make it simple to be rid of him when he's caught.

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

highsea

I can think of a simpler way...

__________________
My baby called me up. She said- Why don't you ever take me out? Pick me up in your brand new car....You shake the short change from the old fruit jar...

Bluesman

FIFTEEN YEARS?!? What the hell do have to do to get SIXTEEN?

After seeing videotapes of him personally decapitating living victims, and personally ordering attacks against strictly civilian targets that has resulted in thousands of deaths, WHAT in the world will get you life in prison?!? Is is contemplated that he would actually serve his sentence and be RELEASED?!?

__________________
"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

Julie

If you do not kill the snake, he WILL come back to bite you.

Anon

The odds of Zarqawi ever being taken alive are very, very small.

MIKEMUN

[QUOTE=Bluesman]FIFTEEN YEARS?!? What the hell do have to do to get SIXTEEN?

After seeing videotapes of him personally decapitating living victims, and personally ordering attacks against strictly civilian targets that has resulted in thousands of deaths, WHAT in the world will get you life in prison?!? Is is contemplated that he would actually serve his sentence and be RELEASED?!?[/quote]


Actually,Bluesman,he has two death sentences on his head,so I guess they will kill him twice and then not bury him for 15 years........

Anon

Or they could kill him, throw his corpse in a jail cell for 15yrs, then kill him again.

Veni Vidi Vici

I say we give him to the families of the people he beheaded.... provide them with a corkscrew and lots of time.

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MIKEMUN

Quote:

Originally Posted by Veni Vidi Vici I say we give him to the families of the people he beheaded.... provide them with a corkscrew and lots of time.

VVV I wouldn't like to get on your wrong side....

smilingassassin

I like your thinking miss.....

This guy isn't likely to recieve the 15 years...if we put him in a room full of his victims family members. How about a resevoir dogs senario were we stick him in a chair tied up with a tank-o-gasoline near by. The family members can play twister to determine who gets to poor the gas and again to determine who throws the match to start the barbacue.

dalem

Nahh, too much effort spent. Give him a trial and put him down like the dog he is.

-dale

Confed999

Snakes will rapidly learn that people mean them no harm when in close proximity. They will learn soon after that "their" human is actually a benefit of food, drink and heat. I like snakes as pets, they're quiet.