American Reporter Released
Good Morning,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - American reporter Jill Carroll was set free Thursday, nearly three months after she was kidnapped in a bloody ambush that killed her translator. She said she had been treated well.
Carroll, 28, was dropped off near offices of the Iraqi Islamic Party. She walked inside, and people there called American officials, Iraqi police said.
"I was treated well, but I don't know why I was kidnapped," Carroll said in a brief interview on Baghdad television.
Her family thanked "the generous people around the world who worked officially or unofficially" to gain her freedom. Her father, Jim, told CNN he was asleep in his North Carolina home when the phone rang at about 6 a.m.
"Hi, Dad. This is Jill. I'm released," the voice on the other end said.
No details were given about the circumstances surrounding her release. The U.S. ambassador said there was no ransom paid by the American embassy, but his remarks left open the question of whether "arrangements" were made by others.
In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman said the U.S. military was not involved in Carroll's release.
Reporters Without Borders said at 86 journalists and media assistants have been killed in Iraq and 39 others have been kidnapped since the war started in 2003. Three Iraqi reporters currently are held hostage.Have a nice day.
8 Killed, 6 Wounded
Good Morning,
This morning in Baghdad, men burst into a trading company and killed 8 employees.
Gunmen lined up 14 employees working at an electronics trading company in Baghdad this morning and shot them all, killing eight and wounding six, police said.
Iraqi politicians working on forming a national unity government postponed talks scheduled for today, saying they needed more time to consult their political blocs about what the security powers of the new government’s prime minister should be.
The motive of the attack at the al-Ibtikar trading company in the upscale Mansour neighbourhood was not immediately clear. According to survivors’ accounts to police, the assailants first asked for the company’s manager, who was not there, before firing on the employees.
The survivors said the assailants, some of whom were wearing police uniforms, identified themselves as intelligence agents from the Iraqi Interior Ministry.
Hundreds of Iraqis have been killed in sectarian violence and by death squads operating inside the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry since the February 22 bombing of an important Shiite shrine in Samarra set off a wave of revenge attacks.
Usually, the victims are killed secretively, their bodies discovered hours or days later.
The assault today was the second to target a trading company in Mansour this week.
Have a nice day.
40 Iraqis Killed - 30 Wounded At Army Recruiting Center, 21 Bodies Found, 11 Others Killed in Baghdad
Good morning,
Monday's bomber struck an army recruiting center, which is in front of a joint U.S.-Iraqi military base between Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and the ancient city of Tal Afar.
The attack shortly after noon killed 40 people and wounded 30 others _ civilians and military personnel _ who had gathered among a crowd of recruits for the Iraqi army, the Defense Ministry said.
The U.S. military said no American troops were hurt in the bombing and reported only 30 dead.
Iraqi army Lt. Akram Eid told The Associated Press that many of the injured were taken to the Sykes U.S. Army base on the outskirts of Tal Afar, about 40 miles west of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city.
The involvement of U.S. troops was limited to helping secure the area after the attack, said Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman.
In continuing sectarian violence, at least 21 more bodies were found _ many with nooses around their necks _ and mortar and bomb attacks killed 11 people in Baghdad and other towns.
Details of a joint U.S.-Iraqi Special Operations attack in northeast Baghdad late Sunday continued to filter out, with Iraqi officials angrily disputing a U.S. account of what happened.
Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr said the Mustafa mosque was attacked with worshippers killed, while a U.S. statement said the operation focused on "a compound of several buildings and that "no mosques were entered or damaged during this operation."
The military said the joint operation "killed 16 insurgents and wounded three others during a house-to-house search on an objective with multiple structures."
Have a nice day.
At Least 69 Iraqis Killed in Today's Violence
Good evening,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Police found 30 more victims of the sectarian slaughter ravaging Iraq _ most of them beheaded _ dumped on a village road north of Baghdad on Sunday. At least 16 other Iraqis were killed in a U.S.-backed raid in a Shiite neighborhood of the capital.
Accounts of the raid varied. Aides to the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Iraqi police both said it took place at a mosque, with police claiming 22 bystanders died and al-Sadr's aides saying 18 innocent men were killed.
The Americans said Iraqi special forces backed by U.S. troops killed 16 "insurgents" in a raid on a community meeting hall after gunmen opened fire on approaching troops.
"No mosques were entered or damaged during this operation," the military said. It said a non-Western hostage was freed, but no name or nationality was provided.
Associated Press videotape showed a tangle of dead male bodies with gunshot wounds on the floor of what was said by the cameraman to be the imam's living quarters, attached to mosque itself.
The tape showed 5.56 mm shell casings scattered about the floor. U.S. forces use that caliber ammunition. A grieving man in white Arab robes stepped among the bodies strewn across the blood-smeared floor.
A total of at least 69 people were reported killed Sunday in one of the bloodiest days in weeks. Most of the dead appeared to be victims the shadowy Sunni-Shiite score-settling that has torn at the fabric of Iraq since Feb. 22 when a Shiite shrine was blown apart in Samarra, north of Baghdad.
Much of the recent killing is seen as the work of Shiite militias or death squads that have infiltrated or are tolerated by Iraqi police under the control of the Shiite-dominated Interior Ministry.
Many of the victims have been found dumped, mainly in Baghdad, with their hands tied, showing signs of torture and shot in the head.
In an apparent effort to clamp down on police wrongdoing, American troops raided an Interior Ministry building and briefly detained about 10 Iraqi policemen after discovering 17 Sudanese prisoners in the facility, Iraqi authorities reported.
Have a nice evening.
20 Killed, Several Wounded, 2 Corpses Found
Good afternoon,
Seven people _ most civilians killed in their homes by mortar fire _ died and several others were wounded in a gunbattle between forces of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia and Sunni insurgents near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of the capital.
At least 13 other people were killed in scattered violence Saturday and two more bodies were found dumped in the capital, shot in the head with their hands and feet bound.
Here are some of the gruesome details of today's violence (Saturday)
according to police:
_ A female teacher was killed by Iraqi soldiers as she drove past their convoy in Baghdad.
_ A Sunni mosque preacher was killed by gunmen when he stopped to have his car repaired in west Baghdad.
_ Gunmen killed a man driving with his family and wounded his two sons in the capital.
_ A bomb exploded in a traffic police hut near the Iraqi Finance Ministry in north Baghdad, killing four civilians and wounding five people, including a traffic policeman.
_ Gunmen killed three people in the northern city of Mosul.
_ A roadside bomb killed two people in Balabroz, 55 miles northeast of Baghdad.
_ Drive-by gunmen killed the bodyguard of the head of Basra's Sunni Endowment, the organization that oversees the sect's religious property in the predominantly Shiite southern city.
Have a nice day.
At Least 29 Killed, 25 + Wounded
Good Morning
BAGHDAD, Iraq - American and Iraqi troops swept the oil-rich region of Kirkuk for suspected insurgents and captured dozens, while drive-by shootings, roadside bombings and sectarian violence killed at least 29 people in Iraq on Friday.
A bombing outside a Sunni Muslim mosque after Friday prayers killed five worshippers and wounded 15 people in the city of Khalis, northeast of Baghdad, the army said.
Gunmen in vehicles killed three policemen in west Baghdad and three power station workers headed to their jobs in Taji, just north of the capital, police said.
In southern Baghdad's Saydiyah district, gunmen killed four pastry shop employees, police said. Nearby, a roadside bomb killed a policeman.
Retaliatory killings between Shiite and Sunni Muslims have become increasingly common in the capital since the Feb. 22 bombing of an important Shiite shrine that unleashed the continuing rash of sectarian murders. Police said they found 13 bodies, blindfolded and shot, on Friday in the Binok, Kazimiyah and Sadr City neighborhoods.
Mortar rounds fell on homes in south Baghdad and the northern city of Tal Afar, wounding about 10 people, mainly children.
Dick Cheney Has A Tough Life
Good Afternoon,
The leader of the US attack on Iraq has special needs during his down time. I just thought it would be nice to share this with you:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0322061cheney1.html
This info comes from The Smoking Gun.
Have a nice and comfortable day. Oh yeah, don't forget to change your channels to the "Fair and Balanced" FOX news.
At Least 56 Iraqis Killed, 14 Corpses Found
Good Morning,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - At least 56 Iraqis died Thursday in violence, including a car bombing that killed 25 people in the third major attack on a police lockup in three days. A suicide car bomber detonated his explosives at the entrance to the Interior Ministry Major Crimes unit in Baghdad's central Karradah district, killing 10 civilians and 15 policemen employed there, authorities said.
In Thursday's assault, more than 35 people, mainly employees at the crimes unit, were wounded, police said.
A second car bomb hit a market area outside a Shiite Muslim mosque in the mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhood of Shurta in southwest Baghdad. At least six people were killed and more than 20 wounded, many of them children, police said.
Roadside bombs targeting police patrols killed four others _ two policemen and two bystanders _ in Baghdad and at least one policeman in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad. Dozens were wounded, police said.
Another two policemen were killed and two were wounded when gunmen ambushed a convoy in north Baghdad, an attack that police said was an aborted attempt to free detainees being transferred north to Mosul.
Elsewhere in Baghdad, two police were killed in gunbattles with insurgents and two civilians _ a private contractor and a power plant employee _ were slain in drive-by shootings.
Fourteen more bodies were found in the continuing string of shadowy sectarian killings: six in the capital and eight brought in by U.S. forces to a hospital in Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, police said.
A mortar round fell on a Baghdad house wounding three civilians, police Lt. Ziad Hassan said. Another civilian was seriously wounded by an Iraqi army patrol that was shooting in the air to clear traffic in a western neighborhood, police said.
Police have discovered hundreds of corpses in the past four weeks, victims of religious militants on a rampage of revenge killing. At least 21 bodies were found Wednesday, including those of 16 Shiite pilgrims discovered on a Baghdad highway, police said. Millions were returning home Wednesday at the conclusion of an important Shiite commemoration in the holy city of Karbala this week.
Have a nice day.
14 Killed, 3 Corpses Found, Dozens Wounded
Good morning,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents attacked a police station Wednesday for a second day in a row, but U.S. and Iraqi forces captured 50 of them after a two-hour gunbattle.
About 60 gunmen attacked the police station in Madain, south of Baghdad, with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic rifles, said police Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammadawi. U.S. troops and a special Iraqi police unit responded, catching the insurgents in crossfire, he said.
Four police were killed, including the commander of the special unit, and five were wounded, al-Mohammadawi said. None of the attackers died, and among the captives was a Syrian.
Gunmen in the capital targeted Shiite Muslims returning from a religious commemoration in the holy city of Karbala, killing six pilgrims and wounding 50 others traveling in minivans and the back of trucks, police said.
Earlier, gunmen killed three civilians transporting bricks on a road outside the city of Baqouba northeast of the capital. A roadside bomb then exploded when a police patrol responded, wounding an officer, police said.
Police continued to find corpses in the shadowy war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Three bodies, blindfolded and bearing signs of torture, were found in a western Baghdad neighborhood just after midnight, and the body of a young man shot in the chest was discovered in Musayyib, about 40 miles south of the capital, police said.
The body of a man in an Iraqi military uniform who had been killed outside Madain was also taken to a morgue in the southern city of Kut, an official said.
Back in the capital, roadside bombs targeting police patrols wounded at least six officers _ including four who work as guards at the Education Ministry _ and two other policemen and a passer-by were wounded in a drive-by shooting, police said.
Have a nice day.
19 Killed
Good Morning,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents stormed a jail around dawn Tuesday in the Sunni Muslim heartland north of Baghdad, killing 19 police and a courthouse guard in a prison break that freed dozens of prisoners and left 10 attackers dead, authorities said.
As many as 100 insurgents armed with automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades stormed the judicial compound in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles northeast of the capital. The assault began after the attackers fired a mortar round into the police and court complex, said police Brig. Ali al-Jabouri.
At least 33 prisoners were freed in the jail break.
After burning the police station, the insurgents detonated roadside bombs as they fled, taking the bodies of many of their dead comrades with them, police said. At least 13 policemen and civilians and 15 gunmen were wounded.
Later Tuesday, a roadside bomb killed one policeman and wounded three in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, authorities said.
Five other police were wounded in two separate roadside bomb attacks targeting patrols in northern and southern Baghdad early Tuesday, police said.
Have a nice day.
At Least 39 More Killed, 15 Executed Bodies Found Including 13 Year Old Girl
Good afternoon,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - At least 39 people were killed by insurgents and shadowy sectarian gangs, police reported Monday _ continuing the wave of violence that has left nearly 1,000 Iraqis dead since the bombing last month of a Shiite Muslim shrine.
As the Iraq war entered its fourth year, police found the bodies of at least 15 more people _ including that of a 13-year-old girl _ dumped in and near Baghdad. The discoveries marked the latest in a string of execution-style killings that have become an almost daily event as Sunni and Shiite extremists settle scores.
Among those killed in scattered violence Monday were 10 policemen, who are prime targets for insurgents, most of them Sunni militants, trying to break the will of the mainly Shiite police force.
As night fell on Monday, a bomb struck a coffee shop in northern Baghdad, killing at least three civilians and injuring 23 others. The bomb was left in a plastic bag inside the shop in a market area of the Azamiyah neighborhood, police Maj. Falah al-Mohammadewi said.
At about the same time, gunmen killed two oil engineers leaving work at the Beiji refinery north of Baghdad. An electrical engineer and technician were gunned down at the nearby power station, Beiji police Lt. Khalaf Ayed Al-Janabi said.
Separately, the owner of a small grocery in downtown Baghdad was shot and killed.
In southeast Baghdad, also toward evening, a roadside bomb blew apart a minibus, killing four pilgrims returning from the holy city of Karbala, where millions of Shiite faithful gathered to mark the 40th and final day of the annual mourning period for Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Five pilgrims on their way to Karbala were wounded in a drive-by shooting earlier in the day, police said.
Have a nice day.
35 Killed - UPDATE
Good evening
UPDATE FOR 3/19/06
As the Iraq war entered its fourth year, nearly 1,500 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers on Sunday sought to root out insurgents from farming villages an hour's drive north of the capital, and at least 35 people died in insurgent and sectarian violence nationwide.
11 Killed, 3 Bodies Found, 10 Wounded
Good morning,
It is the third anniversary of the US attack on Iraq. Nearly 35,000 (Conservative estimate) innocent Iraqi Citizens have been killed so far. Today the voilence continues.
Police said eight civilians, including a child, were killed in clashes between U.S. troops and gunmen in Duluiyah, 45 miles north of Baghdad. The town is in the Sunni Arab heartland where the Iraqi army and U.S. soldiers opened an airborne campaign last week to hunt for insurgents.
Elsewhere, two civilians were killed and 10 wounded when gunmen attacked U.S. troops stationed at the governor's office in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad. Firefighters were seen pulling furniture from a burning house set ablaze in the crossfire.
In the capital, police found the bullet-riddled bodies of three men bound hand and foot and dumped in a sewage treatment plant in the southeast neighborhood of Rustamiyah. The victims appeared to be the latest in the wave of revenge killings set off by the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra.
Assailants in southwest Baghdad also gunned down a man as he was leaving a Shiite mosque, police said.
Those deaths came a day after a dozen other suspected victims in the shadowy Shiite-Sunni reprisal spree were found in the capital.
Have a nice day.
19 Killed//Wounded As Violence Continued
Good afternoon,
Friday's bloodshed in Baghdad began as groups of faithful, many of them parents with children in tow, trekked down city streets headed for the southbound highway to Karbala.
At about 7:30 a.m., a BMW sedan driving alongside pilgrims in the western district of Adil opened fire, killing three young men and wounding two other people, police Lt. Thair Mahmoud said. Police later reported a second shooting, also in western Baghdad, in which men riding in a car fired on pilgrims near Um al-Tuboul Square, wounding three.
Then, about midday, a bomb left in a plastic bag of vegetables exploded on a minibus, killing two passengers and wounding four in a Shiite district of Baghdad, police reported. Later in the day, a roadside bomb went off as a crowd of pilgrims passed in Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad, wounding five people.
Elsewhere, police in a Shiite area of east Baghdad late Thursday found the bodies of four Sunni men who had been seized from a taxi by masked gunmen the day before in western Baghdad. And police reported that six mortar rounds landed on six houses Friday in a mixed Sunni-Shiite area of Khan Bani Saad, 10 miles north of Baghdad, killing one person and wounding three.
Have a nice day.
11 Reported Killed by US, 4 Others Killed by Insurgents
Good Morning,
ISAHAQI, Iraq - U.S. forces flattened a house during a raid north of Baghdad early Wednesday, killing 11 people _ mostly women and children, while insurgent attacks elsewhere left four dead, police and relatives said.
The U.S. military acknowledged the raid and said it captured one insurgent. It took place near Balad, about 50 miles north of the capital. But the military said only four people were killed _ a man, two women and a child.
Police Capt. Laith Mohammed, in nearby Samarra, said American warplanes and armor were used in the strike, which flattened the house and killed the 11 people inside.
An AP reporter at the scene in the rural Isahaqi area said the roof of the house collapsed, three cars were destroyed and two cows killed.
Eleven bodies, wrapped in blankets, were taken in three pickup trucks to the Tikrit General Hospital, about 45 miles to the north, relatives said.
Associated Press photographs showed the bodies of two men, five children and four other covered figures arriving at the hospital accompanied by grief-stricken relatives. The victims were covered in dust with bits of rubble in their hair.
Riyadh Majid, who said he was the nephew of the killed head of the family _ Faez Khalaf _ told AP that U.S. forces landed in helicopters and raided the home early Wednesday. Khalaf's brother, Ahmed, said nine of the victims were family members who lived at the house and two were visitors.
"The killed family was not part of the resistance, they were women and children," Ahmed Khalaf said. "The Americans have promised us a better life, but we get only death."
The U.S. military said it was targeting and captured an individual suspected of supporting foreign fighters for the al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist network.
"Troops were engaged by enemy fire as they approached the building," said Tech. Sgt. Stacy Simon. "Coalition forces returned fire utilizing both air and ground assets."
Bombs killed four more people and injured dozens Wednesday in Baghdad and north of the capital.
Three explosions hit Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. A martyr bomber on a bicycle missed a police patrol, killing two civilians and injuring six others, police said. The provincial command said the explosives appeared to have detonated prematurely as the cyclist approached the patrol.
Later, an explosion in a cell phone shop killed two more people and injured 12, police said.
Have a nice day.
87 Male Bodies Found, Killed Execution Style. = 1 Killed, 7 Injured
Good Morning,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Police in the past 24 hours have found the bodies of at least 87 men killed by execution style shootings in a gruesome wave of apparent sectarian killing, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday. They include at least 29 bodies stacked in a mass grave in an eastern Shiite neighborhood.
Most of the discarded corpses were found in the capital and three in the northern city of Mosul, police said.
Acting on an anonymous tip, police found a 6-by-8-meter (yard) hole in a empty field. It contained at least 29 dead men _ most of them in their underwear _ in Kamaliyah, a mostly Shiite east Baghdad suburb, said Interior Ministry official Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi. He estimated they had been killed about three days ago.
Local residents offered scarves to help cover the bodies, which were laid out on the ground. Police guarded the site as members of a Shiite militia dug for more corpses. An Associated Press photographer took pictures of the grave but was warned not to publish them.
An abandoned minibus containing 15 more bodies was found earlier on the main road between two mostly Sunni west Baghdad neighborhoods _ not far from where another minibus containing 18 bodies was discovered last week, said al-Mohammedawi.
At least 40 more bodies were recovered in Baghdad, including both Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods, said al-Mohammedawi.
They included four men shot in the head execution-style and hanged from electricity pylons in Sadr City, where two car bombs and four mortar rounds shattered shops and market stalls at nightfall Sunday, as residents shopped for food for their evening meals.
Scores of frightened Shiite families have fled predominantly Sunni parts of Baghdad in recent weeks, some of them at gunpoint. More than 100 families arrived between Monday and Tuesday alone in Wasit province, in the southern Shiite heartland, said Haitham Ajaimi Manie, an official with the provisional migration directorate. More than 300 Baghdad families are now sheltering in the province, he said.
North of the capital, a roadside bomb exploded Tuesday among Shiite pilgrims headed on foot to the holy city Karbala, killing one person and injuring seven near Baqouba, police said.
Have a nice day.
4 Hung, 15 Killed, 40 Injured
Good Morning,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Police found four hanged men dangling from electricity pylons in a Baghdad Shiite slum Monday. Members of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia had captured the four people found hanged in the Shiite ghetto, according to police and a member of al-Sadr's organization, Sheik Amer al-Husseini. Police collected the bodies early Monday.
"We know nothing about their nationalities but residents reported that they were arrested yesterday by Mahdi Army," said police Lt. Laith Abdul-Aal. "Two of them were wearing explosive belts and two others had mortar tubes."
Al-Husseini identified the men as three Iraqis and a Syrian.
Bomb blasts in Baghdad and north of the capital _ many of them targeting Iraqi police patrols _ killed 15 more people Monday and wounded more than 40. They included a U.S. soldier killed in a roadside bombing in east Baghdad, the military said. A U.S. Marine was reported killed the previous day in the western insurgent-plagued province of Anbar.
Have a nice day.
58+ Killed 385+ Injured and Another 11 Killed In Other Violence
Good Morning,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber and a car bomb ripped apart a market Sunday in a Shiite slum in Baghdad, killing at least 58 people and wounding more than 385. The carnage came shortly after Iraqi politicians decided to convene parliament three days earlier than planned, suggesting some progress in efforts to form a unity government.
The death toll in Sadr City was sure to rise as residents, many firing Kalashnikov rifles into the air, raced to and fro to collect charred corpses from among burning vehicles and shops.
Angry residents kicked the head of the suicide bomber, apparently an African, as it lay in the street of the al-Hay market in the east Baghdad neighborhood.
Smoke billowed into the air and fires continued to burn after the huge explosions, which demolished many shops.
Police Lt. Thair Mahmoud said police were trying to defuse a second explosives-laden car nearby. Four mortar rounds also reportedly slammed to earth nearby.
It was the second major attack targeting members of the Shiite majority in less than three weeks. On Feb. 22, the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in the mostly Sunni city of Samarra, triggered a wave of reprisal attacks against Sunnis that pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.
In other violence Sunday, a roadside bomb targeting a police patrol on a busy street in a mostly Sunni area of the capital killed at least six people and wounded 12, police said.
Drive-by shooters killed three occupants of a car in west Baghdad, including a member of Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, police said. And a rocket landed near a house, killing one occupant and injuring two others.
In Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, gunmen ambushed and killed a police major as he headed to work, police said.
A roadside bomb also hit a police convoy in Baquouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing one patrolman and wounding four others, police said
Have a nice day.
In Memorium - Iraqis Killed - George Stephanoupolos This Is For YOU
Good Morning,
This is the only list I have been able to find so far which honors the names of those Iraqis killed during the US invasion. As it says, for every one name listed, there are 9 others not listed.
You will never see this list, or these people honored in Memorium on American Television. Guaranteed.
http://iraqbodycount.net/names.php
(Special Note: I have admittedly skipped/missed a few weeks of George S... but noticed today there seemed to have been a change in reporting in the "In Memorium" segment of US Military deaths. George did not mention how many US troops were killed during the previous week. He only mentioned the number of names that the Pentagon released and then showed those in Memorium.)
Have a nice day.
6 Killed
Good morning,
In violence Saturday:
_ Amjad Hamid, who was in charge of educational programs at Iraqiya state television, was killed with his driver in Khadra, a dangerous, mostly Sunni west Baghdad neighborhood, the channel said.
_ Waad Jabar, who worked for an Iraqi rights group, was gunned down with his bodyguard in Hawija, 150 miles north of Baghdad, police said.
_ Lt. Col. Thayer Saddam was shot and killed in his car in the south Baghdad neighborhood of Saydiyah, the Interior Ministry said.
_ A retired government employee was gunned own near a Sunni mosque in south Baghdad, police said.
_ A roadside bomb targeting an American patrol in west Baghdad wounded one soldier, the U.S. military said.
_ A car bomb targeting another U.S. convoy exploded at Mishahda, about 25 miles north of Baghdad, but there was no word on casualties, said police Lt. Ali Mohammed.
Have a nice day.
What Inspired Me
Good Morning (Again),
I have had several people ask me why I am so obsessed about reporting the accounts of Iraqi deaths. So, I thought I'd take a moment to explain exactly what motivated me to start this blog.
You see, I am a big fan of the Sunday morning news program "This Week With George Stephanoupolos" http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/.
Every week, at the end of their show, they have a segment called, "In Memorium".
First up, in memorium, are famous Americans who have died during the previous week. After that, George announces how many American soldiers in Iraq have died, and how many of their names have been released. For each name released, they display briefly that name and some bare bones info about that person.
Honestly, I don't remember which week it was, but there was a terrible mass killing in a Baghdad shopping area in which dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians were put to their death. It then dawned on me, why does ABC news not highlight or even make mention of these Iraqi deaths in the In Memorium segment? I wrote into the show (Via e-mail) and very amazingly got a response from a Producer of that show. He explained that George did mention during the show that X number of Iraqi's were killed, however, they had made the decision to only highlight American Military deaths in the In Memorium segment.
Of course, being the person that I am, I wrote back to him explaining why I felt it was just as important to highlight Iraqi deaths as it was American military deaths. He said he understood my point, but that was not what they were going to focus on in that segment. Feeling really pissed off, I decided that I would, as much as I could possibly do as an individual, honor those Iraqi's who were innocent victims of the American invasion and ongoing conflict/war. The Iraqi victims DESERVE much more than what the US press is giving them, so I decided to do my own highlights in this blog.
What I would really like to do are some feature stories about Iraqi civilians who fell victim to this slaughter. Those stories are extremely difficult to come by, but I am going to see if I can find some stories to bring to light. To my readers, if you are aware of any sources which can provide personal stories about those Iraqi's who have died as a result of this horrible conflict, plesase let me know!
In addition to my regular news highlights, and potential feature personal stories, I will continue to share some of my own personal commentary (As un-pretty as it might be), with you.
As I say all too often, "So there you have it"... what motivated me in the first place to begin this blog. Although I cannot possibly make entries every day, not a day goes by without my concern for those who live in Iraq. How any civilian can manage to have a life there is beyond my wildest comprehension. To those who are having to manage their lifes through all this death, fear, instability, lack of resources, etc.... you will always be in my prayers.
-- wink
At Least 20 People Killed, 8 Corpses Found
Good Morning,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Bombings and shootings Friday killed at least 20 people around Iraq, while President Jalal Talabani issued a decree ordering the new parliament to hold its first session on March 19.
A suicide truck bomb ripped through a line of vehicles waiting at a checkpoint Friday in Fallujah, killing at least seven civilians. Authorities in the capital discovered the bodies of six men who were blindfolded, handcuffed and shot in the back of the head, police said.
Car bombs killed three people in Samarra, where an attack on a Shiite shrine last month ignited nearly two weeks of sectarian violence.
A bomb hit a U.S. tank in east Baghdad, setting it afire and blowing off the treads, police said. The American military said the M1A2 Abrams tank hit a roadside bomb and the crew escaped unharmed.
A policeman in Tikrit died disarming a roadside bomb when a second explosive device detonated, also wounding two others.
In Samarra, where a Feb. 22 mosque bombing of a Shiite shrine ignited violence that killed about 500 people, two car bombs killed three people, including the imam at a Sunni Muslim mosque, and wounded five, police said. One bomb targeted police but killed a civilian. The other bomb, near the Sunni Qiba mosque, killed the preacher and another person.
In the Fallujah attack, the bomber detonated his explosives as large numbers of cars were waiting to pass through the security checkpoint going into the city, 40 miles west of Baghdad, said police Lt. Mohammed Taha. Two of the wounded were police.
The eight corpses were found in two suburbs east of Baghdad, said police Capt. Maher Hammad Mousa. Four of them, men between the ages of 30 and 35, were found on the street in the Fudhailiya suburb shortly after dawn. The other two, men between the ages of 40 and 45, were discovered in the Kamaliya region shortly afterward. None of the bodies bore identification. The bodies of two more bullet-riddled men _ one of whom also had his throat slit _ were brought to the morgue in Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, officials said.
Have a nice day.
16 Killed 31 Wounded 452 Civilians Killed Since 2/22/06
Good morning,
A series of explosions, including a car bomb that struck a Sunni mosque, and a shooting killed 16 civilians and wounded 31 as a dust storm enveloped the capital.
U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said that the U.S. military believed at least 452 civilians had died in violence after the Feb. 22 shrine bombing until the end of last week, although he offered no breakdown according religious sect or ethnicity.
One of the deadly blasts in Baghdad Thursday targeted an Iraqi army patrol in the mostly Sunni western neighborhood of Amariyah, killing nine civilians and wounding six, according to Interior Ministry Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi.
A car bomb also exploded near the Sunni Al-Israa Walmiraj mosque in east Baghdad, killing five civilians and wounding 12 others, police Capt. Mahir Hamad Mousa said.
At Yarmouk Hospital in west Baghdad, a car bomb killed two people and wounded 13 as they entered the clinic, police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.
Also Thursday, a woman was gunned down as she left her west Baghdad home for work, said police Lt. Mohammed Khayoun, who claimed she was attacked because she worked in the capital's American-controlled Green Zone.
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7 Killed, 18 Bodies Found Strangled, 10 Wounded
Good Morning,
The bound and blindfold bodies of 18 men who had been strangled were found in a minibus in a mainly Sunni Arab district of the Iraqi capital, apparent victims of a sectarian war being waged by armed factions.
The identities of the 18 men were uncertain, police said. All had been strangled, although medical and police sources gave conflicting accounts as to whether they had been hanged or garrotted. Some bore signs of torture.
In another sign of the escalating violence, a roadside bomb hit a convoy of cars assigned to Iraq's interior minister in Baghdad, killing at least one person, but minister Bayan Jabor, a Shi'ite, was not present, ministry sources said.
Jabor is a hate figure for Sunnis. His ministry has been accused by Sunnis and other groups of condoning death squads operating inside the ministry targeting Sunnis. Jabor denies it.
The 18 bodies, several with bloodstains, were seen by Reuters reporters at the hospital. They were dressed in civilian clothes and were young and middle-aged men.
"We found a rope round the neck of one of the victims," a source at Baghdad's Yarmuk hospital said.
Similar incidents in the past have provoked anger among rival communities. The bodies were found near the Amriya district of western Baghdad.
AdvertisementAdvertisementThe area has been a stronghold of Sunni insurgent groups. Local people have accused the Shi'ite-led, US-backed government's police and other security forces of abducting and killing Sunni civilians – an accusation the police deny.
The dumping of bodies exhibiting signs of torture and killed execution-style has become a feature of Iraq's violence, which has raised fears that it may slide into all-out civil war.
Elsewhere, a roadside bomb in Falluja, west of Baghdad, killed four civilians and wounded two on Wednesday morning, police said. A similar bombing in central Baghdad killed two police officers and wounded two. Six civilians were also hurt.
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50 Iraqi Workers Kidnapped
Good Morning,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen in camouflage uniforms stormed the offices of a private security company Wednesday and kidnapped as many as 50 employees, police reported.
The attackers hit the al-Rawafid Security Co., a private Iraqi-owned business, at 4:30 p.m. and forced the workers into seven vehicles, including several white SUVs, said Interior Ministry Maj. Felah Al-Mohammedawi.
The company is located in the mixed Sunni-Shiite Zayouna neighborhood in eastern Baghdad.
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16 Killed in Scattered Bombings and Mortar Blasts
Good Morning,
In continuing violence Tuesday, car bomb exploded near a restaurant on the fringe of Baghdad's Sadr City Shiite slum, killing three civilians and wounding three others.
Assailants attacked a Sunni mosque in west Baghdad with guns and grenades, killing a guard and torching two rooms. The gunmen ambushed police when they responded, wounding five officers.
In the same neighborhood, a mortar shell wounded a worshipper leaving a Shiite mosque after dawn prayers _ one of several rounds that slammed into the city.
Two bombs targeting U.S. patrols in two other neighborhoods killed at least one civilian bystander and injured five others, police said. There were no reports of American casualties.
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Police said four Iraqi officers were killed in two separate attacks on police patrols in Baqouba and Beiji, north of Baghdad.
Two car bombs exploded almost simultaneously at separate sites in the mostly Shiite city of Hillah, south of Baghdad, wounding at least three people, police said.
At least three other people were reported killed in scattered shootings _ a Sunni TV station official and an airport employee in Baghdad, and a police colonel in Beiji. Police found four more bullet-ridden bodies _ two of them with their eyes gouged out.
Major Killed
Good afternoon,
Maj. Gen. Mibder Hatim al-Dulaimi, a Sunni Muslim in charge of the Iraqi army's 6th division, was killed when gunmen fired at his convoy from houses along the route to inspect his troops, Interior Ministry official Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi said.
He died near where a key figure of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party escaped an assassination attempt Thursday. On the same day and in the same part of Baghdad, other attackers shot up cars carrying security men assigned to Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi. The men are from the same tribe but not related.
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14+ Killed, 52+ Wounded In String Of Explosions
A string of explosions in Baghdad and north of the capital, meanwhile, killed at least 14 Iraqis and wounded 52.
Many of Monday's attacks targeted the country's Shiite-led security forces, accused by Sunni Arabs of repeated abuses against them under the cover of fighting the deadly Sunni-driven insurgency. The government denies the accusations.
The bloodiest attack happened in Baqouba, where a car bomb targeting a police patrol exploded near a market, killing six people and injuring 23, including four patrolmen, police said. Piles of charred, twisted wreckage and pools of blood marked the site.
At Baqouba Hospital, relatives of the dead threw their hands in the air and wailed in despair. The mixed Sunni-Shiite city about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad has been at the forefront of a surge of sectarian violence unleashed by the Feb. 22 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in the central city of Samarra.
Bombs and mortar fire also rocked the capital, ending a relative lull over the weekend.
A suicide car bomber hit an Interior Ministry convoy in eastern Baghdad, killing two members of the security force and injuring three, police said
Another bomb exploded as a police patrol was driving through a northern Baghdad neighborhood, killing one officer and a civilian bystander, Interior Ministry official Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi said. Three others were injured in the blast, including a patrol member, he said.
Two more policemen were killed when a car bomb exploded in a residential street, said al-Mohammedawi. Three people, including one policeman, were injured in the blast, which blew out windows of nearby cars and homes.
Another car bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in downtown, injuring seven people, police said. The wounded included four policemen and three civilian bystanders.
Two bombs went off in Baghdad's notorious southern Dora neighborhood. One targeted an Interior Ministry patrol, wounding one commando, police said. A second went off as a U.S. patrol was passing, injuring five policemen, who were guarding a bank, and two civilians, al-Mohammedawi said. There were no immediate reports of U.S. casualties.
An earlier explosion near the Shiite Buratha mosque in northern Baghdad caused no casualties, police said.
Police found at least four more bodies that were shot in the head and dumped in parts of Baghdad. And three Shiite Turkmen were killed in a drive-by-shooting near Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, police said.
In Mahmoudiya, about 18 miles south of Baghdad, a car bomb hit a police patrol, killing a woman and injuring three other people, including two patrolmen, said police Cap. Rashid al-Samarie.
In Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, a roadside bomb missed a passing U.S. convoy, killing an Iraqi civilian and injuring two others instead, police and hospital officials said.
And three Shiite Turkmen were killed in a drive-by-shooting near Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, police said.
Have a nice day.
All The Bad Men Disappear
Good Morning,
Hey guess what. I had this great dream last night. All the bad men who have been killing, brutalizing, stealing, opressing and causing pain to the innocents have disappeared!! Wow. The universe and karma forces clung on to each and every guilty guy and swallowed him up. Poof. They disappeared into their own toxic swill, disolved and will never return. Suddenly, we are all safe. The people of Iraq are safe, because no one can cause them harm. I'm safe, because no one can come back to break into my house and take our posessions. Oh yeah, and that guy who robbed me at knife point and threw me to the ground has also, what do you know, disappeared! POOF. GONE.
The acrid stench of their impotent scent is no longer present. The air is sweet and peaceful and conducive for big deep breaths and blooms.
I woke up from this dream, teary-eyed, and realized it was just that, a dream.
I loved the idea though. Imagine a world without the putrid aroma of the men who cause nothing but chaos, fear, and pain. Imagine peace. Imagine harmony. Imagine respect. Imagine safety. Imagine physical and mental health. I will continue to strive for the aforementioned. To those who have caused so much pain, my visualization is of your disappearance. Nothing more. You are gone. You are nothing. Your energy no longer exists. Do I ask for an apology, sure. Do I ask for retribution, absolutely. I wish my dream would come true, because that would be the ultimate. Evil-dooers, just disappear. Your matter doesn't matter and you will not lift a finger against another person. You are overwhelmed, choked off and eventually all-consumed into nothingness, by your own hateful hand. There is no afterlife. There is only nothing. You are nothing. And I am safe.
Have a nice afternoon.
9 Killed, 7 Wounded
Good Morning,
Gunmen stormed a Sunni mosque early Sunday in west Baghdad, killing three people and wounding seven in a 25 minute gunbattle. Witnesses said U.S. helicopters hovered above the exchange of fire and American forces later moved in to stop the fighting and remove casualties.
Two relatives of an influential Sunni leader also were killed in a drive-by shooting in another part of west Baghdad.
Two policemen, a taxi driver and two electricity workers were killed in scattered gunfire in Baghdad and south of the capital. Police also found two shot-up bodies with hands and legs bound in a Shiite suburb in Baghdad.
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14+ Killed 25+ Wounded
Good Morning,
Iraq's president said Saturday that he had been assured that American troops will stay in his country as long as needed, while at least 14 people were killed in explosions and gunfire nationwide as vehicle restrictions were lifted in Baghdad.
A bomb exploded at a minibus terminal during morning rush hour in a southeastern Baghdad suburb, killing seven people and wounding 25, one of a string of explosions in the capital and elsewhere.
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19 More Iraqis Killed Overnight
Good morning,
Late Thursday, gunmen stormed a power station and killed Shiite brick factory workers while they slept in separate attacks during a night of carnage that killed at least 19 people in Baghdad's southeastern suburbs. The attacks raised the toll from Thursday's violence to 58.
The assault began as a series of mortar shells slammed into the Nahrawan power station, police Lt. Bilal Ali Majed said. Half an hour later, dozens of gunmen arrived and set fire to the generating facility. Security guards returned fire, and the Iraqi police and army sent in reinforcements, he said.
At least nine people were killed and three injured in the gunbattle, police Lt. Mohammed Kheyoun said. He identified the victims as guards and technicians at the facility but did not know if any attackers were killed or wounded.
In the adjacent Maamil suburb, gunmen killed 10 Shiite southerners employed at a brick factory as they slept in their shacks, said Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi, an Interior Ministry official. Police believed the gunmen may have been part of the same group that attacked the power station, he said.
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More than 2x Iraqi Civilians Killed than Iraqi Police/Army
Good evening,
Here is a good summary article regarding the killing of civilians in Iraq. It puts things in perspective that show that more than two times more civilians have been killed than the Iraqi Soldiers and police.
Article:
Civilians Bearing Brunt of Iraq Violence
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
30 minutes ago
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgency-related violence last year killed more than twice as many Iraqi civilians _ 4,024 people _ as Iraqi soldiers and police, according to government figures obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.
And the civilian death count in the first two months of this year already stands at more than one-quarter of last year's total _ due in part to sectarian violence triggered by the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine and car bombings in Shiite neighborhoods around Baghdad.
The large number of civilian deaths _ many in Baghdad, where 25 percent of the population lives _ has created a climate of fear where parents are afraid to send their children to school, women spend their days huddled inside their homes, and husbands send wives and children abroad.
Figures compiled by the Health Ministry put the civilian death toll for 2005 at 4,024. The ministry's civilian death count for the first two months of this year is 1,093.
Death tolls for the police and army are compiled by the ministries of Interior and Defense. Their figures show that 1,695 police and soldiers were killed last year. Most of the victims _ 1,222 _ were from the ranks of the police.
That pattern has continued through January and February of this year _ when 155 policemen and 44 soldiers died. Iraqi soldiers as a rule have better body armor and make better use of armored vehicles. Many Iraqi police patrol the dangerous streets of Baghdad and other cities in cars and pickup trucks without armor.
There is no way to verify the figures independently. In a dangerous country as large as California, journalists rely on figures provided by local police, hospitals and the Interior Ministry.
Figures in major attacks often vary widely, with police spokesmen giving different figures to different Iraqi and international news organizations. In some cases, Interior Ministry death counts in major car bombings are different from the totals provided up the chain of command by subordinate police units.
In some cases the discrepancy is a result of the difficulty in counting bodies ripped apart by fierce explosions. In others, politicians may be inflating figures to draw attention to the suffering of their community.
If tallies are standardized days later, news organizations have moved on to reporting other violence and may be unaware that early figures have been adjusted.
An Associated Press count from April 28, when the current government took office, through December 2005 found that at least 3,375 Iraqi civilians and at least 1,561 Iraqi security personnel were killed.
The Brookings Institution estimates that between 5,696 and 9,934 civilians were killed in Iraq during all of 2005. Brookings estimates at least 2,569 Iraqi military and police were killed during the year, based on a monthly count by a Web site, icasualties.org.
Regardless of the precise figures, virtually all studies agree that among government security forces, the police are at greater risk than the army. And Iraqi civilians die in greater numbers than the military and the police.
That reflects the nature of the Iraq conflict, now approaching its fourth year.
Since the fall of Baghdad and the end of major combat in April 2003, the Iraq war has been increasingly fought by triggering a bomb on a crowded street, or a drive-by shooting of a policeman or an ambush of an American patrol.
The increased use by insurgents of roadside bombs often has devastating effects on civilians. Frequently, the blast misses the intended target _ perhaps a passing convoy of police, soldiers or foreign security contractors _ and instead kills mothers carrying groceries home to their families, children walking to or from school or unemployed men loitering around street corners in hopes of getting odd jobs.
Civilians are often targets themselves. Sunni religious extremists kill Shiites, whom they consider heretics and collaborators with the Americans. Death squads from both the Sunni and Shiite communities hunt down members of the rival sect in retaliation for offenses committed against their own group.
Such attacks have accelerated following the Dec. 15 parliamentary election, as extremists in the insurgent ranks seek to derail formation of a new government of national unity including Sunni Arabs, the backbone of the insurgency.
U.S. officials fear those attacks might increase because talks among the Sunni Arab, Shiite and Kurdish communities have broken down. The Iraqis are already behind schedule on their constitutional timetable for establishing the new government.
Step one in the process is supposed to be the convening of the 275-member parliament, which was to have opened within 15 days of the final certification of the results. The results were certified Feb. 10, but the new parliament has not convened.
Since the early months of the U.S.-led occupation, civilian casualties have been a major image problem for the Bush administration. The U.S. military studiously avoided providing any estimates of civilian deaths.
As the conflict dragged on and the number of car bombs and suicide attacks increased, U.S. officials shifted strategy, instead highlighting attacks on civilians and attributing most of them to al-Qaida in Iraq.
___
Jennifer Farrar in AP's News Research Center in New York contributed to this report.
36 More Die
Good afternoon,
A bomb ripped through a vegetable market in a Shiite section of Baghdad, and a leading Sunni politician escaped an attack on his convoy Thursday as at least 36 people were killed in unrelenting violence, pushing Iraq toward civil war.
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379+ Die This Week -The Predicted Civil War Looms Large
Good morning,
I have been away on vacation and am just getting back to my blog. During the last week + that I've been away, 379+ (Which is a very conservative estimate) Iraqis have died and sectarian attacks have proliferated.
Iraq began to tilt seriously toward outright civil war after the Feb. 22 bombing of the revered Shiite Askariya shrine in the mainly Sunni city of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad.
The government said 379 people had been killed and 458 injured as of Tuesday afternoon in nearly a week of sectarian violence tied to the Askariya bombing. Another 30 died Wednesday.
Yesterday 68 Iraqi's died in violence in the country and today at least another 30 Iraqis were killed.
Have a nice day.
