From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Ten Iraqis have been killed and at least 15 people wounded, including three US marines, in explosions and clashes between rebels and US troops in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, medics and witnesses said.

Explosions and sporadic gunfire echoed through the streets of the Sunni Muslim stronghold, west of Baghdad, said an AFP reporter at the scene.

Dr Hamdi al-Raoui said the Ramadi general hospital had admitted 10 dead Iraqis and 12 wounded in the skirmishes that began at dawn, updating an earlier toll.

A US military official confirmed that clashes were ongoing, involving the “usual suspects” namely rebel small arms and rocket propelled grenade fire, mortars and roadside bombs.

A second AFP correspondent embedded with the military said that three US marines were injured when a roadside bomb exploded as a convoy passed through the Sunni Muslim bastion.

The blast happened shortly before 7:30am (local time) in the capital city of the restive Al-Anbar province.

That's the second time in a row that the AFP have described the dead due to military action as “Iraqis”, rather than civilians.

Japanese leaders on Sunday insisted they would not cut short their troops’ deployment in Iraq despite the discovery of the body of a Japanese backpacker killed by Islamic militants.

[…]

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi called the killing a “brutal, inhuman act” but vowed to stay the course in Iraq, where Japanese soldiers are on a humanitarian, non-combat mission.

“We cannot lose to terrorism, we must not yield to brute force. I believe we should continue to support the Iraqi people’s efforts to rebuild their country,” Koizumi told reporters.

Read more…

WaPo has a lengthy article, Plan to Cut Extremism Involves Iraq's Sunnis

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

US artillery shelled Iraq's rebel city of Fallujah on Sunday and the military said an air strike the previous day had destroyed a mortar bunker used by insurgents.

A Reuters reporter said the shelling began at 8:30am (local time). It was not immediately clear what the gunners were targeting in the latest of near-daily bombardments of the city.
[…]
Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi met a group of Sunni clerics in a last-ditch appeal for a peaceful solution.

The clerics, too frightened to be named publicly, said they would respond in a few days, a statement from Dr Allawi's office said.

Updating a previous post, from Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The military said the combat death toll suffered by Marines in Anbar province west of Baghdad on Saturday had risen to nine. Another nine marines were wounded in action.

In line with its usual practice, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force has not disclosed the circumstances of the casualties

Semper Fidelis

Updating a previous post, from the AFP via The Australian :

The Japanese Government had confirmed that a head and body found in Baghdad were the remains of Japanese hostage Shosei Koda, public broadcaster NHK and Kyodo News reported today.
[…]
The decapitated body was found near Haifa Street in a notorious area in the centre of the capital, said colonel Adnan Abdul Rahman, a spokesman for the Iraqi interior ministry.

Iraqi officials said the head and body were found wrapped in a US flag. The hands and feet of the corpse had been tied and there were two bullet wounds, a police officer said.

From a later story, also in The Australian :

Japanese Embassy officials in Baghdad had sent fingerprints of the body to the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo, and police experts had positively identified the body, he said.

”It is to our great sorrow that after putting all our efforts into securing his release he has become a victim of terrorism.

“We cannot allow this kind of action.

“Japan in co-operation with the international community … must continue the battle against terrorism.”

Eight U.S. Marines were killed and nine others wounded in action Saturday in Anbar province west of Baghdad, the U.S. military announced.

The statement gave no details of how they were killed or injured and did not say where the engagement took place, citing security. They were assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

Anbar province includes Fallujah, where the U.S. military is gearing up for a major offensive, as well as Ramadi and Qaim along the Syrian border.

Also on Saturday, a car bomb exploded outside the offices of the Al-Arabiya television station in central Baghdad, killing seven people and wounding 19, police said.

Read more…

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A battle group of British soldiers will start patrolling a restive region south of Baghdad on Saturday after a mortar exploded in their new camp overnight, without causing any casualties, a spokesman said.

The Black Watch regiment, however, suffered its first casualties of the US requested mission to move in to Babil province from southern Iraq, with the death of a soldier in a vehicle accident on Friday that left three others wounded.
[…]
In a rude awakening on their first full night together in Babil, a mortar round crashed into the base without causing any casualties or damage, said Maj Mayo, noting that the sheer size of the camp and the small area the British troops occupied in it meant they had not been in any real danger.

The touring British troops also struck a roadside bomb during their long journey from Basra the previous day, which again caused no permanent harm, but slowed the progress of the convoy.

US soldiers helped to secure the route for the British tanks, Land Rovers and other army vehicles, which departed Basra on Wednesday.

They found and unarmed three other bombs left by the roadside, said Maj Mayo.

<nitpick>The word is “disarmed” not “unarmed”.</nitpick>

From the AFP via the ABC :

A US war plane bombed a suspected weapons site in the restive Iraqi city of Fallujah on Friday.

Hospital sources said six people were killed and four wounded.

“A US navy jet in support of the First Marine Expeditionary Force dropped precision ordnance on a weapons cache site,” said Major Francis Piccoli.

“We destroyed the site and there was a large secondary explosion,” said the marine spokesman, adding this indicated there had been munitions in the area.

Doctor Nabil Nuri from the Fallujah general hospital said six people were killed and four wounded in the strike that rocked a residential area in Al-Askari towards the end of the daily fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Witnesses had earlier said casualties were pulled out from under the rubble of a house in Al-Askari.

Unusually for the AFP, they've stopped claiming that the casualties were all women and children.

In other news:

Three mortar rounds hit inside the government centre wounding two US marines and a member of Iraq's security forces, according to an AFP reporter embedded with marines.

At least two bombs blew up in central Ramadi. It was not initially known whether there were any casualties.

Marines were also out in the city detonating roadside bombs that had been planted by insurgents.

Reuters

A body resembling a Japanese hostage has been found in Iraq and is being shipped to Qatar for identification, Japanese officials said on Saturday, after Tokyo refused a demand by his captors to pull out its troops.

Al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's militant group said in an Internet video on Wednesday it would behead 24-year-old Shosei Koda within 48 hours if Japan did withdraw its troops from Iraq.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had insisted that the troops would stay put.

The hostage incident has posed a challenge to Koizumi, who is a close ally of President Bush and sent troops to Iraq on a non-combat mission despite strong public opposition.

The killing of Koda could complicate a government decision on whether to extend the stay of Japanese troops in Iraq, which must be made by mid-December

Update from CNN says the body is not that of the Japanase hostage:

A body found in Iraq first thought to be that of 24-year-old Japanese hostage Shosei Koda is now likely to be someone else, according to Japanese officials.

“The medical officers at the (Japanese) embassy in Kuwait examined the body and they concluded that it is not likely that it is the remains of Mr. Koda,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told Japan's Kyodo news service.

“His dental structure is completely different,” Hosoda said.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

US marines are preparing to mount a “decisive” assault on the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi to crush Sunni Muslim insurgents and Arab militants.

”We are gearing up for a major operation,” Brigadier General Denis Hajlik said.

“If we do so, it will be decisive and we will whack them.”

Brig Gen Hajlik, the deputy commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, says the expected assault would involve Iraqi forces.
[…]
Marine intelligence officer Major James West says guerrilla violence could continue in Iraq even if Zarqawi was eliminated.

“Even if we get Zarqawi, that doesn't necessarily mean it's over,” he said.

ARAB NEWS: Sistani Supports Elections

Iraq’s principal Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has informed the interim Iraqi government of his “full support” for elections scheduled for January.

“The grand ayatollah’s message is that elections should be held as scheduled and that he will advise the faithful to take active part,” Sistani’s spokesman Ahmad Safi told Arab News yesterday.

Safi denied earlier reports that Sistani might call for a boycott of the elections.

“The grand ayatollah asked for free elections just days after the fall of Saddam Hussein,” Safi said. “His position has not changed. He believes that only free elections would allow the people of Iraq to choose a legitimate power and bring the occupation to a rapid end.”

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Gunmen have killed the driver of a Turkish truck in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and then set it ablaze, witnesses say.

They say assailants with assault rifles had shot the driver and then set fire to the truck with his body inside.

It is not immediately clear if the driver is a Turkish national but the truck, which is carrying bottled mineral water, has Turkish plates and markings.

The attack occurred in Yarmuk Square in western Mosul.

In a separate incident, a car bomb blew up near a US military convoy in a southern district, killing an Iraqi civilian and slightly wounding three.

The US military says two soldiers have also been slightly wounded in the blast, but have returned to duty.

A Stryker armoured vehicle has been damaged and two cars destroyed.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

British troops have taken up new positions in an area near Baghdad dubbed the triangle of death, freeing up US units for an offensive expected soon against the rebel-held Iraqi city of Fallujah.

Officers with the first batch of more than 200 soldiers from the Black Watch regiment refused to reveal their exact location until their base, roughly 50 kilometres from Baghdad had been secured, a pool reporter with the group said.

The rest of the 850-strong contingent are expected to arrive over the next few days, along with most of their heavy equipment.

The Black Watch describes itself as “the premier Scottish infantry regiment in the British Army and one of the most famous fighting forces in the world”, and I'm far too canny to contradict them.

“I'm nervous and angry,” said Private Manny Lynch, 19, from Fife, as he prepared to board a transport plane in Basra, adding he was told of his extended deployment four days before he was due to go home last Monday.

4 days before going home? You wouldn't have to be in the Black Watch to be ticked-off over that.

From Reuters via the ABC :

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in violence since the US-led invasion last year, according to public health experts who estimate there were 100,000 “excess deaths” in 18 months.

The US-based researchers found that the risk of death from violence in the period after the invasion was 58 times higher than before the war.

The rise in the death rate was mainly due to violence and much of it was caused by US air strikes on towns and cities, they said.

“Making conservative assumptions, we think that about 100,000 excess deaths or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq,” said Les Roberts of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in a report published online by The Lancet medical journal.

“The use of air power in areas with lots of civilians appears to be killing a lot of women and children,” Mr Roberts said.

The report comes just days before the US presidential election in which the Iraq war has been a major issue.
[…]
Previous estimates based on think-tank and media sources put the Iraqi civilian death toll at up to 16,053 and military fatalities as high as 6,370.
[…]
Gilbert Burnham, who collaborated on the research, says US military action in Iraq was “very bad for Iraqi civilians”.

“We were not expecting the level of deaths from violence that we found in this study and we hope this will lead to some serious discussions of how military and political aims can be achieved in a way that is not so detrimental to civilians populations,” he told Reuters.

The researchers did 33 cluster surveys of 30 households each, recording the date, circumstances and cause of deaths.

Before the war the major causes of death were heart attacks, chronic disorders and accidents. That changed after the war.

Two-thirds of violent deaths in the study were reported in Fallujah, the insurgent held city 50 kilometres west of Baghdad which has been repeatedly hit by US air strikes.
[…]
Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, said the research which was submitted to the journal this month had been peer-reviewed, edited and fast-tracked for publication because of its importance in the evolving security situation in Iraq.

“But these findings also raise questions for those far removed from Iraq - in the governments of the countries responsible for launching a pre-emptive war,” Mr Horton said in an editorial.

2/3 of 100,000 is about 67,000. Given that the population of Fallujah was about 500,000, that many have fled the city, and given the typical 3:1 ratio of serious wounds to deaths from bombing, that means the Lancet's peer-reviewed article claims that everyone remaining in Fallujah has already been killed or seriously wounded at least once. Nagasaki, a city 1/3 the size of Fallujah, took less than 1/3 of these figures, so Fallujah has been hit by the equivalent of at least 3 Atomic Bombs. Or so the Lancet implies.

Perhaps this should be in the “Election 2004” section.

No, not by France. Yet. From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Leaflets distributed by Iraq's toppled Baath Party urge Iraqis to boycott next year's elections and step up an insurgency against US-led forces to pave the way for Saddam Hussein's return.

The leaflets say Iraq's interim Government is made up of “sectarian and racist parties” appointed by the United States to prolong its troop presence in Iraq indefinitely.

“Real legitimacy is the return of the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the legitimate president of the republic, and his government,” said the typed leaflets.

“Work with all means to step up the valiant resistance and make all types of political, financial and military backing available to its brave heroes.”
[…]
The United States has long blamed Saddam loyalists, along with foreign militants, for the violence wracking Iraq since the US-led invasion.
[…]
The Baath Party leaflets say it is impossible to hold credible elections while foreign troops remain on Iraqi soil.

They said the US-led invasion, which overthrew more than three decades of Baath Party rule, is illegal and so is any political process that springs from it.

Australia has a different philosophy when it comes to decorations, compared to the US. Many acts which would result in the award of a coveted “Bronze Star” in the US would usually result in the award of an equally coveted “Mentioned in Despatches” in Australia. Decorations other than campaign medals are rather rare.

From The Australian :

Surprised that Governor-General Michael Jeffery had approved her nomination for the coveted medal [Nursing Service Cross], Cpl Longshaw said she felt very was proud.

”I didn't know until today, I just found out when it was announced,” a teary Cpl Longshaw said later.

Recollecting the days of the two attacks, Cpl Longshaw said although it would be a lie to say she was not scared, she knew she had a job to do.

“I was in my medical facility when I heard the first mortar rounds falling and as they got louder I went into the hallway,” Cpl Longshaw said.

“I had all my body armour stuff on and I just waited for the call of 'medics' because I knew they would be calling medics soon.

“As the mortar rounds got louder and louder it hit inside the actual fort compound so I was pretty much getting ready for it, taking deep breaths and off I went.”

Cpl Longshaw, who is to be married in March, believed the Iraqi army personnel and civilians appreciated the work done by the Australian group.

“A lot of the soldiers were really happy that we were there to help them and after we helped them in the first enemy attack they looked after us and wanted to protect us because we helped them and didn't leave them and run off,” she said.

Australians don't do the “leaving and running off” bit very well. Lack of practice, mainly.

NYT

A videotape made by a television crew with American troops when they opened bunkers at a sprawling Iraqi munitions complex south of Baghdad shows a huge supply of explosives still there nine days after the fall of Saddam Hussein, apparently including some sealed earlier by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Watch the video

Yesterday, Robin Burke wrote:

Early this afternoon I will be listening to a young Iraqi woman speak about her experiences before, during and after Operation Iraqi Freedom. Tune in here mid-afternoon for my notes from her talk!

Ms. Humalia Akrawy is a 23-year old Iraqi citizen who agreed to work with the 101st as an interpreter during OIF. Previously, when Saddam Hussein was still in power, one of her brothers was killed by the regime. Recently, her sister was murdered after the resistance discovered she was assisting the coalition in OIF. She is a powerful speaker who tells her story about life in Iraq before the regime change, life there right now, and what’s in store for the future.

Robin later posted her account of Humalia Akrawy's visit as a Winds of Change.NET exclusive, with Ms. Akrawy's full support. Read it, and be inspired.

From CENTCOM :

For more than a week, Soldiers of 1-82 FA distributed 120 metric tons of wheat, 70 tons of barley and 175 tons of fertilizers to the farmers of eastern Baghdad. The grateful farmers carried away their seed and fertilizer, which came in 110-pound bags, but not without occasional assistance.

“There were times when the Soldiers had to push [the farmers’] pick-up trucks to get them going on their way,” said Russellville, S.C., native Staff Sgt. Kevin Bowens of Battery B, 1-82 FA.

The seed delivery in eastern Baghdad was a part of Operation Amber Waves, a citywide civil military operation aimed at agriculture stabilization in the region leading up to the fall planting season.

Civil affairs officers in the region helped to establish a farmer’s cooperative with the help of local sheiks prior to the seed and fertilizer delivery. Farmers taking part in Operation Amber Waves also received a “United Farmers of Iraq” shirt. But the goal of the program has much loftier long-term goals.

“Handing out free seed and shirts is just the first step,” said St. Petersburg, Fla., native Capt. William Powers, the battalion’s civil affairs officer. “We are currently in the process of building a farmer’s co-op facility that will have a large meeting room, a soil and water laboratory and a large warehouse to store equipment and supplies.”

From CENTCOM :

One Task Force Baghdad Soldier died and two others were wounded when insurgents attacked their patrol detonating a possible vehicle-borne improvised explosive device this morning at about 7:30 a.m. in southern Baghdad.

All three Soldiers were medically evacuated to a military medical treatment facility. One Soldier died of wounds received in the blast. The two other injured Soldiers received minor wounds from the incident.
[…]
Explosive ordnance experts arriving on scene after the explosion were still trying to determine what caused the explosion. One, and possibly two, Iraqi civilians were also killed in the blast.

From CENTCOM :

A Mosul citizen prevented a car bomb attack after the anonymous individual informed Multi-National Forces of the suspected explosive device in the Mosul neighborhood of Al Wahda on Oct. 27.

Soldiers from 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team) responded based on the citizen’s information, and confirmed anti-Iraqi forces rigged the car with explosives. An Explosive Ordnance Disposal team destroyed the car bomb.

From the AFP via The Australian :

The Al-Qaeda-linked Army of Ansar al-Sunna has executed 11 members of the Iraqi National Guard it had abducted, the group said in a statement on its website along with photographs.

”The ruling of God has been implemented against them by slaughtering one and killing the others by firing squad,” said the statement, whose authenticity could not be confirmed.

The group had on Tuesday announced the abduction of 11 national guardsmen south of Baghdad.

From CENTCOM :

The Iraqi SWAT team, backed by elements of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, captured 18 insurgents during a sweep through the south-central Iraqi town of Haswah Oct. 27.

The operation raised to nearly 500 the number of insurgents caught by Iraqi Security Forces and their Marine allies since the MEU arrived in northern Babil province three months ago.

The SWAT team has emerged as an elite unit within the ISF, training and operating alongside the MEU’s Force Reconnaissance platoon. In recent weeks, the team has planned and led dozens of raids and house-to-house searches throughout the province.

From CENTCOM :

An anti-Iraqi forces rocket-propelled grenade attack on a combat patrol south of Balad killed a First Infantry Division Soldier at about 12:40 p.m. Oct 28.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A hitherto unknown militant group says it has kidnapped a Polish woman in Iraq and is demanding that Poland withdraw its forces, Al Jazeera television reports.

Poland's Defence Minister, Jerzy Szmajdzinski, says he could not verify the kidnap but no Polish soldiers are missing.

However, he says Poland will not bow to the demands of hostage-takers.

“Poland is not in the business of meeting demands of hostage takers,” Mr Szmajdzinski told private Polish television news channel TVN24.

Al Jazeera has aired a video of an elderly-looking woman, who was not named, seated between two masked men.

One of the men was pointing a gun to her head.

A black banner carried the name of the group - Abi Baqr al-Siddiq al-Salafiya (Salafist) Brigades.

“They said she worked for the US forces and would be released if Polish troops pull out of Iraq and if women prisoners in Iraq are freed,” the satellite news network said.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

An armed group claimed in a video to have obtained a huge amount of explosives missing from a munitions depot facility in Iraq and has warned that it will use them if foreign troops threaten Iraqi cities.

A group calling itself Al-Islam's Army Brigades, Al-Karar Brigade, claimed “heroic mujahideen have managed by the grace of God and by coordinating with a … number of the officers and the soldiers of the American intelligence to obtain a very huge amount of the explosives that were in the al-Qaqaa facility, which was under the protection of the American forces”.

The group's claim couldn't be independently verified.

I doubt Kerry will be using this in his next Ad though. Will he?

UPDATE: Even Democratic Underground thinks you need a tinfoil hat for this one. Some of them, anyway.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

Gunmen killed an Iraqi television anchorwoman as a taxi was taking her to her home in south-eastern Baghdad, an official of her station said.

Leqaa Abdul Razzaq, an anchorwoman for Al-Sharqiyah television, was killed about 6 pm Wednesday (local time) en route to the Dora district, said Salah al-Askary, a news director at the station.

Al-Askary said it was not clear why Abdul Razzaq was killed and that as far as he knew she had received no threats. Her husband was murdered about two months ago, he said.

Abdul Razzaq had worked for the US-funded Iraqiya television until about a month ago. She read the news on one of Al-Sharqiyah's newscasts and moderated a daily program about the Iraqi press, he said.

Under Saddam Hussein's regime, Abdul Razzaq, who was about 30, worked for Shabab, or Youth, TV, which was owned by Saddam Hussein's son Uday.

From The Australian :

Up to 160 Arab fighters had appeared in Iraqi courts charged with carrying out terrorist attacks and could face the death penalty if convicted, the justice minister said today.

”The Arabs have been referred to Iraqi courts and the verdicts against these foreigners are due to be pronounced soon for acts of terror they carried out in Iraq,” Malik Dohan al-Hassan said in an interview.

He said those on trial included Egyptians, Iranians, Jordanians, Lebanese, Syrians, Yemenites and Moroccans.

“The crimes committed in Iraq would be judged according to Iraqi law which reserves the death sentence for those charged with premeditated murder or those who carry out a car bombing to kill the biggest number of people,” he said.

It's worth noting that Mr al-Hassan narrowly escaped being murdered by a car bomb recently. (see previous post). Even opponents of the Death Penalty like myself can see his point.

From the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Three people have died after a United States air raid on what the military said was a suspected safe house for foreign fighters in the Iraqi rebel city of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, overnight, hospital officials said.

”Multi-National Force-Iraq [US-led forces] continued to attack the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi network by conducting yet another precision strike against a Zarqawi terrorist meeting site in the Julan district of Fallujah at 2:05 am (local time),” a military statement said.

“Several credible intelligence sources confirmed that members of the terrorist group were at this location to plan attacks on innocent civilians and Iraqi security forces.”

Dr Ahmed Khalil at the city's main hospital said three people died in the raid while witnesses on the ground said the house was already hit in previous US air strikes.

The US military always insists that its strikes in Fallujah are “precise” and with minimum collateral damage, while hospitals always report civilian casualties in the strikes.

Maybe that last line means the AFP is catching on?

Updating a previous post, from the AFP via The Australian :

Preparations to send several hundred NATO instructors to Iraq are under way but it is unclear whether they will arrive before national elections promised by January.

”We have developed a combined joint statement of requirement saying that this is what we need in order to achieve our goals” to help train Iraq's growing security forces, said Colonel Petter Lindqvist, the chief NATO spokesman in the country.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) also aims to establish a command centre for its future contingent, which is expected to grow from 60 to some 300.
[…]
The Norwegian official, however, conceded that no date has been set for the arrival of some 300 instructors, who will be protected by a yet to be determined number of soldiers.

The United States wants deployment to happen before the landmark vote and NATO's secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer supports the idea of seeing instructors on the ground in Baghdad this year.

But Lindqvist was unable to give a precise date.

“It will be pure speculation to say if it will happen before or after the elections,” he said.

“All agreement in NATO is based on consensus, and this can be time consuming… We are doing whatever we can to help them (the Iraqi security forces) secure Iraq before the elections.”

According to the colonel, it is up to the individual members of the alliance to decide upon their own contribution to the task.

The NATO team already in Iraq comprises 60 people from 10 countries, which supported last year's invasion - namely Britain, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Turkey and the United States.

Note that in addition to the 300 trainers, there are additional security elements, so the total could be quite a lot more than 300.

From the New York Times :

A military offensive by American and Iraqi forces to reclaim rebel-held Falluja is probably inevitable and would be the largest and potentially the riskiest since the end of major combat in May 2003, senior American officers say.

It would also involve major operations to seize control of Ramadi, another contested Sunni Muslim city 30 miles away, and to shut Syrian border crossings to prevent foreign fighters from streaming into Iraq, Marine commanders here say.

This expanded set of combat operations reflects a growing consensus among American military commanders and Iraqi government officials that the insurgencies in the two nearby cities are linked and must be quelled at the same time.

The timing and decision to carry out any attacks or close any border crossings is up to the prime minister, Ayad Allawi, senior Marine officers say. But as peace negotiations with representatives of Falluja have broken down, senior officers say it could be just weeks before air and ground attacks begin, in a battle that officers estimate could last from several days to two weeks.

“If we're told to go, it'll be decisive,” Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, the commander of nearly 40,000 marines and soldiers in western and south-central Iraq, said in an interview. “The goal will be to limit the damage, limit the casualties and do it as rapidly and decisively as possible. We're not here to destroy the town. We're here to give it back.”

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The head of the BBC's news operations has accused United States media organisations of being overly patriotic in their coverage of the lead-up to the Iraq war.

”Before Iraq, it seemed to me that some US news broadcasters wrapped themselves in the flag and, as a consequence, did not perform the role the public expects of them,” said Richard Sambrook, director of the BBC's global news division.

“Our natural instinct is to support our country. But the responsibility of the news media is to ask the difficult questions, to press, to verify,” Mr Sambrook said, according to an advance copy of his speech to the Columbia Journalism School in New York.

Pardon me while I install flame-proof firebricks to line the comments section on this one.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Japan's Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura has urged Islamic militants in Iraq to release a Japanese hostage, in an interview with the Arabic satellite network Al-Jazeera.

”Japan is a friend of Iraq. Japanese people respect and like Iraqi people,” Mr Machimura said.

“All Japanese people were surprised that a Japanese national was taken hostage.

“We hope he will be released as soon as possible.”

Shosei Koda, 24, has been shown in a video.

The Islamic militant group of Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is threatening to behead him unless Japan withdraws troops from the country in 48 hours.

Mr Machimura says Mr Koda has “absolutely nothing to do with” the Japanese Government and Japan's military, which is known as the 'Self Defence Forces'.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who dispatched 600 Japanese troops to the southern Iraqi town of Samawa, has rejected the militants' demands.

Mr Machimura argues the Japanese forces are working in Iraq only to provide humanitarian aid.

With respect to Machimura-san, if he'd read Al-Qaeda's literature, he'd realise that a prosperous Iraq is what Al-Qaeda are fighting against. They themselves have said so.

From Al Jazeera :

France’s attempts at creating a coalition of Iraqis opposed to the interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi collapsed yesterday as Paris announced it had abandoned its opposition to an international conference to be held on the future of Iraq.

“We are no longer asking that non-governmental groups be invited,” French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said. “We have agreed with Egypt that this should be an intergovernmental affair.”

The conference, scheduled to take place Nov. 22-23 in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh is part of a US-sponsored plan to mobilize international support for stabilization and reconstruction in Iraq.
[…]
Hours earlier, Barnier had said France wanted to include Iraqi political groups not linked to the government, telling LCI television that they should be included “so that this conference will be useful.”
[…]
Initially, Washington had asked for the conference to be held in October. France opposed that and proposed a November date to deny President George W. Bush any chance of using the conference in his re-election bid.

Next, France and US were at loggerheads about who should attend the conference. Washington insisted that only governments should be invited. Paris, however, wanted what it calls “Iraqi resistance groups” to also attend.

With help from Syria, France started looking for Iraqi figures that could be invited as “resistance” leaders and opponents of the interim government in Baghdad. Among the Iraqi figures contacted were Muhammad Al-Durri, a former diplomatic aide to Saddam Hussein who had served as ambassador to the United Nations. Also canvassed were Abdul-Razzaq Al-Hashemi, a former minister of science under Saddam Hussein, and Mahdi Salehi, a former Baathist minister of commerce with ties to the French establishment.

None of the figures canvassed, however, are involved in the “resistance” while at least two are in exile in the United Arab Emirates.

Both the Iraqi interim government and the US-led coalition have criticized the French move as a naked bid to find a place for the dissolved Baath party in the new Iraq.

“We understand France’s desire to revive part of its influence in Iraq,” says an aide to interim Prime Minister Allawi. “But this does not mean that we can let Baathist criminals and their jihadist allies to gain a foothold thanks to French support.”

France, however, had insisted that the individuals and groups it wishes to invite must first renounce violence.

Although France has softened its position on the Sharm El-Sheikh conference, it still appears determined to make life as difficult for the Iraqi interim government and its US backers as possible.
[…]
One idea is to invite Ir