Note: Also available at the “Opinion Journal” and Chrenkoff. Many thanks to James Taranto, Joe Katzman, and all of you for your continuing support for the series.

“After a heroic election day comes the practical business of forming a stable government. And in that sense, the new Iraq is proving to be no different from any other democracy. Iraqis are talking about politics this week, rather than suicide bombers. The political elite is bargaining over who will get what job in the new government, rather than who will get killed by the insurgents. The public mood, at least judging from conversations with Iraqis here, is much lighter than when I visited Baghdad two months ago.”

So writes David Ignatius in his recent column. Ignatius could hardly be described as an optimist on Iraq; much can still go wrong, as he and everyday news coverage painfully remind us, but as he writes,

“…for the moment, Iraq does seem to have turned a corner politically. The most telling sign is that the Sunnis who mostly boycotted the political process are now said to be looking for ways to get back in. One prominent Iraqi describes a recent meeting with leading Sunni sheikhs who complained that they had mistakenly assumed the Americans would lose their nerve, postpone the elections and thereby enhance the power of the insurgents. Now the sheikhs want a piece of the action.”

The fact that so many people, and not just the Sunni sheikhs, now want the piece of the Iraqi action perhaps tells us more about the true situation and future prospects in Iraq than most current news reports. As the old saying goes; victory has many fathers, defeat is an orphan. That the waiting room of the Middle Eastern maternity ward is getting increasingly crowded with paternity claimants is a good - if an indirect sign - that the things in Iraq might be going better than one would think based on the mainstream media coverage. Below, some good news and positive developments in Iraq that you might have missed over the past two weeks.

• Society
• Economy
• Reconstruction
• The Coalition Troops
• Security

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from Iraq that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. This briefing is brought to you by Joel Gaines of No Pundit Intended and Andrew Olmsted of Andrew Olmsted dot com.

TOP TOPICS

• The Six of Diamonds is in custody. Saddam Hussein's half-brother will have a chance to say hi in jail after apparently being captured by the Syrian government. Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti marks the first capture of a major Baathist in more than a year, some good news for the nascent Iraqi government.

• The Iraqi government captured another of Zarqawi's top aides, Jordanian Abu Qutaybah. Al Qaeda in Iraq dismisses the capture as mere propaganda, but it's hard to see how the fall of numerous senior members of the organization isn't a bad thing for our enemies.

• The People, United, Can Never Be Defeated. 30 years after Saigon fell, Armed Liberal is beginning to understand what that really means.

Other Topics Today Include: REFORME; water treatment in Kirkuk; oil fire in northern Iraq; coalitions jockey for advantage in the new government; 450 Aussies head to Iraq; British investigations; the Nazis and the Baathists.

Read the Rest…

Updating a previous post, from the Associated Press:

Iraqi officials said Sunday that Syrian authorities had captured Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s half-brother and 29 other officials of the deposed dictator's Baath Party in Syria and handed them over to Iraq (news - web sites) in an apparent goodwill gesture.

Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, a former Saddam adviser suspected of financing insurgents after U.S. troops ousted Saddam, was captured in Hasakah in northeastern Syria near the Iraqi border, two senior Iraqi officials told The Associated Press by telephone on condition of anonymity. Hasakah is about 30 miles from the Iraqi border.

They added that al-Hassan was captured and handed over to Iraqi authorities along with 29 other members of Saddam's collapsed Baath Party, whose Syrian branch has been in power in Damascus since 1963.

A suicide car bomber drove into a crowd of people applying for work in a government office south of Baghdad and detonated his explosives on Monday, killing 30 people and wounding at least 50, a senior Interior Ministry official and witnesses said.

The attack occurred in Hilla, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, where a suicide car bomber drove into a crowd looking for work at the government office, witnesses said.

A police colonel in Hilla, Col. Ali Iskandir, put the toll at 30 dead and 50 wounded. A senior Interior Ministry official, speaking earlier on condition of anonymity, said the blast killed 25 people and wounded 71 others.

Dozens of bodies could be seen laying on the ground after the blast, and half a dozen ambulances ferried casualties to a nearby hospital, witnesses said. The huge blast damaged nearby shops and parked cars, and sent panicked people fleeing.

In a separate attack in Musayyib, about 20 miles north of Hillah, another car bomb exploded at a police checkpoint, killing at least one policeman and wounding several others, police said on condition of anonymity.

Read more..

Update: MSNBC reports that the death toll from the Hilla attack is at 105 and there are at least 130 injured.

ABC is reporting that “several people” were arrested after the bombing.

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

Iraq's interim Government says security forces were closing in on Al Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, 24 hours after announcing the arrest of another top aide of the Jordanian militant.

”We are really close to Zarqawi,” national security chief Kassem Daoud told reporters in the Shiite Muslim pilgrimage city of Najaf.

“You will hear very good news soon,” added the secular Shiite, who was elected a Member of Parliament on the same ticket as outgoing prime minister Iyad Allawi in the January 30 elections.

Time will tell. There's many a slip etc etc

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A bomb has exploded near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul killing eight people, the US military said.

”An explosion detonated by insurgents in Hamam Al Alil killed eight and injured at least another two Iraqi citizens. The injured citizens were taken to a local hospital,” a military statement said.

Several of those killed were Iraqi security guards, police said.

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

A US Marine was killed in action overnight in the Iraqi province of Babil, the US military said.

”A Marine assigned to the First Marine Expeditionary Force was killed in action February 26th while conducting security and stability operations in Babil province,” a military statement said.

Sabawi Ibrahim Hasan, a half brother of Saddam Hussein who was the former dictator's intelligence chief before becoming a presidential adviser, has been captured, officials in the prime minister's office said Sunday.

Hasan is No. 36 on the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis released by U.S. authorities after troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, and one of only 12 remaining at large. He is also suspected of financing insurgents in the post-Saddam era, and Washington had put a $1 million bounty on his head.

According to the U.S. Central Command, Hasan is among the 29 most-wanted supporters of insurgent groups in post-Saddam Iraq.

More..

He was Six of Diamonds in the deck, if you're still keeping count.

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

A roadside bomb has killed three American soldiers north of Baghdad and 10 Iraqis have died in other attacks.

Nine other US soldiers were wounded, five of them “very seriously,” when the Task Force Baghdad troops were hit by a roadside bomb while on patrol near the town of Tarmiya, the military says.

Security sources say that in addition to the latest attack near Baghdad, a US marine, two members of the Iraqi security forces, four civilians and four insurgents had been killed since Thursday.

The toll included two women and a child who were killed near the northern refinery town of Baiji when their car was blown up by a bomb that exploded just after a US army convoy passed, police say.

An oil pipeline in northern Iraq was ablaze Saturday after saboteurs blew it up in the latest attack against the insurgent-wracked country's vital oil industry. In the capital, a roadside bomb killed two people, officials and witnesses said.

[…]

The pipeline connecting oil fields in Dibis with the northern city of Kirkuk about 20 miles away was blown up late Friday, an official of the state-run North Oil Co. said on condition of anonymity. He said it would take at least four days to repair the line.

More…

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

Ukraine says it would pull all of its 1,650 troops out of the country by the end of the year.

”I believe that our troops will be withdrawn this year,” Interfax news agency quoted Defence Minister Anatoly Hrytsenko as saying.

New pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko promised during his election campaign late last year to pull Ukrainian troops out of Iraq, where 18 of their number have been killed.

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

A top aide to Al Qaeda's frontman in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has been arrested.

”The terrorist Mohammed Najm Ibrahim, alias Mohammed Najm, who with one of his brothers runs a Zarqawi cell, is responsible for the beheading of several citizens and for attacks against Iraqi security forces,” the Iraq Government said.

It says Ibrahim was arrested in the town of Baquba, north of Baghdad, without giving the date of his arrest.

On February 21 police in Baquba announced the arrest of another member of the Zarqawi group.

Updating a previous post, from the BBC :

It has been a struggle. After months of effort the final commitment came only today. Nato has managed to show a united front on Iraq. Every Nato nation including France is now helping with the programme to train Iraqi army officers.

Some of the contributions are very small. France will send one officer to help support the mission from here in Brussels.

Now we know exactly how much we can count on them. Their generousity will no doubt be returned, in the same spirit in which it was given.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Two US soldiers have been killed in separate attacks north of Baghdad, the US military said.

One soldier was killed in a roadside bomb blast near the town of Qaryat, north-east of the capital, and another was killed in a blast near Samarra, 100 kilometres north of Baghdad.

Two soldiers were also wounded in the second explosion.

All of the soldiers were from Task Force Liberty, the unit charged with enforcing security in a large swathe of the country stretching from near the capital up to the Kurdish region.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A suspected suicide car bomber has blown up his vehicle near a police station in the northern Iraq city of Tikrit, killing at least 12 people and wounding 35.

Police captain Husam Musseyif says a man wearing a police uniform tried to drive into the police station grounds and then detonated the vehicle when he was challenged.

Captain Musseyif, who was wounded in the explosion, said the toll was high because the police were going through a shift rotation and a large part of the force was in the police compound at the time.

U.S. News & World Report has a fascinating article about General John Abizaid's views on the war against terrorism.

Abizaid believes that the radical Islamists must be confronted:

“What we can't allow to happen is guys like Abu Musab Zarqawi to get started,” Abizaid told Benoit and the soldiers of the 1-141 Field Artillery. “It's the same way that we turned our back when Hitler was getting going and Lenin was getting going. You just cannot turn your back on these types of people. You have to stand up and fight.”

[. . .]

America has a chance to confront and stop an Islamic extremist movement akin to fascism or communism in its early stages, the general believes, before it metastasizes and dominates a significant chunk of the world.

[. . .]

We didn't have the guts to get out in front of the fascists or the Bolsheviks. This time we have to get in front. This time we have a chance. If we don't fight this fight here, we will fight it at home.

From California Yankee.

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

It is reported that a US marine, who was captured on film killing a wounded Iraqi at point blank range during November's assault on Fallujah, will not be formally charged due to lack of evidence.
[…]
In the incident, a trooper raised his rifle and shot point blank at an apparently unarmed, wounded Iraqi who was slumped against one of the mosque walls.
[…]
Although the insurgents have been found to be unarmed, investigators say the one the marine believed he had seen moving could have been reaching for a weapon.

There's lots of evidence that the shooting happened : none has been found after the event that it was unlawful or wrong.

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

A court martial at a British barracks in Germany has found two British soldiers guilty of abusing Iraqi civilians.

A third soldier had already pleaded guilty to one charge of assault after he was pictured standing on a detained Iraqi looter.
[…]
The mistreatment in this case happened after British troops rounded up looters who were stealing powdered milk from a humanitarian aid depot known as Camp Bread Basket, near the southern Iraqi city of Basra, in May 2003.

The most senior of the three accused, 33-year-old Corporal Daniel Kenyon, was found guilty on two charges of failing to report that soldiers under his command had abused Iraqis, including an incident in which two naked men were forced to simulate sex.

He was also found guilty of aiding and abetting another of the accused in beating a detainee.

The court martial also found 25-year-old Lance Corporal Mark Cooley guilty of suspending a bound Iraqi from a forklift and of simulating a punch on an Iraqi for a photograph.

Judge Advocate Michael Hunter said Kenyon and Cooley face up to two years in prison.

Lance Corporal Darren Larkin, 30, had pleaded guilty to assault after he was pictured standing on an Iraqi. He faces a possible six-month prison sentence.

The trial heard that the soldiers' commanding officer, Major Dan Taylor, had ordered his men to detain looters and “work them hard” after the camp was plagued by repeated intrusions in the chaotic weeks after the fall of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Prosecutors said this order was in breach of the Geneva Convention.

Whereas shooting looters out of hand would not. I'm very much afraid that in future, it will be a case of “Lesson learned”.

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

“A Task Force Liberty soldier was killed by an improvised explosive device,” said a US army statement, adding that the blast occurred near Tuz, around 200 kilometres north of Baghdad.
[…]
…in Kirkuk, two civilians were injured in a car bomb attack on a US convoy in an industrial area.

The US army had no immediate comment on the attack.

In the same city's eastern Wahda district, two Kurdish civilians were shot dead at their home by unknown attackers.

An Iraqi soldier was killed and another wounded in a mortar attack on their base early Wednesday (local time) near Dhuluiya, 75 kilometres north of Baghdad, police said.

Another mortar strike on an Iraqi base near Tarmiya, north of Baghdad, killed two soldiers, an army officer said.

An Iraqi subcontractor working on an Iraqi base was killed and another wounded in an attack on their car near Suleyman Beg, 200 km north of Baghdad, the wounded man told AFP.

“The attackers concentrated on my colleague Nader Shawkat and they left as soon as they saw he was dead,” said Ahmad Ghali.

“We work for the Iraqi army, not the American,” he added.
[…]
Also on Wednesday (local time), police said an official from the Shiite Dawa party, whose leader Ibrahim Jaafari has been nominated to become Iraq's next prime minister, was killed.

raqi state television aired a video Wednesday showing what the U.S.-funded channel said was the confession of a captured Syrian officer who said he trained Iraqi insurgents to behead people and build car bombs to attack American and Iraqi troops.

The video also showed an Iraqi who said the insurgents practiced beheading animals to train for decapitating hostages.

Syrian officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the claims.

[..]]

In the video, the man, identified as Lt. Anas Ahmed al-Essa of the Syrian intelligence service, said his group had been recruited to “cause chaos in Iraq … to bar America from reaching Syria.”

“We received all the instructions from Syrian intelligence,” al-Essa, 30, said on a video broadcast by state-run Iraqiya TV, which can be seen nationwide.

The tape was apparently made in the northern city of Mosul but no date was provided. It was not possible to authenticate the claims.

Read more…

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A car bomb has exploded in the northern Iraq city of Mosul, killing two and wounding 14 others.
[…]
“Insurgents continue to disregard the safety of their fellow citizens during their attacks,” the US military said in a statement.

”Insurgents have killed two and injured 20 Iraqi citizens during attacks in the last three days.”
[…]
“A police officer was killed and another wounded this morning at 6:00am (local time) when an unknown person opened fire on them in a restaurant in the centre of Kirkuk,” police Colonel Adel Zin al Abidin said.

Two suspects have been arrested.

Two Iraqi civilians have also been killed and another has been seriously wounded when a rocket-propelled grenade hit the car they were travelling in near Kirkuk, a key oil city.

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

The US military has confirmed that it is investigating an allegation that an American soldier raped a female detainee in Iraq.

Claims of sexual misconduct by US military personnel surfaced last year during the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, but this is the first known case of a soldier being accused of raping a detainee.

A Pentagon spokesman says a number of allegations have been made and investigated.

He says one of them is still under investigation, while another has been closed for lack of evidence.

The spokesman says he did not know when or where the rapes are alleged to have occurred.

After many longstanding Iraqi calls for urgent assistance, much internal wrangling, and some patient US Diplomacy, there's this from the AFP via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

On the second full day of a generally well-received diplomatic campaign, Mr Bush was hoping not just to banish any lingering divisions over the war but also to secure more NATO and EU support for Iraq after the January 30 elections.

In a sign that Mr Bush's charm offensive is bearing fruit, NATO announced on Tuesday that all 26 allies, including former hold-outs France, are on board to aid a NATO training mission in Iraq.

“All 26 allies are working together to respond to the Iraqi Government's request for support: by training Iraqi security forces, providing equipment and helping to fund NATO's efforts,” NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said at a key US-NATO summit in Brussels.

Of course the actual assistance has yet to be given, and the Dutch are still operating under the old scheme, currently withdrawing their troops in Iraq as planned.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A car bomb has detonated near an Iraqi troop convoy as it left Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, killing two soldiers and wounding 30, police and hospital sources said.

The attack happened shortly after midday as the convoy was leaving a main Green Zone exit near the Mansour district of western Baghdad.

Police said the car blew up as a commando unit was passing, spraying shrapnel across a wide area.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Iraq's US-backed interim government is stepping up its propaganda war with insurgents by broadcasting videotaped interviews with suspects who appear to confess to killings, rape and theft on the orders of guerrillas.

The offensive was launched in recent weeks on state-run Iraqiya television, which broadcast lengthy interrogations of Iraqis it said had carried out terrorist acts under the direction of “Abdullah”, described as a criminal with close ties to Syria.

There is no obvious way to verify the authenticity of the confessions.
[…]
A state-run local television station in northern Iraq showed a video of what it said was a Syrian intelligence agent whom it accused of planting roadside bombs and attacking US troops.

Nineveh Television in the town of Mosul said the man was a Syrian guerrilla working for Syrian intelligence.

The Reuters report's wording, full of caveats and warnings about being unable to veify etc are in striking contrast to the way it reports other events.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Three US soldiers have been killed in a bomb attack in Iraq and eight wounded, the US military says.

”At approximately 8:00 am [local time] on February 21, three US soldiers were killed and eight were wounded when an IED (improvised explosive device) detonated during a medical evacuation of a soldier,” a statement said.

“The soldier was injured in a convoy accident caused by a civilian vehicle,” it said, without specifying where the attack took place.

ANALYSIS: without further detail, this is only a surmise: but to stage an accident near an IED, then detonate it when a maximum number of scarce medical personnel are in the immediate vicinity, would be far more damaging than yet another suicide bomb on a random convoy.
US Medical teams have been very effective, not merely treating US wounded, but in winning “hearts and minds” through helping the local populace. This makes them a priority target.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

[Australian] Prime Minister John Howard has announced a dramatic escalation in Australia's military contribution to Iraq, at a cost of up to $300 million a year.

Mr Howard says Iraq is at a “tilting point” after the country's landmark elections and Australia will send an extra 450 soldiers to what he describes as a “reasonably violence-free” area of southern Iraq.

The soldiers will mostly come from Darwin's 1st Brigade will leave in about 10 weeks. They will train Iraqi forces and provide security for Japanese troops involved in the humanitarian effort.

Mr Howard says the extra soldiers will replace a withdrawing Dutch contingent.

“Unless additional security could be provided to replace the Dutch, then there was a real possibility the Japanese could no longer remain there and that would be a serious blow to the coalition effort,” Mr Howard said.

Australia will also send 40 armoured vehicles.

See previous post about an Iraqi request for a greater Australian involvement, this one about the Netherlands' already delayed plans to leave, and this one about Japan's commitment.

Mr Howard says it is essential that Australia contribute more to help rebuild Iraq.

”The Government believes that Iraq is very much at a tilting point and it's very important that the opportunity of democracy, not only in Iraq but also in other parts of the Middle East, be seized and consolidated,” he said.

Mr Howard says the additional Australian forces will be needed in the country for at least a year.

“This has not been, is not and will not be an easy decision for the Government,” he said. “I know it will be unpopular with many.

“I ask those people to take into account the reasons that I have given. I believe this is the right decision. It will make a significant contribution to the coalition effort.”

The Prime Minister says there are currently about 950 Australian Defence Force personnel in and around Iraq.

He says Britain and the US are already carrying a heavy commitment and Australia's involvement in Iraq is under continual review.

“The circumstances have changed and it is now four-and-a-half-weeks since the Iraq election and we have to respond to those changed circumstances,” he said.

“Self-evidently we would have liked the major combat to have gone differently … [but] coalition withdrawal or defeat is unimaginable.”

Mr Howard says the coalition must stay in Iraq if the country is to make a successful transition to democracy.

“It will take time and if we were to see a crumbling of coalition commitment, I think the likelihood of Iraq completing the transition to democracy would be absolutely non-existent,” he said.

On the weekend, the Federal Government said Australia would take up its most senior role of the Iraq conflict by taking command of the naval force at the northern end of the Persian Gulf.

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

Controversial Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi says he believes he has the votes to become the war-torn country's new prime minister.

Mr Chalabi, once supported by the United States only to fall from favour, is part of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) list that won 140 seats of the 275-member national assembly in the January 30 elections.

“I believe I have a majority of the [UIA] votes on my side right now” to become the new government's prime minister, Mr Chalabi told United States ABC television.

However, the former exile remained cautious, saying the choice of premier “will be decided by the parliamentary bloc”, which he did not want to “second guess”.

On Tuesday, sources in the Shiite coalition said it had chosen interim vice president and Dawa party leader Ibrahim Jaafari as its candidate for prime minister.

We shall see, Time will Tell etc. In the meantime, colour me sceptical.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The anchorwoman of one of Iraq's regional broadcasters has been abducted in the northern city of Mosul.

Raiida al-Wazan, 36, the only woman news presenter for Nineveh province regional television, was seized on Sunday while travelling to work in east Mosul, 390 km north of Baghdad, station director Razi Faisal said.

Ms Wazan's 10-year old daughter was also in the car when she was abducted but it was not clear if she was missing as well, Ms Faisal told Reuters.

He said there had been no word so far from the abductors.

He added that his staff frequently receive threats from insurgents battling the US-backed Government.

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

Two Indonesian journalists taken hostage in Iraq have been freed by their abductors, the Foreign Ministry in Jakarta has confirmed.

A member of the Sunni Muslim authorities in the Iraqi city of Ramadi had earlier said the journalists were freed, as did the Al Arabiya TV channel, which quoted its correspondent in Baghdad.

A member in Ramadi of the country's main Sunni organisation, the Committee of Muslim Scholars, said reporter Meutya Hafid and cameraman Budiyanto had been released in the town.
[…]
In the Indonesian capital Jakarta, a high-ranking diplomat with the foreign ministry, Umar, said that the government was “still trying to confirm” the reported release.

“If it's true that they have been released, we are relieved and thank God Almighty,” he told AFP.

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from Iraq that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. This briefing is brought to you by Joel Gaines of No Pundit Intended and Andrew Olmsted of Andrew Olmsted dot com.

TOP TOPICS

• Is the United States conducting secret negotiations with Iraqi insurgents to deliver their surrender? That's the report coming out of Time magazine, though it has been denied by the White House. The negotiations are reported to be with one or more indiginous Iraqi groups seeking to shift from open warfare to political recognition. Chester offers some analysis, and explains the dynamics involved. Wretchard puts this story together with several other reports to suggest the insurgency in Iraq is in dire straits, though this will not mean that it will be clear sailing from here on out.

• Patrick Ruffini has a map of the Iraqi Electoral results, and some analysis.

• Operation River Blitz has begun, an attempt to restore order to Iraq in the wake of the election. The operation may yet involve an attack on Ramadi, one of the last remaining strongholds of the insurgency, but U.S. generals are playing close to the vest thus far to keep the enemy guessing.

• At least 91 Iraqis died in Friday's bombings in Baghdad. The bombings, coming on a Shiite holy day, aimed at triggering an Iraqi civil war. Thus far the Shiites refuse to take the bait, increasing security measures while vowing to use their new government to address the problem.

Other Topics Today Include: A report from a Marine sniper; a little time in the rear; decentralizing Iraq's economy; speculation on the new Iraqi government's makeup; the Sunni's want in; Carnival of the Liberated; searching for the missing; a father and son head to Iraq; Clinton says insurgency failing; Support the troops.

Read the Rest…

From the AFP via The Australian :

“A car bomb exploded on a provincial road near Hawija and the driver of the car was killed,” said Kirkuk police chief General Turhan Yussef.

No US soldiers or Iraqi patrol were in the area at the time of the blast, said Gen. Yussef, adding that an investigation was under way to establish if the explosion was a suicide attack.
[…]
In Kirkuk itself, two Kurds were killed in the apparently accidental explosion of an ammunition dump dating back to before the US-led invasion, Gen. Yussef said.

In Basra, two civilians were wounded when a bomb exploded as an Iraqi police patrol passed, a police spokesman said.

The patrol pursued a suspect who filmed the attack and detained him after he hid in a tree nursery where they found ammunition and explosives, he said.

No word on whether he was an indpendent, a Terrorist with a cemera, or a stringer for Al Jazeera or CNN.

From Reuters via The Australian :

US and Iraqi troops launched a large-scale operation around the rebellious city of Ramadi today, as part of a nationwide effort to restore order in the wake of last month's election.

Troops from the 1st Marine expeditionary force, supported by Iraqi soldiers, set up a ring of checkpoints around the city, 110km west of Baghdad, and imposed an 8pm to 6am curfew under Operation River Blitz.
[…]
“Operation River Blitz is designed to target insurgents and terrorists who have attempted to destabilise the Anbar province by terrorising the populace through wanton acts of violence and intimidation,” the US military said in a statement.

“We were asked by the Iraqi government to increase our security operations in the city to locate, isolate and defeat anti-Iraqi forces and terrorists,” said Major General Richard Natonski, commander of the 1st Marines expeditionary force.
[…]
Natonski described the militants in Ramadi as “intent on preventing a peaceful transition of power between the interim Iraqi government and the Iraqi transitional government”, which is being currently formed following the election.

And a senior Ba'athist too.

From the AFP via the Pakistan Dawn :

Iraqi security forces on Saturday arrested the alleged commander of an insurgent cell close to Al Qaeda frontman in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, police said.

”Early this morning Iraqi security forces assisted by US forces raided the house of Haidar Abu al-Buwari in western Baquba,” said a police spokesman for Diyala province, whose capital is Baquba.

“He is one of the mujahideen princes who works with Zarqawi in the position of cell leader,” he said. Police found rocket-propelled grenades, grenades, drugs, computers and a photocopier in the house, he added.

Iraqi security forces also arrested a former high-ranking officer under Saddam Hussein allegedly involved in the insurgency in the northern city of Mosul, said a government statement. “Harbi Abd al-Khudaier Hamudi, 50, also known as Abu Nur, was arrested on February 12,” it said.

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

Officials said nineteen people were blown apart in a suicide attack carried out by a bomber on a bicycle against a bus carrying pilgrims in Baghdad's Aden Square in which 40 other people were wounded.

Apart from the deaths described in a previous post, numerous other attacks have killed a dozen victims. Continuing the AFP/ABC report:

Two people died in Baquba, north-east of the capital, in an apparent attempt to assassinate an Iraqi general, security sources said, while two Iraqis were killed by a shell in Samarra, and two policemen died from an improvised bomb north of the city.

The Baquba attack was claimed by militants loyal to Iraq's Al Qaeda frontman, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in an Internet statement whose authenticity could not be verified.

In the northern oil city of Kirkuk, a Sunni sheikh linked to the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the two main Kurdish parties, was shot dead.

Near Balad, south of Samarra, the corpses of five soldiers were found overnight riddled with bullet and with their hands tied.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A US Marine has been killed in action in Iraq's western Al Anbar province, the US military said on Sunday.

The soldier, who belonged to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, died on Saturday, the military said in a statement.

It gave few details on grounds that information could help guerrillas and put US troops at greater risk.

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

There have been a series of attacks against Shiite Muslims in Iraq as the holy festival of Ashura reaches its climax.

At least 13 people have been killed.

A number of mortars were fired at pilgrims as they made their way to a shrine in Baghdad, killing up to five.

Later, a suicide bomber apparently got among a crowd of mourners at a funeral in western Baghdad, killing four people.

There were four more deaths after an explosion on a public bus in a northern part of the capital.

More on the Suicide Bombing :

A suicide bomber on a motorbike has blown himself up among a crowd of mourners near a Sunni mosque in Baghdad, killing four people and wounding 37.

Police say the man detonated himself among a group of people attending the funeral of a woman killed on Friday in another suicide bombing in the same area.

“A black skinned man arrived on a bicycle at around 12:45 (local time) and rode into the tent before exploding,” Mohammed Khalil Ibrahim, a relative of the deceased, said.

The funeral tent, which had been erected opposite the Sunni mosque of Fattah Pasha, was torn apart by the blast.

Hospital sources say they expect the death toll to rise.

“We have received four dead and 37 wounded,” a doctor at Yarmuk Hospital said.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Three US soldiers have been killed in separate attacks in and around the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

A military statement says car bomb exploded next to a US Army patrol on Thursday, killing one soldier and wounding three.

In a second attack on Thursday, a soldier was shot dead in an exchange of fire with guerrillas.

A roadside bomb killed one soldier and wounded another in a third attack on the same day near Tal Afar, about 60 kilometres west of Mosul.

From Reuters via The Australian :

Two Indonesian television journalists have been seized by Iraqi militants in the western city of Ramadi, an Iraqi guerrilla stronghold, a government spokesman said today.

”We have received information … from the owner of a car rented by two journalists from Metro TV that, on February 15, their vehicle heading for Ramadi was halted by an armed group,” foreign affairs spokesman Marty Natalegawa said.

“The car, driver and the two journalists have been taken to an unknown location. However, I will not use the word abduction yet.”

From the AFP via The Australian :

Armed men kidnapped an official of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's party, security sources said today.

”Seif Abu Meshaal Hassan, in charge of the Iraqi National Accord in Salaheddin, was kidnapped from his house in Dijla,” near Samarra, 120km from Baghdad, they said.

Armed and masked men in four cars snatched Hassan [On Feb 16]

Homicide bombers shattered a mournful day of Friday prayers at two Shiite mosques and a religious procession, killing more than 27 people and wounding dozens more, Iraqi police and witnesses said.

In the first explosion, the bomber entered the vestibule of al-Khadimain mosque in Baghdad's Dora neighborhood as worshippers inside knelt in prayer before detonating his explosives, said one witness, Hussein Rahim Qassim.

Shortly afterward, a bomb ripped through the Al Bayaa mosque in a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in western Baghdad.

Fifteen were killed in the first explosion, and ten in the second, an official at Baghdad's al-Yarmuk Hospital said on condition of anonymity.

Less than an hour later, a homicide bomber blew himself up as a procession of Shiites marking Ashoura passed by, killing two and injuring eight, according to Iraqi police Lt. Waed Hussein.

Read more…

Update: [10:17am EST] - a fourth explosion has been reported in the same area.

The talented team at FRONTLINE emails to let us know of two episodes coming that focus on the war in Iraq. The first is A Company of Soldiers, which airs Tuesday, February 22, at 9 P.M. on PBS:

FRONTLINE reports from inside the U.S. Army’s 8th Cavalry Regiment stationed in Baghdad for an up-close, intimate look at the dangers facing an American military unit in Iraq. Shot in the weeks following the U.S. presidential election, the film tracks the day-to-day challenges facing the 8th Cavalry’s Dog Company as it suddenly has to cope with a dramatic increase in attacks by the insurgents.

The second is The Soldier's Heart, which airs Tuesday, March 1, at 9 P.M. on PBS:

As the War in Iraq continues, the first measures of its psychological toll are coming in. A medical study estimates that more than one in seven returning veterans are expected to suffer from major depression, anxiety, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. For those who have survived the fighting, the battle is not over. For some, the return home can be as painful as war itself. FRONTLINE tells the stories of soldiers who have come home haunted by their experiences and asks whether the government is doing enough to help.

Always compelling, FRONTLINE. Check 'em out.

Iraq's electoral commission certified the results of the country's Jan. 30 elections Thursday and allocated 140 seats to the clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance, giving them a majority in the new parliament.

The allocation sets the stage for the first meeting of the new National Assembly, which will be in power for 10 months and draft a new constitution. The first order of business will be to elect a president and two vice presidents to largely ceremonial positions.

The commission first announced results from the ballot Sunday, saying the clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance scooped 48 percent of the vote for the National Assembly, the Kurdish alliance took 26 percent and Allawi, a secular Shiite who supported strong ties to Washington, won only 14 percent.

Shi'ite Bloc Secures Majority in Iraq Assembly:

Iraq's Shi'ite alliance won a slim majority of seats in the country's new National Assembly, the Iraqi Electoral Commission said on Thursday.

Based on final results from last month's historic election, the United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of mainly Shi'ite Islamist religious parties, was allocated 140 seats in the 275-seat National Assembly, the Commission said in a statement.

A combined Kurdish bloc, which polled the second highest number of votes in the Jan. 30 ballot, won 75 seats and the list led by U.S-backed interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shi'ite, got 40 seats, the Electoral Commission said.

A two-thirds majority is required to approve the appointment of a president and two vice-presidents, the next step in the electoral process. The Shi'ite alliance and Kurdish bloc could together form such a majority and are expected to do so.

However, leading figures have said the cabinet should include members of Saddam Hussein's Sunni Arab minority, many of whom did not vote, because of boycotts or fears of violence from the anti-American insurgents active in the main Sunni regions.

The Associated Press reports that Gen. Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali,” was involved in the massacre of at least 34 Shiite men in the southern city of Basra in 1999:

Human Rights Watch obtained a handwritten list that named 120 young men who were executed from March to May 1999 for taking part in protests over the assassination of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, a senior Shiite cleric.

The remains of 34 men were found in a mass grave in May 2003, and family members have identified 29 of them.

Among the documents the group found is an apparent execution list, which names 120 men who were executed by the “order of the Commander of the Southern Sector,” a post held by al-Majid at the time.

Insurgents released a tape on Wednesday showing an Italian journalist seized in Baghdad earlier this month pleading for her life and calling on foreign forces to withdraw.

The undated tape of 57-year-old Giuliana Sgrena, a reporter for Rome-based newspaper Il Manifesto, came as the winners of last month's election, a religious Shi'ite-led alliance, were expected to declare their choice for prime minister.

“I beg you, put an end to the occupation. I beg the Italian government and the Italian people to put pressure on the government to pull out,” Sgrena says on the tape, speaking in Italian and holding her hands in front of her in supplication.

It is the first tape of Sgrena since she was snatched on Feb. 4.

Read more…

From Patrick Ruffin :

The Guardian reports that Iraq's Arab Sunnis now realize that boycotting the election was a blunder:

Iraq's Arab Sunnis will do a U-turn and join the political process despite their lack of representation in the newly elected national assembly, Sunni leaders said yesterday.

Many Sunnis protested that the election was flawed and unfair, but in the wake of Sunday's results, which confirmed the marginalisation of what was Iraq's ruling class, their political parties want to lobby for a share of power.

“Our view is that this election was a step towards democracy and ending the occupation,” said Ayad al-Samaray, the assistant general secretary of the Iraqi Islamic party. He said unnamed Sunni leaders blundered in depicting the election as a deepening of the occupation.

From California Yankee.

From CENTCOM :

An estimated 8,000 to 10,000 men arrived by foot, bus, and other vehicles by sun up Feb. 14, at an airfield outside an Iraqi Army base in an effort to join Iraq's army, officials said.

Of that, approximately 5,000 made it through a screening process that led them onto the base, which is home to several thousand Iraqi Soldiers and a contingent of U.S. service members, officials said. Most will be transferred to other bases in Iraq to supplement existing units.
[…]
U.S. Army officials were expecting a little more than 6,000 potential recruits.

From CENTCOM :

The Iraqi Interim Government recently announced warrants for the arrest of 29 individuals who are either members of the Former Regime or part of the Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi terrorist network. These individuals are responsible for funding and coordinating terrorist operations inside Iraq in an attempt to disrupt the country's march toward democracy and an autonomous government.

Rewards for information leading to the arrest of these individuals range from $25 million to $50,000. These individuals are believed to be located either inside Iraq or within neighboring countries.

Anyone with information regarding the location of these individuals is encouraged to call United States Central Command Headquarters at (813) 827-4468 or (813) 827-4469.

Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri - As former Vice Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, Izzat Ibrahim Al-Duri was part of the inner circle and very close to Saddam. Al-Duri is believed to be the current leader of the New Regional Command and New Ba'ath Party…..

And 28 others in the complete list

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

A US soldier has been killed and three others wounded after a bomb exploded near the Iraqi town of Baquba.

A US military statement said the soldier was killed and three others wounded when a homemade bomb blew up alongside a military patrol near the restive town, north of Baghdad.

The deaths bring to 1,456 the total number of US servicemen who have died since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, according to Pentagon figures.

A Senate panel will announce Tuesday it has acquired new Iraqi documents that show the former chief of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program made as much as $1.2 million through oil deals with Saddam Hussein's government.

The Senate Governmental Affairs investigations subcommittee will present more evidence that appears to implicate former Oil-for-Food executive director Benon Sevan. Sevan has been identified in Iraqi Oil Ministry documents as having participated in a scheme by Saddam to issue vouchers to people that let them profit from illicit sales of Iraqi oil.

Sevan has denied accusations that he profited from the program. Investigators say that Sevan was not only responsible for misconduct and conflict of interest, but also appears to have violated U.S. criminal laws because he directly received payments.

Read more…

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Saboteurs have attacked oil and gas pipelines near the oil-pumping city of Kirkuk, causing a blaze that firefighters were struggling to extinguish, sources at Iraq's North Oil Company said.

Two blasts, one late on Sunday and the other early on Monday, struck a gas and an oil pipeline running just west of Kirkuk, which is one of Iraq's richest oil-producing areas.

There was also an attack on a water pipeline nearby.

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from Iraq that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. This briefing is brought to you by proud new papa Joel Gaines of No Pundit Intended and Andrew Olmsted of Andrew Olmsted dot com.

TOP TOPICS

• Congratulations are due to the Shiites and Kurds, who were the big winners in Iraq's January 30 elections. The United Iraqi Alliance took 48% of the vote, with the Kurdistan Alliance taking 26% and current Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's Iraqi List placed third with 14%. Due to the rules of the new Iraqi Assembly, it will take a two-thirds majority to control the assembly, which means that the United Iraqi Alliance will need the support of at least one other party to set the terms of the debate and begin moving Iraq's new government forward.

• Spencer Ackerman looks at whether or not the Kurds' strong finish will be sufficient to keep Iraq from moving towards a Shiite theocracy. His diagnosis is not encouraging.

• John Cole notes that the rate of Coalition fatalities is down to its lowest level in almost a year. While two weeks can hardly be called a trend, this is an important metric that will merit continued watching over the coming weeks to see if the elections have had some concrete effects.

Other Topics Today Include: the casualties continue; Christian politician kidnapped; letters home from soldiers; Rumsfeld back in Iraq; an update on the Haditha Dam; a time for reconciliation; Carnival of the Liberated; UN no help in Iraq; winners and losers of the election.

Read the Rest…

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

A US soldier has been killed and another wounded near Iraq's restive town of Samarra, north of Baghdad, the US military says.

”One Task Force Danger soldier was killed and one was wounded by indirect fire on a coalition forces base near Samarra,” a statement said.

Earlier Sunday, three soldiers died in a road accident.

CNN:

The United Iraq Alliance, backed by Shiite Muslim Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, won a plurality of votes in the January 30 elections but fell short of an outright majority, the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq said Sunday.

The results announced are “final uncertified” results — political parties have three days to file objections before they are certified.

“Today this is a new birth for Iraq, a free Iraq, and free people who aim to build a state based on civilized values and democratic values and the principles of peace and love,” commission spokesman Fareed Ayar said.

More:

Shiites win nearly half Iraqi votes

Shiites set for power

Sunnis marginalized

Landmark win for Shiites

TCP Open Discussion on the results now open in the forums.

From the Iraqi Paper Al Nahrein, as translated by Haider Ajina :

Iraqi security forces foiled a trap set for a local security patrol by 40 terrorist in the village of Abu Mustafa south of Baghdad. After a confrontation between the two sides, the terrorists fled to a near by school. The Iraqi security forces among other forces pursued the terrorists and surrounded the school. The ensuing gun battle resulted in the killing of 12 terrorists and the arrest of 30 more. Mr. Thair Alnaqeeb the official spokesman of the Iraqi prime minister said: “The Iraqi security forces are specially empowered since the elections, with the strong popular support by the Iraqi people, due to the tenacity and courage they showed during the elections. Iraqi forces will no longer wobble in the face of terrorists who are trying to shake the security of Iraq and veer Iraqis from their path to democracy.”

Hat Tip : Mudville Gazette

Iraqi election commission officials are expected to announce final results from the country's landmark Jan. 30 balloting on Sunday, and the clergy-backed Shiite Muslim alliance claimed it had won 60 percent of the vote.

Election commission spokesman Farid Ayar told Al-Arabiya television that the commission would meet Sunday morning to finalize some unspecified issues and then announce the final figures in the afternoon. The results will be considered official after three days.

Iraq's clergy-backed Shiite Muslim alliance claimed on Sunday that it had won 60 percent of the vote, though the claim could not be verified.

The United Iraqi Alliance had been expected to win the largest number of seats in the 275-member National Assembly. Some reports have indicated a slightly lower vote tally for the Shiites, but still over half.

Read more….

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Mr Rumsfeld, the highest-ranking American to visit since the election, landed before dawn in Mosul, 390 kilometres north of Baghdad.

He told US soldiers that the poll had been a good day for Iraq “but there are still challenges ahead”.

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

Police said 13 people were killed and 40 wounded in Balad Ruz, north-east of Baghdad, when a suicide car bomb exploded outside a mosque.

Four of the dead were soldiers and at least three wounded were children.
[…]
The worshippers had been leaving a Shiite ceremony for Ashura, one of the most holy events in the Shiite calendar that pays homage to the martyrdom of Imam Hussein in 680 AD.

Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack, but said its target had been a National Guard patrol, an Internet statement said.

“A lion from the martyrs' brigades of Al Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq attacked a unit of the pagan guards as it was patrolling the city of Balad Ruz,” the group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site.

A prominent Iraqi judge was assassinated Saturday by two gunmen on a motorcycle in the southern port city of Basra, police said.

Taha al-Amiri, a former chief judge at Basra's highest criminal court, was gunned down as he drove to work, said Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaidi, an information officer at Basra's police headquarters.

The judge's bodyguard was seriously wounded in the attack
and was taken to a hospital, al-Zaidi said.

A car bomb exploded in front of a hospital south of Baghdad Saturday, killing 17 and wounding 16, police said, a day after 23 were killed in two attacks aimed at the Shiite community.

A police captain, who refused to give his name, said the Saturday blast occurred in front of the Musayyib General Hospital, about 35 miles south of the capital.

—-

Six Iraqi police officers were among those who died in Saturday's blast, police said.

The blast happened in the town of Musayyib, which is near Hilla in the Babil province south of Baghdad, police said.

At least 26 have been wounded in the attack.

AP reports Eason Jordan quit Friday amidst a furor over remarks he made in Switzerland last month about journalists killed by the U.S. military in Iraq.

Original TCP post with updates here.

Short lived yet quite busy blog “Easongate” here.

From Reuters via The Australian :

Thirteen people were killed and 23 wounded today when a car bomb exploded in front of a Shi'ite mosque in the town of Balad Ruz, north-east of Baghdad, security sources said.

So were twice that many “insurgents”, and a similar number captured.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Ten Iraqi police officers and 20 gunmen have been killed in a massive battle that broke out when rebels launched an onslaught on a police station south-east of Baghdad, police say.

About 50 policemen were also wounded in the fire fight in Salman Pak, which lasted several hours, a police officer said on condition of anonymity.

For his part, Iraq's national security adviser, Qassem Daoud, said 20 rebels were killed and 21 arrested during the clashes.

United States gunships fired missiles in a bid to dislodge the rebels besieging the police station in the radical Sunni town, about 24 kilometres south-east of Baghdad.

US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel James Hutton had earlier acknowledged that at least six policemen were killed in the battle.

“The insurgents did assume control of the police station temporarily,” Lieutenant Hutton said.

“We attacked them with helicopters, which fired missiles, and the insurgents fled. The operation to pursue them is still going on.”

A US military statement said US troops evacuated the wounded for treatment and added that “nearly 20 cars were on fire following the attack”.

Mr Daoud had indicated that the operation, which involved special police forces, targeted “a terrorist group which has been in the area for two weeks”.

Masked gunmen opened fire on a crowd at a Baghdad bakery Friday, killing 11 people, police and witnesses said.

Gunmen in several cars blocked the road in front of the bakery with their vehicles and entered the shop. They fired on the bakery workers, killing 11 people, an Iraqi police investigator said.

The shooting took place in the New Baghdad neighborhood, a predominantly Shiite Muslim area of the capital. It was unclear why the gunmen attacked the bakery.

More..

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

The bodies of more than 20 Iraqi drivers and security forces from a convoy of government trucks carrying sugar have been found south of Baghdad, police said.
[…]
“This morning a police patrol was in the Suwairah region and found about 20 vehicles that were taking sugar to Baghdad. They were all burned,” said a police official.

Suwairah is about 60 kilometres south of Baghdad.

As well as the drivers, two policemen and two soldiers who were protecting the convoy were also killed, the official told AFP.

“The bodies were rotting in the vehicles which indicates the attack was at least two days ago,” he added.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A car bomb exploded at a crowded intersection in central Baghdad on Thursday morning, killing at least two people and wounding four.

The blast scattered tangled metal and wreckage across Tahrir Square, a major intersection lined with shops and market stalls.
[…]
Police said the target of the blast was not clear. A large billboard in Tahrir Square has for months displayed posters promoting Iraq's elections.

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

The crash of a British military transport plane in Iraq occurred after the loss of its entire right wing and investigators believe a bomb planted by insurgents was the most “likely cause,” the Sun newspaper has reported.

The Sun reported that the entire right wing of the C-130 Hercules plane was torn off, sending the plane instantly into a violent spin and causing it to break up in about four seconds but not before the pilot hit the mayday button.

What was left of the plane spiralled and somersaulted into desolate marshland 30 kilometres north-west of Baghdad, the mass-circulation daily said.

“A bomb now looks the most likely cause” of the January 30 crash, a senior Royal Air Force source was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

“But sabotage is a another distinct possibility. Metal fatigue is another option but is considered much less likely. The suggestion that the plane was hit by a missile is a virtual non-starter,” the source said.

Exploding ammunition or a missile would probably not have caused the wing to sheer off, and the plane was probably out of missile range, they added.

A Ministry of Defence spokesman refused to comment on the report.

“We don't speculate when the findings of a board of inquiry have yet to be concluded,” the spokesman said.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Iraqi security forces have captured 18 members of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia and charged them with terrorism.

Iraq's Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib says the alleged Hezbollah fighters were in his country to carry out terrorist attacks.

The Minister accuses Iran of backing the insurgency in Iraq by funding and supplying the insurgents, most of whom he says are Sudanese and Egyptian nationals.

Updating and correcting a previous post, a first-hand account :

“It began when my son, leading a patrol, saw a suspicious car. They pulled it over, captured two of the three kidnappers and found two Egyptians bound and gagged in the trunk. Interrogation of the two prisoners let to intel re the location of the other two hostages and another US unit raided that location and freed them.

There is much more to this story, but I wanted you to know that they were not “released” but were rescued as a result of a heads-up effort by U.S. soldiers.”

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

A US soldier has been killed in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

”One Task Force Freedom soldier was killed by small arms fire while on patrol in Mosul February 6,” said a US military statement, without providing further details.

Gunmen killed an Iraqi journalist working for a U.S.-funded television station and his son as they left their home Wednesday in the southern city of Basra, an Iraqi official said.

Abdul Hussein al-Basri, correspondent of Al-Hurra, and his son were both killed in the Maqal area of Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, said Nazim al Moussawi, a spokesman for the local government administration.

Launched in February 2004 Al-Hurra, or The Free, was tailored for Arab audiences to compete with other regional stations like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya. Some Muslim clerics have denounced the TV station as propaganda.

President Bush said it was created to “cut through the hateful propaganda that fills the airwaves in the Muslim world.”

More…

CNN reports the U.S. Air Force released 10 video clips Tuesday from sensors on Air Force Predator unmanned aerial vehicles showing insurgents planting roadside bombs, firing at U.S. positions and gathering to attack U.S. troops:

Some of the footage was a clip of Marines under sniper assault during an August battle in Najaf. A Predator responds to a call for air support and fires Hellfire missiles at the building housing the sniper. The building crumbles in an explosion.

Another clip shows insurgents gathered around armed trucks. The cross-hairs of the Predator locks onto one of the trucks and a missile destroys it.

From California Yankee.

In matters great and small. From CENTCOM :

The MNSTC-I Direct Recruit Replacement program graduated its largest class of Iraqi Army recruits to date Feb. 5 at An Numaniyah, Iraq. The DRR program began in November 2004. The class of 2,867 graduates will serve with the 3rd and 5th Divisions of the Iraqi Army.
[…]
An even larger class of the DRR program totaling 3,500 recruits is scheduled to begin mid-February.
[…]
The DRR course trains the prior military recruits in weapons, security procedures, patrolling, checkpoints, first aid, and basic field and fighting skills.

Also from CENTCOM :

The Iraqi Highway Patrol graduated 49 recruits from the interim Highway Patrol Academy in Al Mehaweel Feb. 6.

The officers completed a three-week training course combining components of police ethics and policing in a democratic society with the operational skills needed by the IHP in preparation for their mission to secure the nation's highways. A strong emphasis was given to firearms training and vehicle mounted patrolling.

Tasked with providing law enforcement and security along Iraq's highways and major roadways, the IHP will also respond to incidents involving anti-Iraqi forces, foreign terrorists, car bombs and attacks on convoys. Currently, there are approximately 600 highway patrol officers on the force, which is slated to reach 6,300 officers in July 2006.

The next IHP course, scheduled for mid-February, will include a train-the-trainers block of instruction in which Iraqis will be trained as instructors. These instructors will then conduct future training courses for the IHP.

For those not yet paying attention, the career of CNN EVP and Chief News Executive Eason Jordan is imploding in blog-time over comments he allegedly made at the World Economic Forum about the US military targeting and killing journalists. Kevin McCullough got this response from the network:

Many blogs have taken Mr. Jordan's remarks out of context. Eason Jordan does not believe the U.S. military is trying to kill journalists. Mr. Jordan simply pointed out the facts: While the majority of journalists killed in Iraq have been slain at the hands of insurgents, the Pentagon has also noted that the U.S. military on occasion has killed people who turned out to be journalists. The Pentagon has apologized for those actions. Mr. Jordan was responding to an assertion by Cong. Frank that all 63 journalist victims had been the result of “collateral damage.”

It was the first thing we (Hugh Hewitt, Jon Lauck, and the other bloggers) were talking about at the Campaigns & Elections panel this morning, and Jon even went so far as to ask Judy Woodruff for her view (she said it was news to her).

Ahhh, the astute Mr. Hewitt. He forecasted at 10:30 this morning (EST) that the story would break mainstream soon, and sure enough, I return home to find that Malkin, Kerry Spot, Rosen, and others are all over the story … and I turn on the TV to see Kudlow asking Ann Coulter for her view. [Update on this: Reynolds has posted a link to the clip; tip to Hugh.]

Things move fast in this world, no?

I'm posting this on the Iraq page because Iraq is the context for Jordan's comments (whatever they might resolve to be).

I'm not going to try to report the story here. To track it, start with Hugh and scroll. Follow his links, although I'll link to Malkin here as well, as she had the moxie to call Barney Frank and David Gergen today and get their two cents.

And if you want to track the thing in real time, just do the Google News search. Of note: Google news is now pulling blog posts. The first cite that came up with my search: this post at PoliPundit.

Funny world, this blogosphere. Eason Jordan, welcome to the future.

Update: Of course, I should give a proper link to this post from this very blog, where the always attentive Mr. Alan E. Brain posted the story at 11 a.m. EST yesterday morning.

Update 2: How much is it breaking in the 'sphere? To the tune of about 900 posts. David Sifry, you genius …

Update 3: And in the interest of appropriate credit, it seems La Shawn Barber has been on this thing for some time …

Update 4: And don't miss Chester at Easongate.

Update 5: The semi-official World Economic Forum Weblog has only one post on Eason. It's a group blog, authored (it seems) by several of the bloggers in attendance. From the Eason post:

Senator Dodd's statement, “Senator Dodd was not on the panel but was in the audience when Mr. Jordan spoke. He – like panelists Mr. Gergen and Mr. Frank – was outraged by the comments. Senator Dodd is tremendously proud of the sacrifice and service of our American military personnel.” is perhaps the clearest statement from a major figure present at the meeting. Thank you, Senator Dodd for at least expressing what I felt as well, and for adding some real weight to this issue. If the WEF suppresses the video, the chaff thrown out by CNN and Eason supporters may obscure and cloud all of this to a lack of contextual understanding by audience members. Let's be clear: that is a load of bull. What was said was clearly understood, and no amount of reverse engineering can undo that. If you shout fire in a crowded theatre and then try to say that what you really meant was for someone to just turn down the air conditioning, it just does not fly.

Update 6: There are now 1,147 blog posts citing “Eason Jordan” [as of 6:54 am est 2/8/05)]

Update 7: The story is starting to break in MSM. See reports at the Boston Globe, Washington Post, New York Sun, National Ledger, and the Washington Times. Larry Kudlow also posts his two cents:

If the story is correct, CNN should have already fired Jordan. If the story is not true, Jordan or CNN must provide the counter-evidence.

This episode is worse than Rathergate. Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, and others at the CBS Evening News are biased liberal journalists. But I have no reason to believe that Rather is unpatriotic. And yet, Rather & Co. were dismissed. The fact that Jordan still has a job says very bad things about CNN.

From the AP :

Iraq's electoral commission says it has received more than 100 complaints of irregularities. It has formed an independent team of three lawyers to investigate
[…]
“There are political parties that have contested the legitimacy of the election process even before the voting started,” election official Adel al-Lami said. “It's because they know they won't get many votes.”

On Sunday, hundreds of Iraqis - mostly Assyrian Christians and Turkomens - shouted slogans and waved Iraqi flags outside Baghdad's heavily guarded Green Zone to protest alleged irregularities in Mosul that they say prevented tens of thousands from voting.

Because of the security situation, many international monitors watched the election from nearby Jordan. Much of the voting and ballot counting was done in the presence of party representatives with their own agendas. And critics say Iraqi monitors, however impartial, had little experience.

One of the first public complaints came from Iraq's president, Ghazi al-Yawer, who told reporters that tens of thousands of people in Mosul were unable to vote because of insufficient ballots. Al-Yawer's base is in that northern city, which has a largely Sunni Arab population and significant Kurdish and Christian minorities.

His ticket is faring poorly in the early vote count nationally.

The ballot shortage in Mosul meant many Sunni Arabs and others who wanted to vote could not.
[…]
The scope of the problem remains unclear, but several politicians claim hundreds of thousands were disenfranchised in the city and surrounding province. An investigation is under way.

“There are centers that opened and yet did not get enough ballots, which proves there were bad intentions,” said Meshaan al-Jubouri, a Sunni Arab politician.

He claimed election officials were among those who “didn't want the Sunnis to vote so that the Shiites could score a fake victory.”

Al-Jubouri is demanding that an international commission investigate the Mosul complaints and another election be held. The commission denies any move to disenfranchise voters but has ruled out a new election.

In the oil-rich city of Kirkuk - home to Arabs, Kurds, Turkomens and Christians - some groups accused Kurdish parties of packing the rolls with Kurdish voters from elsewhere. The Kurds say those voters were forcibly expelled under Saddam Hussein and have a right to return.

Countering those charges, Patriotic Union of Kurdistan official Rizgar Ali claimed ballot boxes were stuffed in favor of a largely Arab faction in Hawija, which also ran short of ballots.

Hawija, about 25 miles southwest of Kirkuk, is predominantly Sunni Arab and the scene of recent insurgent activity. But Ali said small-scale violations would not undermine the elections.

“This is the first experience for the Iraqis, who have very little experience in democracy and elections,” he said. “Don't worry about Kirkuk.”
[…]
In Diyala province, Gov. Abdullah al-Jubouri said he and his list of candidates were not even on the ballot.

“There are political currents that wanted to create sectarian strife in the province,” said the governor, a Sunni Arab.

Al-Lami, the electoral commission official, said the governor never submitted his final candidate list.
[…]
Al-Lami said there were complaints that the Najaf governor used the police and Iraqi National Guardsmen to urge voters to support his list and to attack commission workers in the city.
[…]
Al-Lami said the vote's credibility could not be judged before complaints were investigated.

“The vast majority thinks the elections were a success,” he said.

Sorry about the extensive snippage, but there's so much unsubsantiated Doom and Gloom Opinion that picking out the few hard facts (ones that generally don't support the Cassandra-like spin of the article) took a bit of doing.

From CENTCOM :

The Commander's Emergency Response Program assists Iraqi citizens by supporting and developing local programs and institutions.
[…]
The projects must not exceed $500,000 and must demonstrate an important public need. To date, 44 projects have been completed with 58 more in progress or in the process of being submitted. More than $17 million has been spent or allocated by CERP for these important, community enhancements.

In fact, the program has been so successful that Iraqi Interim Government officials have agreed to fund and administer 17 projects previously slated for funding by CERP. These projects, totaling $5.9 million, include drainage improvements, irrigation, school renovations, and the construction of a fine arts institute.
[…]
In Taji, four villages are being touched by a program to provide 12 school buses and more than 9,000 school uniforms. As the Ministry of Education is enforcing uniform standards for all female students in primary and intermediate grade levels, now many less fortunate Iraqi girls will be able to attend school. According to U.S. Army Col. Richard Hatch, MNSTC-I SJA, “This is one the best uses of CERP money I have seen yet.” Twenty schools will benefit from the $429,000 program. The buses and uniforms will be procured through local vendors. Planners expect delivery by the end of February.

In An Numaniyah, the Haji Jalal Women's & Pediatric Hospital will receive funding for clinic supplies including: ultrasound equipment, a centrifuge, refrigerators, an incubator, oroscopes, ophthalmoscopes, stethoscopes, sphygmomanometers, nebulizers, various monitors and other useful medical equipment. The $176,000 project is underway.

In Al Kasik, nine important projects are in the works including renovating the village school, constructing a road from the village to Temarat, constructing an elementary school, building four clinics, repairing the village well, stringing a power line and building a water factory, a soccer field, and a park for children.

From CENTCOM :

Soldiers from the 102nd Iraqi Army Battalion were working a checkpoint north of Al Hawd when they discovered Abdullah Mohammed Khalif Al-Jaburi, brother of the Mosul chief of police, in the truck of a vehicle being searched. The two people in the vehicle were detained and Khalif was returned to Mosul. Suspects are in custody with no ISF injuries reported.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard says the suspension of Benon Sevan and another official are the first steps in what is likely to be a lengthy disciplinary process.

”Both are expected to receive by Wednesday official letters which outline the internal charges against them,” he said.

“They then have two weeks to respond, at which time the administration will take it's final decision on appropriate sanctions.”

From CENTCOM :

The Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq is using the “Small Rewards” program to collect information or non-lethal assistance that results in the capture of a person, weapon or documents on a wanted list.
[…]
Rewards are given to foreign nationals and Iraqi citizens, including members of the Iraqi army and police, who provide qualifying information.
[…]
The Small Rewards Review Board studies each nomination packet and makes recommendations on whether the packet qualifies for a reward. If the information or non-lethal assistance meets the criteria, the Board makes recommendations for the final reward amount.
[…]
There is no established reward amount, as each nomination packet that is submitted is considered separately based upon its overall strategic value and impact.

The Board's chairman, also the approval officer, can authorize an award of up to $2,500. Once rewards are approved, the reward monies are normally received by the informant within 48 hours.

Information leading to the capture of more expensive munitions or wanted terrorists can net up to $50,000. Rewards from $50,000 to the top award of $200,000 must be approved by the Defense Department. Larger rewards require additional approval and take 45 days for payment. Informants may choose cash or an in-kind benefit as a reward under the Small Rewards program.

Iraqi security forces remain eligible for the rewards through April 2005 as long as the information received was not a direct result of their normal duties.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A huge blast in Baghdad has killed at least 21 people and injured 27 queuing to enlist in the army, while two more people were killed in blasts outside the capital.

Dozens of Iraqi men were queuing up at the army recruitment centre outside a base in western Baghdad when a suicide bomber wearing a belt of explosives walked into the queue and set off the device.
[…]
Meanwhile, Police Lieutenant Colonel Fares Mahdi said a civilian died and six others were wounded, including three women, when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle in Shurgat, 300 kilometres north of the Iraqi capital.

All casualties were reportedly from the same family.

In another bomb attack, one soldier was killed and another wounded when their patrol was targeted by a roadside bomb in Dhuluiya, 70 kilometres north of Baghdad.
[…]
Gunmen opened fire on Mithal al-Alusi's car, missing him but killing his two sons.

“Yes, my two sons died and my bodyguard as well. It was a gunfire attack on my car near my house in Baghdad,” the 52-year-old politician said.

Mr Alusi had been an adviser for maverick Shiite politician Ahmed Chalabi.

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

United States military police threw a mudwrestling party at a prison camp in Iraq and a woman who took part has been found guilty of indecent exposure and demoted, US military has said.

Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson says at least three female guards stripped to their underwear and wrestled each other in a paddling pool full of mud in the grounds of Camp Bucca, the biggest US camp for detainees in Iraq.

Several guards who watched the wrestling have been reprimanded for failing to intervene.

The party took place on October 30 last year, when one US military police battalion, the 160th, was about to hand over responsibility to another, the 105th.

Officers from both battalions were involved and photographs were taken.

A prison guard found the photos sometime later and handed them over to the camp's commanders.

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

Four Egyptian telecom engineers kidnapped in Baghdad have been released, Egyptian embassy sources and a spokesman for their company say.

”They were released this afternoon at around 6:30pm [local time],” Orascom spokesman Shamel Hanafi said.

“They are in good health and no ransom was paid. They should be leaving the country tomorrow early in the morning.”

From Reuters, also via the ABC :

An Iraqi group that claims it is holding an Italian journalist kidnapped in Iraq says it will release her soon because she was not a spy, a statement on an Islamist website says.

”Since it has become absolutely clear that the Italian prisoner is not involved in espionage for the infidels in Iraq, and in response to the call from the Muslim Clerics Association, we in the Jihad Organisation will release the Italian prisoner in the coming days,” the statement said.

It mentioned by name Giuliana Sgrena, a journalist with communist Rome newspaper Il Manifesto who was snatched as she conducted interviews near Baghdad University on Friday.

The Muslim Clerics Association, a group of Iraqi clerics seen as influential among insurgents, had called for her release.

It was not possible to verify the statement, which like previous statements on Sgrena appeared on a site not used by the main Iraqi rebel groups.

The claim was not accompanied by a picture or video of the captive or any identification papers.

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

In a statement posted on the Internet, Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said two suicide bombers from his group Al Qaeda in Iraq were behind the attacks.

In the first, a suicide bomber walked up to a queue of Iraqi policemen waiting for their salaries in Mosul and detonated his explosives belt.
[…]
Moments later in Baquba, north of Baghdad, at least 11 people died when a suicide attacker rammed a car packed with explosives into the main police headquarters.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A representative of one of Iraq's most powerful Shia leaders, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad al-Fayad, has issued a statement demanding that the Koran be the reference point for all government legislation.

The statement says the national assembly should reject any law contrary to Islam.

A spokesman for the supreme leader of Iraq's Shia, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, has told the French news agency AFP that he endorses the statement.

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from Iraq that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. This briefing is brought to you by proud new papa Joel Gaines of No Pundit Intended and Andrew Olmsted of Andrew Olmsted dot com.

TOP TOPICS

• Insurgents killed 22 Iraqi police officers and soldiers in a night raid in Baghdad. With the elections in the bag, the insurgency may be turning its focus to Iraqi security forces with the hope of delegitimizing the new government before it can even take the reins.

• Terrorists kidnapped four Egyptian engineers in Baghdad, illustrating both their intent to continue the fight and their willingness to harm their coreligionists in a desperate attempt to further their cause.

Other Topics Today Include: A Democratic Iraq's first national hero; ordinary Iraqis take a stand; an Iraqi theocracy(?); winners of the Iraqi election; Carnival of the Liberated; antiwar talking points; a different Arab election.

Read the Rest…

Twenty-five Iraqis died and scores were injured Monday in attacks on a hospital in Mosul and a police post in Baquba, officials said.

At a police station at a Mosul hospital, mortar fire killed 11 police and wounded six others, police said.

The attack at Jumhuriya Hospital took place around 10:30 a.m. (2:30 a.m. ET).

A suicide bomber set off explosives outside the hospital building among a group of Iraqi policemen, hospital Director Tahseen Ali Mahmoud al-Obeidi said.

[…]

Also Monday a car bomb detonated in front of a Baquba police station, killing 14 police and police recruits, police told CNN.

In another account of the incident, the U.S. military said 15 civilians were killed in the attack with another 16 wounded.

More…

From the New York Times :

In one scene, the videotape shows three kidnappers with guns and a knife, preparing to behead a helpless man who is gagged and kneeling at their feet.

In the next, it is one of the kidnappers who is in detention, his eyes wide with fear, his lips trembling, as he speaks to his interrogators.

“How do I say this?” says the kidnapper, identified as an Egyptian named Abdel-Qadir Mahmoud, holding back tears. “I am sorry for everything I have done.”

In the first week after the elections, the Iraqi Interior Ministry and the Mosul police chief are turning the tables on the insurgency here in the north by using a tactic - videotaped messages - that the insurgents have used time and again as they have terrorized the region with kidnappings and executions.

But this time the videos, which are being broadcast on a local station, carry an altogether different message, juxtaposing images of the masked killers with the cowed men they become once captured.
[…]
…officials in Mosul, short on manpower, apparently hope the psychological force of the broadcasts will help undermine the insurgency, making its fighters appear weak and encouraging citizens to call up with their reactions or information about those still at large. A program loosely based on “most wanted” crime shows in the United States is also being developed, a Mosul television official said.

From the Toledo Blade :

Mr. Jordan told a panel that the U.S. military had killed a dozen journalists in Iraq, and that they had been deliberately targeted. When challenged, Mr. Jordan could provide no evidence to support the charge, and subsequently lied about having made it, though the record shows he had made a similar charge a few months before, and also earlier had falsely accused the Israeli military of targeting journalists.
Mr. Jordan's slander has created a firestorm in the blogosphere, but has yet to be mentioned in the “mainstream” media.

Until now, which is why we're reporting it.

From the Washington Times :

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, during a discussion on media and democracy, Mr. Jordan apparently told the audience that “he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by U.S. troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted,” according to a report on the forum's Web site (www.forumblog.org). The account was corroborated by the Wall Street Journal and National Review Online, although no transcript of the discussion has surfaced.
[…]
In November, as reported in the London Guardian, Mr. Jordan said, “The reality is that at least 10 journalists have been killed by the U.S. military, and according to reports I believe to be true journalists have been arrested and tortured by U.S. forces.”

From Reuters via the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

The count so far puts a religious Shiite coalition in the lead with two thirds of the poll, based on results from 35 per cent of voting centres.

Buoyed by the strong showing, a top Shiite official told Reuters the Shiite alliance would insist on the job of prime minister in the new government.

The post is now held by Iyad Allawi, whose bloc is in second place. But this could change as votes from the Kurdish-dominated north are counted, reducing his chances of keeping his job as a compromise candidate.

“Shiites want the prime ministership, we are insisting on it and will not give it up,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Hamed al-Bayati, who is a senior official in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI).

SCIRI is a key player in the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite bloc, which has polled 2.2 million of the 3.3 million votes counted so far from 10 of 18 provinces.

Dr Allawi's Iraqi List has about 18 per cent, but the Kurds are still awaiting the results in their three northern provinces, where turnout was high and is expected to secure them a powerful voice in the new 275-seat National Assembly.

The Electoral Commission said the final results would be ready within the next few days and at the latest by February 10.

Spokesman Farid Ayar warned there would then be nine days to resolve complaints before the results were certified.

FOX:

Four Egyptians working for a mobile phone company were abducted Sunday by gunmen in Baghdad, and Islamic militants threatened to kill an Italian journalist by Monday unless Italy agrees to withdraw its troops.

[..]

The four Egyptians were seized early Sunday near the Mansour (search) district of western Baghdad, the official said on condition of anonymity. They worked for Iraqna, a subsidiary of the Egyptian firm Orascom Telecommunications, which operates the mobile phone network in Baghdad and central Iraq.

Six other Egyptians working for Iraqna were kidnapped in two separate incidents in September. All were ultimately freed although Orascom said at the time that it was committed to continuing its work in Iraq.

The Italian journalist was kidnapped Friday by gunmen who blocked her car outside Baghdad University. Giuliana Sgrena, 56, is a veteran reporter for the left-wing daily Il Manifesto.

Two separate groups are claiming responsibility for the kidnapping of Sgrena:

An Islamist militant group in Iraq claimed responsibility for kidnapping an Italian journalist and threatened to kill her by Monday, following a kidnap claim from another group, according to an Internet statement.

The statement, which could not immediately be authenticated, was signed by a group calling itself the Jihad Organization. It threatened to kill Giuliana Sgrena by Monday if Italy did not withdraw its troops from Iraq.

A group with a similar name, the Islamic Jihad Organization, claimed Friday also to have taken Sgrena and set a 72-hour deadline for Italy to remove its troops, but did not specifically threaten to kill her.

“We in the Jihad Organization … announce that we will implement God's law (kill) on the Italian prisoner Giuliana Sgrena after 48 hours if the Italian government, headed by the criminal Berlusconi, does not announce it will withdraw (troops) from Iraq,” said the statement dated Saturday.

More here..

Thanks to Australian RadFem and UltraLeftist Blogger HakMao, you can now Give Fascism the Finger.

Badges, Fridge Magnets, and Coffee Cups are all available. Lest you think that Hell has frozen over and she's become all Capitalistic of a sudden, in a scathingly brilliant move that will appeal to both Left and Right, Marxist and Right-Wing Death-Beast alike, all proceeds ($2 per mug, and $1 per button/magnet) will be split between the IFTU (Iraqi Federation of Workers Trade Unions) and the Iraqi Pro-Democracy Party. (You know.. the bloggers behind Iraq the Model- the guys who met a bloke called George W. Bush recently…).

Finally, something we can all agree on, Red-state, Blue-state, Gay, Straight, even Australian. Let's all Give Fascism the Finger together.

From CENTCOM :

The Soldiers and personnel based in Iraq will be able to take a back seat ride next month as the 3rd Infantry Division Soldiers coming to replace them have started to arrive and team up with their couterparts in theater as part of the transition of command gets underway.

Over in the medical aid station at the division logistical support area in Camp Victory the transition has already began as medic Soldiers from the advanced party of 3rd Inf. Div. arrived and are working with the 1st Cav. medics to prepare themselves for the eventual handover next month.

Medics from Headquarter and Headquarters Support Company, Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Inf. Div. are the Soldiers calling the division medical aid their new home. They moved in to the building Jan. 26 to learn from the medics working there.
[…]
Helping the 3rd Inf. Div. medics along, the medics from 1st Cav Div. are showing the Soldiers how to get medical supplies outside of the Camp, introduce them to the other aid stations working in the area, and the overall running of the medical aid station, its hours and where everything is located inside of it.

“The medics that are arriving are doing a good job,” said Staff Sgt. Jason Rankin, Headquarters Company, 1st Cav. Div. “One of them has already screened and treated a few patients in his first three days here.”

“This makes me confident that they will be able to do the job here when we're gone so the transition here should go smoothly,” he said.

Meanwhile, there's plenty of work for the replacement units coming in. Also from CENTCOM :

You only have to look as far as the smiles on the children's faces to know that the Soldiers of 1st Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery, have made a difference in the Rustamiyah community.

”We have made a big impact on the kids,” said New Orleans, native Staff Sgt. Eldred Stewart, a squad leader with Alpha Battery, 1st Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team.
[…]
“When we first took over this zone, we noticed it was a very impoverished area,” said Livingston, Calif., native Capt. David Haynes, Alpha Battery's commander. “Some of the largest problems were a lack of essential services, the difficulties traversing the zone of responsibility because of the condition of the roads and the economic prosperity of the citizens of the zone. There is no sewage system to speak of so we focused on water.”

“The water delivery system was sub-standard so we contracted for water to be distributed. The trucks run everyday delivering 200,000 liters of water per day to the residents. A long-term project is to work [sewer] pipes into the zones but that is a long way off and will be picked up by our replacements,” Haynes said.

It's not so much re-building now, it's building essential infrastructure that has never existed in the first place.

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

A roadside bomb Friday killed three civilians driving in a truck carrying vegetables at Ishaki, about 100 kilometres north of the capital, police said.

Two other civilians were killed by booby trap bomb as they drove behind an Iraqi army convoy.

On Thurdsday night, two Iraqis were killed in a similar attack near Baiji, an oil refinery 200 kilometres north of Baghdad, police said.

An Iraqi soldier and a rebel died in a clash at Dhuluiya, which erupted after an insurgent attack on an Iraqi army patrol, the military said.

And from CENTCOM, 3 deaths in separate attacks, one in Northern Babil :

A soldier assigned to the I Marine Expeditionary Force was killed in action yesterday while conducting security and stability operations in the Northern Babil Province.

One in Mosul :

One Task Force Freedom Soldier was killed and another wounded when their convoy was hit with a roadside bomb while on patrol south of Mosul on Feb. 3. The attack occurred at about 2:00 a.m.

And one in Bayji

One Task Force Danger Soldier was killed and seven wounded in an improvised explosive device attack on a Multi-National Forces combat patrol near Bayji at 4:25 p.m. on Feb. 4.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Four Iraqi soldiers died when a booby-trapped motorcycle exploded next to their patrol in the southern city of Basra.

The powerful blast tore their car apart and shattered the relative calm in the British-controlled south.

Meanwhile, a US patrol has been hit by a roadside bomb near Baiji, north of Baghdad.

The United States military says two soldiers died in the attack.

And two Iraqi children have been killed by a landmine in the Sunni Muslim city of Samarra, north of the capital.

Sgt. Javal Davis, who admitted abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in late 2003, was sentenced Friday to six months in a military prison and given a bad-conduct discharge from the Army.

A nine-man military jury deliberated for about 5 1/2 hours before sentencing Davis, a former Abu Ghraib guard who earlier this week confessed to stepping on the hands and feet of a group of handcuffed detainees and falling with his full weight on top of them.

More…

A new, partial tally of votes Friday from Iraq's landmark elections showed a Shiite coalition whose leaders have close ties to Iran rolling up a strong lead over other tickets, including that of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi .

The United Iraqi Alliance, which has the endorsement of Iraq's top Shiite clerics, won more than two-thirds of the 3.3 million votes counted so far, the election commission said. Allawi's ticket was running second with more than 579,700 votes.

More…

Lance Cpl. Allan Klein, 34, was one of 31 U.S. service members killed Jan. 26 when his troop transport helicopter crashed in Iraq. They were part of a team providing security in the run-up to that country's first free election in decades.

Today at 11 a.m., Klein's parents will say good-bye to their son at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Roseville. They needed a place to hold a luncheon after the service, and on Monday, they called Athena Banquet Center on Gratiot.

They didn't know then that Youil Ishmail, who owns the Roseville hall, had voted the day before in the very election Klein gave his life to secure. They didn't know that, at age 46, the man everyone calls Louie had for the first time been able to freely choose the leadership in the land of his birth.

So when Ishmail heard it was the mother of a slain Marine on the phone Monday, he didn't hesitate.

“This Marine give his life for me to go and vote,” he said. “This is the least I can give this lady, just to give her some comfort.

“I tell her, 'Everything. I will take care of everything. It doesn't matter how many come.' “

Read the rest…

Gunmen kidnapped an Italian journalist in Baghdad Friday, the latest in a series of brazen abductions but the first since Iraq's election.

Giuliana Sgrena, a journalist with Rome daily Il Manifesto, was snatched from the street as she conducted interviews near Baghdad University, police sources and diplomats said.

Gunmen pulled up alongside her vehicle, forced her driver and an Iraqi journalist with her out of the vehicle at gunpoint and then drove off with Sgrena, the sources said.

Read more….

Annan Orders Disciplinary Action After Report:

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for disciplinary action against the chief of Oil-for-Food after a report released Thursday said the program head had “seriously undermined” the integrity of the United Nations.

—

U.N. Moves on Oil-for-Food Charges:

[Anan] initiated disciplinary action against the former head of the program, Benon Sevan, a now-retired undersecretary-general and a 40-year veteran of the world organization, accused of soliciting oil allocations. Similar action was initiated against another U.N. official Joseph Stephanides, accused of improper contract allocations under former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

—

Iraq Demands Justice on Oil-for-food Diplomats:

Anyone who stole from the UN's oil-for-food program for Iraq must stand trial and the money be repaid to the Iraqi people, Iraq's human rights minister said yesterday.

Bakhtiar Amin praised Thursday's report by Paul Volcker, former head of the US Federal Reserve charged with probing corruption in the program, and said it showed even UN dignitaries were not above robbing the poor for profit.

“It shows that some so-called dignitaries had not an iota of shame in their bones, no conscience and no morals,” Mr Amin said. “They profited as parasites on the misery of an impoverished nation.”

Updating a previous post, from New Scientist :

A video purportedly showing the moment a British military airplane was shot down by Iraqi insurgents is almost certainly bogus, say defence specialists who studied the footage.
[…]
Defence experts say the wreckage seen in the video shown is consistent with that of a Hercules C-130, but dismiss the rest of the video as a crude propaganda attempt.

”I think the video is bogus,” says Peter Felstead, editor of Jane's Defence Weekly. “The missile footage has just been grafted onto the front. And it looks like a surface-to-surface missile to me.”

Jim O'Halloran, editor of Jane's Land-Based Air Defence, agrees. He says the pointed shape of the missile and the way it launched suggests it was a surface-to-surface Multiple Launch Rocket System missile, possibly the Katyusha type used by the Israeli army. He adds that such a weapon would not be effective against an airborne target. “What they're showing did not kill a C-130,” O'Halloran told New Scientist.

But some of the wreckage footage itself may also be suspect, as it is shot in daylight. The airplane crashed at 1635 local time, leaving just an hour before sunset for someone to reach the wreckage and start recording. The images could not have been captured the following morning, as British forces had arrived at the site by this time.

I didn't report this when it first came out, as I awaited a second-source confirmation. I now have it.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

Amar Ahmed Mohammed was 19 years old. But the fact that he had the mind of a four-year-old did not stop the insurgency's hard men as they strapped explosives to his chest and guided him to a voting centre in suburban Al-Askan.
[…]
Unlike the hundreds of others in the region who knowingly volunteered for an explosive death, Amar died because he did not know. He had Down syndrome.

On most days, Amar would slip out of his parents' house and wander the streets of the Al-Askan neighbourhood until dusk when, usually, a friend or neighbour would bring him home. On Sunday, when his parents, Ahmed, 42, and Fatima, 40, went to vote with their two daughters, they left him at home as usual.
[…]
One of Amar's cousins, a 29-year-old teacher who asked not to be named, claimed the insurgents must have kidnapped him. “He was like a baby,” he said. “He had nothing to do with the resistance and there was nothing in the house for him to make a bomb. He was Shiite - why bomb his own people?”
[…]
“I have heard of them using dead people and donkeys and dogs to hide their bombs, but how could they do this to a boy like Amar?”

Apparently, Amar triggered the bomb before he got to the intended target. No one else was hurt or killed.

Clarification of this last point is available from Iraq The Model :

Eye witnesses said (and I'm quoting one of my colleagues; a dentist who lives there) “the poor victim was so scared when ordered to walk to the searching point and began to walk back to the terrorists. In response the criminals pressed the button and blew up the poor victim almost half way between their position and the voting center's entrance”.

I couldn't believe the news until I met another guy from that neighborhood who knows the family of the victim. The guy was reported missing 5 days prior to elections' day and the family were distributing posters that specified his descriptions and asking anyone who finds him to contact them.

One more thing. The last paragraph of the SMH story :

Unconfirmed reports of insurgents co-opting two other people with Down syndrome (both plots were foiled) suggest that Amar's death was part of a deliberate city-wide plan, rather than the action of a rogue unit.

And from Iraq The Model :

When a relative of mine (who has a mental handicap due to an Rh conflict at birth) told me a month ago that a group of men in a car tried to kidnap him as he was standing in front of the institution he periodically visits to get medicine and support waiting for his brother; I thought that he was imagining the whole story.
He said that they tried to force him into the car telling him not to be afraid and that they're from the “mujahideen and not going to hurt him”. My relative, despite his handicap was moved by his survival instinct and managed to run away.

Hat Tip : Tim Blair.

UPDATE : More confirmation from Roads To Iraq :

I would like to confirm the ITM post about the terrorists used a kidnapped child with “Down Syndrome” with bombs attached to him to attack a voting center in “Baghdad Al-Jadeedah”.
My parents live in “Zayouna” district which is very near to the accident and they saw everything on their way to the voting center, the story is true 100% and I can’t add anything more than what Omar told only “who low people can be?”

The residents of a small Iraqi village have killed five insurgents who had attacked them for voting in last weekend's national elections.

Several other insurgents were also wounded.

The insurgents raided the village of al-Mudhiryah south of Baghdad after warning its inhabitants not to vote in the election.

The villagers fought back, killing five of the insurgents and wounding eight others.

The insurgents' cars were then set alight.

Al-Mudhiryah's tribal sheikh says his people are sick of being threatened by Islamic extremists.

Love this story.

FOX:

The man who ran the U.N. Oil-for-Food program “seriously undermined” the integrity of the United Nations, a U.N.-authorized investigation of the troubled program found in a report released Thursday.

The report found that Benon Sevan broke the rules by allegedly trying to obtain oil vouchers from Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Sevan has been accused of receiving about $1 million worth of lucrative oil vouchers but he has denied any wrongdoing.

“Our conclusion is he placed himself in a serious conflict of interest,” Paul Volcker said at a news conference. “Our investigation continues into what other implications there may be if any.”

The finding represents the first time a high-level U.N. official has been implicated by the investigative panel headed by Volcker (search), a former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Full report (pdf)

[See also this post]

Insurgents struck back with a vengeance following a post-election lull, killing at least 28 people, including two Marines, in a burst of attacks, waylaying a minibus carrying new Iraqi army recruits, detonating car bombs and gunning down police and Iraqis working for the U.S. military, officials said Thursday.

[…]

gunmen fired on a vehicle carrying Iraqi contractors Thursday to jobs at a U.S. military base in Baqouba north of the capital, killing two people, officials said. Insurgents fired mortars at a U.S. base in Tel Afar, near Mosul, killing two civilians Wednesday night.

A car bomber struck a foreign convoy escorted by military Humvees on Baghdad's dangerous airport road Thursday, destroying several vehicles and damaging a house, Iraqi police said. Helicopters were seen evacuating some casualties, witnesses said. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military.

Insurgents ambushed another convoy in the area, killing five Iraqi policemen and an Iraqi National Guard major, police said. An Iraqi soldier was killed by gunmen as he was leaving his Baghdad home, officials said.

Also, the bodies of two slain men wearing blood-soaked clothes were found in the western insurgent stronghold of Ramadi. A handwritten note tucked into the shirt of one of the men claimed the two were Iraqi National Guardsmen.

In the south, gunmen overran a police station in the city of Samawah, killing an Iraqi policeman and injuring two others Wednesday night, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported. Japanese troops are based outside Samawah.

A car bomb exploded at a house used by U.S. military snipers in Qaim, near the Syrian border, witnesses said. U.S. troops opened fire, hitting some civilians, the witnesses said. A U.S. military spokesman had no immediate information.

A roadside bomb exploded near the car of the governor of Anbar province Thursday in Ramadi. Gov. Qaoud al-Namrawi was not harmed, but a woman was injured when his guards opened fire.

Both Marines were killed in clashes Wednesday in Anbar province, which includes such restive cities and towns as Ramadi, Fallujah and Qaim.

More…

From MSNBC, buried in a story about an “assisted suicide” bomber who survived:

Al-Shayea claimed the Iraqi police even had Zarqawi himself under arrest in Fallujah last October, but despite a $25 million reward; and perhaps not knowing whom they had; they let go the most ruthless and notorious killer in Iraq. (According to the deputy minister, security officials who have checked the circumstances now believe that may well be true.)

Assisted Suicide, you may ask?

Twenty-one-year-old Ahmed Abdullah al-Shayea had come to Iraq from Saudi Arabia to join the infamous terrorist known as Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi in a holy war against the American infidels. On Christmas morning, 2004, he got his first assignment, to park a tanker truck full of explosives near the high walls around the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad. He didn't know that four fellow terrorists in a Jeep Cherokee following a safe distance behind held the remote-control trigger. When they pushed it, an explosion thundered across the city, killing 10 Iraqi policemen. But al-Shayea, unlike scores of other bombers who've been vaporized beyond recognition, was blown through the windshield and, against all odds, survived.

See previous post.

From CENTCOM :

Iraqi air force officials welcomed the arrival of two UH-1H Huey helicopters Feb. 1 to Taji Air Base.

The completely refurbished helicopters will provide airlift support and important troop-moving capabilities for the growing Iraqi air force command. A gift from Jordan, this is the first in a series of scheduled deliveries to occur during the next 12 months. A total of 16 UH-1H aircraft are slated to arrive in Iraq by February 2006.
[…]
Currently, 14 Iraqi pilots are fully trained and awaiting additional flight instruction from their U.S. advisory support team (AST) pilots. Flight training will continue for the next several months until all 48 Iraqi pilots are certified. In the meantime, maintenance training will commence for the engineers and ground crews.

A few days late, as people have been too busy covering the election.

From CENTCOM :

Multi-National Forces from 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team) were able to defuse a roadside bomb following a tip received through the Joint Coordination Center in northern Iraq Jan. 28.

The tip came from an Iraqi citizen who had called the Joint Coordination Center to inform them of the bomb planted in northeastern Mosul. Only four days ago another tip in the same area resulted in a roadside bomb being defused.

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

Rebels have killed 12 Iraqi soldiers near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, according to an Iraqi military commander.

The 12 soldiers were travelling back from their jobs guarding oil pipelines when they were ambushed on the road between the villages of Azab and Zaraquiya, 85 kilometres west of Kirkuk, said General Anwar Amin.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

Iraqi soldiers have started to take over combat positions held by United States troops in the northern city of Mosul.

It is the first move to replace US forces with Iraqi troops in areas outside the capital, which are regarded as insurgent hot spots.
[…]
As the Iraqi soldiers dug in, American troops pulled out.

US military chiefs say the Iraqis will take primary responsibility for security in Mosul, but that American troops would still offer back-up if needed.

From the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) :

A senior Iraqi minister has told the ABC he would like Australia to boost its forces in Iraq.

Iraqi Minister of State Adnan Janabi wants multinational forces to replace American troops, who he accuses of being insensitive to Iraqi culture.

Mr Janabi, a leader in the Sunni Muslim community, says the presence of American troops in his country was acting as a magnet for foreign insurgents.
[…]
Meanwhile, [Australian] Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says increased involvement in Iraq by European countries will not necessarily lead to a withdrawal of Australian troops.

Mr Downer has been meeting with NATO and French officials over the last few days and says he is heartened by their willingness to contribute to training programs for Iraqi security forces.

However he says that does not mean Australia will be withdrawing its troops already involved in training in Iraq.

“It would be an extraordinary thing for Australia to abandon the training task at this critical time straight after the election, when we've got even the French talking about, if not sending trainers into Iraq, at least sending them into neighbouring countries in order to conduct training,” he said.

“As a matter of fact we may have been ahead of the pack on this issue.

“

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

Gunmen … killed two policemen near Baquba, an Interior Ministry source said.

In Iskandariyah, south of Baghdad, four civilians were injured in a gunfight between police and gunmen, the source said, adding that police in the town also caught a suspected “terrorist” leader.

South of Baghdad in Hilla, capital of Babil province, a police major and his driver were shot dead and one policeman was gunned down north of Baghdad in Tamiya, the source added.

Police in Diyala also captured an Iranian who confessed he came to Iraq to fight the US army, the source said.

Meanwhile, an oil pipeline linking two of Iraq's major refineries was attacked near the restive Sunni city of Samarra north of Baghdad, police and oil sources said.

The pipeline linking the Baiji refinery north of Baghdad to the Dura refinery in the capital was hit by two bombs which exploded and caused a fire, police lieutenant colonel Mahmud Mohammed said.

“The sabotaged pipeline has a capacity of 7,000 barrels per day,” an official at the Baiji refinery told AFP, without specifying the extent of damage or how long repairs would take.

Iraq's leading Sunni Muslim clerics said Wednesday the country's landmark elections lacked legitimacy because large numbers of Sunnis did not participate in the balloting, which the religious leaders had asked them to boycott.

[…]

In its first statement since the balloting, the Association of Muslim Scholars said the vote lacked legitimacy because of low Sunni participation. The association months ago urged Sunnis to shun the polls because of the presence of U.S. and other foreign troops, and insurgents threatened to kill anyone who voted.

Iraqi officials have acknowledged voting problems, including a ballot shortage in Baghdad, Basra and Mosul, which have substantial Sunni populations and which also may have contributed to a low Sunni turnout.

More…

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

A bomb explosion has killed an Iraqi soldier while two civilians were killed by another bomb intended for a US military patrol.

Security sources said both attacks took place in the Sunni Triangle, an insurgent stronghold north of Baghdad.

One soldier was killed and another wounded when an Iraqi Army patrol was the target of a bomb attack around dawn near Dhuluiya, about 70 kilometres north of Baghdad, the army said.

Late on Tuesday, a bomb apparently intended for a passing US army patrol killed two civilians driving in a car at Dijla, about 30 kilometres north of Baghdad, police said.

From Reuters via The Australian :

Saddam Hussein did not vote in Iraq's historic election, but he could have done if he had turned up at a polling station, officials said today.

The former dictator was eligible to vote as an Iraqi citizen with no criminal record.

Despite being accused of crimes against humanity and genocide, he has not been convicted.

“If Saddam had wanted to vote he would have been entitled to do so, but he would have had to go to a polling station in person,” said Farid Ayar, spokesman for Iraq's Electoral Commission.

If you've not yet seen it:

Flash required; make sure to turn on your speakers.

Tip of the hat to Unsecured Line in the Forum.

AP

Iraqi militants claimed in a Web statement Tuesday to have taken an American soldier hostage and threatened to behead him in 72 hours unless the Americans release Iraqi prisoners.

The posting, on a Web site that frequently carried militants' statements, included a photo of what appeared to be an American soldier in desert fatigues seated with his hands tied behind his back. A gun barrel was pointed at his head, and he is seated in front of a black banner emblazoned with the Islamic profession of faith, “There is no god but God and Muhammad is His prophet.”

A statement posted with the picture suggested the group was holding other soldiers.

“Our mujahadeen heroes of Iraq's Jihadi Battalion were able to capture American military man John Adam after killing a number of his comrades and capturing the rest,” said the statement, signed by the “Mujahedeen Brigades.”

“God willing, we will behead him if our female and male prisoners are not released from U.S. prisons within the maximum period of 72 hours from the time this statement has been released,” the statement said.

The claim, carried on the Web site ansarnet.ws, could not be verified.

14:05 EST UPDATE
Reuters

A little-known Iraqi insurgent group said on Tuesday it was holding a U.S. soldier and threatened to kill him within 72 hours if Iraqi prisoners were not released, according to an Internet statement.

“Our mujahideen … have managed to capture the American soldier John Adam after killing a number of his colleagues,” said the Mujahideen Squadrons in the undated statement.

It carried a picture appearing to show a U.S. soldier sitting in front of a black banner with a rifle pointed at his head. The authenticity of the claim, which did not say where the man was seized, could not be verified.

“We will cut his throat in 72 hours if our male and female prisoners in the occupation jails are not released,” it said.

A group using the same name, Mujahideen Squadrons, last month claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of a Brazilian engineer in Iraq.

Insurgents in Iraq, including al Qaeda's wing in Iraq, have been waging attacks on U.S.-led forces since they invaded the country in 2003.

14:10: Kevin Aylward and Drudge have this picture:

14:35: Both Kevin and Rusty have questioned the authenticity of the photograph based on two factors:
1. the size of the person's head
2. the fact that the weapon used is an American rifle rather than an AK-47

14:42: James Joyner weighs in and agrees with Evan Kohlmann and others that the picture looks fishy. A comment by Michele on Kevin's post points to this G.I. Joe action figure that looks alot like the “soldier” in the picture.

15:05 EST: Backcountry Conservative was experiencing technical difficulties. The server my site is on had to be rebooted by my webhost.

15:07: Michele has put the picture and the action figure's picture side by side at A Small Victory.

15:15 EST: CNN (via Conservative Friends) also is now casting doubts on the photo's authenticity.

Marks, a retired Army general, said he has several questions about the photograph's authenticity.

A flak jacket the man is wearing in the picture has an unfamiliar kind of piping or trim along its edges, Marks said. The man's open-legged pants, as opposed to gathered hems, seem odd, he said.

Marks also questioned what appeared to be camouflage paint on the man's face. “We have not used camo paint with conventional forces serving in Iraq,” Marks said.

15:22: The question now becomes whether or not this was a hoax perpetuated by an American emulating Benjamin Vanderford or by someone in Iraq.

15:50: Kevin is looking for the first mainstream media outlet to mention the fact that the picture appears to be a G.I. Joe action figure.

15:56: Matt Margolis has another interesting photo comparison.

16:00 EST
Associated Press

The U.S. military said Tuesday that no American soldiers have been reported missing in Iraq after a Web statement claimed that an American soldier had been taken hostage.

The authenticity of the statement and photo could not be verified, and Staff Sgt. Nick Minecci of the U.S. military's press office in Baghdad said “no units have reported anyone missing.”

[…]

But questions were raised about the authenticity of a photo purporting to show a hostage with a gun to his head. The figure in the photo appeared stiff and expressionless.

Liam Cusack, of the toy manufacturer Dragon Models USA, inc., said the image of the soldier portrayed in the photo bore a striking resemblance to a military action figure made by the company.

Other coverage:
Google News

Other blogging:
The Moderate Voice
Ramblings' Journal
Memeorandum
Andrew Cochran
Wizbang—more
The Jawa Report
Outside the Beltway
In the Bullpen
Conservative Friends
Speed of Thought
Ace of Spades HQ
Daily Kos
The Corner
Blogs for Bush
A Small Victory
Croooow Blog

Cross-posted: Backcountry Conservative

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

Four people have been killed and six wounded during a riot at the US-run Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq, the US military said in a statement.

”The violence erupted after a routine search for contraband in one of the camp's 10 compounds,” the statement said.

“The riot quickly spread to three additional compounds, with detainees throwing rocks and fashioning weapons from materials inside their living areas,” it said.

The military said that after unsuccessful attempts at defusing the crisis through verbal warnings and use of non-lethal force, guards engaged the detainees to quell the riot.

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

Three US marines have been killed in combat south of Baghdad, the US military has said.

”Three US Marines were killed in action and two others wounded on January 31 while conducting security and stability operations in northern Babil Province,” the statement said.