A Tunisian Al-Qaeda member was later arrested for the bombing of the holy site that sparked a surge of violence across Iraq.
Violence is down 50% in Baghdad and car bombs and suicide attacks inside Baghdad are at their lowest level in over a year.
The AP reported:
The No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq said Thursday that a seven-month-old security operation has reduced violence by 50 percent in Baghdad but he acknowledged that civilians were still dying at too high a rate...
On Thursday, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno told reporters that car bombs and suicide attacks in Baghdad have fallen to their lowest level in a year, and civilian casualties have dropped from a high of about 32 to 12 per day.
He also said violence in Baghdad had seen a 50 percent decrease, although he did not provide details about how the numbers were obtained and said that was short of the military's objectives.
"What we do know is that there has been a decline in civilian casualties, but I would say again that it's not at the level we want it to be," Odierno said. "There are still way too many civilian casualties inside of Baghdad and Iraq."
Al-Qaida in Iraq was "increasingly being pushed out of Baghdad, "seeking refuge outside" the capital and "even fleeing Iraq," Odierno said.
Lieutenant-General Raymond Odierno (C), the deputy commander of US forces in Iraq, is seen in Baghdad's central Karrada district in this August 11, 2007 file photo. Violence in Iraq has fallen to its lowest level since before a mosque attack last year which unleashed the deadliest phase of the Iraq war, Odierno said on Thursday. (REUTERS/Ross Colvin)
Jeff Emanuel also has good news on the arrest of brutal terrorist gang in Samarra... by Iraqi soldiers.
UPDATE: The US military captured an Iranian al Quds member today in northern Iraq who is accused of smuggling powerful roadside bombs into Iraq.
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ReplyDeletehi GP, forget where i found this, could
even have been in here somewhere.. ;)
Iraqi National Police Break Up al-Qaeda
Rape, Terror Cell in Samarra
by Jeff Emanuel
09/20/2007
excerpts:
[Samarra, Iraq -- Like their hardline Islamist brethren in other nations -- such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia, among others -- the Islamic State of Iraq (or “ISI,” the name under which al Qaeda in Iraq has organized in Iraq) has built a brutal reputation not only for terrorism against its members’ own countrymen and against the coalition, but also for being a proponent of the most medieval, fundamentalist interpretation -- and enforcement – of what its leaders claim to be the laws of the Koran.
Enforcement of these laws -- which can perhaps be described as Shari’a taken to the greatest extreme -- has included taking measures to brutally punish people who commit the slightest offense, from smoking, to a woman failing to cover her head in public, to a man not growing a long enough beard. The strictest social mores are to be observed and any deviation from the standard can result in a punishment consisting of torture, mutilation, or death -- including, as the western world has seen on a few occasions (though not enough to grasp the extent of its use), beheading.]
[Without a bit of pressure -- indeed, without the appearance of a care in the world -- Medhi, described in graphic detail the other half of his ISI cell’s operations: running an organized al Qaeda Rape ring in Samarra. With a modus operandi of breaking into various houses and either raping women on the spot or threatening the family with death while taking their daughter away to become a hostage and a sex slave, Medhi, a self-described homosexual who engaged in intercourse (via rape) with women “because other members of this group” did, confessed to his cell’s penchant for abducing girls and “holding them [hostage] just for their pleasure.” Most recently, he said, he had taken part in the rape, kidnapping, and/or killing of five women, three of whom were supposedly still alive.]
[Though few now seem to remember (only 4½ years from the end of his reign), this is the type of treatment that women in Iraq were subject to under the bloody rule of Saddam Hussein and his two sons, Uday and Qusay. Rape rooms were common throughout the country, and any woman in the vicinity of the Hussein family or their trusted high-ranking Ba’athists had to fear being randomly selected for such brutal treatment.]
what i'd like to know is why some of these
embed stories never make it to the MSM..
on second thought, think i just answered
my own question.. they can't spin honest
reporting.. *sigh*
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