January 29, 2010

Via IFTSOW

Stretching from Egypt to Yemen, Iran and Pakistan, General David H. Petraeus commands the most challenging area of responsibility in the war against terrorism. In addition to deterring non-state aggressors, he also oversees the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Friday morning, January 22nd, the Institute for the Study of War held an on-the-record conversation with General Petraeus hosted by ISW President, Dr. Kimberly Kagan. General Petraeus discussed his competing regional priorities at U.S. Central Command and offered a strategic overview of his AOR, explaining the dynamic effect it has on American national security.

Original post here

Recommend story here

Do it for the akhis on the forums, they will love you and maybe, just maybe I will get a Fatwa?!?!?!

What to do, what to do.

Via Bill Roggio

Iraqi and US forces dealt al Qaeda in Iraq a major blow last week during a raid in Mosul that killed the terror group's top facilitator, who was based out of Syria.

The joint US and Iraqi special operations team killed Abu Khalaf, al Qaeda in Iraq's senior most foreign fighter facilitator, during an operation on Jan. 22. Khalaf was killed after he "attacked a security-team member participating in a warranted operation," a US Forces- Iraq press release stated.

The US military said Khalaf's identity was confirmed using "multiple sources, including fingerprint matches."

Khalaf, whose real name is Sa'ad Uwayyid 'Ubayd Mu'jil al Shammari, was placed on the US Treasury Department's terrorist sanctions list in May 2009 and was identified as al Qaeda in Iraq's top facilitator, who operated from Syria. more

January 26, 2010

MSNBC:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide car bomber killed at least 18 and injured dozens more Tuesday in a strike against a police crime lab in central Baghdad, a day after several hotels were hit by suicide attacks, officials said.

Rescue crews are still combing through the rubble looking for casualties. Officials say the majority of those killed were likely police officers who worked in the forensic investigation office at Tahariyat Square in the central neighborhood of Karradah. At least 82 people were reported injured.

Yesterday's bombings carry the imprint of AQI. Three attacks all close together. No claim yet.

I imagine the Islamic State of Iraq which includes both AQI and Ansar al-Islam may claim them. AQI is al-Qaeda proper. Ansar al-Islam formerly Ansar al-Sunnah is a particularly brutal group of former Baathists and al-Qaeda sympathizers.

But remember there is no link between the former regime and al-Qaeda.

/ sarcasm.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

January 25, 2010

...the same old way they always did, by murdering more people.

Three massive blasts have killed at least 31 people and injured scores more in attacks on three Baghdad hotels popular with Westerners, Iraqi police have said.

The first bomb in the car park of the Sheraton Hotel toppled a concrete wall designed to protect the property and damaged a number of neighbouring buildings.

Minutes later two more car bombs struck near the Babylon Hotel and al Hamra Hotel, which is popular with Western journalists.

Iraqi authorities are searching for survivors in a number of houses that collapsed near the Hamra hotel.

Baghdad's top military spokesman, Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, said suicide bombers are responsible for all three attacks.

The bombings end a 1-1/2 month lull in coordinated assaults on the Iraqi capital as the country gears up for national elections in March.

December 16, 2009

This sucks.

Dozens of Iraqi security force members were involved in attacks that killed up to 112 people in Baghdad last week, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Wednesday.

"The network was a large one, 24 from one arm of the Iraqi security forces, 13 from another, and eight or nine from another," Maliki told a news conference without saying which branch of the security forces those involved came from.

December 10, 2009

The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point recently released a stunning report which found that Muslims have accounted for 85 percent of the casualties from al Qaeda attacks between 2004-2008. Even more astounding, during the last two years of the study (2006-2008), the percentage of al Qaeda's Muslim victims skyrocketed to an almost-unbelievable 98 percent.

The report's findings decimate the claims made in 2007 by al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al Zawahiri. More...

December 08, 2009

The Beeb:

A series of car bombings has killed at least 127 people and wounded 448 in the centre of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

The first blast targeted a police patrol in the Dora district of the city. Four others occurred near official buildings within minutes.

Veteran politician Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, an ex-national security adviser, blamed al-Qaeda militants for the attacks.

He told the BBC their aim was to destabilise the country ahead of general elections due in March.

"Al-Qaeda has been active in Baghdad recently," Mr Rubaie said.

"The aim is to show the government is unable to protect civilians and its own people and also to deter people from going to ballot boxes."

Survivor Ahmed Jabbar, emerging from a damaged ministry building, told the Associated Press news agency: "What crime have we committed? Children and women were buried under debris."

December 02, 2009

Thanks to American, coalition troops and brave Iraqi's.

Via MEMRI

Recently, secular and even pornographic books are selling at a more rapid pace than the religious Shi’a books published in Iran and Beirut, some of which advocate hatred and violence.

November 22, 2009

There is heavy breathing at CNN tonight over a story they are breaking about an investigation by the US Army into the execution of four insurgents captured in Iraq in March 2007. The Army conducted an investigation in early 2008 and convicted the three sergeants who conducted the execution. They are currently serving life sentences at Ft. Leavenworth.

U.S. soldiers interrogated by the Army in the 2007 murders of four Iraqi detainees blamed a military policy they said made it too hard to detain suspected insurgents, a CNN investigation has found.

Soldiers questioned in the killings said the sergeant in command of their detachment ordered the suspected insurgents killed because Army rules made it too difficult to hold them.

"They're gonna be right back on the streets," one soldier put it.

CNN obtained an extraordinary 23½ hours of Army interrogation videotapes that detail the March 2007 executions of the prisoners by three sergeants who were attached to Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment....

By all accounts, the incident began after soldiers from the company were fired upon. The soldiers went to a house where they found four Iraqi men and a small weapons cache.

The men were loaded into the back of a Bradley fighting vehicle. But instead of being taken to the detainee housing area, they were driven in a convoy of 13 soldiers to the canal and killed, according to trial testimony and other documents in the case...

The tapes, and the investigative case file obtained by CNN, reveal how the soldiers believed the policy for taking in and holding detainees was not working, and was the reason for the murders.

"Seems like, even if you do your job and take these guys to the detainee center, they just come right back," Leahy said on tape. "The same [expletive] guys shooting at you."

I'm having trouble understanding exactly what CNN is trying to make of this. First off, there doesn't appear to have been any cover-up. The Army dealt with the matter expeditiously. Apparently, CNN is upset that they weren't informed immediately so they could make a major international incident about it while Bush was still in office. Boo-freaking-hoo.

There are larger questions this incident raises, namely the ridiculous rules of engagement and the policies regarding captured insurgents. Also, according to international conventions the US is entirely justified to summarily execute insurgents. Excepting their disobeying orders about detainee treatment, which may be absurd but are military rules nonetheless, under international law these men were entirely justified in their actions.

This case does expose the glaring absurdities of our military's rules of engagement and detention. Are soldiers now supposed to act as cops, gathering evidence and the like, while trying to fight a war? Is it any surprise that incidents like these occur when tens of thousands of detainees continued to go through the revolving door, only to kill more American soldiers?

Given the facts of the case (the insurgents were captured with a cache of weapons), on what basis were these men tried for murder? Last time I checked, we were in the middle of fu**ing war in Iraq in March 2007. Should we also prosecute the military leaders of the 1991 Gulf War, namely Norman Schwartzkopf and Colin Powell for killing 100,000 Iraqi soldiers without trial or evidence? Should the soldiers in this case make an appeal based on international law? Is their only crime not executing these insurgents on the spot, rather than taking them somewhere and conducting their execution? What say you?

October 27, 2009

Well really there was no doubt about who did this week's bombing in Iraq. It was a classic al-Qaeda action. Multiple attacks at the same time, it carried the murderous signature of al-Qaeda even before they claimed it.

Via CNN:BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An umbrella group affiliated with al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility Tuesday for a pair of weekend bombings that killed 160 people in Baghdad.

The Islamic State of Iraq issued a statement saying it carried out the attacks. The authenticity of the claim could not immediately be verified, but it appeared on a Web site frequently used by the group.

Update: What is it with me and blockquote this AM. Geesh

October 01, 2009

You can't slag the dude, because the One in Chief has already declared the term "victory" out of favor.

The top American commander in Iraq said Thursday it is unlikely the U.S. can declare victory by the time forces leave at the end of 2011.

"I'm not sure we will ever see anyone declare victory in Iraq, because first off, I'm not sure we'll know for 10 years or five years," Army Gen. Ray Odierno told reporters at a Pentagon briefing.

Well, there's pretty much only one thing left to do....

September 28, 2009

The Emergency Response Brigade’s 3rd Battalion arrests 16 alleged terrorists.
Weapons caches found in Diyala (Baqubah)
ISF arrests Ramadi VBIED cell member, 5 additional suspected terrorists (Baghdad)
Six suspects arrested during search for al-Qaeda emirs
Iraqi and U.S. Forces detain insurgents in Kirkuk (Kirkuk)
12 arrested in Mosul, Bayji security operations
Iraqi Security Forces arrest five suspected terrorists

Last week AQI released a video attempting to show their relevance in Iraq. This butt kicking appears to be a response to that by the Iraqi's.

Maybe AQI should change their name to "The Base of Wannabe Jihadi Losers in Iraq". I'm not sure how to say that in Arabic.

You can keep up with all the progress made in Iraq at MNF-Iraq's website here.

August 31, 2009

Bill Ardolino, formerly of the INDC blog is now doing special reports for Bill Roggio at The Long War Journal. In this post he explains the confusing relationship between the US military and the Iraqi judicial system.

A few weeks ago the Iraqis charged that the US let loose two men who later went on to commit a suicide attack in Baghdad that killed dozens.

The US claims the men that they were holding may not have actually been involved. The Iraqis, it seems, are trying to blame the US for not holding the men longer or turning them over to their judicial system.

But it's not clear whether the Iraqi judicial system would have held the alleged bombers any longer than the US. Seems to me like a blame-the-other-guy ploy which isn't something uniquely Iraqi.

In any event, welcome back to the blogosphere Bill! Go check the post out here.

August 20, 2009

Iraqi Special Forces

[more]

August 13, 2009

Eighteen years after his plane was lost on the first night of the Gulf War his remains are now home.

Yahoo News

Speicher's remains arrived at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station around 3 p.m. About ten minutes later his coffin was rolled off the plane draped with the U.S. flag. It was to remain at the All Saints Chapel on the base overnight.

Welcome home Sir....rest in peace.

August 07, 2009

For two years the bastages cruelly tortured a six year old child of an Iraqi policeman!

This is a reminder to those who don't understand how evil these bastages are.

ALLUJA, Iraq (CNN) -- Like many young boys, Khidir loves playing with toy cars and wants to be a policeman like his father when he grows up. But it was his father's very job that caused the tiny child to suffer the unimaginable.

Khidir was just 6 years old when he was savagely ripped away from his family, kidnapped by al Qaeda operatives in Iraq.

"They beat me with a shovel, they pulled my teeth out with pliers, they would go like this and pull it," said Khidir, now 8, demonstrating with his hands. "And they would make me work on the farm gathering carrots."

What followed was even more horrific, an ordeal that would last for two years in captivity. Khidir and his father spoke to CNN recently, more than half a year after his rescue by Iraqi police.

"This is where they hammered a nail into my leg and then they pulled it out," he says, lifting up his pant leg to show a tiny wound.

He says his captors also pulled out each of his tiny fingernails, broke both his arms, and beat him repeatedly on the side of the head with a shovel. He still suffers chronic headaches. He remembers them laughing as they inflicted the pain.

"I would think about my mommy and daddy," he replies, when asked how he managed to get through the agony.

His father, Abdul Qader, struggles for words. "When he tells me about how they would torture him, I can't tolerate it. I start crying," he says. "What hurts me the most is when they hammered a nail into his leg."

Friggin bastards. I hope they are all in hell humping their friggin goats.

August 05, 2009

Quite the names these alQaeda youths have. Kinda like alQaeda linked Somalian al Shabaab (the youth).

MEMRI - The Operations Command in Baghdad [security unit in charge of fighting terrorism] announced the arrest of three children who belong to the “Cubs of Al-Qaeda” [ashbal al-qa’ida]and six terrorists who recruit the “cubs.”....

In Kirkuk, the commander of the 12th Division announced the arrest of children and young people, including four below the age of 14, who are called the “Birds of Paradise”[tuyoor al-jannah].

August 02, 2009

The first pilot shot down during the Gulf War has been found after 18 years and much speculation as to his fate.

Remains of the first American lost in the 1991 Persian Gulf War have been found in the Anbar province of Iraq after a nearly 20-year search, the U.S. Navy said Sunday.

The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology has positively identified the remains of Captain Michael "Scott" Speicher, whose disappearance has bedeviled investigators since his jet was shot down over the Iraq desert on the first night of the 1991 war.

Tragic news, but one can only hope his family will find some sense of peace now.

Thanks to homefrontsix

July 31, 2009

Academic Meathead just shot this across the bow in our sooper sekrit hideaway:

WASHINGTON — The United States said Friday it was investigating reports that three Americans have been abducted in northern Iraq.

"Embassy Baghdad is aware of the reports and is investigating," State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood said, referring to reports he said were on Al-Jazeera Television, an Arab satellite station based in Qatar.

Al Jazeera, tracking possible American hostage stories.

American media, tracking the Beer Summit. Dear American media.....

July 29, 2009

The leader of al Qaeda in Iraq claims that the Iraq War is the true cause of the global economic crisis. $120 billion dollars a year is a lot of money, he claims.

Wow, that's almost 10% of of how much more Obama is spending this year than last.

Quick, someone give this guy an honorary Ph.D. in economics for his keen insight into the global monetary system.

June 17, 2009

(Baghdad) Last Friday, the leader of Sunni Muslims in the Iraqi Parliament, Haith al-Obaidi, was gunned down along with his bodyguard by a teenage assailant who also killed himself. The "brutal crime" occurred at the Al-Shawaf mosque right after Obaidi led the Sunni worshippers on the Muslim day of prayer.

Today, Iraqi Police arrested the perpetrator of the assassination.

“We received information from one of our sources in Ghazaliyah that the group involved in the assassination were in one house,” Brigadier General Noaman Dakhil Jawad, the commander of the police’s rapid intervention forces in Baghdad, told AFP.

“We prepared our forces, we raided the house, and we arrested the criminal Ahmed Abed Oweiyed.”

Jawad said Oweiyed was the deputy commander of Al-Qaeda’s military wing in Iraq.

“Through intelligence efforts, we tracked down the criminal who masterminded the killing,” he said.

In any event, it's noteworthy that Muslims kill Muslims regardless of what any infidel groups are doing. However, through some distorted logic, the U.S. ultimately gets blamed.

May 13, 2009

Via Yahoo News:

BAGHDAD (AFP) – A bomb fixed under the car of an anti Al-Qaeda militia leader in Iraq killed both him and his young son west of Baghdad on Wednesday, police said.

"Abu Ahmed al-Zobaie was killed at midday in a public marketplace in Abu Ghraib by a bomb stuck to his car," police major Hatef Mohammed told AFP, adding that Zobaie's "young" son had also died in the blast.

May 12, 2009

He says no, not captured or whatever sock puppets say.

Via Laura Mansfield: The often captured, often killed phantom leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq has posted a message in response to claims by the Iraqi government that he has been captured. He says "nope, not this time".

To be fair the US never confirmed the Iraqi claim.

Half of Iraqis see their future as bright, the other are pessimistic. Totten reports from Iraq.

May 05, 2009

Grand Ayatollah.

Radical Iraqi Shia cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, is reported to have assumed the title of Grand Ayatollah after concluding his studies in the holy city of Qom in Iran. Sources close to the cleric's faction released the news to the Arab daily, al-Sharq al-Awsat.

Congratulations, Mookie. May you be blessed with a grisly, untimely death. Hopefully some time in the near future.

Thanks to Hot Air's news link thing.

April 23, 2009

Yet another post in which we hold our breath and pray, Please God, this time let it be true!. This would be, what, the third time the Iraqis have claimed that they've captured Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the leader of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq?

The first time they caught an actor payed to play Abu Omar al-Baghdadi in al Qaeda in Iraq propaganda films. At that point they claimed there was no such person as al-Baghdadi, that he was fictional character meant to portray AQI as a home-grown movement.

The former leader of AQI was Jordianian born Abu Musab al Zarqawi who we killed.

The second time they said they caught the dude U.S. forces declined to comment and then we learned that it wasn't really al-Baghdadi.

So, again, we hope that he's really been captured this time. Especially give that just today his group was probably responsible for the killing of over 70 Iraqis and just a few days ago an audio message of al-Baghdadi was released in which he plead for Muslims to develop nuclear weapons.

AP:

Iraqi state television quoted military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi as saying al-Baghdadi was arrested in Baghdad. Security officials also told The Associated Press that he was captured....

U.S. officials could not immediately confirm the arrest.

Thanks to Howie.

UPDATE: Ed over at Hot Air has more commentary.

April 07, 2009

After making my last post about saving Sandbag, this f'n makes me enraged.

Marcus Luttrell is the lone survivor of Operation Red Wing; a special forces operation that took place on June 28th 2005 in Afghanistan’s Kunar province. The seals mission was to kill or capture Ahmad Shah, a high ranking Taliban official responsible for numerous killings in the region. Marcus Luttrell and three of his seal team members were ambushed by 150 Taliban fighters with Luttrell being the only survivor.

A failed attempt by Special Forces helicopters to recover Marcus Luttrell led to the death of 16 more special forces soldiers; Marcus Luttrell was hidden from the Taliban by locals who eventually sent word to the army where they could rescue him. He wrote the bestselling book “Lone Survivor”, detailing Operation Red Wing and telling the story of his fallen seal team.

It seems that four young good for nothings had been killing dogs in Marcus Luttrell’s county where he lives in Texas. And as terrible luck would have it ( terrible luck for them), the last dog they decided to kill belonged to Marcus Luttrell. As Glen Beck tells the story on his radio program this morning, these thugs should be thanking God that Marcus Luttrell knew how to show restraint when he single handedly, armed of course, apprehended the four.

Marcus Luttrell’s dog was named Dasy; each letter in DASY represents his fallen seal team member’s names. He was given the dog during his recovery period after sustaining horrific wounds that none of us could ever imagine. Marcus Luttrell was awarded the “Navy Cross” and the “Purple Heart” for his heroic actions in Operation Red Wing.

Update: The second arsehole turned himself in. They are both "lawyering" up so to speak.

April 05, 2009

In Saddam's bed

April 02, 2009

So says Scott Thong who runs the numbers here.

March 27, 2009

Michael Totten is back embedded in Baghdad. Here is a teaser from his latest report:

Embedding with the United States military in Baghdad at the end of the surge is no longer like risking your neck in a war zone. It’s more like going on ride-alongs with the police. But it’s not like riding along with the New York police, or even with the Mexico City police. Baghdad is still Baghdad. While no longer a city at war, it’s not exactly peaceful and normal yet either.

March 23, 2009

A preview of the post-Guantanamo Bay era? JW:

The release of hundreds of prisoners from Camp Bucca, a U.S.-run prison in southern Iraq, has facilitated the revival of Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents in Basra, Baghdad and the borderless expanse here along the Euphrates, according to police chiefs, intelligence officials in the Interior Ministry and residents....

Their warnings make for an irony at the beginning of the end of the American presence here. As the United States dismantles Bucca, viewed by many as an appalling miscarriage of justice where prisoners were not charged or permitted to see evidence against them, freed detainees may end up swelling the ranks of a subdued insurgency...

suggested that 60 percent of detainees freed in those areas were returning to the fight. Mahmoud, the colonel in Garma, put the number in his region at 90 percent.

March 12, 2009

This in the mailbox from Noah Shachtman over at Wired. Nothing to see here folks, move along:

An American fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone as it was flying over Iraq, U.S. military sources in Baghdad tell Danger Room.

Details of the previously-unreported shoot-down, which occurred last month, are still sketchy.

Next you'll be telling me they can build a nuclear bomb. Ha! I'll believe it when I see it.....

March 09, 2009

I'll call it misleading, but I'll allow you to draw your own inferences. Mudville Gazette on a Stryker Brigade moved from Iraq to Afghanistan held up as an example of the drawdown:

1. In September, 2008, the 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team (SBCT) - after months of preparation - is ordered to Iraq. (One of two SBCTs that were then scheduled to replace the two currently in Iraq)

2. In February, 2009, President Obama announces his Iraq drawdown/Afghanistan surge - the 5th SBCT will be diverted to Afghanistan instead of Iraq.

3. March, 2009, the DoD announces the 4th SBCT will deploy to Iraq this fall, several months ahead of the original schedule replacing the 5th SBCT in the rotation in order to maintain two Stryker Brigades in Iraq.

March 05, 2009

Kurdish human rights activist Falah Muradkhin Shakaram reacts to a German member of parliament who once compared George Bush to Hitler visiting Kurdistan. Where, asks Shakaram, was Herta Däubler-Gmelin as thousands of Iraqis were being gassed by Saddam Hussein? Where was she, post-invasion, when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq was systematically murdering any one who looked too Western?

Agitating for human rights and peace is often just a cover for lightly veiled anti-Americanism. Däubler-Gmelin and the German delegation didn't even bother to visit any of the Kurdish memorials and museums marking this forgotten genocide. Shakaram writes:

And after 2003, it was people like her – and so many others in Europe – that showed no concern for the changes and developments underway in Iraq. We did not have the impression that the terror unleashed by Al-Qaeda upon the people of Iraq gave them any sleepless nights either. On the contrary, for years they seemed to welcome the suffering of the Iraqis as proof that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein had been a mistake.

March 02, 2009

He was just given his third death sentence.

Will they hang him three times? Sounds like a good idea to me.

Saddam Hussein's top henchman and cousin 'Chemical Ali' was given his third death sentence by an Iraqi court today, this one for his involvement in killing and displacing Shi'ite Muslims in 1999.

Ali Hassan al-Majeed, who earned notoriety for his role in using poison gas to kill thousands of Kurdish villagers, was condemned to death for "premeditated killing as a crime against humanity" and displacing civilians in raids on their homes.[...]

His previous sentences were for masterminding a genocidal campaign against Kurds in the 1980s and killing thousands of Shi'ites in a crackdown on their uprising after the 1991 Gulf War. Those executions have been held up by political wrangling.

February 26, 2009

They fibbed:

The UK has repeatedly denied any involvement in the US program of extraordinary rendition, where illegally detained terrorism suspects are flown in secret to countries where they could face torture.

But now it says two men detained in Iraq in 2004 were transferred to US custody and were then transported to Afghanistan, where they remain.

The British Government says it has been reassured that they have been treated humanely.[Of course they were..ed]

In the House of Commons, the Defence Minister apologised for past incorrect answers given to MPs.

February 24, 2009

Sweet...

Iraq is doing well. I made many Iraqi friends and will never forget them, and I hope they never forget the sacrifices we made for them.

One day I hope they are as great a nation as they have the potential to be. This video was made by the 4th Civil Affairs Group Marines deployed to Barwanah, Iraq from September 06 - April 07, and features men from 2/3 Fox Co. Semper Fi.

h/t Howie

February 23, 2009

Finally, the Force comes to Iraq.

Click Me

February 14, 2009

Can be summed up with this quote:

"The girls have changed the way they dress so much. It's so good now it hurts," said Mohened Tha'far who, with no date lined up for Valentines Day, sat gazing at girls walking by.