Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Simply Unbelievable

Hundreds of vehicles and 20 tons of lead disappear from government ware houses

By Mustafa al-Hashemi

Azzaman, December 12, 2007


Unidentified gunmen stormed government ware houses in the southern city of Basra and stole 375 government cars and 20 tons of lead, police sources say.

The robbery is reported to be the largest and most organized in the years since the U.S. invasion of the country.

The robbers were said to by carrying forged papers which enabled them to drive away with the vehicles, the sources refusing to be named said.

The lead has disappeared from government warehouses in central Iraq.

The lead robbers are also said to have used faked papers to empty the ware house of its contents. Lead can be used in the preparations of explosive materials and bombs.

The cars were in customs warehouses in Basra.

Political factions are hurling accusations at each other as reports of the robbery are leaking to the press.

The government in Baghdad is still silent as security officials express grave concern since cars and lead are the main ingredients of bombings in Iraq.


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Deep Purple - Child In Time

One of the great epic rock tunes

More Surge News, of Iraqi's killing Iraqi's

Wednesday: 71 Iraqis Killed, 152 Wounded

Updated at 4:05 p.m. EST, Dec. 12, 2007

A large triple bombing killed or wounded scores of people in the southern city of Amarah. Meanwhile a smaller blast in Baghdad left over a dozen casualties there. Overall, 71 Iraqis were killed and 152 more were wounded in the latest violence. No Coalition deaths were reported.

At least 42 people were killed and another 125 were wounded during a triple car bombing in Amarah. Although small arms attacks against civilians have been increasing in recent weeks throughout Maysan province, the news of a triple bombing in Amarah stunned Iraq this morning. The area had been relatively peaceful since the British handed over control to Iraqi forces in April. British forces promise that an expected handover of neighboring Basra province will go on schedule this Sunday despite the bombing.


This is not surprising to me. I still firmly believe that the only people who will solve the Iraq civil war are Iraqi's themselves. As long as our military are patrolling Iraqi streets they will not make the tough negotiating between the waring sides that is necessary for resolution. I doubt we can even be useful as mediators at this stage and any outside help for reaching a political settlement will have to come from someone other than the US.

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And So It Begins

Not us. We’re not going.’

Soldiers in 2nd Platoon, Charlie 1-26 stage a ‘mutiny’ that pulls the unit apart
Stories by KELLY KENNEDY - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Dec 8, 2007 14:32:57 EST

Spc. Gerry DeNardi stood at the on-base Burger King, just a few miles from downtown Baghdad, hoping for a quick taste of home.

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Just two weeks earlier, the 20-year-old DeNardi had lost five good friends, killed together as they rode in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle that rolled over a powerful roadside bomb.

As DeNardi walked up the three wood steps to the outdoor stand to pick up his burger, the siren wailed.

Wah! Wah! Wah! “Incoming! Incoming! Incoming!”

The alarms went off all the time — often after the mortar round or rocket had struck nothing but sand, miles from anything important. Many soldiers and others at Taji had taken to ignoring the warnings. DeNardi glanced around at the picnic tables to make sure everyone was still eating. They were. The foreign nationals who worked the fast-food stands hadn’t left; so he went back to get the burger he had paid for

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The mortar round hit before he could pick up his order.

“I turned around and all of Burger King and me went flying,” DeNardi said.

He’d lived through daily explosions in 11 months with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, at nearby Combat Outpost Apache, a no-frills fortress smack in the middle of Adhamiya’s hostile streets. He had rushed through flames to try to save friends and carried others to the aide station only to watch them die.

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“Lightning doesn’t strike twice,” DeNardi said, “so I went back. But there were body parts everywhere.” The first man’s leg had been blown off, his other leg was barely attached and he had a chest wound. “He was going to die,” DeNardi said.

The other wounded man had shrapnel to his neck. DeNardi peeled off his own shirt and fashioned a bandage out of it as other soldiers started streaming in to help.

Then, “all clear” sounded over the loudspeakers as medics arrived and took over.

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After these and other bloody attacks, killing this platoons soldiers, the remaining members got together and said no more. They told their commanders that their rage was so great that they feared committing a massacre if they went on patrol in Adhamiya, an especially violent place in Iraq. Some might say you can't have soldiers doing mutiny in a war zone. As a veteran myself, that was my first impulse. I despise the war in Iraq and have since the beginning, but it's normally bad business to refuse orders. However, after reading this article, I have to a large degree, changed my mind. This whole event is reminiscent of the latter days of Vietnam when entire units refused orders to patrol the country side. And as we know, MyLai happened. Please read this important article and mark of more to come in Iraq.


Triple Car Bombs in Iraq-But They say Al Quaida is Defeated

Today their was a triple car bombing in southern Iraq that as past events indicate has the hallmarks of Al Qaida in Iraq.. But wait a minute, hasn't Al Qaeda been wiped out of Iraq as declared by wingnut blogger The Strata-Sphere
Add to that this news about al-Qaeda’s migration back to Pakistan and Afghanistan and we see the retreat of a defeated movement.

But this horrendous event as reported by Reuters begs to differ that the defeat of AQ in Iraq have been greatly exaggerated.

By Aref Mohammed

AMARA, Iraq (Reuters) - Three car bombs ripped through a busy street in the Shi'ite city of Amara on Wednesday, killing 40 people and wounding 125 in one of the deadliest attacks in southern Iraq this year, police said.

The attacks came just days before Britain is to complete the handover of security for the four southern Iraqi provinces it has controlled since 2003, and tensions have been high among rival Shi'ite factions competing for influence.

The street was a scene of chaos, with cars torn apart. A blocked gutter along one street was red with stagnant blood washed from pools on the pavement next to a child's shoes.