Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Iraq

Suspected Turkish airstrike kills two in Kurdistan Region

2024-03-09

[Rudaw] A suspected Ottoman Turkish ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
<del>Arclight</del> airstrike

...KABOOM!...
on Friday targeted a mountain near Duhok’s Shiladze district, killing two civilians and wounding another.

Residents of the area told Rudaw’s Naif Ramazan that the strike took place early Friday morning while the victims were in their groves and orchards near Gre Mountain in Shiladze.

The strikes killed Saeed Mubarak and Araz Faraj, and maimed Salih Mubarak, all three civilians.

According to Rudaw’s news hound on the ground, Salih Mubarak has been transferred to a hospital in Shiladze to receive treatment, while the bodies of Faraj and Mubarak were sent to the forensics medicine department in Amedi.

Media affiliated with The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) blamed ~~The Sick Man of Europe~~ Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
for the attack.

Turkey frequently bombards the northern mountainous areas of the Kurdistan Region under the pretext of targeting PKK fighters.

Tensions have escalated between Ottoman Turkish forces and the PKK in Shiladze and Deralok in recent weeks. Clashes between the two sides forced the residents of four Deralok villages to evacuate out of fear for their lives.

Kamaran Osman, a member of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), a human rights
...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions...
organization that monitors Turkey's operations in the Kurdistan Region, told Rudaw that since the start of the year, Turkey has launched 241 attacks in the Kurdistan Region.

The Ottoman Turkish defense ministry has yet to comment on the attack.

Civilians are often caught in the crossfire of the conflict between Turkey and the PKK. Many families have been forced to flee their homes in the Kurdistan Region's villages because of the festivities, especially those in northern Duhok province near the border with Turkey, leaving entire villages empty. A Kurdistan Region parliamentary report published in 2020 said that the Turkey-PKK conflict has left over 500 villages empty across the Region.

Link

Iraq

Turkey to ‘secure’ Iraq border in the summer, says Erdogan

2024-03-07

[Rudaw] ~~The Sick Man of Europe~~ Turkey
...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund...
’s President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First

His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First

...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...
on Monday said that Ankara is close to completing a zone that will "permanently resolve" the security issues along their border with the Kurdistan Region and Iraq by the summer.

"We are about to complete the circle that will secure our Iraqi borders," said Erdogan following the Ottoman Turkish government’s weekly cabinet meeting in Ankara.

"This summer, we will have permanently resolved the issue concerning our Iraqi borders," he added.

Erdogan also called on everyone in the region to respect Ankara’s security strategy, "Otherwise, they will be the cause of the tensions that will arise," he said.

Last month, Erdogan said that Ankara will take more "effective measures" towards securing its southern border and will have "largely completed fortifications" in the Kurdistan Region’s mountainous areas in the summer.

"During the summer months, we will have largely completed our fortifications in the Operation Claw region, allowing us to take far more effective measures," Erdogan said at the time.

Operations Claw are a series of military operations by the Ottoman Turkish army in the mountainous areas of the Kurdistan Region targeting positions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), aiming to eradicate the group. The first iteration of Operation Claw was launched in May 2019 and was then followed by Operation Claw-Tiger in 2020. The third iteration of the offensive, launched in April 2021, consisted of two simultaneous cross-border campaigns, a ground campaign, and an air campaign, dubbed Operation Claw-Lightning and Operation Claw-Thunderbolt. A year later, Turkey launched Operation Claw-Lock.

Turkey has recently upped its attacks against the PKK in the Kurdistan Region. It has also intensified its targeting of Kurdish fighters in northern Syria due to their alleged ties with the PKK.

Kurdish civilians and rights organizations have criticized Turkey’s military campaign as civilian lives and property are frequently caught in the crossfire.

In late February, the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), a human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
organization that monitors Turkey’s operation in the Kurdistan Region, told Rudaw that Ankara has conducted 1548 attacks in the Region in 2023.

Link

Iraq

Turkey attacked Kurdistan Region, Iraq over 1,500 times in 2023: Monitor

2024-02-29

[Rudaw] Ottoman Turkish armed forces conducted 1,586 attacks in the Kurdistan Region and Nineveh province in 2023, a conflict monitor told Rudaw on Wednesday.

Kamaran Osman, a member of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), a human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty...
organization that monitors ~~The Sick Man of Europe~~ Turkey
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
's operations in the Kurdistan Region, told Rudaw’s Soran Hussein that the Ottoman Turkish army has attacked 1,548 times in the Kurdistan Region.

According to Osman Turkey launched 1,159 ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
<del>Arclight</del> airstrike

...KABOOM!...
s with warplanes, conducted 228 drone attacks, and carried out 114 artillery shelling, in addition to being responsible for three shootings, and the earth-shattering kaboom of two landmines.

He specified that the province that witnessed most Ottoman Turkish attacks was Duhok which was struck 517 times, followed by Erbil province with 475 strikes, Sulaimani with 420 strikes, and Nineveh with 36 attacks.

According to CPT data, Ankara has killed at least 152 people and injured 228 since 2015.

Osman said that since 1990, about 850 civilians have been killed by Ottoman Turkish and Iranian airstrikes, with Ankara being behind the majority of the strikes.

Turkey frequently bombards the northern mountainous areas of the Kurdistan Region under the pretext of targeting Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters.

On Tuesday, Ottoman Turkish warplanes targeted the abandoned Kafia village in Akre district, hitting four villagers who were tending to their farms in the vicinity of the area and killing two, according to their families who spoke to Rudaw.

"The strike was carried out by a Ottoman Turkish warplane," Sarbast Sabri, mayor of Dinara subdistrict where Kafia is located, told Rudaw’s Hunar Rashid.

The strike comes amid an escalation of violence between Turkey and the PKK after the gang killed 12 soldiers in the Kurdistan Region in late December, triggering an intensification of retaliatory attacks by Ankara on the PKK and its alleged offshoots in Syria.

At least seven Ottoman Turkish soldiers have been confirmed dead in the Kurdistan Region since the beginning of the year, according to the Ottoman Turkish defense ministry.

Civilians are often caught in the crossfire of the conflict between Turkey and the PKK. Many families have been forced to flee their homes in the Kurdistan Region's villages because of festivities, especially those in northern Duhok province near the border with Turkey, leaving entire villages empty. A Kurdistan Region parliamentary report published in 2020 said that the Turkey-PKK conflict has left over 500 villages empty across the Region.

Link

Iraq

Turkish bombs scorch Sulaimani farmland, orchards: Official

2023-09-04

01-09-2023
[Rudaw] ~~Ottoman~~ Turkish air forces bombarded several areas in Sulaimani province in the early hours of Friday morning, damaging the orchards and farms of villagers, a local official said. Ankara claimed it only targeted alleged positions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and was careful not to harm civilian property.

~~Ottoman~~ Turkish warplanes and drones bombarded the vicinity of Galala village ten times, Kamaran Hassan, mayor of Mawat district, which includes the village in northern Sulaimani province, told Rudaw. The attack damaged farms and orchards and sparked a fire that burned from midnight to 10 o’clock the next morning.

"A number of other areas close to Mount Asos were bombarded too, but there were no casualties or material loss," he said.

The ~~Ottoman~~ Turkish defence ministry said in a statement that it "destroyed" the mouths of 16 caves, four shelters, and two depots allegedly belonging to the PKK in ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
<del>Arclight</del> airstrike

...KABOOM!...
s on Mount Asos and Mount Qandil.

"Before the operation, the targets were carefully chosen, and maximum attention and sensitivity was paid to the safety of lives and property of the civilian population and the protection of historical, religious, cultural assets," said the ministry.

Eastern Kurdistan Units (YRK), a PKK-affiliated force fighting against Iran, denied the PKK had been hit and accused ~~The Sick Man of Europe~~ Turkey
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire...
of publishing misinformation. ~~Ottoman~~ Turkish forces "only damaged the farms and orchards of the residents of the area," it was cited by PKK-affiliated Rojnews as saying.

The PKK is an gang which claims to struggle for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey. It is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, which has launched numerous operations against the group and its alleged offshoots in the Kurdistan Region and Syria.

Kurdish civilians and rights organizations have criticized Turkey’s military campaign as civilian lives and property are frequently caught in the crossfire.

In a recent escalation of its activity in Sulaimani province, Ankara has carried out drone attacks on busy roads that link major urban centres, leading to civilian deaths.

Kamaran Osman, a member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), a human rights
One man's rights are another man's existential threat.
organization that monitors Turkey's operations in the Kurdistan Region, told Rudaw last month that ~~Ottoman~~ Turkish forces had targeted 82 sites in the Kurdistan Region since the beginning of this year. In these attacks, eight non-combatants were killed and three others were maimed.

According to CPT data, Ankara has killed at least 147 people and injured 219 since 2015. During this period, 158 villages were abandoned because life there had become impossible. About 600 others are under threat of being emptied as well.

The US consulate in Erbil told Rudaw English in mid-August that it condemned "any loss of civilian life" in the dronezaps in Sulaimani and called on Turkey to coordinate cross-border operations with authorities in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.

During his first visit to Iraq and the Kurdistan Region as Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan last month called on Iraqi authorities to recognize the PKK as a terrorist organization.

~~Ottoman~~ Turkish state media on Saturday claimed that a PKK fighter, Rezan Gungen, was killed by ~~Ottoman~~ Turkish forces in Sulaimani province. The PKK had announced his death on August 10, saying he was killed four days earlier on Mount Qandil.

Link

Iraq

Iraq: suicide bomber kills 25 west of Baghdad

2008-08-24

A suicide bomber blew himself up Sunday in the midst of a celebration to welcome home an Iraqi detainee released from U.S. custody, killing at least 25 people, Iraqi officials said.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, announced the arrest of an al-Qaida in Iraq figure who allegedly planned the 2006 kidnapping of American journalist Jill Carroll one of the highest-profile attacks against Westerners in Iraq.

The suicide attack occurred inside one of several tents set up outside a house in the Abu Ghraib area on Baghdad's western outskirts, according to residents and police. It was unclear if the former detainee was among the casualties.

A woman who was wounded but declined to give her name for security reasons said she was preparing food behind the tents when the blast occurred at about 9 p.m., knocking her and her three young children off their feet.

Residents and police said Ayyid Salim al-Zubaie, a local sheik in the mainly Sunni area, had invited dozens of guests to a banquet in honor of his son, who was released earlier in the day from Camp Bucca in southern Iraq. Residents said the detainee-son had quarreled with al-Qaida members while in detention and may have been the target of the attack.

The guests also included several members of the local awakening council, a U.S.-allied group that has turned against al-Qaida.

Yassir al-Jumaili, a doctor at the hospital in nearby Fallujah where most of the wounded were taken, gave the death toll as 25 and said at least 29 other people were wounded.

The blast was a grim reminder of the dangers still facing Iraqis despite a sharp decrease in violence after the 2007 U.S. troop buildup, a Sunni decision to join forces with the Americans against al-Qaida and a Shiite militia cease-fire.

The announcement of the arrest of Salim Abdullah Ashur al-Shujayri, also known as Abu Othman, was a major breakthrough in a series of kidnappings. He was captured Aug. 11 in Baghdad and accused of being "the planner behind the kidnapping" of Carroll, a Christian Science Monitor reporter who was seized Jan. 7, 2006 and released three months later, according to the military.

The statement also said al-Shujayri's associates were involved in the kidnappings of Christian peace activists and British aid worker Margaret Hassan, but did not elaborate.

Kidnappings of Westerners forced foreigners to flee Iraq or take refuge in heavily guarded compounds, diminishing the ability of aid groups and journalists to operate. Many of the victims were butchered and their deaths recorded on videotapes distributed to Arab satellite TV stations or posted on the Web.

Hassan, 59, the director of CARE international in Iraq, was abducted in Baghdad in October 2004 and shown on a video pleading for her life, calling on British Prime Minister Tony Blair to withdraw troops from Iraq.

She was killed a month later, but her body was never found. The case drew special attention because Hassan, who was married to an Iraqi, had lived in the country for 30 years and spent nearly half her life helping Iraqis.

Four men from the Chicago-based group, Christian Peacemaker Teams, disappeared Nov. 26, 2005, in Baghdad and videotapes later showed them in captivity. One of the hostages, American Tom Fox, 54, of Clear Brook, Va., was found shot dead. The other three two Canadians and a Briton were later rescued.

Carroll was seized in west Baghdad and her interpreter was killed. The kidnappers, a formerly unknown group calling itself the Revenge Brigade, demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq. U.S. officials freed some female detainees but said the decision was unrelated to the demands.

The statement said U.S. troops also captured another al-Qaida figure Ali Rash Nasir Jiyad al-Shammari on Aug. 17 in Baghdad. He was accused of being a senior adviser for the terror network and funneling money, weapons and explosives to insurgents in the capital "during its most active operational period in early 2007," the military said. Al-Shammari, also known as Abu Tiba, personally approved targets for car and suicide bombings targeting Iraqi civilians, the military said.

The military statement said al-Qaida in Iraq conducted almost 300 bombings, killing more than 1,500 civilians and wounding more than twice that many in 2007, compared with 28 attacks that killed 125 Iraqi civilians in the first half of this year.

"The capture of Abu Tiba and Abu Othman eliminates two of the few remaining experienced leaders in the AQI network," said military spokesman Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll.

Also Sunday, the U.S. military said a 13-year-old girl wearing a bomb-laden vest surrendered to Iraqi police in Baqouba rather than blow herself up. She led police to a second suicide vest and was detained, the military said. Women have increasingly been recruited by insurgents to carry out attacks because it's easier for them to evade security checks.

Link

Fifth Column

Peace Nazis equate U.S. troops with terrorists

2006-04-06

"We kill the young, along with their mothers and fathers, in acts of terrorism every week. We use 'deadly force' in an ideological battle, just as insurgents and terrorists organizations do. Does it matter to the dead and injured that we claim to do so as 'liberators'?"

Texans for Peace, describing the U.S. military in Iraq

There are, it seems, some things that self-described advocates of peace are willing to fight about. Expose an uncomfortable truth about their beliefs, and the peace brigades are more than happy to go on the warpath.

That's what happened after I wrote a recent column criticizing the organization Christian Peacemaker Teams for its lack of gratitude to coalition forces who rescued three of its members from a terrorist safe house near Baghdad.

As I noted, the original CPT statement was filled with denunciations of British and American forces in Iraq, but contained not a single word of thanks to the individuals who risked their lives to save those of the Christian Peacemakers.

Christian Peacemakers Teams issued an addendum acknowledging, "We have been so overwhelmed and overjoyed ... that we have not adequately thanked the people involved with freeing them." Give the group credit for at least admitting its error.

Texans for Peace, on the other hand, is still clinging to the fantasy that the CPT hostages were "released" presumably by the same kind folks who murdered American hostage Tom Fox rather than freed by American, British and Iraqi troops.

"3 Peacemakers friends released" is the headline Texans for Peace maintains on its Web site. Rather than correct a single word, the peace group went on the attack against me for drawing attention to its misleading headline, labeling me an anti-Muslim bigot and suggesting I should not write about events in Iraq or Sudan.

Why would Texans for Peace be so belligerent about using language that reflects favorably on the hostage-takers while discrediting the role of military rescuers?

It might be because Texans for Peace doesn't want anyone to believe the military is capable of doing anything positive. On the contrary, the American military, indeed all Americans, are guilty of being baby killers. "American soldiers, directed by Commander-in-Chief Bush are killing babies," the group says, "and as citizens of the U.S. we share the blame."

About the "release" of the three CPT hostages, Texans for Peace explains elsewhere: "Details of how they were found, who their captors actually were (none was found at the site), and why they were taken in the first place, and who actually murdered Tom Fox still need to be investigated."

Texans for Peace founder Charles Jackson elaborated the point on the All Things Conservative blog in a discussion about the subsequent release this time the word is accurate of reporter Jill Carroll:

"There are many undercover operations going on in Iraq, by groups from a variety of foreign nations, including the U.S. Since she, and the CPT hostages, were taken by a 'previously unknown group' and no hostage takers were found in either instance, a great deal is still unknown as to the identity and motives of the kidnappers and who, if what, was behind it."

Follow the line of reasoning here. There's no moral difference between terrorists who behead captives and set off bombs to deliberately and ruthlessly murder civilians and American soldiers, Marines and airmen fighting those terrorists who inadvertently and tragically kill civilians.

And don't be so certain those previously unknown "terrorists" are who they say they are. The United States wink, wink has undercover operations going on Iraq.

As I have written for more than three years, there are principled reasons to oppose the use of military force in Iraq. And I admire the dedication of people who are willing to risk their own lives and spend their own money to advance those principles in a war zone.

What's not admirable is an ideological agenda that turns hostage takers into hostage releasers, murderers into martyrs and men and women fighting to save lives into baby killers.

Link

Great White North

Canadian special forces were involved in Iraq rescue

2006-03-26

While Canadians rejoiced at the news that two of their citizens were rescued from captivity in Iraq, some were surprised to learn Canadian special forces were involved in the mission and curious as to how many troops are on the ground.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper told reporters Thursday that a handful of Canadian troops have been stationed in Iraq since the beginning of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation, which is still widely unpopular at home.

But he insisted the special forces who helped rescue Canadians James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden, along with Briton Norman Kember, were in Iraq only temporarily with the express goal of obtaining the hostages' release.

The former Liberal Party government declined in 2003 to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq unless it came under the U.N. umbrella, and many Canadians have been critical of U.S. methods in Washington's war on terror.

Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said about 20 Canadian troops and other personnel were in Iraq working quietly since shortly after the kidnappings of the Christian Peacemaker Teams workers on Nov. 26.

"We were there with our very best," he told The Globe and Mail for Friday editions. "We had everyone fully engaged in this operation from day one." The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, intelligence officers and diplomats were also involved, he said.

"Canada should not (be) and is not passive when it comes to its own citizens and the protection of their lives," MacKay said.

It is believed that members of Canada's elite and secretive Joint Task Force 2 were also involved, but the government would neither confirm nor deny this.

Harper did confirm Thursday, shortly after the men were rescued, that an unspecified number of Canadians have been embedded with coalition forces since the beginning of the war.

"I'm not free to say anything more than that because this involves national security," he said. He denied Canadian troops were involved in the war, however, saying: "Any involvement that Canada has had on the ground in this particular matter was obviously targeted simply at the issue of Canadian hostages."

Canadian Defense spokeswoman Lt. Morgan Bailey told The Associated Press on Friday that only a handful of Canadian troops were on the ground in Iraq. She said one soldier is serving with a U.N. assistance team helping to draft a new constitution and coordinate humanitarian operations; three other Canadian soldiers are on an exchange with British forces.

"They do their normal job, only with the British unit," she said. "If their job is to be an engineer, they would do that job with the British."

But she declined to say whether there were special forces in Iraq.

"It's our policy not to speak about special operations abroad," she said.

In March 2003, when Parliament was debating whether to send troops to Iraq - some Conservatives believed it was imperative to help the Bush administration remove Saddam Hussein from power - several MPs said special forces had secretly been on the ground in Afghanistan, though Prime Minister Jean Chretien's government denied it.

Some Canadians were also surprised to learn that a dozen troops had been embedded with British and U.S. troops during the invasion of Iraq, in what are known as training exchanges.

Eric Walton, foreign affairs critic for the Green Party of Canada, said he didn't think most Canadians would oppose Canadian Forces in Iraq to help their own.

"My feeling is, you don't need permission for a rescue mission, if it's in and out," Walton said. "But the issue I have a problem with is the way the invasion occurred, against international law, and I think Canada should have taken a stand and pulled its troops out of those exchanges."

John Pike, a defense analyst and director of GlobalSecurity.org, a military policy think tank in Alexandria, Va., asked: What's the big deal?

"It would seem to me that the scandal would have been if they hadn't been there," Pike said. "The lives of Canadian nationals were at stake. If there had been no Canadians involved in this and it had come to grief, then the outrage would have been: `You allowed trigger-happy American cowboys to kill our people.'"

He said it is common for countries to send their special forces quietly to train in live combat situations, as the experience is invaluable.

"I certainly have the sense that there is a much larger special operations presence in Iraq than is widely understood," Pike said. "This type of combat experience is precious."

Link

Iraq

Iraq unloads on CPT

2006-03-25

TORONTO -- Iraq's embassy to Canada lashed out at the Christian Peacemaker Teams Friday, calling them "phony pacifists" and "dupes" after the anti-war group responded to the rescue of three of its kidnapped activists by condemning the U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq.

In a statement obtained by the National Post, the Iraqi embassy called CPT "willfully ignorant" and "outrageous," and accused the Chicago-based group of being on the side of anti-democratic forces in Iraq.

"The Christian Peacemaker Teams practises the kind of politics that automatically nominate them as dupes for jihadism and fascism," the embassy's statement said.

"The statement shows they even share the rhetoric of the jihadists, even if they do it out of naivete. Despite their claimed affinity for 'non-violence,' this is false.

"Politically, they are on the other side of this war. Christian Peacemaker Teams are objectively on the side of the fascists, Saddam Hussein's loyalists and al-Qaida in Iraq.

"It is abundantly clear that Christian Peacemaker Teams are opposed to and, in effect, at war with Iraqi democrats, Americans, the British, and the rest of the multi-national Coalition."

I wonder what they think of McCain & Feingold.

Link

Iraq

Released hostages refuse to help their rescuers

2006-03-25

The three peace activists freed by an SAS-led coalition force after being held hostage in Iraq for four months refused to co-operate fully with an intelligence unit sent to debrief them, a security source claimed yesterday. The claim has infuriated those searching for other hostages.

Neither the men nor the Canadian group that sent them to Iraq have thanked the people who saved them in any of their public statements. One of them, Norman Kember, 74, a retired physics professor, of Pinner, north-west London, was in Kuwait last night and was expected to return to Britain today. He is understood to have given some helpful information. He provided details of the semi-rural area north-west of Baghdad where he was held and confirmed that his captors were criminals, rather than insurgents. Their motive was believed to be money.

The two Canadians kidnapped with Mr Kember - Harmeet Sooden, 32, and Jim Loney, 41 - were said to have been co-operative at first but less so on arriving at the British embassy in Baghdad after being given the opportunity to wash, eat and rest.

Gratitude faded mighty quick, didn't it. Plus it was an embassy bed, embassy bath and embassy food.

Previous hostages have been questioned on everything from what shoes their kidnappers wore to the number of mobile phones they had. The pacifist Christian Peacemaker Teams with which the men were visiting Iraq is opposed to the coalition's presence and has accused it of illegally detaining thousands of Iraqis.

Jan Benvie, 51, an Edinburgh teacher who is due to go to Iraq with the organisation this summer, said: "We make clear that if we are kidnapped we do not want there to be force or any form of violence used to release us."

It's the moral part of us that causes us to rescue hostages, something you wouldn't understand.

Although the CPTs has welcomed the men's release, it has not thanked the rescuers in any of its statements. It blamed the kidnapping on the presence of foreign troops in the country, which was "responsible for so much pain and suffering in Iraq today". When told how angry the coalition was feeling, Claire Evans, a spokesman for the CPTs in America, said: "We are extremely grateful to everybody who had a role leading to the men's release."

Then she went back to meowing.

Mr Kember, in a statement through the embassy, said: "I have had the opportunity to have a shave, relax in the bath and a good English breakfast. I am very much looking forward to getting home to British soil and to being reunited with my family." He did not publicly thank his rescuers.

Gen Sir Mike Jackson, the chief of the defence staff, told Channel 4 News: "I am slightly saddened that there does not seem to have been a note of gratitude for the soldiers who risked their lives to save those lives."

Asked if he meant that Mr Kember had not said thank you, he said: "I hope he has and I have missed it."

It emerged that about 50 soldiers, led by the SAS, including men from 1 Bn the Parachute Regiment and the Royal Marines, as well as American and Canadian special forces, entered the kidnap building at dawn.

Canadian special forces in Iraq? That twitched the surprise meter.

A deal had been struck with a man detained the previous night who was one of the leaders of the kidnappers. He was allowed a telephone call to warn his henchmen to leave the kidnap house. When the troops moved in and found the prisoners alive, they also let him go as promised.

Link

International-UN-NGOs

Wretchard on the "Christian Peacemaker Teams"

2006-03-24

EFL'd from a very long piece which you should go and read in its entirety 'cause, like everything this man writes, it's incisive as all get out.

We judge figures by their actions under stress; note their choices; form some estimate of their capacity for truth; their ability to recognize quality even in their enemies. In the statement following their release Christian Peacemaker Teams have shown their quality by completely airbrushing out of the account of their rescue the fact it was performed by multinational forces. In terms of truthfulness, the statement of the CPT is in a class with that of Maurice Thorez, head of the French Communist Party, who described the Liberation of Paris without once naming LeClerc, Patton, Eisenhower or even de Gaulle. . . .

. . . Now I can see that the Christian Peacemaker Teams were right to admire such as those who even one of their own described as criminal gangs. For I would much rather throw in with ruffians who still had a perverse sense of criminal honor and were willing to come to the aid of their fellows than entrust myself to people paralyzed with their own sense of sanctity, full of their own sense of righteousness. They have forbidden any attempts to visit retribution and justice upon their captors. And if they know anything more about this criminal gang they are unlikely to share it with the Coalition. The Washington Post reported shortly after CPT hostage Tom Fox was killed:

Members of the Langley Hill Friends Meeting, a peace group in northern Virginia to which Fox belonged, read a statement he co-wrote in October 2004 in which he shunned violence, even to rescue him should he ever be kidnapped. Members of the Langley Hill Friends Meeting, a peace group in northern Virginia to which Fox belonged, read a statement he co-wrote in October 2004 in which he shunned violence, even to rescue him should he ever be kidnapped. "We reject violence to punish anyone who harms us," said Doug Smith, quoting Fox, in a statement read to reporters at the group's headquarters in McLean, Virginia.

If I have it aright, the CPT would not on principle -- if the word can be perverted thus -- have placed a call, if they could, to save Tom Fox as he was being tortured to death because it might bring Multinational Forces rushing to violent rescue, an act they would have no part of. Yet they saw no contradiction in precipitating this absurd situation by their intentional presence in Iraq and by trailing their coat in the most dangerous neighborhoods; nor did they think it ethically consistent to refrain from telling the Press of the kidnapping though they must have known efforts to rescue them would be made, despite their well-publicized refusals. There is nothing more suspicious than false modesty performed conspicuously upon a stage.

As for myself, the Christian Peacemaker Teams remind me of nothing so much as Fred Phelps. I think that if ever there were an instance of latter-day blasphemy it must be in the CPT's hideous claim that their "only protection was in the power of the love of God and of their Iraqi and international co-workers". Nothing seems further than the truth. They've endangered themselves, the lives of innocent Iraqis and those who hazarded themselves to find and rescue them for the sake of their own self-righteous theater. Vanity, not love is their watchword. Fortune and men's eyes and not God is who they worship.

Link

Iraq

56 Iraqis die in bombings, sectarian violence

2006-03-24

At least 56 Iraqis died in violence on Thursday, including a car bombing that killed 25 people in the third major attack on a police lockup in three days. A suicide car bomber detonated his explosives at the entrance to the Interior Ministry Major Crimes unit in Baghdads central Karradah district, killing 10 civilians and 15 policemen employed there, authorities said.

Guess that gave them a major crime to investigate...

A second car bomb hit a market area outside a Shia Muslim mosque in the mostly mixed Shia-Sunni neighbourhood of Shurta in southwest Baghdad. At least six people were killed and more than 20 wounded, many of them children, police said. Roadside bombs targeting police patrols killed four others two policemen and two bystanders in Baghdad and at least one policeman in Iskandariyah. Police said dozens were wounded. Another two policemen were killed and two were wounded when gunmen ambushed their convoy in north Baghdad, an attack that police said was an aborted attempt to free detainees who were being transferred to the northern city of Mosul.

Elsewhere throughout the capital, two police were killed in gun battles with insurgents and two civilians a private contractor and power plant employee were gunned down in drive-by shootings. Fourteen more bodies were found in the continuing string of shadowy sectarian killings: six in the capital and eight brought in by US forces to a hospital in Fallujah, 65 kilometres west of Baghdad, police said. Back in the capital, a mortar round fell on a house wounding three civilians, police Lt Ziad Hassan said. Another civilian was seriously wounded by an Iraqi army patrol that was shooting in the air to clear traffic in the western neighbourhood of Yarmouk, police said.

In a lightning operation, US and British forces on Thursday rescued three Western hostages held captive in Iraq for almost four months. The three aid workers from the Christian Peacemaker Teams Canadians Harmeet Sooden, 32, and Jim Loney, 41, and Briton Norman Kember, 74 were found together in a house in western Baghdad. They were bound, but the house was otherwise empty and not a shot was fired. The raid was put together in just three hours after US forces obtained information from a detainee about the location of the hostages, US-led coalition spokesman Major General Rick Lynch told reporters. Their US colleague Tom Fox, seized with them in Baghdad on November 26, was slain two weeks ago and his body found dumped in the city.

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Iraq

Troops in Iraq Free 3 Western Hostages

2006-03-23

Britain says multinational troops in Iraq have freed three Western peace activists held hostage since November.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw announced in London that the hostages - Briton Norman Kember and Canadians James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden - were freed during a military operation Thursday.

A fourth man seized at the same time, an American, was found shot to death in Baghdad earlier this month.

Straw said today's rescue operation followed "weeks and weeks" of planning, but he released few details. He said the British hostage is now in Baghdad in "reasonable condition," but that the two Canadians are hospitalized.

The three men, members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, were abducted in Baghdad on November fourth, along with their American colleague, Tom Fox. A little known group, the Swords of Righteousness Brigades, claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

Separately, a suicide bombing at a security checkpoint in central Baghdad today killed at least 15 people and wounded more than 30 others. Most of the victims were policemen.

Officials say the bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into a checkpoint outside headquarters of the main criminal unit of the Iraqi police.

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