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Iraq

Protesters Spill Back Onto Bridge in Iraq Capital

2019-11-17

[AnNahar] Anti-government demonstrators spread to a second bridge in the Iraqi capital Saturday after security forces retreated from a key area where they had clashed with protesters, AFP correspondents said. Protesters have occupied Baghdad's Tahrir (Liberation) Square for more than three weeks, demanding the overhaul of a ruling system they see as corrupt and unjust. On Friday night, at least one person was killed and more than a dozen maimed in Tahrir when explosives beneath a parked car detonated, Iraq's state security forces said. The protest movement had spilled over onto four bridges crossing the river Tigris that link east Baghdad to the city's west where government buildings and foreign embassies are based. Security forces retook three of those bridges and nearby districts more than two weeks ago, pinning the protesters back in Tahrir and on al-Jumhuriyah bridge with volleys of tear gas, live ammunition and even machine-gun fire. On Saturday morning, Iraqi units pulled back from some of those areas and crowds of protesters chased them down, resuming their sit-in at the mouth of al-Sinek bridge. "The security forces withdrew to another concrete barrier on al-Sinek," one protester told AFP. An elderly woman, who had travelled from the southern port city of Basra to join the rallies, cheered in support. "You didn't just lose us, you lost all of Iraq!" she said, addressing Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi. "Get out, get out, there's no place for you here. Tonight, we'll be in the Green Zone," she said, referring to the area across the river housing Abdel Mahdi's office, parliament, the US embassy and other key buildings. Dozens climbed up into a large parking complex near the bridge, unfurling a sign in support of demonstrators in nearby Tahrir. The morning after Friday's blast, small clusters of men deployed around the square to search all those entering it. "We had a security breach yesterday and this explosion happened," said Abu Karrar al-Basrawi, a middle-aged man from Basra volunteering for the search. "But we've multiplied our checkpoints so it doesn't happen again," he told AFP.

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Iraq

AQI 'Intelligence' Leader ID'd Dead

2008-02-20

This may explain why the news releases have been light the past few days. UPDATE: Coalition forces positively identify terrorist killed in operation Sunday BAGHDAD – A terrorist killed during an operation Sunday has been positively identified as Abu Karrar. Karrar, also known as Arkan Khalaf Khudayyir, was a senior intelligence leader involved in the al-Qaeda in Iraq network ... There's an oxymoron for you! ... in Baqouba. He was also a terrorist facilitator for the suicide bombing network in the Diyala River Valley region, which conducts attacks in Baghdad, to include attacks by female suicide bombers. Reports indicate the network has been disrupted by recent successful Coalition operations in the area. Karrar was killed when Coalition forces conducted an operation near Khan Bani Sad Sunday afternoon. As Coalition forces arrived in the target area, they observed Karrar and another suspect fleeing their vehicle. Karrar brandished a weapon with the perceived intent to fire on Coalition forces. The assault force engaged, killing both men. Coalition forces discovered an AK-47 and ammunition in the vehicle, and they destroyed the vehicle to prevent further use for terrorist activity. And so his buddies wouldn't know what information we recovered from it - let them assume Abu and all his stuff just got blown up. "Iraqi and Coalition forces will relentlessly pursue terrorist leaders, like Abu Karrar, who plan al-Qaeda's indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilians," said Maj. Winfield Danielson, MNF-I spokesman.

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Iraq-Jordan

IRAQ RUMOR: Al-Zarqawi was shot in Ramadi

2005-05-26

EFZ: BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents said Wednesday in interviews and Internet statements that the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was struggling with a gunshot wound to the lung, and one of his commanders said al-Zarqawi was receiving oxygen, heightening suspicion that groundwork was being laid for an announcement of al-Zarqawi's replacement or death. Having trouble breathing, is he? Awwwwwwwwww, too bad. Insurgents offered no tangible proof for their second day of reports that al-Zarqawi had suffered a potentially fatal wound. The Jordanian-born guerrilla's fighters and one of his top lieutenants have said he was wounded in an ambush by U.S. Marines and Iraqi forces last weekend around the western city of Ramadi. A U.S. military official, Lt. Col. David Lapan, said Wednesday that he had found no record of such an ambush. The insurgents' accounts suggested at a minimum that steady U.S. and Iraqi military pressure was having an effect on al-Zarqawi's group. In an interview Tuesday, the al-Zarqawi lieutenant, Abu Karrar, described his group as weighing possible foreign or Iraqi successors in case al-Zarqawi died. One view Wednesday among some Iraqi Sunni Muslim insurgents - sometime rivals and allies of foreign fighters such as al-Zarqawi - was that the attrition among his top supporters may have undercut his support within the insurgency. That view ascribed Tuesday's sudden announcement of his grave injury to a power struggle within his group. A leader in al-Zarqawi's organization, identifying himself by the battlefield name Abu Jalal Iraqi, said in an interview Wednesday that al-Zarqawi's health "wasn't easy." "He is wounded in his right lung, in which the bullets crossed and remained in his back," Iraqi said. Slugs stayed in him, along with whatever they carried with them. Excellent chance of infection. Al-Zarqawi, who is about 39, "is being given respiration," the lieutenant said, without elaborating. Hard to run dragging an oxygen tank. Iraqi suggested al-Zarqawi might live to be "a spiritual leader for the group, like Sheikh Ahmed Yassin of Hamas." He referred to the Palestinian cleric who, though partially paralyzed, helped found the Islamic Resistance Movement in the 1980s and remained its spiritual head until his assassination last year. Death by Hellfire Later Wednesday, militant Islamic Web sites later gave accounts similar to Iraqi's, down to a description of al-Zarqawi being treated by Sudanese and Saudi doctors. One site posted a denial of the lung injury.

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