Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
May 22, 2007 By Kirk Semple
ERBIL, Iraq, May 21 — Gunmen ambushed a minibus passing through a troubled area of Diyala Province on Monday and killed five passengers, including a child, an Interior Ministry official said.
The minibus had left the town of Gisaireen in southeastern Diyala when it was attacked outside Hibhib, a village about 12 miles north of Baghdad, the official said. The gunmen sprayed the bus with bullets and part of the vehicle was incinerated, according to the ministry official, who said four passengers were wounded in the attack.
Sunni Arab insurgents have been active in the area around Hibhib. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, was killed in Hibhib by American bombs last year.
The search for three captured American soldiers continued Monday. Col. Michael Kershaw, commander of the Second Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, said American and Iraqi troops continued to find and arrest people who had knowledge of the May 12 ambush that led to the soldiers’ capture. He said the number of detainees believed to have been involved “is in the double digits.”
He also said it was still not clear if any or all of the missing soldiers were still alive.
The attack on the minibus was the deadliest in a day of widely scattered violence around Iraq.
A bomb hidden on a roadway in the Adel neighborhood of Baghdad killed three Iraqi soldiers, the Interior Ministry official said. Shortly afterward, shooting erupted nearby between Iraqi soldiers and the security detail of a top Sunni Arab politician in Baghdad, the authorities said. No casualties were reported.
Gen. Qasim Atta told Agence France-Presse that the soldiers were fired on by security guards of Adnan al-Dulaimi, a prominent Sunni Arab politician, as the soldiers were trying to rescue the victims of the car bomb. “Our force came under fire from the house of Dulaimi, and we responded to the source of the fire,” General Atta told the agency.
But Mr. Dulaimi’s office issued a statement saying that the Iraqi Army soldiers were the provocateurs, firing for no apparent reason at Mr. Dulaimi’s convoy as he pulled into his compound. Mr. Dulaimi is head of the Iraqi Consensus Front, the largest Sunni Arab bloc in Parliament, and an outspoken critic of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and the government’s security forces, which he has accused of abetting Shiite militias in their attacks against the Sunni Arab population.
In the southern port city of Basra, clashes broke out between British soldiers and gunmen linked to the Mahdi Army militia, which follows the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
The fighting began when militia gunmen ambushed a British military supply convoy, destroying a fuel tanker, according to a British military spokesman in Basra. A mob dragged the body of the tanker driver from the burning truck, dancing and whooping in celebration.
In Sheik Khadr, a village west of Mosul, four Iraqi soldiers were killed in what appeared to be a friendly-fire incident involving American forces, according to the spokesman for the Third Iraqi Army Division. There was no immediate comment from the American command.
A police patrol in the southern city of Kut found the bullet-ridden body of a man who used to work as an interpreter for American forces on a nearby base, the authorities said.
In Baghdad, a mortar shell hit the roof of the Parliament building inside the Green Zone, but there were no casualties, officials said.
In a statement to Iraqiya, the state-run television network, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite leaders said he had traveled from Iraq to the United States and finally to Iran for medical treatment for “limited infections” and a “limited tumor.”
The politician, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, did not say what was ailing him, though some Shiite officials have said in published reports that he had traveled to the United States last week to seek help for lung cancer. Mr. Hakim said his condition “is simple and controllable and can be treated.” He added, “According to the doctors, the treatment will not last long, and I will be back as soon as possible to Iraq.”
American forces also reported that they had raided a building northeast of Garma, an insurgent stronghold in Anbar Province, and rescued four men and a boy who were being held captive.
The victims had been “severely beaten with chains, cables and hoses,” the military statement said. “The boy stated the terrorists had hooked electrical wires to his tongue and shocked him.”
Khalid W. Hassan contributed reporting from Baghdad, Damien Cave from Iraq, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Basra, Tikrit, Kut and Mosul.
May 22, 2007 By Kirk Semple
ERBIL, Iraq, May 21 — Gunmen ambushed a minibus passing through a troubled area of Diyala Province on Monday and killed five passengers, including a child, an Interior Ministry official said.
The minibus had left the town of Gisaireen in southeastern Diyala when it was attacked outside Hibhib, a village about 12 miles north of Baghdad, the official said. The gunmen sprayed the bus with bullets and part of the vehicle was incinerated, according to the ministry official, who said four passengers were wounded in the attack.
Sunni Arab insurgents have been active in the area around Hibhib. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, was killed in Hibhib by American bombs last year.
The search for three captured American soldiers continued Monday. Col. Michael Kershaw, commander of the Second Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, said American and Iraqi troops continued to find and arrest people who had knowledge of the May 12 ambush that led to the soldiers’ capture. He said the number of detainees believed to have been involved “is in the double digits.”
He also said it was still not clear if any or all of the missing soldiers were still alive.
The attack on the minibus was the deadliest in a day of widely scattered violence around Iraq.
A bomb hidden on a roadway in the Adel neighborhood of Baghdad killed three Iraqi soldiers, the Interior Ministry official said. Shortly afterward, shooting erupted nearby between Iraqi soldiers and the security detail of a top Sunni Arab politician in Baghdad, the authorities said. No casualties were reported.
Gen. Qasim Atta told Agence France-Presse that the soldiers were fired on by security guards of Adnan al-Dulaimi, a prominent Sunni Arab politician, as the soldiers were trying to rescue the victims of the car bomb. “Our force came under fire from the house of Dulaimi, and we responded to the source of the fire,” General Atta told the agency.
But Mr. Dulaimi’s office issued a statement saying that the Iraqi Army soldiers were the provocateurs, firing for no apparent reason at Mr. Dulaimi’s convoy as he pulled into his compound. Mr. Dulaimi is head of the Iraqi Consensus Front, the largest Sunni Arab bloc in Parliament, and an outspoken critic of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and the government’s security forces, which he has accused of abetting Shiite militias in their attacks against the Sunni Arab population.
In the southern port city of Basra, clashes broke out between British soldiers and gunmen linked to the Mahdi Army militia, which follows the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
The fighting began when militia gunmen ambushed a British military supply convoy, destroying a fuel tanker, according to a British military spokesman in Basra. A mob dragged the body of the tanker driver from the burning truck, dancing and whooping in celebration.
In Sheik Khadr, a village west of Mosul, four Iraqi soldiers were killed in what appeared to be a friendly-fire incident involving American forces, according to the spokesman for the Third Iraqi Army Division. There was no immediate comment from the American command.
A police patrol in the southern city of Kut found the bullet-ridden body of a man who used to work as an interpreter for American forces on a nearby base, the authorities said.
In Baghdad, a mortar shell hit the roof of the Parliament building inside the Green Zone, but there were no casualties, officials said.
In a statement to Iraqiya, the state-run television network, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite leaders said he had traveled from Iraq to the United States and finally to Iran for medical treatment for “limited infections” and a “limited tumor.”
The politician, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, did not say what was ailing him, though some Shiite officials have said in published reports that he had traveled to the United States last week to seek help for lung cancer. Mr. Hakim said his condition “is simple and controllable and can be treated.” He added, “According to the doctors, the treatment will not last long, and I will be back as soon as possible to Iraq.”
American forces also reported that they had raided a building northeast of Garma, an insurgent stronghold in Anbar Province, and rescued four men and a boy who were being held captive.
The victims had been “severely beaten with chains, cables and hoses,” the military statement said. “The boy stated the terrorists had hooked electrical wires to his tongue and shocked him.”
Khalid W. Hassan contributed reporting from Baghdad, Damien Cave from Iraq, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Basra, Tikrit, Kut and Mosul.