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May 9, 2005 The New York Times
U.S. Forces Mount Offensive Near Syrian Border With Iraq
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
and TERENCE NEILAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/international/middleeast/09cnd-iraq.html?ei=5094&en=036929e346b855f6&hp=&ex=1115697600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 9 - A combination of United States forces are conducting combat operations in western Iraq near the Syrian border, an area known as a haven for insurgents and smugglers, the American military said today.
Initial reports indicate that a significant number of insurgents, some of them foreign fighters, have been killed in the first 24 hours of the operation in northwestern Anbar Province, the military said in a brief statement. The Associated Press said 75 militants had been killed.
The operation, in an area north of the Euphrates River, in Al Jazira Desert, involves marines, sailors and soldiers from Regimental Combat Team-2 of the Second Marine Division. Coalition and Marine Corps aircraft are also been used in the operation.
More than 1,000 American troops supported by fighter jets and helicopter gunships attacked villages on Sunday in and around Obeidi, a city near the Euphrates not far from the Syrian border, an embedded correspondent of The Chicago Tribune reported today.
The paper quoted marine officials as saying that the operation, one of the largest ground operations by American forces since the fall of Falluja last fall, is expected to last several days.
In Baghdad today, a suicide bomber attacked a police convoy in the Saidiya neighborhood, killing two officers and two civilians, an Interior Ministry official said. Six policemen and two civilians were wounded.
The military also reported today that a Task Force Liberty soldier was killed by small-arms fire near Samarra on Sunday afternoon.
Today's violence follows the killing of eight American servicemen over the weekend.
In one ambush, insurgents took over a hospital in Haditha, a haven west of Baghdad for the militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and killed three marines and a sailor. The American military also said it had captured the mastermind behind both the attack on Abu Ghraib prison a month ago and the wave of car bombings that killed 40 Iraqis in greater Baghdad on April 29.
At the same time, in a political setback, one of four Sunni Arabs picked this weekend to join Iraq's new Shiite-controlled cabinet abruptly rejected the job on Sunday, saying he first learned of his selection from a television news report on Saturday night. He added that he felt his selection would further a quota system for Sunnis that would only make sectarian problems worse.
In the capital, the National Assembly approved six new cabinet ministers on Sunday, including the unwilling candidate, Hashim al-Shibli, who had been named human rights minister. But on a day when Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari had hoped to complete his cabinet and end the contentious political battles that delayed his government, the rejection was another embarrassment.
One day earlier, Dr. Jaafari had declared at an afternoon news conference that all six nominees had already been approved by President Jalal Talabani and his two vice presidents. But Mr. Shibli, in an interview, said he did not formally learn that he had been picked until just before the confirmation vote on Sunday, leading him to believe that his selection was more symbolism than substance.
"I heard about it watching TV," he said. "No one talked to me or asked me about it before. This morning they called me and tried to congratulate me on my 'new job,' but I said no. I refused this because this is sectarianism, and I don't believe in sectarianism. I believe in democracy."
Insurgents have killed about 300 people, including 200 Iraqi police officers and troops, since Dr. Jaafari announced a majority of his cabinet 11 days ago. American and Iraqi officials say the attacks have been coordinated to undermine confidence in Dr. Jaafari's new administration as it tackles a revolt fought largely by Sunni Arabs loyal to Saddam Hussein, who favored Sunnis and brutally oppressed the Shiites and Kurds who dominate the new government.
Sunni Arabs largely boycotted the Jan. 30 election, but some Sunni political leaders say they are angered by their limited role in Dr. Jaafari's new government.
The most important Sunni cabinet post, minister of defense, went to a onetime officer in Mr. Hussein's feared General Security Directorate who fled Iraq under the threat of a death sentence. The man, Sadoon al-Dulaimi, left Iraq in the 1980's, became a sociologist in Britain and came back after Mr. Hussein was ousted two years ago.
Mr. Dulaimi is a native of Ramadi, a center of the insurgency. He is a secular Sunni born into one of the most influential tribes in Iraq. After Mr. Hussein's fall, Mr. Dulaimi ran the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies, which published polls last year showing that Iraqis were increasingly upset with the American occupation. He was highly critical of the American-led occupation administration, the Coalition Provisional Authority.
The Oil Ministry post went to Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, who served as oil minister in the occupation administration and is the son of a prominent Shiite cleric. Mr. Uloum pledged to end gasoline shortages and increase oil exports to 1.75 million barrels per day, the level they were one year ago. Current exports are about 1.5 million barrels per day.
With poor security ruling out most foreign investment, Iraq must rely on exports to finance the government. But so far production has lagged far behind expectations despite improvements paid for by the United States.
In Karma, an American marine was killed Saturday by a homemade bomb. On Sunday, two soldiers were killed by a bomb near Khaldiya, west of Falluja. One soldier was also killed and another wounded Sunday near Samarra, 70 miles north of Baghdad, when a bomb struck a convoy, the military said.
Gunmen in Baghdad killed a Transportation Ministry official, Yasser Khudair Almaaini. He and his driver were shot to death on Sunday, a government official said.
That shooting followed an attack on an American private security convoy by suicide bombers on Saturday morning that killed two American security contractors and at least 22 Iraqis and wounded dozens, including girls from a nearby school.
The security company, CTU Consulting of North Carolina, identified the two American security contractors who were killed as Brandon Thomas and Todd Venette. Five other CTU employees were also wounded, and four have been treated and released, the company said.
The American military said soldiers had captured Amar Adnan Muhammad Hamzah al-Zubaydi, or Abu al-Abbas, a terrorist affiliated with Mr. Zarqawi and the "key planner" behind the April 2 attack on Abu Ghraib and the April 29 bombings. Officials said he was captured Thursday and had confessed to planning the assassination of an official.
"In addition to his involvement in assassination plans, Abu al-Abbas provided explosive devices, assisted in the preparation of vehicles, selected targets, coordinated for suicide bombers, facilitated foreign fighters into Iraq and orchestrated the execution of several bombing operations in recent weeks," the military said.
Mr. Abbas stole nearly 400 rockets and more than 720 cases of explosives from an ammunition dump in 2003 and buried them on his farm or near it, the military said. He provided some explosives to Umar al-Kurdi, described by the military as the bomber who planned about 75 percent of the car bombings in Baghdad before his capture on Jan. 15.
Richard A. Oppel Jr. reported from Baghdad for this article and Terence Neilan from New York. Khalid al-Ansary and Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedy contributed from Baghdad.
U.S. Forces Mount Offensive Near Syrian Border With Iraq
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
and TERENCE NEILAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/international/middleeast/09cnd-iraq.html?ei=5094&en=036929e346b855f6&hp=&ex=1115697600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 9 - A combination of United States forces are conducting combat operations in western Iraq near the Syrian border, an area known as a haven for insurgents and smugglers, the American military said today.
Initial reports indicate that a significant number of insurgents, some of them foreign fighters, have been killed in the first 24 hours of the operation in northwestern Anbar Province, the military said in a brief statement. The Associated Press said 75 militants had been killed.
The operation, in an area north of the Euphrates River, in Al Jazira Desert, involves marines, sailors and soldiers from Regimental Combat Team-2 of the Second Marine Division. Coalition and Marine Corps aircraft are also been used in the operation.
More than 1,000 American troops supported by fighter jets and helicopter gunships attacked villages on Sunday in and around Obeidi, a city near the Euphrates not far from the Syrian border, an embedded correspondent of The Chicago Tribune reported today.
The paper quoted marine officials as saying that the operation, one of the largest ground operations by American forces since the fall of Falluja last fall, is expected to last several days.
In Baghdad today, a suicide bomber attacked a police convoy in the Saidiya neighborhood, killing two officers and two civilians, an Interior Ministry official said. Six policemen and two civilians were wounded.
The military also reported today that a Task Force Liberty soldier was killed by small-arms fire near Samarra on Sunday afternoon.
Today's violence follows the killing of eight American servicemen over the weekend.
In one ambush, insurgents took over a hospital in Haditha, a haven west of Baghdad for the militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and killed three marines and a sailor. The American military also said it had captured the mastermind behind both the attack on Abu Ghraib prison a month ago and the wave of car bombings that killed 40 Iraqis in greater Baghdad on April 29.
At the same time, in a political setback, one of four Sunni Arabs picked this weekend to join Iraq's new Shiite-controlled cabinet abruptly rejected the job on Sunday, saying he first learned of his selection from a television news report on Saturday night. He added that he felt his selection would further a quota system for Sunnis that would only make sectarian problems worse.
In the capital, the National Assembly approved six new cabinet ministers on Sunday, including the unwilling candidate, Hashim al-Shibli, who had been named human rights minister. But on a day when Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari had hoped to complete his cabinet and end the contentious political battles that delayed his government, the rejection was another embarrassment.
One day earlier, Dr. Jaafari had declared at an afternoon news conference that all six nominees had already been approved by President Jalal Talabani and his two vice presidents. But Mr. Shibli, in an interview, said he did not formally learn that he had been picked until just before the confirmation vote on Sunday, leading him to believe that his selection was more symbolism than substance.
"I heard about it watching TV," he said. "No one talked to me or asked me about it before. This morning they called me and tried to congratulate me on my 'new job,' but I said no. I refused this because this is sectarianism, and I don't believe in sectarianism. I believe in democracy."
Insurgents have killed about 300 people, including 200 Iraqi police officers and troops, since Dr. Jaafari announced a majority of his cabinet 11 days ago. American and Iraqi officials say the attacks have been coordinated to undermine confidence in Dr. Jaafari's new administration as it tackles a revolt fought largely by Sunni Arabs loyal to Saddam Hussein, who favored Sunnis and brutally oppressed the Shiites and Kurds who dominate the new government.
Sunni Arabs largely boycotted the Jan. 30 election, but some Sunni political leaders say they are angered by their limited role in Dr. Jaafari's new government.
The most important Sunni cabinet post, minister of defense, went to a onetime officer in Mr. Hussein's feared General Security Directorate who fled Iraq under the threat of a death sentence. The man, Sadoon al-Dulaimi, left Iraq in the 1980's, became a sociologist in Britain and came back after Mr. Hussein was ousted two years ago.
Mr. Dulaimi is a native of Ramadi, a center of the insurgency. He is a secular Sunni born into one of the most influential tribes in Iraq. After Mr. Hussein's fall, Mr. Dulaimi ran the Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies, which published polls last year showing that Iraqis were increasingly upset with the American occupation. He was highly critical of the American-led occupation administration, the Coalition Provisional Authority.
The Oil Ministry post went to Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum, who served as oil minister in the occupation administration and is the son of a prominent Shiite cleric. Mr. Uloum pledged to end gasoline shortages and increase oil exports to 1.75 million barrels per day, the level they were one year ago. Current exports are about 1.5 million barrels per day.
With poor security ruling out most foreign investment, Iraq must rely on exports to finance the government. But so far production has lagged far behind expectations despite improvements paid for by the United States.
In Karma, an American marine was killed Saturday by a homemade bomb. On Sunday, two soldiers were killed by a bomb near Khaldiya, west of Falluja. One soldier was also killed and another wounded Sunday near Samarra, 70 miles north of Baghdad, when a bomb struck a convoy, the military said.
Gunmen in Baghdad killed a Transportation Ministry official, Yasser Khudair Almaaini. He and his driver were shot to death on Sunday, a government official said.
That shooting followed an attack on an American private security convoy by suicide bombers on Saturday morning that killed two American security contractors and at least 22 Iraqis and wounded dozens, including girls from a nearby school.
The security company, CTU Consulting of North Carolina, identified the two American security contractors who were killed as Brandon Thomas and Todd Venette. Five other CTU employees were also wounded, and four have been treated and released, the company said.
The American military said soldiers had captured Amar Adnan Muhammad Hamzah al-Zubaydi, or Abu al-Abbas, a terrorist affiliated with Mr. Zarqawi and the "key planner" behind the April 2 attack on Abu Ghraib and the April 29 bombings. Officials said he was captured Thursday and had confessed to planning the assassination of an official.
"In addition to his involvement in assassination plans, Abu al-Abbas provided explosive devices, assisted in the preparation of vehicles, selected targets, coordinated for suicide bombers, facilitated foreign fighters into Iraq and orchestrated the execution of several bombing operations in recent weeks," the military said.
Mr. Abbas stole nearly 400 rockets and more than 720 cases of explosives from an ammunition dump in 2003 and buried them on his farm or near it, the military said. He provided some explosives to Umar al-Kurdi, described by the military as the bomber who planned about 75 percent of the car bombings in Baghdad before his capture on Jan. 15.
Richard A. Oppel Jr. reported from Baghdad for this article and Terence Neilan from New York. Khalid al-Ansary and Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedy contributed from Baghdad.
