Nickdfresh
11-23-2004, 11:32 AM
U.S., Iraqi forces hit rebels south of Baghdad
Tuesday, November 23, 2004 Posted: 11:26 AM EST (1626 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a "fresh campaign" on Tuesday against insurgents 50 miles south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.
Iraqi SWAT security teams, backed by elements of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, pushed through Jabella in the Babil province and "captured 32 suspected insurgents, including a number of high-interest individuals, in a series of early-morning raids," the military said in a written statement.
Insurgent attacks increased in northern Babil in a counteroffensive that occurred during the Falluja offensive, according to the statement.
The new operation -- Operation Plymouth Rock -- involves more than 5,000 Iraqi, U.S. and British forces, the statement said.
Insurgents have been arrested in raids, house-to-house searches and at vehicle checkpoints.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have been aided by the 1st Battalion of the British Black Watch Regiment.
Powell: Conference 'consensus'
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Tuesday there appears to be solid support at an international conference on Iraq for that country's elections to be held as scheduled on January 30.
Powell, asked whether conference officials have urged an election delay amid continued violence in Iraq, said "if anything, there is a solid consensus."
Officials of Iraq's interim government were in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Tuesday for the final day of an international conference on the Middle East, including the future of Iraq.
A 14-point communique from the conference in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, was issued by conference participants, despite widely conflicting views about how to move the political process in Iraq forward.
The conference has pitted the United States and Britain against France, Germany and Russia. The two sides have been bitterly divided by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and have found themselves airing their differences at the meeting -- primarily behind closed doors. (Full story)
Clerics killed
An Iraqi cleric was shot and killed near Baquba on Tuesday an official said, the second apparent assassination of a Sunni Muslim imam in as many days.
Unidentified gunmen killed Sheikh Ghalib Ali Latif al-Zuheiri, imam of Qibaa mosque north of Baghdad, in the Dhiyaba area of Miqdadiya, Diyala provincial officials said.
A brother of al-Zuheiri said the gunmen were in an Opel four-door sedan and shot the cleric in the back near his mosque. Al-Zuheiri was dead by the time he arrived at a hospital, his brother said.
Al-Zuheiri was a member of the Association of Muslim Scholars, a group of Sunni clerics which has called for a boycott of Iraq's scheduled transitional national assembly elections, set for January 30.
Also a member of the group was imam Sheikh Faidhy al-Faidhy, who was fatally shot as he left his home in Mosul on Monday, witnesses said.
Al-Faidhy died on the operating table, doctors at Jamhoriya hospital said.
Al-Faidhy was the imam of al-Rudah al-Mouhammadiya mosque in the northwestern part of the city.
His brother, Mohammed Bashar al-Faidhy, is the spokesman for the Association of Muslim Scholars in Baghdad.
Other developments
Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission has approved 180 political parties to run candidates in the January 30 elections, commission spokesman Dr. Fareed Ayar said Tuesday. The Iraqi Islamic Party has been approved to participate in the election, Ayar said. In the past, the party has threatened to refuse to take part as protest against the government-supported anti-insurgent campaign in Falluja.
Iraqi Red Crescent Society officials said they plan to visit Falluja on Wednesday to assess humanitarian needs and to coordinate activities there. Security concerns have blocked the group from delivering supplies to Falluja since the two-week anti-insurgent offensive there began November 7. As major fighting has virtually ended, Iraq's interim government has begun delivering relief supplies to the city.
Iraqi and U.S. forces detained 38 people Tuesday during a raid near Kirkuk in northern Iraq, according to a U.S. military statement from the Combined Press Information Center. The forces confiscated a variety of weapons and munitions, including assault rifles, machine guns, pistols, night-vision equipment, police radios, binoculars and various identification cards, the statement said.
Authorities discovered an explosive device Monday aboard an Iraqi domestic commercial flight, according to an advisory from the U.S. Embassy in the capital, prompting a security clampdown at Baghdad International Airport. "American citizens are encouraged ... to determine whether travel on commercial carriers servicing Iraq is necessary at this time," a U.S. State Department release said.
Maj. Gen. Mohammed Kheiri Barhawi, a former Mosul police chief who was fired two weeks ago, was arrested November 13 in the Kurdish territory of Arbil, said Khasro Goran, deputy governor of the Nineveh province on Monday. Barhawi is under investigation for allegedly allowing insurgents to take over Mosul police stations during an uprising, Goran said.
CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.
Tuesday, November 23, 2004 Posted: 11:26 AM EST (1626 GMT)
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. and Iraqi forces launched a "fresh campaign" on Tuesday against insurgents 50 miles south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.
Iraqi SWAT security teams, backed by elements of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, pushed through Jabella in the Babil province and "captured 32 suspected insurgents, including a number of high-interest individuals, in a series of early-morning raids," the military said in a written statement.
Insurgent attacks increased in northern Babil in a counteroffensive that occurred during the Falluja offensive, according to the statement.
The new operation -- Operation Plymouth Rock -- involves more than 5,000 Iraqi, U.S. and British forces, the statement said.
Insurgents have been arrested in raids, house-to-house searches and at vehicle checkpoints.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have been aided by the 1st Battalion of the British Black Watch Regiment.
Powell: Conference 'consensus'
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Tuesday there appears to be solid support at an international conference on Iraq for that country's elections to be held as scheduled on January 30.
Powell, asked whether conference officials have urged an election delay amid continued violence in Iraq, said "if anything, there is a solid consensus."
Officials of Iraq's interim government were in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Tuesday for the final day of an international conference on the Middle East, including the future of Iraq.
A 14-point communique from the conference in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, was issued by conference participants, despite widely conflicting views about how to move the political process in Iraq forward.
The conference has pitted the United States and Britain against France, Germany and Russia. The two sides have been bitterly divided by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and have found themselves airing their differences at the meeting -- primarily behind closed doors. (Full story)
Clerics killed
An Iraqi cleric was shot and killed near Baquba on Tuesday an official said, the second apparent assassination of a Sunni Muslim imam in as many days.
Unidentified gunmen killed Sheikh Ghalib Ali Latif al-Zuheiri, imam of Qibaa mosque north of Baghdad, in the Dhiyaba area of Miqdadiya, Diyala provincial officials said.
A brother of al-Zuheiri said the gunmen were in an Opel four-door sedan and shot the cleric in the back near his mosque. Al-Zuheiri was dead by the time he arrived at a hospital, his brother said.
Al-Zuheiri was a member of the Association of Muslim Scholars, a group of Sunni clerics which has called for a boycott of Iraq's scheduled transitional national assembly elections, set for January 30.
Also a member of the group was imam Sheikh Faidhy al-Faidhy, who was fatally shot as he left his home in Mosul on Monday, witnesses said.
Al-Faidhy died on the operating table, doctors at Jamhoriya hospital said.
Al-Faidhy was the imam of al-Rudah al-Mouhammadiya mosque in the northwestern part of the city.
His brother, Mohammed Bashar al-Faidhy, is the spokesman for the Association of Muslim Scholars in Baghdad.
Other developments
Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission has approved 180 political parties to run candidates in the January 30 elections, commission spokesman Dr. Fareed Ayar said Tuesday. The Iraqi Islamic Party has been approved to participate in the election, Ayar said. In the past, the party has threatened to refuse to take part as protest against the government-supported anti-insurgent campaign in Falluja.
Iraqi Red Crescent Society officials said they plan to visit Falluja on Wednesday to assess humanitarian needs and to coordinate activities there. Security concerns have blocked the group from delivering supplies to Falluja since the two-week anti-insurgent offensive there began November 7. As major fighting has virtually ended, Iraq's interim government has begun delivering relief supplies to the city.
Iraqi and U.S. forces detained 38 people Tuesday during a raid near Kirkuk in northern Iraq, according to a U.S. military statement from the Combined Press Information Center. The forces confiscated a variety of weapons and munitions, including assault rifles, machine guns, pistols, night-vision equipment, police radios, binoculars and various identification cards, the statement said.
Authorities discovered an explosive device Monday aboard an Iraqi domestic commercial flight, according to an advisory from the U.S. Embassy in the capital, prompting a security clampdown at Baghdad International Airport. "American citizens are encouraged ... to determine whether travel on commercial carriers servicing Iraq is necessary at this time," a U.S. State Department release said.
Maj. Gen. Mohammed Kheiri Barhawi, a former Mosul police chief who was fired two weeks ago, was arrested November 13 in the Kurdish territory of Arbil, said Khasro Goran, deputy governor of the Nineveh province on Monday. Barhawi is under investigation for allegedly allowing insurgents to take over Mosul police stations during an uprising, Goran said.
CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.