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US frees Falluja negotiator after daylong battle
750 UK troops could be deployed in Iraq
Diplomat resigns over Iraq war
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US frees Falluja negotiator after daylong battle
Baghdad, October 18 The interim Iraqi Government has vowed to assault Falluja unless it hands over foreign militants led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, America’s deadliest foe in Iraq, as part of a drive to pacify the country before elections in January. Insurgents trying to undermine the US-backed government struck at fledgling security forces again on Sunday night with a car bomb attack on a Baghdad cafe used by Iraqi police. The US military said eight persons were killed, including a policeman, and 28 wounded, three of them policemen. “God knows what happened to the issue of negotiations because I have been cut off from it for four or five days,” Falluja’s Khaled al-Jumaili said after being freed at 2 a.m. US marines detained the bearded cleric on Friday while he was taking his family out of the city for safety. Residents said Falluja was relatively quiet after fierce battles on Sunday in which the U.S. military said marines used tanks, artillery and airstrikes against insurgents firing machineguns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. “After close air support was requested and several precision-guided munitions were dropped, insurgents were seen putting their mortar tubes into a taxi and pickup trucks then driving to a mosque,” a statement said. Marines did not fire upon the mosque, it said, adding that fighter planes had attacked more than 10 insurgent positions. Hospital officials said a child was among four civilians killed in the fighting. Twelve persons were wounded. Talks aimed at securing the return of Iraqi security forces to the city collapsed last week and suicide bombings inside Baghdad’s Green Zone, claimed by Zarqawi, set off a fresh round of US air raids on suspected militant targets in Falluja.
— Reuters |
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13 killed in Iraq blast
Baghdad, October 18 The bloodshed came amid warnings from US and Iraqi officials of a surge in attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began on Friday. At least six persons, three of them policemen, died after a car bomb exploded late yesterday as a police convoy drove past a coffee shop, the interior ministry said. In the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, five Iraqi civilians were killed and 15 others wounded when a car bomb exploded on a bridge on Sunday, the US military said. |
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750 UK troops could be deployed in Iraq
London, October 18 Under the contingency plans, 750 British soldiers from the Black Watch regiment could be sent to towns of Latifiyah, Iskandariyah and Mahmudiyah, according to a report published in a daily here today. The plans also include sending a squadron of Challenger 2 tanks to boost the firepower of the battalion equipped with Warrior armoured infantry fighting vehicles, The Times reported. The Black Watch is currently the divisional reserve force in southeast Iraq and their redeployment northwards would leave a “potentially dangerous capability gap”, it said. The British military now have three options: to risk having no reserve force in the hope that the region remains relatively quiet, to create a new force from the existing troops, taking soldiers away from training Iraqis, or to send a new force out. Sending another battle group from the UK would take long. However, under the current contingency plans, the Black Watch and support units would be based southwest of Baghdad for up to 30 days, it said.
— PTI |
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Diplomat resigns over Iraq war
It emerged over the weekend that Carne Ross, a former first secretary to Britain’s UN mission between 1998 and mid-2002 in charge of Iraq issues, had resigned a month ago just as he was about to take up a senior post in London.
Asked about his reasons for resigning, 38-year-old Ross told The Independent: “ I had lost trust in a government that I believe did not tell the whole truth about the alleged threat posed by Iraq before the war.” He also highlighted the government’s failure to “fully pursue available alternatives to invasion,” in a reference to the option of allowing the UN weapons inspections to continue. But the diplomat, who had taken a year’s sabbatical before going on to serve until last month as chief strategist to the UN mission in Kosovo, refused to comment further. Mr Ross is the second senior Iraq expert from the Foreign Office to resign over the legality of the war. Elizabeth Wilmshurst, a deputy head in the Foreign Office Legal Department, walked out in March 2003. Other prominent officials, including the chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix and Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, have said that the war was illegal. Although other diplomats are not expected to follow Ross out of the door, his position reflects the unease about the prosecution of the war among those who knew before the invasion in March 2003 that there was no new evidence that Saddam represented a direct threat to Britain. Peter Ricketts, the political director of the Secretary of State, Jack Straw, during the run-up to the conflict, had at least two stormy meetings with Foreign Office members who were concerned about the legal basis for waging war on Iraq. The Butler report into the intelligence that led up to the war and the conclusions of the Iraq Survey Group, which reported 10 days ago that there had been no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, has, if anything, only heightened the sense of unease. Ross’s boss, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, who served the government loyally at the United Nations before becoming Britain’s top envoy to Iraq, said last week that in his view, the inspectors should have been allowed to complete their work. Sir Jeremy has now retired from the diplomatic service. — By arrangement with The Independent, London |
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Bush surges 8 points ahead of Kerry: poll
Washington, October 18 Bush had 52 per cent support among likely voters while Kerry got 44 per cent backing. In the previous Gallup poll released last Monday, likely voters gave Kerry a one-point edge over Bush, 49 per cent to 48 per cent. The latest poll yesterday, taken after the final debate last Wednesday, showed Bush ahead 49 per cent to 46 per cent among registered voters. The 52-44 spread is identical to the margin Bush held in a USAToday/CNN/Gallup poll immediately before the debates, USA Today reported yesterday. The telephone survey of 1,013 adults, including 942 registered voters and 788 likely voters, was conducted October 14 through October 16.
— Reuters |
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