The would be the only ones benefiting from this action, and we all know their agents are in Kurdistan.
So clear, so transparent, is the truth.
"Suicide bomber hits tribal meetings in Iraq; Shi'ites, Sunnis had gathered in restive city" by Lauren Frayer/Associated Press September 25, 2007
BAQUBAH, Iraq - A suicide bomber struck a U.S.-promoted reconciliation meeting of Shiite and Sunni tribal sheiks as they were washing their hands or sipping tea Monday, killing at least 15 people, including the city's police chief, and wounding about 30 others.
[I smell inside job! WHO KNEW they were going to be there?
Certainly not "CIA-Duh!"]
Two U.S. soldiers were also wounded in the 8:30 p.m. blast at a Shiite mosque in Baqouba, a former al-Qaida in Iraq stronghold about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials, who gave the overall casualty toll.
The brazen attack, which bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq, represented a major challenge to U.S. efforts to bring together Shiites and Sunnis here in Diyala province, scene of some of the bitterest fighting in Iraq.
About two hours after the blast, U.S. soldiers at nearby Camp Warhorse fired artillery rounds at suspected insurgent positions near Baqouba. There were no reports of damage or casualties.
Witnesses and officials said the bomber struck when most of the victims were in the mosque courtyard cleaning their hands or drinking tea during Iftar, the daily meal in which Muslims break their sunrise-to-sunset fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
[Muslims simply wouldn't do this to each other, folks.
Not pious "Al-CIA-Duhs," not during Ramadan!
You bein' feed SHITSTINK NaZionist LIES on that one, readers!]
Security guards approached a man after noticing him walking rapidly through the courtyard. As the guards challenged him, the man detonated an explosive belt, setting off the devastating blast, said police Maj. Salah al-Jurani.
Al-Jurani said he believed provincial Gov. Raad Rashid al-Tamimi was the intended target. The governor was wounded and his driver was killed, al-Jurani said.
The dead also included Baqouba's police chief, Brig. Gen. Ali Dalyan, and the Diyala provincial operations chief, Brig. Gen. Najib al-Taie, according to security officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release the information.
Also wounded was the governor's brother, Sheik Mazin Rashid al-Tamimi, who has spearheaded Sunni-Shiite reconciliation efforts in the province.
U.S. officials have accelerated efforts to reconcile Sunni and Shiite tribes in Diyala after American soldiers gained control of Baqouba, the provincial capital, in fighting last summer. Al-Qaida had declared Baqouba the capital of its Islamic State of Iraq.
[So SOMEONE is working AGAINST US!!!!
Now, WHO could that be?]
The U.S. announced this month that top leaders of 19 of the 25 major tribes in Diyala - 13 Sunni and six Shiite - had agreed to end sectarian violence and support the government, although the province remains one of the most dangerous in the country with frequent kidnappings and armed clashes.
The effort is loosely modeled on an alliance of Sunni tribes which banded together last year to fight al-Qaida in Anbar province. The leader of that effort, Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, was killed in a bombing Sept. 13.
To the north, Iran shut down five major border crossing points into Kurdish areas Monday to protest the U.S. arrest and detention of an Iranian official accused by the U.S. military of links to an elite force smuggling weapons into this country to kill Americans.
[And probably the fact that the Iranians are being shelled and attacked by Kurd forces operating across the border in Iraq, too]
That's where my Globe ends and the web begins:
Crossing points elsewhere along the 900-mile border were operating normally.
Iran's semiofficial Mehr news agency said the closures were to protest the arrest last Thursday of Mahmudi Farhadi, an Iranian regional official who was detained by American troops at a hotel in Sulaimaniyah, a Kurdish city 160 miles northeast of Baghdad.
The border stations will remain shut until Farhadi's unconditional release, the Mehr agency quoted Ismail Najjar, general governor of the Iranian Kurdistan province, as saying.
U.S. officials said Farhadi was a member of the Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that smuggles weapons to Shiite extremists in Iraq. But Iraqi officials say he was here legally and should be set free.
In New York, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the AP that the border closure was intended to protect religious pilgrims and that "commercial goods and freight transactions continue.''
However, a Kurdish merchant from Sulaimaniyah said he had three trucks loaded with construction materials stuck on the Iranian side of the border near Panjwin. "They didn't allow them to cross, they closed the gate,'' Khalid Aman Sulaiman said.
Merchants and officials said hundreds of trucks were backed up on the Iranian side and no goods were being allowed across.
Rashid Saleh, a businessman, complained as he fretted over his shipment of Iranian dairy products stuck under a blazing sun on the Iranian side of the border at Panjwin:
"We are paying the price for the U.S.-Iranian struggle in Iraq. What is our guilt? We have families to feed.''
Iran's move appeared aimed in part at driving a wedge between Iraq and the United States at a time of friction between the two countries over the alleged killing of 11 Iraqi civilians by Blackwater USA security guards.
A long-term closure of the border would have a devastating effect on the economy of the Kurdish self-governing region, the most prosperous and stable part of the country.
The Kurds are also the most pro-American community in Iraq, and the U.S. relies heavily on Kurdish politicians as mediators between the Shiite and Sunni Arab communities.
Jamal Abdullah, a spokesman for the autonomous Kurdish government, said the Iranian move "will have a bad effect on the economic situation of the Kurdish government and will hurt the civilians as well. We are paying the price of what the Americans have done by arresting the Iranian.''
Last week, President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd from Sulaimaniyah, warned in a letter to U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker that Iran had threatened to close its border with Iraq's Kurdish region over the case and demanded Farhadi's release.
In an interview Sunday with the AP in New York, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki complained that Farhadi's arrest was an infringement on Iraqi sovereignty and that his detention was "unacceptable.''
Let's see what the Times gives us, readers:
"Bomber Kills 16 at Iraqi Reconciliation Banquet" by ANDREW E. KRAMER
BAGHDAD, Sept. 24 — A suicide bomber blew himself up on Monday at a banquet intended to be a reconciliation feast between provincial officials and former Sunni insurgents in Diyala Province, killing 16 people and wounding at least 28.
Among the wounded were the provincial governor, the regional police chief and the local military commander, local police officials said. At least one former insurgent leader was killed, they said.
The gathering was of the type that is a cornerstone of American plans to reconcile former insurgents with the Iraqi government and enlist their help in fighting Sunni extremist groups. The strategy has produced security gains in Sunni areas in western Iraq, and the military is trying to repeat that success in places like Diyala, a mixed area of Sunnis and Shiites north of Baghdad.
[Yeah, I'm getting the shitstinking waft of MOSSAD, all right!]
The American military confirmed that American officers had attended the meeting, held at a Shiite mosque in an outlying district of Baquba, the provincial capital. It said soldiers had been attacked by a suicide bomber, but said nothing about any wounded or dead among the Americans:
“There are an unknown number of casualties, and the incident remains under investigation."
[I heard TWO (see above AP report)]
The bombing was the second this month aimed at leaders of the so-called Sunni awakening. On Sept. 13, a suicide bomber killed Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi, known as Abu Risha, the Sunni tribal leader who unified several tribes to fight Sunni extremists in Anbar Province, in western Iraq. He died 10 days after meeting with President Bush at a military base in Anbar.
The reconciliation banquet on Monday was held to break the daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan. The suicide bomber detonated himself at the entrance to the mosque, where he was stopped by guards as the group was having tea in the yard.
A police officer said in a telephone interview:
“I saw a young man in his 30s running toward the front gate of the mosque. He wanted to reach the governor, but the guards stopped him. He immediately exploded himself.”
Another police officer at the site, referring to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown jihadist group that American intelligence agencies believe is foreign-led:
“The explosion was huge. It says that Al Qaeda is still alive in Baquba.”
[Of course "Al-CIA-Duh" is STILL ALIVE!]
Among the dead was Hajji Najim, a former leader of the 1920s Revolutionary Brigade, an insurgent group named after an uprising in that era against the British occupation of Iraq. It is one of the Sunni extremist groups that had battled American forces but appear to have stopped.
Diyala Province is strategically important for the United States because it is a transit point for Sunni extremists moving from predominantly Sunni regions in northwestern Iraq into Baghdad. Violence has surged again in the area after a brief hiatus during an American offensive in July.
[So PUKE-TRAY-US, Bush, and the SHIT WAR DAILIES did MISLEAD the Amurkn people ABOUT the DAMN SURGE!]
Also on Monday, Iran sealed border crossings into the Kurdish region of northern Iraq to protest the arrest of an Iranian man on suspicion of smuggling powerful roadside bombs.
On Thursday the American military had arrested the man, Agai Mahummdi Firhadi, in northern Iraq, saying he was suspected of smuggling weapons into Iraq for use against American troops. The United States says Mr. Firhadi is an officer in Iran’s elite Quds Force.
Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, expressed anger at Mr. Firhadi’s arrest, saying he was an Iranian diplomat.
The border closure was the latest sign of tensions being played out between Iran and the United States in the mountainous regions of northern Iraq.
[Hear the War Drums, folks?]
If it persists, it could damage Iraqi Kurdistan’s economy, officials said. By evening, scores of trucks were backed up along both sides of the border; officials in the Kurdish region said 300 trucks crossed the border daily.
Hasan Baqi, the head of the chamber of commerce in Sulaimaniya in the Kurdish zone, estimated that 30,000 people in the Kurdish areas relied on trade with Iran for jobs.
[So why would they want war? The Kurds or Iran?
And WHO WOULD?]
Iran is also angered that the Kurds tacitly allow bases in their territory for an Iranian Kurdish separatist movement known as the Pejak, which Tehran says has staged incursions into Iran. Iranian officials say it is supported by the United States; the Pentagon has denied supporting the group.
The American military also said Monday that soldiers attacked an insurgent cell in eastern Baghdad that it said was backed by Iran. One person was killed, and four were wounded. Militants placed roadside bombs along the soldiers’ exit route, the military said, adding that one bomb was a shaped charge of the type the United States has accused Iranian agents of smuggling into Iraq. It was impossible to verify the military’s claim."
[Yup, keep on RATCHETING UP the WAR PROPAGANDA!!!
Tired of the LIES!!!]
More from the Globe (on-line this time):
"Suicide bomber hits tribal meeting in Iraq; Shi'ites, Sunnis had gathered in restive city" by Alexandra Zavis/Los Angeles Times September 25, 2007
BAGHDAD - As top Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim leaders broke their Ramadan fast together in a symbolic show of unity yesterday, a suicide bomber struck in their midst, killing as many as 25 people and injuring 40 in Baqubah.
The attack apparently targeted Diyala provincial and tribal leaders who are part of US efforts to forge an alliance against Sunni extremists, who once controlled large parts of the city about 35 miles northeast of the capital.
Governor Raad Hameed Tamimi was injured in the blast, which killed the Baqubah police chief, Brigadier General Ali Dalyan, and other senior officials, Iraqi security officials said.
US forces also were at the meeting, said Lieutenant Colonel Michael Donnelly, a military spokesman based in Tikrit. He said there were casualties but could not confirm figures provided by Iraqi police nor say whether they included Americans.
The Associated Press reported that two US troops were wounded in the attack.
The US military has sought to replicate its progress in Al Anbar Province, where violence levels fell after an alliance of Sunni tribal leaders revolted in 2006 against the Sunni militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq. The alliance leader, Sheik Abdul Sattar Rishawi, was killed in a bombing earlier in September, casting doubt on a strategy that US commanders consider key to reducing the American troop presence in Iraq.
No one claimed responsibility for yesterday's attack, which bore the hallmarks of previous strikes by Al-Qaeda in Iraq, a group that has claimed responsibility for killing Rishawi and other leaders who turned against them.
Iran, meanwhile, closed its border with northern Iraq in an apparent bid to step up pressure for the release of one of its citizens detained by US forces last week, said officials in the Kurdish autonomous region.
At the site of the bombing, leaders of Diyala's government, security forces, major tribes and former insurgents had gathered at a mosque in the mostly Shi'ite neighborhood of Shiftah to discuss ways to ease sectarian tensions and defend the region against extremists.
Witnesses said the bomber detonated explosives strapped to his waist as participants were washing their hands in the mosque courtyard after sharing a meal to break the daylight fast that is a tradition during the holy month of Ramadan.
Ahmed Kheshali, who attended the meeting, said by telephone:
"The courtyard turned to pools of blood and body parts were scattered everywhere. We don't know how it happened. There were at least three or four checkpoints to get in."
[INSIDE JOB!!!!!]
Police in Diyala said they expected the casualty count to increase. Critically injured victims were evacuated to a nearby US base for treatment while others were sent to the Baqubah hospital, US and Iraqi officials said."
