"Turkish warplanes hit rebel targets in Iraq; Kurd spokesman says no casualties were reported" by C. Onur Ant, Associated Press | December 23, 2007
ISTANBUL - Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq yesterday in the third confirmed cross-border offensive by Turkish forces in less than a week, the military said.
The US Embassy in Ankara said it was informed before the assault took place, but gave no further information and declined to say whether American intelligence was involved in yesterday's offensive.
The bombing lasted nearly a half-hour yesterday afternoon, and was followed by shelling from inside Turkish borders, the military said in a statement posted on its website. The statement said hundreds were killed in the recent operations, citing "intelligence gathered from various sources."
"The terrorist organization of the PKK will see and understand that there is no secure place left Iraq's north, and it will understand that it has no chances against the Turkish Republic," the Turkish statement said.
It said that footage showing the results of the operations would be released in coming days. The Turkish military vowed to continue military operations on both sides of Turkish-Iraqi border "no matter how the conditions are."
Gotta take the genocidal Turks at their word, I guess!
Security forces in northern Iraq said yesterday's bombs fell about 75 miles northwest of Dahuk. Jabar Yawar, a spokesman for Kurdistan's Peshmerga security forces in northern Iraq, said he had no reports of casualties.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees reported that more than 1,800 people fled their homes in parts of northern Iraq, and Iraqi officials have complained that Turkey's actions are a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.
They have also said they recognize the threat posed by the PKK. Turkey has said about 3,000 separatist rebels are based in northern Iraq and those fighters have been mounting attacks its troops over the border. Dozens of Turkish troops have been killed in recent months."
Yeah, never mind the TENS of THOUSANDS of Kurds massacred by Turkey!
"Turkey Bombs Kurds in Iraq; 2 Sides Differ on Casualties"
By SEBNEM ARSU and STEPHEN FARRELL
ISTANBUL — In its third large cross-border attack into Iraq within a week, Turkey said Saturday that its warplanes had killed hundreds of separatist Kurdish rebels.
A statement from the military said that the air attack, which lasted less than half an hour, was followed by an artillery barrage on the same area from nearby units in Turkey. The military said that Kurdish P.K.K. rebels were based in the area, and that the government would provide video and audio details of the operation later in the week.
Officials with the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq said that Turkish planes had bombed for about two hours around Darkar and Barwari Balla, villages near the border in Dohuk Province. But the deputy minister for the Kurdish government’s security forces, Jabbar Yawer, said that no one had been wounded or killed because the bombing had hit deserted areas. A border official for the central Iraqi government, Brig. Hussain Tamr, also said there had been no casualties. It was impossible to independently verify either of the competing claims.
On Dec. 16, Turkey unleashed broad airstrikes on several areas along the border in Iraqi Kurdistan. Two days later, a few hundred Turkish troops briefly crossed the border in pursuit of rebels but withdrew them within hours, the army said.
The cross-border attacks have outraged the Iraqi government, which accused Turkey of violating its sovereignty. Ali Hadi Muhammad, a government adviser who is close to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, said earlier this week: “We deplore the interference in our territory. The prime minister has already said that we want to solve this problem through peaceful negotiations and diplomatic means.”
The Iraqi government says that the airstrikes on the 16th killed four innocent people and displaced hundreds.
Turkey denied that there had been any civilian casualties or damage in the first strike. It insists that it has the right to take any actions necessary against P.K.K. rebels, who are based both in Turkey and Iraq have fought for years in hopes of creating an autonomous Kurdish region in eastern Turkey.
The United States has supported Turkey’s strikes at the P.K.K., which the State Department lists as a terrorist organization, and has said it would offer intelligence information to help in the operations. But American officials have tried to discourage large-scale attacks into Iraq, fearing that they could further weaken the Iraqi government.
In Baghdad, officials said that a suicide car bomber had struck at a joint Iraqi police and army checkpoint in Ghazaliya, a mixed area of west Baghdad, killing four people, including a soldier and three civilians."
That's all the violence a Times' Week-Ender Shit-Eater gets this Sunday?
WTF?
"Government plans to disband Sunni militias; Says groups won't become a separate army" by Diaa Hadid, Associated Press | December 23, 2007
BAGHDAD - Iraq's Shi'ite-led government declared yesterday that after restive areas are calmed, it will disband Sunni groups battling Islamic extremists because it does not want them to become a separate military force.
The statement from Defense Minister Abdul-Qadir al-Obaidi was the government's most explicit declaration yet of its intent to eventually dismantle the groups backed and funded by the United States as a vital tool for reducing violence.
The militias, more than 70,000 strong and often made up of former insurgents, are known as Awakening Councils, or Concerned Local Citizens.
"We completely, absolutely reject [the militias] becoming a third military organization," Obaidi said at a news conference.
So much for the surge success then.
At least it bought Bush time to escalate.
Now when the situation really falls apart, he can ESCALATE and DRAFT again ('cause we need you kiddies for Afghanistan, too).
Thousands of Baghdad residents took advantage of the newfound sense of security yesterday to leave their homes in droves and pack the capital's parks and amusement rides.
Abdul Jabbar Kadhim, an employee at the Dora oil refinery, as he played with his children in a riverside park:
"I wish peace and prosperity to our beloved country Iraq and hope all our brothers, sons, and families who live abroad come back and God willing, during the next Eid all Iraqis will come together and peace, security, and brotherhood will prevail."
But, but, but... what about the "sectarian" hatred?
But although there have been far fewer attacks, violence has by no means been eradicated.
It's o.k. to tell Amurkns that now, because the surge worked.
A suicide car bomb exploded at a checkpoint manned by Iraqi Army soldiers and police in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Ghazaliyah yesterday afternoon, killing four people and wounding six, a police officer said on condition of anonymity.
The dead were two civilians, a police officer, and a soldier, while the wounded included two police officers and two soldiers, the officer said.
On the southern outskirts of the capital, a roadside bomb injured five bystanders near a hospital in the town of Madin, police said. It was unclear what the target was. To the north in Mosul, another roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed one officer and injured two others, local police said.
In Diyala, where extremists remain very active, US troops discovered a Shi'ite village that had been systematically destroyed in an area where Al Qaeda in Iraq has been operating in recent months.
Towakal was a village of about 100 homes on the northern outskirts of Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad. It was surrounded by Sunni villages and at one point the residents apparently abandoned it. It was then razed by insurgents.
US Army soldiers from the Blackfoot Company, Second Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment said the homes had been systematically blown up about eight months before."
How would they know all that, huh?
Gee, the New York Times sure missed a lot of violence in Iraq yesterday, huh, readers?
Umm, for the last time:
35 people killed every day, with the number of Iraqis killed by the surge around 300 per day, 10,000 per month -- and 1.2 million Iraqis dead since the invasion (not including the 1,654 killed in September), mainly due to the U.S. military's 75 air raids a day, and the five-fold increase in air bombings.
Also see: Story Iraq: MSM Lied About Death Tolls
For the record:
Asymmetrical Warfare Group
Operation Gladio
Operation Northwoods
Salvador Option
Special Police Commandos
Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group
Prop 201 tutorial
FRU
"Al-CIA-Duh"
"Al-CIA-Duhs" Catch-and-Release Program
How much evidence you need, readers?
Also for the record:
Did I mention the Pentagon's MSM press offices in Lincoln, the Pentagon and Langley?
That's where the NYT gets its stuff!
