"The US military yesterday released a cameraman working for Associated Press Television News after nearly three months in detention, saying no evidence was found that he posed a security threat.... two days after a television cameraman for the Reuters news agency also was set free without charges. He had been held for 26 days."
I guess the U.S. and Iraq is not China and the Olympics, huh?
"Iraq won't allow Sunni fighters to keep weapons" by Sameer N. Yacoub, Associated Press | August 24, 2008
BAGHDAD - Iraq's government is grateful to US-allied Sunni fighters but won't allow them to keep their weapons indefinitely, the prime minister said yesterday, hinting at a more intense crackdown on the Sunni groups.
In recent weeks, the Shi'ite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has gone after Sunni fighters despite their alliances with the Americans. Some leaders have been arrested, while scores of others have been disarmed and banned from manning checkpoints except alongside security forces.
Maliki's government has mixed feelings about Sunni tribes that rose up against Al Qaeda in Iraq, starting in 2007, and joined the Americans in the fight against the terror network.
The groups, known as Awakening Councils, Sons of Iraq, and Popular Committees, have helped rout Al Qaeda in some parts of Iraq. But Shi'ite leaders fear that the Sunnis' switch of allegiance is just a tactic, and that they could one day turn their weapons against the Shi'ite majority.
The United States, which put many of the Sunni fighters on its payroll, has urged Maliki to incorporate them into his security forces, but the government has been slow to do so.
In a speech to Shi'ite tribal leaders in Baghdad yesterday, Maliki mixed praise for the Sunni fighters with a warning. He said armed groups, alongside security forces, were tolerated for a limited period because their weapons were "aimed at the chests of the terrorists."
"So they [the Sunni fighters] deserve our gratitude and the inclusion [into the security forces] because we adhere to a policy that there are no arms but the arms of the government," he said.
In other developments yesterday, gunmen killed an adviser to Iraqi Culture Minister Mahir al-Hadithi in a roadside ambush. A bodyguard was wounded in the attack along a main thoroughfare in eastern Baghdad, police and hospital officials said.
Two cars were involved in the killing of the adviser, Kamil Shiya, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media. One vehicle blocked Shiya's car and gunmen opened fire from the second vehicle.
Shiya's death was confirmed by officials at nearby Kindi Hospital.
In Kirkuk yesterday, a suicide bomber struck a car bazaar, killing at least five people and wounding at least seven others, according to the US military and Iraqi police. Among those killed was a senior member of a US-allied Sunni group from nearby Diyala province, said Brigadier General Sarhat Qadir, a senior police official in Kirkuk.
The US military yesterday released a cameraman working for Associated Press Television News after nearly three months in detention, saying no evidence was found that he posed a security threat.
Ahmed Nouri Raziak, 38, was handed over to representatives of the AP at a US military compound in Baghdad. He was detained by US and Iraqi forces at his home in the northern city of Tikrit on June 4.
"He was detained because he was believed to be a security risk," said Major John C. Hall, a US military spokesman. "He was released when after review he was determined not to pose a threat."
Raziak was released two days after a television cameraman for the Reuters news agency, Ali al-Mashhadani, also was set free without charges. He had been held for 26 days."--more--"
Yeah, Iraq is just great these days, yup.
