Zarqawi Aide killed!

[visionary]

Al-Zarqawi aide killed in Fallujah

Terrorist network suspected of setup in massacre of Iraqi soldiers

The Associated Press

Updated: 12:40 a.m. ET Oct. 26, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S. military said Tuesday that an aide to Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in an airstrike in the militant stronghold of Fallujah.

The early-morning strike hit a known safehouse being used by al-Zarqawi’s terrorist network, killing a “known associate,” a military statement said.

Tawhid and Jihad, the group affiliated with al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for an attack over the weekend in which 50 U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers were slain by insurgents — many of them execution-style — in the deadliest ambush of the 18-month insurgency. The claim was posted Sunday on an Islamist Web site, but its authenticity could not be confirmed.

Iraqi officials suspect the soldiers may have been set up by rebel infiltrators in their ranks.

U.S. forces have been stepping up aerial and artillery assaults on Fallujah in an attempt to root out al-Zarqawi's group, which renamed itself Al-Qaida in Iraq.

The terror group has claimed responsibility in numerous suicide bombings and beheadings of foreign hostages.

Iraq’s U.S.-backed interim government is struggling to contain violence ahead of elections scheduled for January. Monday, car bombs and clashes killed 12 Iraqis:

# The U.S. military said three of the Iraqis were killed in a blast near the Australian Embassy in Baghdad, the first attack on their contingent since the end of the war. Three Australian soldiers and six Iraqis were wounded.

# Five civilians were killed during clashes between U.S. forces and insurgents in the rebellious western city of Ramadi, said Abdul Moneim Aftan, director of the local hospital. There was no immediate word from the U.S. military on the clashes.

# Tribal leader Sahir Khodhir and two of his associates were killed in the northern city of Mosul by a bomb planted in their car, local officials said. The bomb blew up as they arrived in the car park of the regional governorate building.

# Insurgents fired mortars at an Iraqi National Guard checkpoint near Beiji, north of Baghdad on Monday, killing a civilian driver and wounding his wife, police said.

A suicide car bomber also attacked a U.S. convoy in Khaldiyah, a town about 50 miles west of the capital, destroying at least two Humvees. Police said there were U.S. casualties, but the number was not immediately known. The U.S. military had no immediate comment.

More al-Zarqawi claims

Al-Zarqawi’s group also claimed responsibility for the attack on the Australians in a statement posted Monday on an Islamic Web site. It was impossible to verify the authenticity of the claim.

“The mission will still be able to carry out its task,” Brig. Mike Hannan, a spokesman for the Australian Defense Force, told reporters in the capital, Canberra.

A separate roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier and wounded five others in western Baghdad.

An Estonian soldier was killed during an ambush Monday while patrolling outside the Iraqi capital, according to Marko Mihkelson, chairman of the Estonian parliament’s Foreign Affairs committee. Several other Estonians were believed to have been wounded, but the nature of their injuries was unknown.

Confusion over number killed

The 50 unarmed Iraqi soldiers were killed on their way home after completing a training course at the Kirkush military camp northeast of Baghdad when their buses were stopped Saturday evening by rebels about 95 miles east of Baghdad, said Adnan Abdul-Rahman, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry.

Some accounts by police said the rebels were dressed in Iraqi military uniforms. The insurgents forced many of the soldiers to lie down on the ground and then shot them in the head, officials said Sunday.

There was confusion over the precise number of Iraqi soldiers killed in the ambush, although the Iraqi National Guard said 48 troops and three drivers were killed.

Abdul-Rahman said 37 bodies were found Sunday on the ground with their hands behind their backs, shot execution-style. Twelve others were found in a burned bus, he said. Some officials quoted witnesses as saying insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at one bus.

“After inspection, we found out that they were shot after being ordered to lay down on the earth,” said Gen. Walid al-Azzawi, commander of the Diyala provincial police, adding that the bodies were laid out in four rows, with 12 bodies in each row.

Collusion suspected

The killing of so many Iraqi soldiers in such an apparently sure-footed operation reinforced U.S. and Iraqi suspicions that the country’s security services had been infiltrated by insurgents.

Iraqi police and soldiers have been increasingly targeted by insurgents, mostly with car bombs and mortar shells. However, the fact that the insurgents were able to strike at so many unarmed soldiers in such a remote region suggested that the guerrillas may have had advance word on the soldiers’ travel.

“There was probably collusion among the soldiers or other groups,” Diyala’s deputy governor, Aqil Hamid al-Adili, told Al-Arabiya television. “Otherwise, the gunmen would not have gotten the information about the soldiers’ departure from their training camp and that they were unarmed.”

Last week, a U.S. defense official said in Washington that some members of the Iraqi security services had developed sympathies and contacts with the guerrillas. In other instances, infiltrators were sent to join the security services, the official said on condition of anonymity.

He cited a mortar attack Tuesday on an Iraqi National Guard compound north of Baghdad as a possible inside job. The attackers apparently knew when and where the soldiers were gathering and dropped mortar rounds in the middle of their formation. At least four Iraqis were killed and 80 others were wounded.

Doubts over U.S. strategy

The extent of rebel infiltration is unknown. However, it raises concern about the U.S. strategy of handing over more responsibility to Iraqi security forces so U.S. forces could be drawn down.

In a Web site posting, the al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for the ambush, saying “God enabled the Mujahedeen to kill all” the soldiers and “seize two cars and money.”

Al-Zarqawi and his movement are believed to be behind dozens of attacks on Iraqi and U.S.-led forces and kidnappings of foreigners. Many of those hostages, including three Americans, have been beheaded, some purportedly by al-Zarqawi himself.

The United States has put a $25 million bounty on al-Zarqawi, the same amount as for Osama bin Laden. U.S. officials believe al-Zarqawi’s group is based in Fallujah, an insurgent bastion 40 miles west of Baghdad.

The Iraqi government denied Monday that it had suspended talks to avert a military assault on Fallujah.

“The Iraqi government is doing all it can to save the people of Fallujah from these terrorists,” an Iraqi Defense Ministry source told Reuters.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6316493/

[TC4]

Now if we can just get Al-Zarqawi the king **** himself

[Ghost of]

It wasn't a palatable option before, but maybe the US SHOULD have annihilated Fallujah(or that one portion that was known to house insurgents) after they evacuated the civs.