Anti-Qaeda protest in Iraq, local anger mounts

[Airedale]

Anti-Qaeda protest in Iraq, local anger mounts

 

24 Jan 2006 17:03:50 GMT

 

Source: Reuters

 

SAMARRA, Iraq, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Hundreds of Iraqis staged a demonstration in the restive city of Samarra on Tuesday in a show of defiance against al Qaeda militants they blamed for killing dozens of police recruits last week.

 

Nationalist rebels and tribal leaders in the city north of Baghdad had already let it be known they were joining forces to try to expel the foreign-influenced Islamists from the area, part of a trend in Sunni Arab areas that U.S. commanders have pointed to optimistically as a sign of political development

 

The protesters, estimated by police to number 700 to 1,000 and organised by the Iraqi Islamic Party and Muslim Scholars Association, major forces in Sunni politics, accused al Qaeda of killing some 40 local men who were hauled off a bus near Samarra last week after leaving a police academy in Baghdad and killed.

 

The killing late last year of the head of one of the city's main tribal leaders had prompted an alliance against al Qaeda involving local nationalist insurgents, residents said, similar to movements seen in other Sunni strongholds.

 

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Samarra appears less tense but residents following the situation closely said on Tuesday that anger among people in the city is increasing against al Qaeda, whose Jordanian leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is said by Iraqi defence chiefs to have moved from around Ramadi to Diyala province, just east of Samarra.

 

They said it began when Qaeda members killed the popular sheikh Hikmat al-Mumtaz, head of the Albu Baz tribe in Samarra, who had spoken out against insurgent attacks on civilians, such as al Qaeda's suicide assaults on Shi'ite neighbourhoods.

 

His tribesmen force confessions from suspected killers and publicised their supposed links to al Qaeda around the city.

 

more at the link

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAR442735.htm

 

 

I think the Sunni's see that al Qaeda failed to deliver anything but death on Sunni's in the province that gave them safety.

[Guest mustefser]

It is a good news that our brothers in the Sunni triangle starts to realize that those who dig a pit might sonn fall in it..This is not time to blam others but this move of distance them self from terrorists Qaeda should come earlier.

Howere the nation building and protection needs all hands. So wellcome to join others..

[Guest U.S.: Outtakes show al-Zarqawi a]

U.S.: Outtakes show al-Zarqawi as poor gunman

 

Thursday, May 4, 2006; Posted: 1:54 p.m. EDT (17:54 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is seen as a less-than-accomplished gunman on a "complete" version of last week's Web video, according to a U.S. military commander.

 

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch on Thursday showed excerpts of the full video, found in a raid in Yusufiya south of Baghdad, that depict al-Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, and his aides appearing all-thumbs with firearms.

 

In the version posted on the Web, al-Zarqawi spoke directly to viewers, mocking the United States and the Iraqi government and exhorting his supporters to fight the U.S.-led operation.

 

The video also showed the militant, dressed in black fighter's garb, standing in an open field and firing a machine gun. ( Watch the video of al-Zarqawi released last week -- 2:57)

 

Lynch showed parts of the "complete video" that pictured the militant leader and what he called "supposedly competent" aides after al-Zarqawi was seen firing the machine gun.

 

Al-Zarqawi is seen walking toward a white pickup truck in "New Balance tennis shoes" with associates around him, called "his trusted advisers" by Lynch.

 

They "do things like grab the hot barrel of a machine gun and burn themselves," Lynch said, narrating the video to reporters.

 

In another portion, Lynch said, "Here's Zarqawi, the ultimate warrior, trying to shoot his machine gun.

 

"It's supposed to be automatic fire. He's shooting single shots one at a time. Something's wrong with his machine gun. He looks down, can't figure it out. He calls his friend to unblock the stoppage and get the weapon firing again."

 

CNN reviewed the tapes later.

 

After the shooting scene, al-Zarqawi heads toward a white truck and hands his gun to someone else, suggesting that the video might have been staged strictly for the camera.

 

At one point after the shooting scene, al-Zarqawi looks straight at the camera and says something, but the audio is muted.

 

At least one masked man behind him appears to be cheering him on.

 

Lynch said that what was seen on the Web last week was what al-Zarqawi "wanted the world to see."

 

"Look at me," he said al-Zarqawi was trying to impart, "I'm a capable leader of a capable organization and we are indeed declaring war against democracy in Iraq and we're going to establish an Islamic caliphate."

 

"What he didn't show you were the clips that I showed you," he said, adding, "it makes you wonder."

 

Lynch was asked how al-Zarqawi can be a "terror mastermind" if he can't handle a firearm.

 

"You'll probably need to defer that question to his followers," Lynch said, noting that they have allowed him to be established as a leader.

 

Lynch said the images he showed indicate that al-Zarqawi "tends to have a problem" with mastering his own weapons system and with finding capable and competent aides.

 

"Why he's their leader, I don't know."

 

When asked about the al-Zarqawi video, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said he hadn't seen the clips, but said the terrorist leader was "trying to engage in desperate attempts to derail the transition to democracy in Iraq.

 

"Here's another al Qaeda leader that is under a lot of pressure," McClellan said. "Zarqawi and his terrorist allies were dealt a real blow in Iraq by the formation of a unity government that represents all of Iraq's communities.

 

"Now we know that they're determined and they want to continue to carry out attacks and that's why we're partnering with Iraqi security forces ... and we will continue to do so."

 

CNN Senior Editor for Arab Affairs Octavia Nasr contributed to this report.

[Guest Arab sponsored media]

http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C48EA5B...28C44C75395.htm

 

Aljezeera and other media sponsored by Arab governments, never enev refer to the Zarqawee original film that captured by the Americans in Yousifia that showed Zarqawee incompetency! Aljazeera posted the Zarqawee edited film on it's web page for more than a day..

[salim]

Have a look to the real Jornanian coward Fadil Alkhaliela "Zarqawee", not the fake clip edited one..

 

شاهد يابلاش , الصوره الاصليه للاردني الازعر فضيل الخلايله "الزرقاوي" وليس الفيديو الكلب المحسن الذي عرضته الجزيره على موقعها الرئيسي بينما ترفض لحد الان عرض

النسخه الاصليه

هذا الازعر الذي يدعي قيادته لفصائل مقاومه وطنيه بينما لايتحدث الا عن عصابات قتل العراقيين سنه وشيعه والذي لايعرف كيف يتعامل مع سلاح شخصي عادي,

شاهد كيف يذهب الى القتال مرتديا حذاء رياضه اديداس فاخر , وعلى طريقه ممثلي المسلسلات العربيه الاردنيه الفاشلون

 

 

 

http://www.dvidshub.net/?script=video/vide...w.php&id=13205#

 

"We have a warrior leader, Zarqawi, who doesn't understand how to operate his weapon system and has to rely on his subordinates to clear a weapon stoppage," the general said. "It makes you wonder."

 

 

In a NT report, seems his days are approaching end, what will happen to those Iraqis who betrayed their country and people accepted to help this ignorant criminal killing the Iraqi people..

 

U.S. Uses Iraq Insurgent's Own Video to Mock Him

 

 

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and DAVID S. CLOUD

Published: May 5, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 4 — The videotape released last week by the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi showed him firing long bursts from a machine gun, his forearms sprouting from beneath black fatigues, as he exuded the very picture of a strong jihadist leader.

Department of Defense, via Getty Images

In an outtake reportedly taken from a videotape made by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader needed some help firing a machine gun.

 

The Reach of War Go to Complete Coverage » But in clips the American military released on Thursday and described as captured outtakes from the same video, Mr. Zarqawi, head of the Council of Holy Warriors, cut a different figure.

 

In one scene, Mr. Zarqawi, the most wanted terrorist in Iraq, appears flummoxed by how to discharge the machine gun in fully automatic mode. Off camera, one aide is heard ordering another, "Go help the sheik." A man walks over and fiddles with the weapon so Mr. Zarqawi can fire it in bursts.

 

Another sequence shows Mr. Zarqawi handing the weapon off to other aides and striding away, revealing white jogging shoes beneath his black guerrilla attire. One insurgent later appears to grab the machine gun absent-mindedly by its scalding-hot barrel and drop it.

 

In an effort to turn Mr. Zarqawi's own propaganda against him by mocking him as an uninspiring poseur, the American military released the selected outtakes at a news briefing in Baghdad. A senior military spokesman said that American troops had discovered the tape among a trove of information captured last month in Yusufiya, a town just south of Baghdad regarded as sympathetic to the insurgency.

 

Documents found in that raid also laid out a plan to "cleanse" Shiites from Sunni-dominated areas in Iraq and to provoke sectarian warfare, according to the American military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch.

 

Intelligence and military officials in Washington said that Mr. Zarqawi, who was once thought to be roaming western and northern Iraq, was tracked to Yusufiya after tips indicated that his men had been behind the downing of an Apache helicopter near there in April. During an early morning raid on a suspected safe house in the town just south of Baghdad on April 16, soldiers killed five occupants and captured five more in a fierce gunfight. The officials said they were later told by Iraqis captured in the raid that Mr. Zarqawi was only blocks away at the time.

 

General Lynch added that in several raids in the area, soldiers killed at least 31 foreign fighters, possibly destined to become suicide bombers.

 

The video outtakes and the plans to drive out Shiites, among other documents, were found in the house, General Lynch said, confirming an account first reported in Army Times.

 

Mr. Zarqawi, a Sunni, long ago declared war on Shiites, whom he considers apostates. The captured documents disclosed at the carefully orchestrated news briefing described a plan to "reduce the attacks on Sunni areas" and instead "be dedicated to cleansing them, calmly, of spies and Shias," according to the American military's translation.

 

The goal, they said, is to "move the battle to the Shia depths and cut off the paths from them by any means necessary to put pressure on them to leave their areas."

 

The captured documents further suggested a strategy, perhaps temporary, of shifting the terrorist group's firepower away from attacks on American forces in Sunni regions to attacks in the capital. "We will leave or reduce our operations against them in our areas for the near future, and will perform our work against them in the areas of Baghdad itself, as well as the surrounding areas," the military's translation said.

 

General Lynch said that even as Mr. Zarqawi was "zooming in on Baghdad, we're zooming in on Zarqawi, and it's focused now in Yusufiya, in the areas around Baghdad."

 

"Zarqawi's center of gravity for his operations are in Baghdad," the general said. "We believe it's only a matter of time until Zarqawi is taken down. It's not if, but when."

 

But the military has made such predictions before, only to have Mr. Zarqawi slip away from them. Moreover, officials' view of Mr. Zarqawi as the main architect of violence in Iraq is more convenient than the possibility that an overwhelming amount of the mayhem is committed not by foreign jihadists but by Iraqi-born Sunni Arabs.

 

Questioned on Thursday about how much insurgent activity is actually directed by Mr. Zarqawi, General Lynch acknowledged that "there's no pure science here."

 

"So for me to give you some mathematical formula that says this many belong to Zarqawi, and this many belong to the Iraqi rejectionists, and this many belong to the Saddamists, I can't do," he said.

The torture and killing of men believed to be the latest victims of sectarian violence have continued unabated in the capital. On Thursday, at least 9 Iraqis were killed and 44 wounded when a suicide bomber attacked a crowd outside a courthouse in Baghdad. The attack followed the discovery a day earlier of the bodies of about three dozen men dumped around Baghdad. All had been tortured and shot in the head.

 

Skip to next paragraph

The Reach of War

Go to Complete Coverage » Several reports also said several civilians were killed in Ramadi by American forces on Thursday. The military said it killed eight insurgents there after marines were attacked by rocket-propelled grenades and machine-gun fire. Two American soldiers were also killed Thursday morning by a roadside bomb in south central Baghdad.

 

Mr. Zarqawi and his organization have taken responsibility for scores of car bombings, beheadings and other atrocities, many of which have been videotaped, posted on the Internet and shown on Arab satellite television channels.

 

The selected outtakes released late Thursday were not shown on the most popular Arab channels, Al Jazeera and Arabiya, although Arabiya mentioned them in a newscast later. But they were broadcast on state-run Iraqi television.

 

In releasing the outtakes, the American military sought to show that Mr. Zarqawi is a phony who cannot even fire a basic infantry weapon without help and who walks around the desert in comfortable Western jogging shoes.

 

"What you saw on the Internet was what he wanted the world to see," General Lynch said. "Look at me, I'm a capable leader of a capable organization, and we are indeed declaring war against democracy inside of Iraq, and we're going to establish an Islamic caliphate."

 

"What he didn't show you were the clips that I showed, wearing New Balance sneakers with his uniform, surrounded by supposedly competent subordinates who grab the hot barrel of a just-fired machine gun," he said.

 

"We have a warrior leader, Zarqawi, who doesn't understand how to operate his weapon system and has to rely on his subordinates to clear a weapon stoppage," the general said. "It makes you wonder."

[salim]

Usama Aljadaan, a name that Iraqis will keep remembering! Though the name "Usama" trigger all the bloody scenes and bad times that Iraqis are experiencing..

 

Shiekh Aljaadan is a honest Iraqi Sunni Arab from Alanbar, head of a strong family of Karabla. He refused the acts by Sadamist and Qaeda to destroy Iraq and jumped to fight the thugs. Last month I sat for one hour watch an interview with him on Aliraqia talking just like any Iraqi feeling all the pain and calling for unity in facing these criminals..I admired his courage , specially from some one who is walking a war zone. A man who volunteer to be next victim at at time others might chose to fled the country or to keep low profile , frightened or intimidated by the bands of killers!

 

Today the real Iraqi Usama Algadaan got what he volunteered for , to become another brave name in the list of our great symbols ! He fall in Almansour discrete of Baghdad !

[Airedale]

How powerfull is the Karabila tribe and will they exact revenge as may be the expected custom?

 

 

a short article excerpt;

Sunni sheik assassinated in Baghdad

 

A prominent Sunni Arab tribal leader who provided fighters to help battle al-Qaida in western Iraq was assassinated Sunday in Baghdad, police said.

 

Sheik Osama al-Jadaan

died in a hail of bullets as he was driving in the city's Mansour district, police Lt. Maitham Abdul Razzaq said. Al-Jadaan's driver and a bodyguard also were killed.

 

Al-Jadaan, a leader of the Karabila tribe, announced an agreement with the U.S.-backed Iraqi government to help track down al-Qaida members and foreign fighters along the border with Syria.

...

...

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060528/ap_on_...HE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

 

Will his family demand revenge? Will they settle their loss for money?

[salim]

Karabila tribe might not be the strongest all over Al anbar provice, but for sure they are the toughest in the west of the province near by to the srian boarder.. The question is not about how much strong they are , it is more how brave this tribe is to fight the criminals .. Their Shiekh had proven that the Iraqi blood has same colour all over Iraq.. A message that Iraq needs so much in passing it's hard times of enymies knoking a loud drums of alleged civil war ! Enymies how want to cover Alqaeda and Sadamist by propaganda for such war as being a fight between Sunni and Shia..