[Excerpt:
Near Tikrit, insurgents killed 12 Iraqi police officers and destroyed
the Um Kashifa police station, U.S. military officials said.....
An official with Tikrit's governorate said residents were shocked by the
attack....."The terrorists reached to our city and they started doing
their operations in this safe city that lived for months in peace," he
said.....Also near Tikrit, insurgents attacked a police checkpoint
Tuesday, killing one Iraqi police officer and wounding two others,
according to Capt. Bill Coppernoll of the U.S. Army's First Infantry
Division.]
Insurgents kill 23 Iraqi police, troops
Main Sunni Muslim party withdraws from election
Tuesday, December 28, 2004 Posted: 10:24 AM EST (1524 GMT)
A guards stands amid rubble in front of Baghdad headquarters of the
Shiite group, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Insurgents killed 18 Iraqi police and five Iraqi
troops in Tuesday attacks, officials said, about a month before the
nation's first-ever democratic elections.
Near Tikrit, insurgents killed 12 Iraqi police officers and destroyed
the Um Kashifa police station, U.S. military officials said.
An official with Tikrit's governorate said residents were shocked by the
attack.
"The terrorists reached to our city and they started doing their
operations in this safe city that lived for months in peace," he said.
Also near Tikrit, insurgents attacked a police checkpoint Tuesday,
killing one Iraqi police officer and wounding two others, according to
Capt. Bill Coppernoll of the U.S. Army's First Infantry Division.
Four attacks on police checkpoints near Balad, about 50 miles south of
Tikrit, killed five Iraqi police officers and wounded three, Coppernoll
said.
Six miles south of Baquba Tuesday, a suicide car bomber targeted Iraqi
national guard troops at a traffic circle as they were working on the
aftermath of an earlier roadside bombing, the U.S. military said.
The attacks began when a roadside bomb wounded three soldiers with an
Iraqi national guard convoy near the Maffrak traffic circle in the
Mualemeen neighborhood, the military said.
A second roadside bomb was found at the attack scene and an Iraqi
explosive ordnance disposal team was called in to remove it.
As the removal team worked, the suicide car bomber drove through a
security cordon, setting off the vehicle bomb, killing a civilian and
wounding 26 other people.
The Maffrak traffic circle has been a frequent scene of clashes between
insurgents and coalition forces.
In Baghdad, a suicide car bomber targeted a top officer of Iraq's
national guard as he was leaving his home for work, an Iraqi police
official said.
The parked car bomb exploded near a gas station, killing its driver and
wounding five Iraqi civilians, the U.S. military and Iraqi police said.
The attack targeted a convoy for Maj. Gen. Moudher al-Mula, an Iraqi
national guard commander in the capital city, an Iraqi police official
from Slaykh police station said.
Al-Mula and his guards escaped unhurt.
Party withdraws from January elections
The Iraqi Islamic Party -- the nation's main Sunni Muslim party -- cited
security concerns Monday for its decision to withdraw from the scheduled
January 30 elections.
But the party said it was not boycotting national elections altogether.
In a statement, party director Tariq al-Hashimy said one reason for the
withdrawal is "the need to provide the proper security conditions in
order to hold an honest and free elections."
On January 30, Iraqi voters are expected to choose a 275-member
transitional national assembly. That body will put together a permanent
constitution that will go before voters in a referendum. If the law is
approved, there will be elections for a permanent government by the end
of next year.
In addition to security concerns, confusion was cited by the Iraqi
Islamic Party president as a reason for the pullout. "The security
situation is getting worse day after day," President Muhsin Abdul Hameed
said.
"The electoral commission is being vague, and many of the Iraqi people
don't understand the mechanism of the elections," he said. Election
forms are not being distributed in some areas, Hameed added.
A party spokesman said, "We don't believe that elections held now will
be 100 percent fair."
Sunni leaders have expressed concern about receiving enough future
government positions to provide representation for their minority
community. U.S. and interim Iraqi government officials have worked to
try to convince Sunni leaders that it would have a clear place in a
future Iraqi government.
Shiite party headquarters attacked
A suicide bomb attack Monday on Iraq's largest Shiite party killed at
least six people and wounded 33 others, police said.
The attack targeted the Baghdad headquarters of the Shiite group, the
Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, police said.
It missed the head of the Shiite party, Abd Al-Azziz Al-Hakim, who was
home, police said.
The Sunni party's announcement and the attack on the Shiite party Monday
came a day after a high-ranking member of the Democratic Al-Umma
al-Iraqiya (Iraqi Nation) party was shot and killed in front of his
house in Baghdad, party sources said.
In addition, Wijhad Al-Khuzaee, founder and chairwoman of the Women and
Democracy Foundation, also was killed near her house in the capital, a
Baghdad police source said Monday. Al-Kuzaee, a human rights activist,
spoke to CNN last spring about her desire to become Iraq's first female
president.
A voice claiming to be that of Osama bin Laden urged Iraqis to boycott
the elections in an audio recording broadcast Monday by the
Arabic-language television network Al-Jazeera. The voice on the
recording also described Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
as his deputy in Iraq. The authenticity of the tape could not
immediately be verified. (Full story)
A group thought to be led by al-Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for
the killings of numerous Westerners in Iraq, including the slayings of
two Americans and a Briton who were kidnapped in September. Al-Zarqawi
also is believed to be responsible for the bombing of Baghdad's U.N.
headquarters on August 19, 2003, that killed 22 civilians, including the
U.N.'s chief envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
Other developments
# A U.S. soldier was killed Monday and four others were wounded when a
bomb detonated in Baghdad, the U.S. military said. No information was
available about the condition of the wounded victims. The death brings
the number of U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war to 1,326, including
1,044 in hostile action and 282 in nonhostile activities, according to
the U.S. military.
# A five-minute video that appears to show members of a radical Islamist
group preparing for and carrying out the attack last week on a U.S.
military base in Mosul, Iraq, surfaced Sunday. CNN has not independently
authenticated the video, purportedly from the group Jaish Ansar
Al-Sunna. (Full story)
# Gunmen killed five Iraqi officials in what appeared to be three
separate assassination attacks, sources said Sunday. Iraqi police
officials and Ministry of Interior sources said Col. Yassin Ibrahim
Jawad, a high-ranking police officer, was killed in southern Baghdad. On
Saturday, in northern Baghdad, unknown gunmen killed two local council
members in a drive-by shooting, Baghdad police said. In Taji, about 13
miles (20 kilometers) north of Baghdad, a third shooting killed a local
council member and a relative.
# In Syniya, 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of Baghdad, 11 of 17 local
council members resigned Sunday, said Brigadier Hassan Salah of the
Samarra police. The resignations came a few days after council Chairman
Hazim al-Bura was assassinated and a car bomb targeting the council
exploded. No one was killed in the bombing.
CNN's Arwa Damon, Auday Sadik, Nermeen Mufti, Mohammad Tawfeeq and Kevin
Flower contributed to this report.
enditem
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
$4.98 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/Q7_YsB/neXJAA/yQLSAA/TySplB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
--------------------------
Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL
PROTECTED]
--------------------------
Brooks Isoldi, editor
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.intellnet.org
Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has
not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of
The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT
YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of
intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods,
techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other
intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material
as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use
this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,'
you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
