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Iraq Report: Al Qaeda strikes in Baghdad
July 26, 2007

After a lull of several weeks in major mass casualty suicide attack inside Baghdad, al Qaeda in Iraq struck three times against Iraqi civilians over the past 24 hours. Yesterday's attacks occurred during the celebration of the Iraqi soccer team's victory at the Asia Games, which advanced the club to the finals.

Two suicide bombers, sitting in parked cars, struck within a half hour of each other. At least 50 Iraqis were killed and 130 wounded in the dual attacks in the Mansour district in the west and the Ghadeer neighborhood in the east. Today's car bomb attack in the eastern district of Karradah resulted in at least 20 Iraqi civilians killed and 60 wounded.

The attacks on the Iraqis celebrating the soccer victory are classic terrorist events. Al Qaeda piggybacked off of a rare moment of national unity and grabbed the media headlines by turning a positive story into one of despair. The two suicide bombs sat in parked cars, instead of detonating their bombs remotely. Al Qaeda wanted to put its signature on this attack. Also, al Qaeda in Iraq demonstrated that while its capacity for large strikes may have diminished, it still possesses the ability to attack inside Baghdad.

Despite al Qaeda's successful attacks in Baghdad, Coalition and Iraq forces continue efforts to degrade al Qaeda in Iraq's command network, as well as its facilitators and IED cells continue. U.S. and Iraqi special operations forces captured 61 suspected al Qaeda in Iraq operatives during targeted raids nationwide over the past two days. Wednesday's raids in Mosul, Tarmiyah, Samarra, and Baghdad resulted 20 al Qaeda operatives detained, including the administrative emir for Mosul and an IED cell leader in Tarmiyah. Iraqi Special Operations Forces also captured a car bomb cell leader in the Jamia neighborhood in Baghdad. Today's raids in Tarmiyah, Taji, and Mosul resulted in 36 operatives detained.

Iraqi and U.S. forces maintain the pressure on the Shia terror cells as well. Two cell leaders were captured over the past several days. A raid near Hillah on July 23 resulted in the capture of the leader of the Mahdi Army "political wing in Al Imam responsible for emplacing improvised explosive devices and explosively formed penetrators along supply routes targeting Iraqi and Coalition Forces."

A raid in southwestern Baghdad on July 25 resulted in the capture of a Mahdi Army cell commander "allegedly responsible for the death squad killings of more than 150 Sunni Arab Iraqis."

http://billroggio.com/dailyiraqreport/2007/07/iraq_report_al_qaeda_strikes_i.php

since you used the name perino

"I would submit to you that the countries who have complained more vehemently about the human rights record, alleged abuses of human rights at Guantanamo Bay, are the very ones who refuse to take any prisoners themselves,' Perino said."

Do you think the Taliban are proxies for Iran?

Yes, I think there is evidence that some parts of the Iranian government are using arm shipments to the Taliban in a proxy war with the United States.


KABUL: In public, Afghanistan has played down US and British allegations that Iran is feeding weapons to Taliban insurgents, but in private, officials here say the charges are true - and worrying.

A serious debate is under way in President Hamid Karzai?s administration about Iranian support to both the Taliban and emerging opposition political parties, several officials told AFP. The government is in a difficult position: it is unwilling to sour relations with another neighbour or become involved in the heated US-Iran dispute, but it is also afraid Afghanistan will again become a battleground for more powerful nations.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said this month that given the large number of weapons coming into Afghanistan from Iran, it was hard to believe ?that it?s taking place without the knowledge of the Iranian government.? The charge is denied by Tehran as ?100 percent lies.? ?We are seriously following the reports with concern,? said Afghan foreign ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen. ?We want to continue our friendly relations with Iran.?

Karzai has said there is no proof the Iranian-marked weapons are provided by Tehran. Iran and Afghanistan have never been as friendly as they are today,? he said earlier this month. But a defence ministry general said the government had ?evidence?, including documents, to prove the weapons were coming into the country for the Taliban, with Tehran?s knowledge. The official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, would not give further details.

Shiite Iran, a staunch opponent of the Sunni Taliban movement?s 1996-2001 regime in Afghanistan, is playing a ?three-pronged? game, he said. ?Iran?s foreign ministry is staging a friendly-relations show with Afghanistan, supporting the Afghan government,? he told AFP. Meanwhile, ?Its religious armed forces and its intelligence is supporting political opponents of the government and, separately, helping Taliban

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C07%5C02%5Cstory_2-7-2007_pg4_13

in reality most of the hot spots in the entire middle east and elsewhere are in fact proxy wars between the west and iran.

Al Gore's Nashville mansion is something of the energy-gobbler, while President Bush's Crawford ranch is more the model of responsible resource use. According to the Associated Press, the Gore's 10,000 square foot Belle Meade residence consumes electricity at a rate of about 12 times the average for a typical house in Nashville (191,000 kwh versus 15,600 kwh). While there are mitigating factors (further discussed in our article about the Gore household's energy use), this is still a surprising number, given that the residence is approximately four times the size of the average new American home.

In comparison the ranch home owned by George W. Bush in Crawford, Texas, was designed by Austin architect David Heymann, an associate dean for undergraduate programs at the University of Texas School of Architecture. While its precise size isn't known, scuttlebutt has it that it's about 4,000 square feet, all on one floor.

The Bush ranch utilizes an efficient geothermal heating and cooling system that pumps ground water through a heat exchanger to warm the house in the winter and cool it in the summer, a system that expends roughly one-quarter the energy of a conventional heater/air-conditioner. Water used by the house is reclaimed, treated, and reused, and rainwater funnels from the home's gutters into a large cistern, which holds the water for garden irrigation.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/house.asp

the real flaw is people trying to turn back time and return to the middle ages, those people and that thought will eventually lose in iraq, afghanistan, iran, and anywhere else they try to entrench their deformed backward philosophy. the people that can wait are the one's not trying to take the world back to the middle ages because that is never going to be accomplished. women in burkas proponents are going to lose this fight.