Incredible coverage of Egypt protest on Jan. 28.

Now this is news and brilliant coverage !!  Guardian you rock !!

Jack Shenker in Cairo says there are signs that the police are siding with protesters. "The regime is already" falling he was told

Der Spiegel's take on the new Tunisia

"More than anything, most of the demonstrators want to see an end to corruption." 

My definition:  Corruption is the psychotic symptom of excessive violence.  


I love love love articles like this where I find something out and the author seems to tell the TRUTH about something I long to know about.

This shows some of what may happen in a NEW Tunisia.  I am also going to check IC Publications Africa Today and The Middle East to see what they are saying.  Obviously some leadership is emerging, if only in the media's imagination.

Notice I already had a Middle East liberation tag.  I just KNEW this had to happen eventually.  Even the totally screwed over by being terrorized get fed up when they are told they won't be able to eat, but the Fat Cats are eating caviar in Dubai.

Intoxicated by Freedom

Reinventing Tunisia at Record Speed

By Mathieu von Rohr and Volkhard Windfuhr in Tunis

• 
• 
• 

Photo Gallery: Aftermath of the Jasmine Revolution

Tunisians are intoxicated by their newfound freedom. The media is publishing long-suppressed sentiments, while activists form new parties and young people hold heated debates on street corners. But the country is facing huge challenges in its bid to become a modern democracy, and it will hardly be possible to stick to the deadline for new elections. more...

Tunisians are intoxicated by their newfound freedom. The media is publishing long-suppressed sentiments, while activists form new parties and young people hold heated debates on street corners. But the country is facing huge challenges in its bid to become a modern democracy, and it will hardly be possible to stick to the deadline for new elections.

The 18 men and women have formed a circle, with some sitting and others standing. They are holding one of the first editorial meetings ever convened at La Presse, a daily newspaper in the Tunisian capital Tunis. They discuss thetremendous things happening in their county and what should appear in tomorrow's paper.

They are intoxicated with newfound energy. Now they want to do all the things they have never done before. They want to tell the stories that will stir the country, stories about the little bookshop around the corner displaying formerly banned books, about how stores are gradually reopening their doors but food shortages continue, and about how people on the street are criticizing the new government. All of that is supposed to appear in the next day's edition.

They also want to write articles about the social networking Internet platform Facebook, which has become an alternative source of news for the country's youth. They are even considering downloading and printing images circulating online of police violence and destruction from all over the country.

Still, they are not completely sure how far they should allow themselves to go. They debate and argue over whether they should criticize individual ministers who are particularly incompetent and whether they should identify all the authors of opinion pieces by name.

Euphoria and Apprehension

Faouzia Mezzi is leading the meeting. While the autocratic former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali still ruled the country, there were times when she was banned from writing articles. Today, she is having a hard time restraining those staff members who would prefer to change everything immediately. "We first need to see if we can even publish a newspaper at all," she says. "Be patient."

At the time, it had only been five days since Ben Ali, Tunisia's dictator for 23 years, fled the country, and only the fifth day that the country had enjoyed freedom of the press. No one gave it to these journalists; they simply took it. While the country was rising up against the regime, they launched their own revolution.

But there appear to be limits to the new freedom. The interim government shut down the country's most popular private television station, Hannibal TV, on Sunday night. The New York Times, quoting Tunisia's state news agency, reported that the government had arrested the station's owner, which it accused of treason for broadcasting "false information likely to create a constitutional vacuum and destabilize the country." A spokesman for the station, which had criticized Ben Ali's government in the past, said that it had been shut down without warning and called the move a violation of freedom of the press.

By Monday morning, however, the station had resumed broadcasting, apparently after an opposition member of the interim government intervened. Observers in Tunisia told the New York Times that the network's shutdown damaged the interim government's credibility and said that the fate of the station would be seen as a test of the state's commitment to press freedom.

Practicing Self-Censorship

La Presse, which appears in both French and Arabic versions, is one of the country's oldest newspapers. Like almost all media sources in Tunisia, it is government-owned, meaning the state appoints its senior editors. During the dictatorship, those editors would dictate the issues to be covered, as well as censor anything that could upset the regime. Naturally, the journalists also practiced self-censorship. Indeed, until the revolution, La Presse was little more than a bland mouthpiece for government statements.

On Friday, January 14, 2011, even before Ben Ali and his family had been chased out of the country, the paper's staff allowed itself to be infected by the same lust for freedom that had gripped the entire country. They stripped the editor in chief of power and designated a group of 10 people to be in charge of managing the paper.

The former editor in chief still has his office with its leather chair and he can be spotted skulking along the corridor, but he no longer has any say. The journalists formerly under his charge have been busy discovering what it means to live in a free society -- just like people throughout Tunisia these days.

Back at the meeting, Olfa Belhassine from the paper's culture section proposes an editorial entitled "Who's Afraid of Press Freedom?" She adds that, in her 20 years of working in the media, she has always dreamed of writing just such an article. The next day, it appears in the paper.

An Orderly Revolution

The rest is here on the link .. more to read !!  Really, don't miss it, much material of interest

RELATED SPIEGEL ONLINE LINKS

• A Tunisian Islamist Heads Home: 'The Rest of the Old Guard Must Go' (01/24/2011)
• Photo Gallery: Aftermath of the Jasmine Revolution
• Televising the Revolution: Tunisia's Sudden Press Freedom (01/21/2011)
• Dumping Old Friends: France Makes Awkward U-Turn on Tunisia Policy (01/20/2011)
• After the Fall: Tunisians Bask in Newfound Freedom (01/18/2011)
• Violence on the Streets: Tunisia Caught in the Crossfire of Revolution (01/17/2011)
• As Violent Protests Spread: Tunisian President Dissolves Government (01/14/2011)
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Egypt braced for 'day of revolution' protests: The Guardian

Youth activists, Islamists, workers and football fans to hold rallies and marches against Mubarak government

• omments (64)

• Jack Shenker in Cairo
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 24 January 2011 16.42 GMT
• Article history

Egyptian demonstrators hold a Tunisian flag in an anti-government protest in front of the attorney general's headquarters in Cairo last week. Photograph: Asmaa Waguih/Reuters

Egypt's authoritarian government is bracing itself for one of the biggest opposition demonstrations in recent years tomorrow, as thousands of protesters prepare to take to the streets demanding political reform.

An unlikely alliance of youth activists, political Islamists, industrial workers and hardcore football fans have pledged to join a nationwide "day of revolution" on a national holiday to celebrate the achievements of the police force.

With public sentiment against state security forces at an unprecedented level following a series of high-profile police brutality cases and the torture of anti-government activists, protest organisers are hoping that a large number of Egyptians will be emboldened to attend rallies, marches and flash mobs across the country in a sustained effort to force concessions from an increasingly unpopular ruling elite.

In a move that suggests the uprising in Tunisia may be spreading to other parts of the Arab world, Tunisian activists announced they would be holding their own protests in solidarity with their Egyptian counterparts, while many Egyptians plan to wave Tunisian flags. Parallel protests are also scheduled to take place outside the Egyptian embassies in London and Washington.

Demonstrators are calling for the sacking of the country's interior minister, the cancelling of Egypt's perpetual emergency law, which suspends basic civil liberties, and a new term limit on the presidency that would bring to an end the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak, one of the Middle East's most entrenched dictators.

State security officials have branded the protests illegal, and said that those taking part will be dealt with "strictly".

"I'm answering a call that began online, a call to stand up against police brutality on the day the regime wants us to celebrate their so-called achievements," said Salma Said, a 25-year-old activist and blogger who plans to protest in Cairo.

"Of course demonstrating against police brutality means demonstrating against Mubarak himself and his whole regime, because they are the ones who created this system. Momentum is gathering really, really fast; friends I haven't spoken to in years have been ringing me up, promising to come down."

Tomorrow's events, dubbed a "day of revolution against torture, corruption, poverty and unemployment" by protest leaders, were initiated by two dissident movements, both based online. One is dedicated to the memory of Khaled Said, an Alexandrian man beaten to death by policelast year, while the other, "6 April", is a youth group named after the date of an uprising two years ago in the Nile delta town of El-Mahalla El-Kubra, in which three people were killed by police.

After initially dismissing the protests, the Muslim Brotherhood - Egypt's largest organised opposition force - has now said it will back the demonstrations symbolically, although it has not called on its supporters to take to the streets. Strikes are expected by workers in several parts of the country, including Mahalla, and a number of Egypt's traditional opposition parties and prominent public figures have pledged support.

Mohamed Adel, a spokesman for 6 April, said the broad range of participants distinguished tomorrow's action from previous protests. "It will be the start of something big," he told the Egyptian news outlet Al-Masry Al-Youm.

In a sign of how seriously the Mubarak regime is taking any challenge to its authority following the downfall of Tunisia's president Ben Ali, counter-protests are being organised under the banner of "Mubarak: Egypt's security". Organisers say they want to express their rejection of the "destruction of state institutions" by the opposition, raising fears of violent clashes on the ground.

"Regardless of how many people turn up, these protests will be highly significant," said Nabil Abdel Fattah, a political analyst at the semi-official Al-Ahram Research Centre. "Those confronting the regime on Tuesday will be the sons and daughters of virtual activism - a new generation that has finally found something around which they can unite and rally.They are the product of a government that has never offered them any ideological vision to believe in, and now they have themselves become a symbol of contemporary Egypt."

Related

• 19 Jan 2011
  Tunisia crisis: live updates
• 23 Jan 2011
  Egypt's frustrated young wait for their lives to begin, and dream of revolution
• 16 Jan 2011
  Muammar Gaddafi condemns Tunisia uprising
• 11 Jan 2011
  The failure of governance in the Arab world
  
  

Three storeys - and a nation - built by tragedy

MARK MACKINNON

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

May 3, 2008 at 12:04 AM EDT

Jerusalem — The building stands at the centre of the city, its curved façade looming like a question mark. Older than Israel itself, and with a history nearly as tormented and complicated, the Sansur Building will witness the celebrations unfolding on the adjacent Zion Square this week as the Jewish state celebrates its 60th anniversary.

But if the grimy pedestrian shopping plaza that is Zion Square – at the heart of the newer, western half of this ancient city – is synonymous with Israel, the three-storey Sansur is a reminder of why Palestinians refer to Israel's birth on May 15, 1948, as the naqba, the catastrophe. And of why the fighting for this land has never stopped since that day.

A small plaque on the outer wall tells passersby that the three-storey edifice with the neoclassical touches was erected by the Sansur Brothers of Bethlehem in 1929. Like much of the history here, that's a matter of opinion. The building's real story mirrors that of a country still wrestling with both its past and its modern identity. The tales of those who built it, those who lived and worked in it and even those who were merely passing by all follow the tragic, violent course that this country and its peoples have taken.

Lives ordinary and extraordinary – Arab and Jew, Holocaust survivors and suicide bombers – have been colliding here since the moment the Jewish state was born. They crashed, clashed and left each other changed – and almost always for the worse. Together, their stories pose an existential question that Israel, on the eve of its 60th birthday, has yet to answer.

Enlarge Image

Then and Now: Composite image shows the Sansur Building in West Jerusalem 79 years ago and today.

Related Articles

Recent

• Globe essay: No Mideast peace without Syria
• Live, Monday: Globe's Patrick Martin takes questions

Internet Links

• Audio Slideshow: The Sansur Building');">Audio Slideshow: The Sansur Building

The pioneer

Sixty years ago, a young woman named Batya Bornstein was among the hundreds of revellers who surged onto Zion Square to celebrate Israel's declaration of independence. The 24-year-old watched gleefully as dozens of youths danced the hora and sang as they spun around a bonfire in the middle of the plaza.

Even then, tensions were high. War was clearly on the horizon and in a sense already under way. Ben Yehuda Street, which meets Jaffa Road at Zion Square, still bore the scars of a triple car-bomb attack carried out by Arab fighters just three months earlier, killing 52 Jewish civilians.

Ms. Bornstein had served as a medic in the Haganah militia that was one of four main Jewish paramilitary organizations battling Arab fighters in the run-up to Independence Day. All four would soon be folded into the Israel Defence Forces to combat the combined armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, which invaded immediately after the declaration of independence.

The war was to last a year, and Israel not only survived, but expanded its territory significantly beyond what it had been allotted under the United Nations plan for the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish halves.

Ms. Bornstein had arrived in what was then the British mandate of Palestine in 1934, after her father decided that the rising anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe – and neighbouring Germany – meant that their native Poland was no longer a safe place to raise a family.

“We left Lvov on a stormy day, it was December, and when we came to Israel it was still December, but the sun was shining. I remember seeing a lot of oranges,” the frail but sharp-minded 83-year-old says, recalling the day she and her family landed in Haifa.

Today, she lives in a photograph-cluttered apartment in Katamon, an Arab neighbourhood that was seized by Israel – and emptied of its former inhabitants – during the fighting of 1948-49.

For Ms. Bornstein's family, Israel provided a refuge from the horrors that were unfolding in Europe. Her beloved grandmother and most of her extended family disappeared into the Nazi concentration camp of Belzec in eastern Poland. Her husband, Shmuel, whom she married in 1951, emerged from years of internment in both Belzec and Bergen-Belsen, racked with diphtheria, but alive.

Like many Holocaust survivors, he went straight from Europe's war to Palestine's. Mr. Bornstein served in the Haganah unit that fought first in the Galilee and then later in the battle for the southern port of Eilat that was the last major combat of the war.

Continued on Page 2…

Meanwhile, in Irak ..

Curfew extended in Iraqi capital

Baghdad's Shia Sadr City area has seen heavy clashes

Baghdad's military command has extended a round-the clock curfew in the city for an indefinite period.

It was imposed on Thursday amid clashes between troops and Shia militias in Baghdad and elsewhere, and had been due to expire early on Sunday morning.

The extension came hours after radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr said his Mehdi Army militia would defy a government call to lay down its weapons.

Across Iraq, fighting has claimed more than 200 lives since Tuesday.

The BBC's Crispin Thorold in Baghdad says the curfew extension will damage the capital economically, as well as inconveniencing residents.

The initial imposition of the curfew was a sign of how badly security in Baghdad had deteriorated, he says.

Baghdad, particularly the Shia-dominated Sadr City area in the east of the city, has seen some of the worst violence in recent days, including a series of US air strikes on Friday.

Air strikes

The curfew extension came after a day of skirmishes between security forces and Shia militiamen in the southern city of Basra, where the current wave of unrest began.

Fierce gun battles were reported, while the UK military said US warplanes carried out two air strikes.

Iraqi police said an earlier US air strike killed eight people, although no independent confirmation was available.

Turkey hits rebel targets

British forces in the city fired artillery rounds on what they said were militia mortar positions - the first time they had directly joined the fighting since government forces launched the operation in Basra.

Iraqi forces have been trying to wrest control of the city and other Shia areas from the Mehdi Army.

In an interview, Moqtada Sadr said he would ignore the call by the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki, for his forces to surrender their weapons.

He said they would only be handed over to a government which could get the occupying forces out of Iraq.

Mr Maliki has extended an original three-day deadline, telling the fighters they had until 8 April to hand in their weapons in return for cash.

On Saturday the prime minister vowed that government troops will not leave Basra until "security is restored", describing the gunmen as "worse than al-Qaeda".

Iraqi soldiers have met fierce resistance in Basra

"We will continue to stand up to these gangs in every inch of Iraq," he said.

Meanwhile Al-Jazeera TV broadcast excerpts from an exclusive interview with Moqtada Sadr that it conducted hours before the beginning of the clashes on Tuesday.

Mr Sadr called on Arab and Muslims states and the UN to

"recognise the legitimacy of resistance"

and offer support to Iraqi to

"drive the occupation forces out of its land".

Power struggle

Estimates vary of the number of deaths since the fighting broke out.

Health officials in Baghdad say at least 75 people have been killed while in Basra, the British military give a death toll of 50.

However, Basra medical sources report as many as 290 dead and an Iraqi army commander, Maj-Gen Ali Zaidan, said on Friday his forces had killed 120 "enemy" fighters there. He did not give casualty figures for his own soldiers.

Scores of people are believed to have been killed in other southern cities, according to Iraqi police or medical reports.

At least 44 people were killed in and around Kut, 15 in Nasiriya, 12 in Karbala and six in Hilla.

The fighting is blamed on a power struggle between rival Shia factions.

Moqtada Sadr's followers have in the past rebelled against the US-backed government, although the cleric's political bloc has backed Mr Maliki's ruling coalition.

A ceasefire by the Mehdi Army, in place since August 2007 and renewed in February, has been widely credited with reducing sectarian tensions and contributing to the recent overall drop in violence.

Correspondents say Moqtada Sadr's supporters fear the prime minister - also a Shia - wishes to weaken their movement before local elections due later this year.

In separate developments on Saturday:

• Two US soldiers were killed in eastern Baghdad, the US military said
• Turkey said it had killed 15 Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq in cross-border shelling on Thursday, and carried out air strikes in the area on Friday.

Stand-off with gunmen locks down Iraqi cities

Posted 1 hour 7 minutes ago

Iraq's main cities of Baghdad and Basra have been locked down amid a deadly stand-off between security forces and Shiite gunmen whose leader, cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, is defying calls for fighters to lay down their arms.

Pedestrians and vehicles stayed off the streets of the Iraqi capital for a third straight day of curfew, imposed amid intense firefights that have killed at least 90 people in the capital since Tuesday.

The southern oil hub of Basra was relatively calm, residents said, adding however that two neighbourhoods had been bombed during night by US or British jets. The two militaries did not immediately confirm the assaults.

US warplanes had carried out air strikes in the city on Friday and Saturday in which several people were killed, Iraqi and US officials said.

A witness said a vehicle curfew was still in place in the southern port city of Basra but that some pedestrians had dashed out to do some emergency shopping, taking advantage of a relative lull in the fighting.

More than 270 people have been killed since Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Tuesday ordered troops to launch an assault in Basra on Shiite militiamen he has since described as "worse than Al Qaeda."

Fighting spread from Basra to other Shiite cities, including Baghdad, where authorities Thursday night imposed a round-the-clock curfew.

Iraqi and US-led forces are now engaged in the most intense stand-off with Shiite gunmen since 2004, when Sadr's feared Mahdi Army militia launched a rebellion against American troops in the central city of Najaf.

Most of the fatalities have occurred in Baghdad, where 90 people have died, and in Basra, where the toll stands at around 50.

Basra is the focus of a turf war between the Mahdi Army and two rival Shiite factions - the powerful Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) of Abdel Aziz al-Hakim and the smaller Fadhila party.

Shops, offices, schools and colleges were closed in the city of 1.5 million people on Sunday.

Other Shiite cities, such as Kut, Hilla, Nasiriyah and Karbala, were also quiet Sunday after heavy clashes earlier in the week.

- AFP

UNCENSORED - Yeah, like right, the Surge is working (if you believe the MSM)

From warnewstoday.blogspot.com

additional inforamation:

44,000 wounded Iraq war GIs treated at US hospital in Germany
Germany - Iraq - US Almost 44,000 American soldiers wounded during the Iraq war over the past five years have received medical treatment at the US Landstuhl military hospital in Germany, the largest medical facility outside the US, the European-edition of the US military daily Stars and Stripes reported Tuesday.

http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/ view...68723122949.htm

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/ 200...aningof4000dead
The real meaning of 4000 dead - A must read, imho

The US is BROKE, their strategy fails everytime. WHEN DOES BAGHDAD FALL?

The Great Imperial Strategy is clearly a nightmare without any socially redeeming features.

Veeger

War News for Wednesday, March 26, 2008

MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Multi-National Division - Baghdad soldier in a hostile fire attack in an undisclosed location on Tuesday, March 25th. No other details were released. The Baltimore Sun reports that the soldiers were attacked with mortar fire in a western neighborhood of Baghdad according to a military spokesman.

The British MoD is reporting the death of a British soldier in a hostile gunfire attack in Iraq on Wednesday, March 26th. No other details were released.

The Herald Tribune is reporting the death of an American soldier in a small-arms fire attack in a northwestern neighborhood of Baghdad on Wednesday, March 26th according the the military.


Security incidents:

Baghdad:
#1: In addition, rockets and mortar shells rained down on U.S. troops around Baghdad, killing one American soldier, a U.S. military spokesman said. A dozen attacks targeted four U.S. bases and the International Zone, the fortified enclave in the heart of Baghdad that houses American and Iraqi government offices, Lt. Col. Steven Stover said.

#2: The fighting has killed 18 others in Baghdad and left scores injured. Officials say the dead in Basra include Iraqi troops, police, civilians and militiamen.

#3: In a further incident Wednesday, three U.S. government officials were seriously injured as militants targeted the International Zone in Baghdad, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said.

More mortars were fired at the Green Zone on Wednesday, Iraqi officials said, adding that one hit a residential building outside the heavily fortified complex killing one person and wounding four.

Around 5:30 a.m. three mortar shells hit the green zone. No reports about casualties.

Around 9:15 a.m. three mortar shells hit the green zone.

Around 1:00 p.m. mortar shells hit the green zone in downtown Baghdad. No reports about Casualties.

Around 3:00 p.m. mortar shells hit the green zone. No casualties reported.

#4: A mortar or rocket round that apparently fell short also struck a minibus in the mainly Shiite district of Karradah, killing at least two passengers and wounding seven others, according to police and hospital officials.

Two were killed and seven wounded when two rounds hit the central Al-Karada neighbourhood, the officials said.

#5: US military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover said two members of the Iraqi security forces were killed in an attack on a checkpoint in the suburb (Sadr City) late on Tuesday.

#6: Renewed fighting broke out around 1:00 am (2200 GMT Tuesday) in Sadr City, Baghdad bastion of the cleric's Mahdi Army militia, security officials said. Qassim al-Sueidi, head of the local Imam Ali hospital, said four people were killed and 24 wounded in the fighting in the impoverished northeast Baghdad neighbourhood of two million people.

#7: Sporadic clashes with Iraqi and US troops continued during the day (in Sadr City), witnesses said.

A New York Times photographer who was able to get through the cordon found more layers of checkpoints, each one run by about two dozen heavily armed Mahdi Army fighters clad in tracksuits and T-shirts. Tires burned in the city center, gunfire echoed against shuttered stores, and teams of fighters in pickup trucks moved about brandishing machine guns, sniper rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

#8: Three people were killed and 12 wounded when three mortar rounds slammed into the Al-Risala neighbourhood of south-west Baghdad.

#9: Even before the crackdown on militias began on Tuesday, Pentagon statistics on the frequency of militia and insurgent attacks suggested that after major security gains last fall, the conflict had drifted into something of a stalemate. Over all, violence has remained fairly steady over the past several months, but the streets have become tense and much more dangerous again after a period of calm.

#10: At a checkpoint downtown, a policeman’s radio crackled with the news of the sniper shooting of a police officer in a nearby neighborhood.

#11: Five people were injured when members of Mahdi army opened fire targeting civilians in al Kifah neighborhood in downtown Baghdad around 8:30 a.m.

#12: Six people were inured when members of Mahdi army opened fire targeting civilians in Sadoun Street in downtown Baghdad around 9:00 a.m.

#13: A fourth shell hit one of the buildings in Salhiyah street near the green zone. One civilians was killed and 6 others wounded.

#14: Two civilians were wounded in an IED explosion in al Fallah intersection in Sadr city in East Baghdad around 11:00 a.m.

#15: Four civilians were inured in clashes between insurgents and the Iraqi national police in Shaab neighborhood in north Baghdad around 1:30 p.m.

#16: Around 2:00 p.m. clashes broke out between the Iraqi army and members of Mahdi army in Kadhemiyah neighborhood in North Baghdad. No casualties were reported.

#17: Four civilians were wounded when a mortar shell hit Beirut intersection in east Baghdad around 3:00 p.m.

#18: Three civilians were wounded in an IED explosion in Darwish intersection in Saidiyah neighborhood in South Baghdad around 3:00 p.m.

#19: The U.S. military says an American soldier has been killed by small-arms fire in Baghdad.
The military says the Multi-National Division — Baghdad soldier was taken to a hospital after being shot in a northwestern area of the capital but succumbed to the wounds.

#20: At least one person was killed and four more were wounded on Wednesday as militants of the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's militia clashed with police forces in eastern Baghdad, a source from Iraqi Interior Ministry said. "Clashes erupted, this afternoon, between police forces and gunmen from Mahdi army near Sabah al-Khayat square in al-Shaab neighborhood," the source told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq.

#21: the same source said that a mortar round landed, this afternoon, in Palestine Street, eastern Baghdad, wounding four civilians.

#22: Around 5:30 p.m. a mortar shell hit Kadhemiyah neighborhood in north Baghdad. No Casualties reported.

#23: An IED exploded targeting a US convoy in Abo Desheer neighborhood south of Baghdad on Wednesday afternoon. No casualties reported.

#24: Police found three unidentified bodies in the following neighborhood (1 body in Bonok, 1 body in Ur and 1 body in Bayaa.


Jisr Diyala:
#1: Clashes broke out between the US army and Mahdi army militia in jisr Diyala area south of Baghdad. No news about casualties reported.


Kut:
#1: Police said Sadr fighters had seized control of seven districts in the southern town of Kut. A Reuters witness heard heavy clashes near a government building in the town centre.

#2: Two people was killed and 12 wounded in clashes between Mehdi Army members and Iraqi security forces in Kut, 175 km (105 miles) southeast of Baghdad, police said. Police said the militia had taken control of seven neighbourhoods.

Clashes also broke out for a second day Wednesday in the city of Kut, 175 kilometres (110 miles) southeast of Baghdad, where Iraqi troops moved in numbers to areas controlled by the Madhi Army, an AFP correspondent said. Police said a soldier and a woman were killed in Wednesday's clashes.

#3: Police said at least 10 people, including a baby girl, were killed and 31 wounded in clashes in Kut, 170 km (105 miles) south of Baghdad.

#4: Unknown gunmen on Wednesday set ablaze the house of a journalist working for the government-funded Iraqi Media Network in Wassit province, 180 km southeast of Baghdad, a police source said. "Unknown gunmen attacked and set ablaze the house of Bashir Taaban, a journalist working for the Iraqi Media Network in al-Dhubbat neighborhood, northern Kut," the source, who requested anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq.

#5: Meanwhile, the same source said that mortars fell on two buildings in central Kut, inflicting huge damage to them.

#6: At least three civilians were killed and five others wounded, all members of the same family, on Wednesday when a Katyusha rocket fell on their home in Kut city, 180 km southeast of Baghdad, a police source said. The attack occurred in Dour al-Shaoun quarter and the wounded "were in critical condition," the source, who declined to have his name mentioned, told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq


Hilla:
#1: There were also serious clashes in the southern cities of Kut and Hilla.

Clashes resumed between Mehdi army and Iraqi security forces in three districts of Hilla, 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

#2: Many people were killed and wounded by a U.S. air strike called in support of Iraqi forces in the town of Hilla south of Baghdad, Iraqi security sources said. One police source said at least 11 people were killed and 18 wounded in the strike, launched after Iraqi security forces called for support following street battles with Shi'ite militia members in the city's Thawra neighborhood. Another police source said 29 people were killed and 39 were wounded.
Two other security sources said the combined total of dead and wounded was in the dozens, although they were unable to give precise casualty figures. All of the sources spoke under condition they not be named.

At least 60 people were killed and wounded when the MNF helicopters bombed the neighborhoods of al Askari and Nadir in Babil province south of Baghdad, the spokesman the Iraqi police in Babil province Muthanna Ahmed said. The MNF couldn’t immediately confirm the strike.


Diwaniya:
#1: Two gunmen were killed and three others were arrested in armed confrontations between security forces and gunmen at the center of Diwaniya city on Tuesday, commander of al-Baqr Emergency Brigade said on Wednesday. "Clashes took place on Tuesday afternoon, between security forces and gunmen, on streets 30 and 60 in the center of Diwaniya city," Colonel Ghasan Mohammed told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq.

#2: One Iraqi soldier was killed in eastern Diwaniya, 180 km (112 miles) south of Baghdad, in clashes between Iraqi security forces and Mehdi Army militants, according to an army source.


Amarra:
#1: Two Iraqi soldiers were killed late Tuesday in armed confrontations between army forces and unknown gunmen, a security source said on Wednesday. “Armed clashes broke out between Iraqi army troops and unidentified armed men near the intersection of Jisr al-Joumhouriya in central Amara, during which two soldiers were killed and three Hummers were destroyed,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq


Najaf:
#1: A ceasefire ordered by Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr remains in effect despite a crackdown on his followers in the southern city of Basra by government forces, a top aide said on Wednesday. "The freeze that Sadr has ordered is still ongoing," one of Sadr's senior aides, Luwaa Sumaisem, told Reuters in the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf.

#2: A mortar shell hit al Mujtaba police station in downtown Najaf city south of Baghdad around 8:15 p.m. causing casualties among the staff of the police station, police said. The police of Najaf announced a curfew in the city until further notice.

#3: Two mortar shells hit an agricultural area south of Najaf city around 8:00 p.m. no reports about casualties.

#4: A mortar shell hit the airport of Najaf around 8:00 p.m. no casualties reported.

Basra:
#1: Iraq's prime minister Wednesday gave Shiite militants battling security forces in Basra a 72-hour deadline to surrender

#2: In addition, at least 30 Iraqi security force members were kidnapped by militia fighters in Basra, he said.

#3: Militiamen used roadside bombs to bring down part of a bridge in northern Basra on Tuesday, witnesses and police reported, hindering the movement of security forces.

#4: the death toll from two days of fighting that threatens to undo efforts to stabilize Iraq neared 50. The fighting has killed 40 to 50 people in Basra. and left scores injured. Officials say the dead in Basra include Iraqi troops, police, civilians and militiamen.

Medical source in Basra province south of Baghdad said that 33 people were killed and 150 others were wounded in the clashes that took place between the Iraqi security forces and Mahdi army in different neighborhoods of the province.

#5: Heavy gun battles continue to rage in five districts after a brief lull.

Fighting also broke after dawn between Mahdi Army fighters and Iraqi troops in Basra. Battles were raging in the Mahdi Army strongholds of Al-Gaazaiza, Al-Garma, Khmasamene, Al-Hayania and Al-Maqal neighbourhoods of Basra, witnesses said.

Basra police said heavy gunbattles restarted early Wednesday in five districts of Basra after a brief lull. Mortars or rocket attacks regularly struck Iraqi security checkpoints and bases.

#6: Police said 218 militiamen had been detained since the launch of the security sweep, which has been codenamed Saulat al-Fursan (Charge of the Knights).

#7: They said however there were fewer security force personnel on the streets than on Tuesday, when police and troops deployed in vast numbers across Basra.

#8: Another official in the Basra office, speaking on condition of anonymity, warned that "The Sadr current (or movement) is threatening to set fire to the oil wells in Basra if the Iraqi military continues its security plan." Al-Sadr's representatives walked out of parliament yesterday to protest the crackdown in Basra.

Oil production and exports from Iraq's southern oilfields could be disrupted in three days if workers cannot reach their offices due to fighting in Basra, a Southern Oil Company official told Reuters on Wednesday. If the military operations continue for three more days, the oil workers will not be able to continue their work and this is going to definitely affect oil production and exports," said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Oil workers in the Basra province work 24-hour shifts and have not been replaced since Tuesday, the oil company official said. "The workers are now going through a very hard time with shortages of food, and are tired from the heat because they are not being replaced," he said.

#9: Several mortar rounds struck a police compound in Basra where prisoners were being held. Seven police and three prisoners were wounded.

#10: It is with deep regret that the Ministry of Defence must confirm the death of a British soldier in Iraq today, 26 March 2008. The soldier died as a result of gunshot wounds sustained during a firefight in the early hours of this morning.

#11: Four policemen were killed when their vehicle was targeted with RBG7 rocket near Basra police directorate on Wednesday afternoon.

#12: Mortar shells hit Basra police directorate in downtown Basra city. No casualties were reported, three police vehicles were damaged.


Tikrit:
#1: At least five people were killed and 11 injured Tuesday when US forces attacked the Iraqi city of Tikrit, some 180 kilometres north of Baghdad, Iraqi police said Wednesday. US military forces attacked the houses of Tikrit's Qadesiya district late Tuesday, while helicopters hovered over the city until the early hours of Wednesday. Hassan Ahmed, an Iraqi police official, told Deutsche Presse- Agentur dpa that US airstrikes hit a house in the city, killing four people, including a 10-year-old girl, and injuring another 11 Iraqis. The wounded included five women and five children. US forces detained one civilian during the attack.

Five Iraqi civilians including a judge were killed by a U.S. airstrike in the northern town of Tikrit on Wednesday, Iraqi police said. In a statement, US forces acknowledged that the civilians had been killed during a battle with alleged Al Qaida Sunni militants, which started after the airstrikes from fixed-wing aircraft. Iraqi police said five civilians were killed and 10 wounded in the air strike. The dead included Munaf Mehdi, a judge in the town.

#3: A source in Tikrit hospital said that a patrol from the 1st battalion the 14 brigade brought the body of Mohammed Shakir Mahmoud who died after being tortured by aa US sponsored militia near al Mamlaha village east of Samara on Wednesday morning.

#4: At least nine people, including seven anti-Qaeda (Sahwa) fighters were wounded on Wednesday as a suicide bomber detonated a car rigged with explosives at a checkpoint near Tikrit, a police source said. The explosion occurred "on the main road leading to Mosul near al-Awjah village."


Tuz Khurmatu:
#1: A source in the Iraqi police in Tuz Khurmatu said that the Syrian trucks drivers who were kidnapped in 4-3-2008 were released. The drivers (Abdul salam Mohammed Na’os, Bakir Hasan Faqosh, Adil Ramo Mahmoud, Abdul Kareem Ramo Mohammed and Ghassan Mohammed”)were kidnapped on Baghdad- Kirkuk Street.



Afghanistan:
#1: One Afghan policeman was killed and two others wounded when their vehicle hit a mine planted by Taliban insurgents in southern Afghan province of Helmand on Wednesday, said an official. Mohammad Hussein Andiwal, the provincial police chief told Xinhua that accident occurred at around 5 a.m.(GMT0030) when a group of police were patrolling in Gereshk district.

#2: Eight Afghan civilians were killed and 17 others wounded when a bomb-filled car exploded near a crowded bazaar in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, police said. The explosion in Gereshk district was similar to bombings carried out by Taliban insurgents in their campaign against the Kabul government and security forces, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility.


Casualty Reports:

Private Josh Lee, 20, is lucky to be alive following the 'friendly' attack in Helmand Province last summer. Josh, who lives in Stonely, sustained burns to his face and upper body and was evacuated by helicopter to a medical facility at Camp Bastion for treatment before being flown to a specialist burns unit in Birmingham. The former Kimbolton School pupil had only been in Afghanistan for five-and-a-half months when he was injured in August 07. Josh spent four-and-a-half weeks undergoing surgery to rebuild the left side of his face and repair his upper body.

Sgt. Adam Kelley, 22, was just inches from a roadside bomb in Iraq when it exploded. He's hurt, but alive. Last Thursday, a roadside bomb exploded next to Adam's armored truck. The force knocked him out, but aside from a concussion, he's okay. He has headaches and some memory loss, but is expected to be okay. His unit, the 116th Security Force, a national guard unit out of Camp Williams is expected home sometime next month.

Staff Sgt. James "Ross" Graydon lost his arm in Iraq. Army officials say Graydon was performing route clearance maneuvers in Sadr City in July 2006 when an improvised explosive device detonated next to his vehicle. The driver of the vehicle was killed, and three others were wounded. Graydon lost his arm in the explosion. Graydon is assigned to the 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 101st Airborne Division based at the post on the Tennessee-Kentucky border.

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Today's reminder to NEOCONS

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9/11 Vendetta posted 11/02/2007, 6:56 AM (InformationLiberation) [Category: Resistance]