With zarquawi apparently on the run, iraq sunnis and shiaa might just be trying to prevent civil war. There was some talk over the last few days that the shiaa would start taking action against the insurgents, particulary bagdad and south of bagdad. I havent seen any stories about the kurds entering the fray in a bigger way but that wouldnt surprise me at all either. I know how you feel about this war GST, and in answer to your PM, my hope is that years from now we will look at some good results from this screwed up operation. Let historians argue what the world would have looked like if bus werent president or iraq didnt happen. Right now i will be thankful if the insurgency ends over the next year and iraq gets some sort of representative, federal govt. Mike
nytimes.com
Iraqi Leaders Plan to Meet Insurgents in Jordan
By EDWARD WONG
Published: November 26, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 25 - The Iraqi foreign minister said Thursday that the interim Iraqi government planned to meet soon in Jordan with rebel leaders to try to persuade them to take part in politics here.
It was the first time the government had agreed to an official meeting with leaders of the insurgency. The minister, Hoshyar Zebari, did not give a date for the meeting or specify who would be invited.
He said Iraqi officials had agreed to the meeting after being asked by various diplomats at a conference this week in Egypt to open discussions with the resistance.
"The aim is really to reach out to as many people as possible both inside and outside" of Iraq, Mr. Zebari said at a news conference.
The government welcomes "the broader participation of Iraqis, even those who are oppositionists, in this process" of politics, he said, "if they renounce violence and terror."
The rebel leaders to be invited will be "some people who are of political and tribal backgrounds," he said, declining to elaborate. American and Iraqi officials say much of the insurgency is being financed by wealthy loyalists to Saddam Hussein who fled to bordering countries before the American-led invasion in March 2003. Many are believed to be helping to organize the insurgency from Syria and Jordan, and funneling millions of dollars to the ground troops of the rebellion.
Violence rippled across Sunni-dominated central and northern Iraq on Thursday, as ambushes and car bombs in Falluja and Samarra left two marines and two Iraqis dead, and more bodies of Iraqis were discovered in Mosul, in the north.
Meanwhile, a powerful Sunni Arab political party threatened that if elections set for Jan. 30 were not delayed, it would boycott them.
There was at least one blow to the insurgency: the Iraqi national security adviser, Kassim Daoud, said at a news conference on Thursday that a senior aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant leader, had been arrested in Mosul. He said the man, who goes by the nom de guerre of Abu Said, was picked up after people in the area had informed on him.
Mr. Daoud's announcement lends further evidence to the theory that Mr. Zarqawi may have set up a base of operations in Mosul after leaving Falluja before the American-led offensive began Nov. 8.
Mr. Zarqawi's group posted an Internet message on Thursday claiming responsibility for the killing the previous day of James Mollen, 48, a State Department employee who was an adviser to the Ministry of Education, news agencies reported. Mr. Mollen was shot in his car outside the heavily fortified Green Zone.
American military officials said Thursday that three more bodies had been discovered in Mosul, a city of two million 225 miles north of Baghdad that has emerged as one of the biggest problems for the Americans. One was a Kurdish militiaman and another appeared to be an Iraqi soldier, said Lt. Col. Erik Kurilla, commander of the First Battalion of the 24th Infantry. Both had been shot. The identity of the third has not been determined.
Hundreds of insurgents stormed and looted a half-dozen police stations in Mosul on Nov. 11, spurring 3,200 of the city's 4,000 police officers to quit. Since then, the city has remained unstable, with at least three dozen Iraqi bodies, mostly security officers, turning up in various parts of the city, some decapitated or killed with shots to the head.
In the devastated city of Falluja, insurgents killed two marines who were clearing houses in the south, military officials said. The rubble-strewn streets remain hazardous, with American troops continuing to battle bands of guerrillas operating in groups of three or four. Marines have been running into a growing number of foreign fighters in the south, commanders say.
Some of those, including a Turk captured Wednesday, have complained that the Iraqi handlers who were assigned to assist them on their arrival in Falluja have disappeared or have been killed, a Marine commander said. |
