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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (14595)	2/20/2007 1:52:05 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217655

US attacks are very ambitious and go well beyond strictly knocking out Iranian nuclear facilities using bunker busting bombs. Tehran has spread its nuclear facilities across its territory and reinforced them underground. The BBC has has revealed interesting details of an American contingency plan to attack Iran. Full story: news.bbc.co.uk The U.S has denied reports it is planning to invade Iran in order to wipe out its nuclear energy program on more than one occasion but details have emerged that show a preparedness to do so. In reality, contingency plans to invade Iran have been drawn up and military targets chosen, ones that include a large part of Iran's military infrastructure.The attacks are very ambitious and go well beyond strictly knocking out Iranian nuclear facilities using bunker busting bombs. 'It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centers.' U.N DEADLINE LOOMING Iran has been in a standoff with the U.S over its nuclear energy program for months. It says the program is within its rights and is for peaceful purposes while the American suspect a secret nuclear weapons technology program. The UN Security Council wants Iran to halt its uranium enrichment process by the 21st of February or face the possibility of economic sanctions. The U.S recently hinted it would prepare a second resolution to present to the U.N on the issue. TRIGGERS The plan for attack makes reference to 'triggers'; the first would be 'confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon', although what would constitute confirmation is unclear. The second would be 'a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighboring Iraq', again no clarification as per what amount may be quantified as high nor what may constitute conclusive evidence of Iranian involvement. digitaljournal.com

To: TobagoJack who wrote (14595)	2/20/2007 3:18:34 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 217655

They are on the offensive! Militants hit Iraq base, kill 2 U.S. GIs By BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writer 31 minutes ago BAGHDAD, Iraq - Insurgents staged a bold daylight assault against a U.S. combat post north of the capital Monday — first striking with a suicide car bombing, then firing on soldiers pinned down in a former Iraqi police station. At least two soldiers were killed and 17 wounded, the military said. Elsewhere, three U.S. soldiers were killed and two were wounded in a roadside bombing southwest of Baghdad on Monday, the U.S. military said. The military also announced the deaths of three Marines and one soldier since Saturday while conducting combat operations in the western province of Anbar. Altogether, nine U.S. service members have been reported killed since the beginning of the weekend, six of them on Monday. The head-on attack north of Baghdad was notable for both its tactics and target. Sunni insurgents have mostly used hit-and-run ambushes, roadside bombs or mortars on U.S. troops and stayed away from direct assaults on fortified military compounds to avoid U.S. firepower. It also appeared to fit a pattern emerging among the suspected Sunni militants: trying to hit U.S. forces harder outside the capital rather than confront them on the streets during a massive American-led security operation. But the sweeps have done little so far to ease the city's pain. Nearly 100 people have died in two days of blasts and sectarian bloodshed in and around Baghdad — most in areas dominated by the majority Shiite Muslims — and Iraqi officials who predicted swift results for the security operation have gone suddenly silent. "A coordinated attack" is how the U.S. military statement described the raid on the outpost in Tarmiyah, about 30 miles north of Baghdad. It added that a suicide car bombing began the fight, but military authorities declined to give further details. Witnesses and local authorities offered a fuller picture. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media and feared reprisals. According to their accounts, at least one car — and possibly others — rigged with explosives was driven on a kamikaze mission at dawn into the concrete outer barriers around the Army base, a former Iraqi police station taken over by American troops late last year. The blasts ignited stored fuel, they said. Soon, parts of the base were ablaze and under gunfire, but the size of the insurgent force was unclear. It also was not known whether the militants suffered casualties. U.S. helicopters evacuated wounded soldiers from the compound — located in the center of the town of more than 20,000 residents — while the fight raged, according to the local accounts. By nightfall, U.S. troops had cordoned off streets around the post. Mohammed al-Askari, spokesman for Iraq's Defense Ministry, blamed the attack on a cell of al-Qaida in Iraq, which has claimed responsibility for many high-profile strikes. "It's their work," he said. Residents said the attack may have been prompted by fears that U.S. forces would begin house-to-house searches through the town, which is mostly Sunni but has not been considered a stronghold of militant activity. The attack came on a day when a string of car bombings and other attacks claimed more than 40 civilian lives in Baghdad and elsewhere in sectarian violence. In the capital, the bloodshed included at least 11 people killed in a mortar attack on a Shiite enclave and five killed when a suicide attacker detonated a bomb-rigged belt on a public bus headed for the mostly Shiite area of Karradah in central Baghdad, police reported. On a highway about nine miles northwest of Baghdad, gunmen stopped a minivan and assassinated all 13 occupants, including an elderly woman and two boys, accusing them of opposing al-Qaida in Iraq, police and witnesses said. In the volatile Sunni city of Ramadi, a suicide car bomber attacked a police checkpoint, killing two Iraqi policemen, Marine spokesman 2nd Lt. Roger Hollenbeck said. Moments later, another suicide car bomber struck a house near the checkpoint, wounding eight women and five children, Hollenbeck said. Five people, including a 6-year-old boy, were killed by a roadside bomb in the northern city of Tal Afar, local official Najim Abdullah said. On Sunday, 62 people were killed and more than 130 injured in twin car bombs at an open-air market in the capital's mostly Shiite area of New Baghdad. It was the deadliest attack in Baghdad since U.S. and Iraqi forces launched widespread security sweeps last week. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered an investigation into allegations by a Sunni woman that she was raped by three members of the Shiite-dominated police force after she was detained over the weekend. A top police official disputed the allegation. The 20-year-old married woman claimed the police accused her of cooking for Sunni insurgents and took her to a police garrison. "One of them put his hand on my mouth so no one outside the room could hear me," she said in a video taped by AP Television News. "I told them `I did not know that an Iraqi could do this to another Iraqi.'" She said a neighbor alerted U.S. soldiers about the arrest and they released her. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said he could not confirm any U.S. role in her release but that the military "will support the Iraqi government in its investigation."