IRAQ : MASSACRE AT POLICE CENTER; SHIA CLERIC ASSASSINATEDAt least eleven people were killed on Saturday by a suicide bomber in a
police recruiting center in the Mansour district of Baghdad, said a spokesman from the Interior Ministry.
Apparently
the kamikaze was disguised as a policeman, this could have helped him entering the headquarters with ease. A US military statement desrcibes the scene,
"A terrorist reportedly walked into the crowd and detonated his vest, which was packed with ball bearings."
Walid Khalid, an al-Jazeera correspondent, said that 10 newly appointed police officers along with police commandos started their shifts at 9.45am and that is when the bomber blew himself up.
Medical sources at the al-Yarmuk hospital have confirmed
the death of eleven police officers and the wounding of 23 others.
Another source fron the Interior Ministry said that the recruits were asked to come on Saturday (which is normally a non-working day) in attempt to protect the volunteers.
Meanwhile a beloved
Shia cleric, Kamal al-Din al-Ghoureify, was assassinated close to his mosque as he was arriving. He represented the Ayat Allah Ali al -Sistani in the capital.
"It is a calamity for the neighbourhood, for Baghdad, for Muslims and for Shia," said Al-Ghoureify's weeping brother Abu Hussein.
al-Jazeera
Il Romanaccio at 12:47 PM
IRAN: BUSH WANTS TO KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT THE IRANIAN LEADERUnited States President George W. Bush announced that he wants to know whether the new Iranian leader,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was part of the '79 seizure of the US embassy in Teheran, in which 52 Americans were held hostages for 444 days.
"Obviously his involvement raises many questions," said the US president.
Several different eye-witnesses from the seventies have recognised the Iranian president as one of the leaders of the operation. Retired Navy Captain Donald Sharer said he was pretty sure about the man,
"He wasn't a very nice fellow at the time. He called us pigs and dogs. He's very hardline; he's a guy we are not going to get along with," he told a US morning TV.
Bill Daugherty, another retired US official says, "
no doubts at all" about the identity of the president.
"When your country is being humiliated and being embarrassed, the individuals that do that really stick in your mind. You don't forget people who do things like that to you and your family and your country," he told the press.
Speaking from Tehran, a former student leader who was involved in the seizure of the American embassy reported that "
He [Ahmadinejad] was a student at a different university."
Another negative answer comes from Mohammad-Reza Khatami, also involved in the seizure, who said,
"I don't think he was part of it,...I cannot remember him at all."
A picture from the seventies showing a man who rensembles a young Ahmadinejad leading a blindfolded hostage, was posted on many websites recently. Many former CIA agents or soldiers involved in the seizure recognised the man as the new Iranian leader.
As soon as he saw the picture, Mr. Daugherty sent an e-mail to his collegues Charles Scott, Donald Sharer and David M. Roeder saying,
"I assume you've noticed that the new Iranian president was one of......who was behind the takeover of the embassy and our incarceration. Not to mention having expressed a determination to pursue a nuclear program that will allow them to develop a nuclear weapon."
The
Bush administration will now investigate on the issue in attempt to solve one of the most important international cases ever. Given the current US attitude toward the Middle East, a terrorist president could be a good point for attacking any country.
Others say that even if Ahmadinejad was involved in the seizure, there is no point in talking about a scandal because
Bush himself was involved in the "Skull and Bones" nazi-masonic organization.
al-JazeeraThe New York TimesALSO IN BLOGGER NEWS
Il Romanaccio at 10:41 AM
LEBANON : ISRAELI SOLDIER KILLED BY HIZB ALLAHLebanese Hizb Allah has attacked the Israeli army in the Sheeba Farms area
killing an Israeli soldier in the exchange of fire.
According to the Israeli officials,
20 Katyusha rockets and mortar shells were fired by Hizb Allah toward Ramta and Sammaqiyeh on Wednesday, Israeli army positions at Aaamfit, on the Golan Heights (occupied by Israeli)were attacked too.
Lebanese sources said that the
Israeli artillery responded by firing about 50 rounds on the hills around the towns of Kfarshuba and Shebaa. Israeli warplanes were also bombing a Lebanese southern town.
Later some
Hizb Allah guerrillas tried to enter the Israeli border from Lebanon, they were spotted and fired at by the Israeli army.
The water-rich area of the Sheeba Farms was captured by Israel from Syria in 1967 and later assigned to Syria by a UN resolution, they are at the border between Israel, Lebanon and Syria.
al-JazeeraBBC
Il Romanaccio at 10:58 AM
AFGHANISTAN : US HELICOPTER CRASH; 17 US SOLDIERS ABOARDThe US Helicpoter CH-47 Chinook was probably shot down on Tuesday by Taliban forces close to the Pakistani border in Afghanistan's Kunar province.
The helicopter was carrying at least seventeen US troops.
However, "initial reports indicate
the crash may have been caused by hostile fire. "The status of the service members is unknown at this time," said the military statement.
The Chinook was bringing regular and specialized soldiers to reinforce the ground
operation "Red Wing", carried out by the US troops
against the al-Quaeda fighters in Kunar. The American vehicle had to pass over a remote and mountainous area in the west of Asadabad.
According to Wali Allah Shahin, an al-Jazeera correspondent, Talibans might have shot down the helicopter using rocket-propelled grenades.
U.S. military spokesman Colonel Jim Yonts said that the Chinook was hit when approaching its helipad, but he wasn't sure about the cause of the crash:
"Whether or not that caused it to crash, we do not know yet," he told the press.
A Taliban spokesman,
Abdul Latif Hakimi, claimed responsibility for the attack and said that the fighters had used a new type of weapon for shooting down the helicopter, adding no further details.
Official sources from Washington reported that some of the soldiers on board were part of the elite Navy Seals Special Operations troops and were trained to fight against any enemy in any conditions, especialy behind enemy lines.
"This is a
tragic event for all of us, and our hearts and prayers go out to the families, loved ones and service members still fighting in the area," said Brigadier-General Greg Champion of the US army.
Another Chinook was shot down on April 6 in the province of Ghazni. 15 US troops and three American civilians were killed in that crash.
The Taliban has claimed the event to be a "
huge success" and their video footage of the crash is expected to come out on the internet (
www.alemarah.com).
Reutersal-JazeeraThe New York TimesALSO IN BLOGGER NEWS
Il Romanaccio at 10:49 AM
IRAQ : SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS 13, POLITICIAN KILLEDThree people were killed by a bomber who blew himself up in the Hospital of Musayyib, while
Dhari Ali al-Fayadh, 87, a member of the Iraqi parliament,
was killed in an ambush together with his son and three bodyguards.
In the Iraqi city of Samawa
police forces opened fire on some demonstators, killing at least one of them, as reported by Reuters. They were protesting for not having been accepted as new policemen.
Meanwhile,
US and Iraqi soldiers have started a military campaign meant to definitevely defeat the rest of the fighters in Iraq. The Operation Wolf can count on more than 1000 US and Iraqi soldiers.
al-Jazeera
Il Romanaccio at 12:27 PM
IRAQ : IN TALKS WITH THE TERRORISTSAccording to
The Sunday Times, a villa close to Balad, 40 km north of the Iraqi capital, was the place in which
four American officials had talks with a group of Anti-US commanders. This is what the US secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfled said to the al-Jazeera correspondant in New York, adding that there was no contact with the most wanted man,
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
"We see the government of Iraq is sovereign. They are the ones that are reaching out to the people who are not supporting the government...They are not going to try to bring in the people with blood on their hands, for sure, but they are certainly reaching out continuously, and we help to facilitate those from time to time," said the American Minister.
al-Jazeera
Il Romanaccio at 9:46 AM
