Il Romanaccio at 4:58 PM

IRAQ: 30 RECRUITS KILLED BY SUICIDE BOMBER

Iraq, Baghdad (al-Jazeera)- At least 30 police recruits were killed and 40 wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up into a police center in Rubia. Al-Quaeda in Iraq has already claimed responsibility for the attack in an internet statement:

"A lion in a martyrdom brigade of al-Qaida in Iraq carried out a heroic operation in Rabia with an explosive belt. He entered a centre of National Guard volunteers, shouted: 'There is no god but God', then exploded."

Even if the authenticity of the statement is not officially certified, the same web site has been commonly used for this purpose by the insurgents.

Mosul Police General Said al-Juburi further explained how the toll number had yet to be defined:

"An initial toll put the number of those killed at 25 and the number of those wounded at 35," he told the press.

The town of Rubia is situated 80km northwest of Mosul, the third largest Iraqi city by population. The surrounding areas have recently been targeted by rebel fighters probably coming from the Syrian border. US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld had just suggested yesterday during his visit to the Iraqi authorities that they prevent terrorists from entering the country by the northern borders.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is suspected to be behind many of the recent attacks in the area of Mosul. Anyway, the Jordanian ally of Bin Laden remains one of the most wanted men.

In the meantime, three other people were killed and seventeen wounded by a car-bomb. According to the Interior Minister, a group of Iraqi civillians were drinking alcohol near the Tigris river in the capital. The explosive-laden car exploded in a Sunni Muslim district of Adhamiyah.

Faisal Khazali, the shaikh of the Khazali tribe, was shot dead by a group of armed men when driving his car in the al-Alam neighborhood in southwestern Baghdad, also according to the Interior Ministry.

Meanwhile, according to the UK consolate, a vehicle from the British Embassy in Basra was hit by a roadside bomb, which killed two English workers.

al-Jazeera

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Il Romanaccio at 2:55 PM

WAR PRESS REPORT INTERNATIONAL

Il Romanaccio at 2:31 PM

IRAQ: 9 INSURGENTS KILLED BY MARINES

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN)--9 Insurgents were killed in clashes against US Marines on Thursday.

The battle took place in the town of Cykla, near Haditha. Five Syrians were among the dead. A US military statement said that the fighters "were using buildings as safe houses and firing positions."

A convoy of US and Iraqi security forces were patrolling the area covered by airplanes when the insurgents attacked them using rocket-propelled grenades and small machine-guns. "Three laser-guided bombs and one global positioning system-guided bomb successfully destroyed all three buildings and caused minimal collateral damage to the surrounding community," said the military report.

Other developments

A Human Rights Watch official urged the Irai cabinet to review some of the political issues regarding women in Iraq. The new draft of the Iraqi constitution is expected for August 15, as requested by the US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. At that time the draft is expected to fit the international laws concerning women rights. Janet Walsh, director of Human Rights Watch expressed her point of view in a letter to the president of the parliamentary committee for the constitution, Humam Hamoudi :

"provisions of the constitution currently being drafted may erode some of the rights Iraqi women have worked so hard to establish, and in fact may violate international law on women's human rights."

Menawhile, two people were killed and four wounded when a group of insurgents attacked a train in southern Baghdad on Thursday.

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Il Romanaccio at 2:05 PM

War Press Report International

Il Romanaccio at 4:31 PM

USA: WITHDRAWAL FROM IRAQ WITHIN ONE YEAR

The US top military commander in Iraq, General George Casey, yesterday announced a partial withdrawal of its soldiers from the Iraqi scenario within the next year. He talked about an approximate number of 135,000 troops to leave by December 2006.

"I do believe that if the political process continues to go positively and if the development of the security forces continues to go as it is going, I do believe we'll still be able to take some very substantial reductions after these elections in the spring and summer of next year," said Casey.

The announcement came during the unexpected visit of Defense Secretary General Donald Rumsfeld in Iraq. However, Casey has also explained how the Iraqi government needs to follow certain paths in order to ensure social security for its citizens.

"The level of attacks they've been able to generate has not increased substantially here over what we've seen in the last year," said Casey, adding that "[the] insurgency is not progressing".

In a meeting with Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Donald Rumsfeld expressed his concern about the Iraqi borders:

"They need to be aggressively communicating with their neighbors to see that foreign terrorists stop coming across those borders and that their neighbors do not harbor insurgents and finance insurgents in a way that is destructive of what the Iraqi people are trying to accomplish."

Meanwhile, the Pentagon recently explained that the number of Iraqi soldiers is about 171,000, roughly the same amount of international coalition troops present in the country but only 2,500 of them would be able to face a terrorist attack without the help of foreign troops.

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The Guardian

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Il Romanaccio at 10:30 AM

IRAQ: INSURGENTS KILL 12 IRAQI WORKERS

Iraq, Wednesday 27 July 2005 (CNN)- A group of about ten armed men opened fire on two minibuses which were bringing Iraqi workers to their homes on Tuesday, killing at least twelve and wounding 22 others.

As reported by CNN, the event took place in the sorroundings of Abu Ghraib (west of Baghdad). The workers were leaving an iron factory, and there were several other buses doing the same service that day, but the targeted ones were heading toward the two main Shiite neighbourhoods nearby: Sadr City and Shula.

"We were on the bus going home. Two cars with about 10 insurgents opened fire on us. We don't know why. We are just workers," said a victim from the hospital, Adil Zamal, who also added,

"We fell to the floor. They just kept shooting and shooting until they ran out of ammunition."

Meanwhile, according to al-Jazeera, four US soldiers died when their vehicle unfortunately ran over a roadside bomb on Sunday night, a report from the US military said on Tuesday. The troops were part of Task Force Baghdad and were assigned to the 48th Infantry Brigade.

An internet statement from the al-Quaeda group in Iraq has issued the death sentence for the two Algerinian envoys kidnapped a week ago in Baghdad. Even if the statement was not immediately authenticated, Algeria has already withdrawn its diplomats.

Five Iraqi police officers were killed in clashes. Two of them near Baghdad by a mortar round, the other three in the surroundings of Hilla by a rocket.

An aide of Muqtada al-Sadr, famous Shia cleric, was shot dead while stepping out of his car in the north of the capital, and a paramedic and a women were killed by "indirect fire" during clashes in Mosul. Three Ministry of Health workers were shot dead also in Baghdad.

It is interesting to note how a study by the U.S. State and Defense Departments found out that criminals and rebel fighters were successful in infiltrating fake agents in the Iraqi police due to the lack of control by the US troops.

CNN

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Il Romanaccio at 9:49 AM

AFGHANISTAN: SCORES OF TALIBANS KILLED BY COALITION FORCES

Scores of rebel fighters were killed in clashes between Taliban fighters and coalition forces on Monday in the Uruzgan province. According to al-Jazeera, at least 50 fighters were shot dead in one of the bloodiest exchanges of fire ever since the war began.

Afghan police forces and the US military decided to storm over a Taliban base camp used by the fighters for attacks in the sourroundings areas, Jan Mohammed Khan, the provincial governor told the press. He also added that 25 other rebel fighters were captured by the coalition forces and that dead bodies were still being found at the battle scene on Tuesday.

On Monday, a US and an Afghan soldier as well as eleven other rebel fighters were reported dead in the same area, according to a US military statement. Four other soldiers were wounded in the gunbattle. Clashes apparently started after a US patrol was attacked by a group of Taliban fighters. Helicopters, tanks and onther vehicles were used by the coalition troops in response.

The death toll in Afghanistan is up to about 800 soldiers since March. The election scheduled for September might be at risk, according to the military. A strong protest against the American occupation took place on Monday, outside the main US base in the country. People were protesting against the Americans and demanding the liberation of three villagers, recently jailed by the US troops.

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Il Romanaccio at 12:47 PM

IRAQ: 8 KILLED IN DOUBLE BLAST

Two blasts rocked Baghdad on Monday morning killing at least 8 people and wounding 16 when a suicide bomber drove his explosive truck into the basement of the building housing guards for the hotel.

As reported by the local police to CNN, the kamikaze hit the Sadeer Hotel checkpoint at about 6 o'clock in the morning. The Sadeer is normally used by foreign workers. Witnesses have told al-Jazeera that the sound of machine-guns firing was heard right after the explosion of the bomb.

The second car bomb apparently exploded at an Iraqi police commando checkpoint west of the capital at 8:45 a.m. (12:45 a.m. ET). Two commandos were killed in the attack and eleven injured.

The two attacks happened a day after the killing of 25 people and the wounding of 33 others at the al-Rashad police station in Baghdad. According to the police, this explosion destroyed 25 vehicles as well as 8 shops. Also on Sunday, another bomb went off near a minibus killing a child and wounding six other Iraqi civillians. The event took place in the area of Kamishly at about 8:45 a.m. (12:45 a.m. ET), according to police sources in Hilla.

Another deadly attack targeted a government building, where mortar rounds were fired against Iraq's Interior Ministry compound on Sunday morning, killing one official and wounding another.

Meanwhile, the chief of the al-Kadhimiya police station, Lt. Col. Imad Hatem Khalaf, was killed on Sunday in Baghdad's Huriya neighborhood by a group of armed men.

According to a military statement, an American soldier was killed on Sunday in a base near Balad during an attack by "indirect fire". Another soldier from Task Force Liberty was wounded. An American marine was also killed in the area of Rubath "during combat operations", by a makeshift bomb.

The number of US soldiers killed during "Operation Freedom" is now 1,773, according to the Pentagon.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the new US ambassador in Iraq, commented on the facts during his visit to the government,

"They want to intensify violence; they want to, on occasion, cause civil strife and civil war in Iraq. Iraqis want to succeed like people everywhere," said Khalilzad, adding,

"Insurgents, terrorists do not want reconstruction to take place; they do not want economic progress to take place."

CNN

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Il Romanaccio at 10:22 AM