Iraq update: Two highways to Baghdad closed; Fallujah negotiations continue

[thedrifter]

Iraq update: Two highways to Baghdad closed; Fallujah negotiations continue


By Jim Krane, The Associated Press
European edition, Friday, April 16, 2004


Baghdad ? The U.S. military closed down two major highways into Baghdad on Saturday in the latest disruption caused by intensified attacks by anti-U.S. insurgents. U.S. and Iraqi negotiators reported progress in talks aimed at easing the fighting in Fallujah, while the besieged city saw its quietest day yet.

Sections of the two highways, north and south of the capital, were closed off to repair damage from a mounting number of roadside bombs. Commanders suggested the routes remained vulnerable to attacks by insurgents who have been targeting U.S. military supply lines.

"We've got to fix those roads, we've also got to protect those roads," Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters in Baghdad.

The military warned that civilians found on the closed sections "may be considered to be anti-coalition forces" and come under U.S. fire. Kimmitt said civilians would be redirected around the closed sections.

"There are many ways to get into Baghdad and many ways for getting out of Baghdad," he said.

Attacks by gunmen at the western, northern and southern entrances to the city have targeted key military supply lines, forcing the repeated closure of the main Baghdad-Amman road through the violent western district of Abu Ghraib.

On Friday, militants showed video of a soldier captured during one such attack on April 9. The soldier, Army Pfc. Keith M. Maupin of Batavia, Ohio, was captured in the same raid in which fighters seized Macon, Miss. truck driver Thomas Hamill.

Meanwhile, two Japanese hostages ? an aid worker and a freelance journalist ? were released Saturday to the same group of Islamic clerics who negotiated the freedom of three other Japanese hostages earlier this week.

This month has seen the worst violence in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein last year. U.S.-led forces are battling Sunni insurgents in Fallujah and a Shiite militia in the south.

Gunfire was nearly completely halted in Fallujah on Friday night, and the quiet continued through Saturday. A nominal truce in place since April 11 had been repeatedly shaken by nighttime battles as both insurgents and Marines dug in.

Talks toward ending the standoff were to resume Monday ? but the top U.S. military negotiator suggested their continuation depended on continued quiet.

"I can't stress enough how key it is for the cease-fire to hold over the next 24 to 48 hours," Maj. Gen. Joseph Weber, the top U.S. military negotiator, said.

In the south, U.S. troops skirmished for a second day with militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. His aides said Iraqi-led mediation aimed at resolving a standoff with the Americans had broken down.

Militiamen attacked two U.S. Humvees outside Najaf, sparking a battle, witnesses said. Al-Sadr loyalists also fired mortars at the Spanish army base in the city, but there were no casualties.

A coalition soldier ? apparently a member of the Spanish-led force in the city ? was killed the night before in fighting with the militia, the U.S. military said.

Fighting on Friday also killed five militiamen, the military said. Soon after clashes Friday morning, a U.S. tank opened fire with a machine gun on a car passing its convoy, killing two civilians. An AP reporter witnessed the shooting.

A senior Shiite cleric warned Saturday that the standoff could deteriorate "into a war that will have terrible effects ... a war that will not be in the interest of anyone, especially coalition forces."

Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Taqi al-Modaresi, a moderate cleric, said that if U.S. forces move to capture al-Sadr, it would "incite strong anger" among Iraq's majority Shiite majority.

U.S. commanders have said they have no plans for the time being into Najaf, the holiest Shiite city, where al-Sadr is located in his office. Some 2,500 U.S. troops deployed this week to the outskirts of Najaf on a mission to kill or capture al-Sadr.

A top al-Sadr aide, Jabir al-Khafaji, said mediations by Iraqi politicians had ended because of U.S. conditions that the cleric's al-Mahdi Army milita be disbanded.

U.S. forces at Najaf appear to be holding back their firepower to allow moderate clerics to bring pressure against al-Sadr, avoiding an assault on Najaf.

Negotiations outside Fallujah focused on strengthening a fragile truce, allowing residents access to hospitals and arranging the return of tens of thousands who have fled the city.

The two sides are also working on a way to carry out the handover of the killers of four American civilians, whose slaying and mutilation sparked the Marine assault on Fallujah, launched on April 5, a representative of the Iraqi Governing Council at the talks said.

"We have a mechanism for that, and when we conclude our talks we will announce that," Hashem al-Hassani told reporters after six hours of negotiations ended.

If the cease-fire holds and talks continue, negotiators have suggested they could move on to tackle more extensive moves sought by the Americans: the surrender of masses of weapons in the hands of insurgents, the return of police and Iraqi security forces to their posts and the handover of "terrorists and foreign militants."

"We are going to stabilize Fallujah," U.S. coalition spokesman Dan Senor said. "Those individuals must depart and in most cases they must be turned over to us."

In the first round of talks Friday, U.S. officials agreed to reposition troops to allow Fallujah residents better access to hospitals.

At the southern entrance to Fallujah, U.S. troops turned back a convoy of trucks bearing humanitarian supplies sent by the Iraqi Commerce Ministry.

In other violence Saturday:

? A mortar fired into a central Baghdad neighborhood killed a Sudanese man, and in a separate attack, a rocket hit a house in the southern district of Abu Dhseer, killing an Iraqi.

? Gunmen killed two Kurds in the northern city of Kirkuk in what police Brig. Gen. Mohammed Amin called an attempt to heighten ethnic tensions in the city, where Kurds, Arabs and other ethnic groups have been vying for influence.

? AP correspondents Lourdes Navarro in Fallujah and Bassem Mroue in Baghdad contributed to this report.



Updated Saturday, April 17, 3:30 p.m. EDT

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp...4&article=21632


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Okinawa Marine re-enlists during video ceremony from Baghdad


By Fred Zimmerman, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Sunday, April 18, 2004

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa ? Gunnery Sgt. Larry D. Liechty put technology to work Friday to include his family in his re-enlistment ceremony.

Liechty, an Okinawa-based Marine, is deployed to Camp Victory in Baghdad. His wife, Shelia, and children ? L.J., 9, and Victoria, 4 ? are holding down the home on Okinawa.

To ensure they could see him dedicate four more years to the Marine Corps, the 12-year veteran re-enlisted in front of a videophone in Iraq.

The embarkation and logistics chief from Okinawa?s Marine Air Control Group 18 left Okinawa on Jan. 4 to work with Combined Joint Task Force 7 in Baghdad.

Liechty said it was great seeing his family on the monitor.

?In the hook and jab, I?m a fighter,? said Liechty, who choked up at one point during his post ceremony speech while talking to his family. ?I?m doing everything I can to hold it back right now, but they know how I feel.?

Sheila and the children talked with Liechty privately before the ceremony began.

She said she was ?very relieved? to see he was doing fine, especially after all that?s been happening in Iraq recently.

?It was very overwhelming,? she said. ?But I?m proud of everything he?s done, especially now because he?s trying to make things better [for the people of Iraq].?

While talking to their father, L.J. held up a video game he recently got and Victoria showed off a necklace, saying, ?Look at the new necklace mommy bought me.?

When asked if their Dad missed them, L.J. replied, ?We miss him more. It?s not fun on Saturdays now. He?s not there at my soccer games, he?s not there for family night, and he can?t watch ?Survivor All-Star? with us.?

After the short ?family time,? the ceremony was held. Members of Liechty?s Okinawa unit filed into the conference room to watch the event. The re-enlisting officer in Baghdad was the 3rd Corps commander, Army Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, who said he was happy to re-enlist the Marine.

?My first thought was that I was proud another servicemember would ask me to re-enlist him,? Metz said. ?It was my honor.?

Before the ceremony ended, Sheila was given a certificate of appreciation for her role in the Marine Corps family and a bouquet of flowers by her husband?s command.

After the ceremony, Liechty thanked everyone and said he was proud to be serving and was doing so for all of them.

?You see a lot of bad press out here, but when you see a little boy or little girl waving to you along the road, or a woman farming in a field, you realize what we?re doing here is important,? he said, adding that when he sees Iraqi children it reminds him of his own. ?We can give a little of the freedom that we enjoy every day that they have never had.?

Liechty said he?s scheduled to return to Okinawa in July.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp...4&article=21668


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Five Marines Die in Iraq Border Gunbattle

By SABAH JERGIS

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Marines battled a large force of Iraqi insurgents near the Syrian border Sunday in fighting that killed five Marines. At least 10 Iraqis, including the city police chief, were also killed, according to a hospital official.

The fighting at the town of Husaybah, on the Syrian border, appeared to be related to insurgent violence in the western towns of Fallujah and Ramadi.

It began when insurgents ambushed Marines in the city on Saturday, sparking a 14-hour-battle with hundreds of gunmen. Fighting continued Sunday in three neighborhoods of the city, which was sealed off by U.S. forces.

Five Marines were killed in the initial ambush and nine more were wounded throughout the fighting, an embedded journalist from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Ten Iraqis were killed and 30 wounded _ a mixture of insurgent fighters and civilian bystanders, said Hamid al-Alousi, a doctor at the hospital in the nearby city of Qaim, 240 miles west of Baghdad.

Some were shot by Marine snipers as they left their homes to use outdoor toilets behind their houses, the doctor told the Arab television station Al-Arabiyah.

Husaybah police director Imad al-Mahlawi was one of those killed by American snipers, according to a man who identified himself as al-Mahlawi's cousin, Adel Ezzeddin, Al-Arabiya reported.

According to Marine intelligence, nearly 300 Iraqi mujahedeen fighters from Fallujah and Ramadi launched the offensive in an outpost next to Husaybah, first setting off a roadside bomb to lure Marines out of their base and then firing 24 mortars as the Marines responded to the first attack, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch correspondent reported.

Marines have been battling Sunni insurgents in a siege of Fallujah, 35 miles west of the capital, and guerrilla activity has surged in nearby Ramadi, where 12 Marines were killed in an ambush on April 6.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/200...s/d8216hdg0.txt

Ellie