Iraqi govt launches broadside against Al Jazeera
munaeem | 07 February, 2007 19:06
Via Yahoo News : Iraqi govt launches broadside against Al Jazeera
Iraq's s government on Wednesday accused Al Jazeera television, which it kicked out of the country two years ago, of helping to "spread death and destruction" in its reporting.
The cabinet called on parliament to take legal action against the pan-Arab Qatar-based satellite channel that has angered the Shi'ite-led government with its Iraq coverage.
Al Jazeera continues to have a publicly shameless stand against the Iraqi people and to contribute in spreading death and destruction in Iraq," the cabinet said.
The government accuses Jazeera of fomenting sectarianism among its divided majority Shi'ite and minority Sunni sects, whose mutual mistrust exploded into violence following the bombing of a revered Shi'ite mosque in February 2006.
Al Jazeera said the statement was "unjustified, baseless and ridiculous." "What did we do, nothing?" said Ahmed Sheikh, the editor-in-chief of Al Jazeera's Arabic service.
"The Iraqi government is looking for a scapegoat to justify their failure in bringing security and stability to Iraqis."
The government banned Jazeera from reporting in Iraq two years ago, although its new English-language service has a presence in Baghdad and it continues to broadcast from the northern autonomous region of Kurdistan.
U.S. military says copter down in Iraq
munaeem | 07 February, 2007 17:17
Via Yahoo News : U.S. military says copter down in Iraq
A Sea Knight helicopter crashed Wednesday northwest of Baghdad, sending flames and black smoke into the sky, the fifth chopper lost in Iraq. in just over two weeks. An Iraqi air force officer said it was downed by an anti-aircraft missile.
The al-Qaida-linked Sunni group claimed responsibility for the attack and said it would later issue a video of the helicopter's downing.
The US military has lost more than 50 military helicopters in Iraq since May 2003.
AP quoted ,Khudair al-Murshidi, Baath party spokesman in December 2006: "We have stockpiles of Strelas and we are going to surprise them (the Americans)."
An Iraqi official told AP in december that insurgents purchased Strela, a Russian shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile from Romania.
Kadima MK Says Releasing Barghouti Good For Israel, Abbas
munaeem | 07 February, 2007 04:09
(IHC News, 06 February 2007) Environmental Minister Gideon Ezra told Army Radio he believes Israel must release popular Palestinian prisoner Marwan Barghouti who was convicted in 2004 of murdering 4 Israelis and a Greek monk in separate terror attacks.
At the time, Barghouti was the leader of the military wing of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah Party and is today viewed by the Palestinians as a hero and possible successor to Abbas.
“If we want to blunt Hamas' capabilities...and if we ultimately want a civil rather than a religious government like those taking shape across the Arab world, we have to make a contribution,” Reuters quoted Ezra as saying on Monday, 05 February 2007.
“I think it could definitely help Abbas,” he added.
In response, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s spokeswoman Miri Eisen said freeing Barghouti was “not on the agenda.”
Gideon Ezra's remarks today are astonishingly different from his remarks of last year when he was Internal Security Minister in January 2006 and said Barghouti is a terrorist and Israel had no intention of releasing him.
“He has been sentenced to five life terms [for murder],” Ezra had told The Jerusalem Post shortly before Barghouti won a ministerial position in the PA elections a year ago.
Since then Ezra has come full circle and made other statements saying he is “in favor” of freeing the terrorist in exchange for abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit and promises from the PA that it will crush terrorism.
The change of heart follows last year’s revelations that unofficial contacts between Barghouti and left-wing Israeli politicians have been ongoing since he was jailed. One report claimed Meretz MK Haim Oron had been delivering messages between Barghouti and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former PM Ariel Sharon.
While Olmert dismissed the claims Oron would neither confirm nor deny them.
