By Alastair Macdonald

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi insurgents savaged a U.S. patrol overnight, pursuing a violent revolt heedless of Iraqi politicians racing to draft a constitution that Washington hopes will stabilize the country and reduce its military burden.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said a new constitution would help undermine support for Sunni Arab rebels. "It's important they stick with their timetable," he told a Pentagon briefing, echoing his earlier call to Iraqi leaders "to get on with it."

A terse U.S. military statement on Wednesday gave no details of Tuesday night's attack which killed four soldiers and wounded six. It took place near Baiji, an oil refining town 180 km (115 miles) north of Baghdad.

But a large crater on the highway and an account from Iraqi police suggested U.S. vehicles had been struck by one of what appears to be a new breed of roadside bomb or land mine, more powerful than those that have killed hundreds of troops over the past two years and capable of penetrating American armor.

"Clearly, improvised explosive devices ... some with newer technologies these days, are going to change our tactics," General Richard Myers told a Pentagon news briefing less than two hours before the Baiji attack.

Washington's most senior general was responding to a land mine explosion that killed 14 Marines in an armored amphibious vehicle near Haditha, northwest of Baghdad, on Aug. 3 and to half a dozen other heavy losses in the past two months.

In Baiji, children played around the crater with scraps of U.S. military equipment, including camouflage clothing bearing a soldier's nametag. Local police said they had seen two wrecked Humvee patrol vehicles and a heavy armored vehicle, all burned.

In other violence, six people, including two policemen, were killed and 14 wounded in Baghdad when a suicide bomber drove a car at a police patrol in the west of the capital.

Rumsfeld said bloodshed could rise ahead of a referendum on the constitution, scheduled for Oct 15., and a general election due two months later.

"Violence could again increase for a time, as it did during the last elections," he said.

Wednesday, November 12, 2003

Resistance kills Mossad agents in Iraq

KIRKOUK, Iraq - A huge blast has caused extensive damage in a Mossad office building in Kirkouk in northern Iraq late on Monday killing and wounding an unspecified number of Mossad agents and civilian Kurds, the Middle East News Agency said yesterday.

US troops and rescue workers were rushed into the devastated building to remove the bodies and take the wounded to a hospital in Mousel, MENA said. The workers have arrived at the site during the night to remove the debris and evacuate the injured persons, the news agency added.

US troops prevented the people from getting closer to the building and imposed a news black out on the cause of the explosion, which occurred in the garage of the building, it said.

The troops wanted to hide the true activities of the office, which the Mossad rented a week ago, and the identities of its occupants, MENA said.

In another development, witnesses said that at least three explosions echoed across Baghdad last night, although the location of the blasts was not clear. The explosions, which sounded like mortar fire, follow a trend of mortar attacks on the US-led administration's headquarters in central Baghdad in the past 10 days.

F16 Four Iraqis were killed and nine others wounded when a roadside bomb ripped apart a car in the southern city of Basra, while the top US ground commander announced the capture of 20 suspected Al Qaeda members.

In Basra, police Colonel Mohammed Khazim al-Ali said that among those killed were two policemen, while the wounded included several schoolchildren.

The top US ground commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, said the coalition had detained 20 people suspected of belonging to the Al Qaeda terror group.

"We have up to 20 suspected Al Qaeda members," Sanchez said, adding they were still being questioned and had not yet been proven to belong to bin Laden's organisation.

Meanwhile, Mohannad Ghazi al Kaabi, the area's top municipal official, died from wounds after troops shot him when he refused to follow security procedures for entering a municipal building, the US military said in a statement.

A US military official told reporters that US jet fighters also bombed a house, near Mahmudiyah, south of the capital apparently used as a base for anti-coalition attacks.

"We used F-16s to precision bomb the house," said Captain Dan Froehlich, a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne's Third Brigade.

Israeli agents in Kurdistan

Israeli agents in Kurdistan

I first saw this report on a rather unreliable Bulgarian site, but Ha'aretz is now running it, so I'll just post it as an FYI:

WASHINGTON - Israel operates hundreds of agents in the Kurdish areas in northern Iraq, according to a report published in the upcoming issue of The New Yorker magazine.
In an interview to CNN on Sunday, reporter Seymour Hersh said that hundreds of Israelis, some of them Mossad agents, are operating in the region in order to collect information on Iran's nuclear program and monitor events in Syria.

According to the report, Israel in the past has had many ties with the Kurds, which with the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime are currently being renewed.

Israel is not confident of the success of the American program for the stabilization of the country, the report says, and that is why it is interested in setting up independent connections in the region.

Israelis operating in the region are also attempting to assist Kurds living in Syria, the report says.

My only comment at this time is that things are not looking bright for the Kurds if the Americans sell them out again. With the furor over the peshmerga involvement in the siege of Fallujah and general collaboration with the Americans during the invasion and now being linked as sponsors of Israeli spies, the tensions are certainly there for a clash between Arabs and the Kurdish minority. The fact that Kurds are now violently displacing Arab Iraqis from lands and homes stolen from them during the Saddam Arabization period is just more dry tinder on the pile awaiting a spark.

UPDATE: The Guardian has an interesting perspective on this story:

Israeli military and intelligence operatives are active in Kurdish areas of Iran, Syria and Iraq, providing training for commando units and running covert operations that could further destabilise the entire region, according to a report in the New Yorker magazine.

The article was written by Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who exposed the abuse scandal in Abu Ghraib. It is sourced primarily to unnamed former and current intelligence officials in Israel, the United States and Turkey.

Israel's aims, according to Hersh, are to build up the Kurdish military strength in order to offset the strength of the Shia militias and to create a base in Iran from which they can spy on Iran's suspected nuclear-making facilities.

"Israel has always supported the Kurds in a Machiavellian way - a balance against Saddam," one former Israeli intelligence officer told the New Yorker. "It's Realpolitik. By aligning with the Kurds Israel gains eyes and ears in Iran, Iraq and Syria. The critical question is 'What will the behaviour of Iran be if there is an independent Kurdistan with close ties to Israel? Iran does not want an Israeli land-based aircraft carrier on its border."

By supporting Kurdish separatists, Israel also risks alienating its Turkish ally and undermining attempts to create a stable Iraq. "If you end up with a divided Iraq it will bring more blood, tears and pain to the Middle East and you will be blamed," a senior Turkish official told Mr Hersh.

Israel operating hundreds of agents in northern Iraq

By Nathan Guttman, Haaretz Correspondent

WASHINGTON - Israel operates hundreds of agents in the Kurdish areas in northern Iraq, according to a report published in the upcoming issue of The New Yorker magazine.

In an interview to CNN on Sunday, reporter Seymour Hersh said that hundreds of Israelis, some of them Mossad agents, are operating in the region in order to collect information on Iran's nuclear program and monitor events in Syria.

According to the report, Israel in the past has had many ties with the Kurds, which with the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime are currently being renewed.

Israel is not confident of the success of the American program for the stabilization of the country, the report says, and that is why it is interested in setting up independent connections in the region.

Israelis operating in the region are also attempting to assist Kurds living in Syria, the report says.