INSIDE THE SURGE
By MICHAEL YON

October 28, 2007 -- This week, the U.S. announced that military deaths in Iraq had fallen dramatically, to the lowest levels since March 2006, a sign that the surge of troops is working. Officers say increased cooperation from Iraqi civilians - who are tired of the terrorism and violence - has helped stem attacks.
This comes as no surprise to Michael Yon, a writer who has blogged from Iraq since 2005. Yon, who is supported by donations to his Web site (michaelyon-online.com), writes about his own observations on the ground this year, embedded with U.S. troops.

Statistics in reports about faraway places can blunt the reality of what those numbers mean. But when it is a bomb in a road you are about to drive on, it takes on a whole new cast, as I found yet again when I spent most of May in Anbar Province.

I visited a former labor camp nicknamed “Coolie Village," or what remained of it, after a truck bomb locals attributed to al Qaeda had flattened it. Not surprisingly, the anger and frustration in response to this mass murder helped the villagers overcome their fear of the thugs who had taken hold of their community.

In mid-May, 2007, the Iraqi Army and Police had conducted a “Combined Medical Exercise" in the village of Falahat, and Iraqi doctors saw about 200 villagers. Two days later, the Iraqi Police opened an outpost at the old Falahat train station. That was just about the same time I was driving out to stay with a small team of Marines who were assigned as “MiTT 8" (Military Training Team 8.)

The men of MiTT 8 were living with their Iraqi protégées in filthy shipping containers on a highway. Several months ago they were attacked by a car bomb. But at about 9 a.m., while I was traveling to their location with Marines in a Humvee, some Falahat villagers went to the new police station to report the presence of a culprit they knew was placing bombs on the road.

It happened that quickly.

Within mere days of opening the station, people spoke up. The Iraqi Police (some of whom freely admitted to having been recent insurgents) called the tip into the Iraqi Army living with the Marines of MiTT 8. Our Humvee pulled up to the small MiTT 8 compound, where we met Staff Sergeant Rakene Lee, who was dressed for combat, and who was to take the Humvees and lead the mission to the suspected bomb site. The Iraqi Army was already blocking the road.

The patrol I was with had nearly run into an IED, except for a tip from Iraqis in another village, making what could have been my last dispatch.

JUSTICE TO POWER

All across Iraq, people are fed up with the abuse of power, even when it wears the badge of a police officer, even when it's a local hero.

When I was in the city of Hit this May, I saw firsthand a dramatic example. Many people in Hit directly attribute the resurrection of their city in large part to the courage of Iraqi Police General Ibrahim Hamid Jaza, who took an aggressive stand against the al Qaeda Iraq (AQI) terrorists who had brazenly made Anbar province a home base and slaughterhouse with their marketplace car bombs, beheadings and reputation for hiding bombs intended to kill parents in the corpses of dead children they'd gutted.

Between shooting people for using the Internet, watching television or other “moral transgressions" such as smoking in public, AQI's claim of fundamentalist piety proved to be a thin veneer, quickly eroded by blatant drug, alcohol and prostitute use. The people of Anbar rejected AQI, but AQI was still strong and well-armed, so rejection was only a first step.

General Hamid was one of the brave souls who took an early stand and went for their throats. In doing so, he demonstrated that the terrorists were also vulnerable. Some soldiers began to jokingly refer to the general as “Bufford Pusser" because Hamid literally carried a big stick. But AQI wasn't laughing; they beheaded Hamid's son on a soccer field in the center of Hit in 2005.

About a year ago Coalition forces selected Hamid to be the district chief of police, confirming his status as a true hero to many Americans and Iraqis.

But recent signs suggested that Hamid might have flown too close to the sun. Details of his corruption began to accumulate. It was a stunning development when, without warning or notice, the U.S. military arrested and detained the general.

They had no choice, the evidence was clear. Furthermore, the people of Anbar had risked reaching out to the Americans, expressing a concern about Hamid and sharing intelligence to support it. They expected U.S. soldiers to help solve the problem. And although some feared the arrest would cause the city to erupt in violent clashes, what happened next is powerful testimony for how much the area has changed. The next day, Hamid's supporters, and there were many, gathered in the market square and held an organized and peaceful protest demonstration, after which they all went back home.

STENCH OF EVIL

From Anbar, I traveled back to Baghdad then to Diyala, where al Qaeda had announced to the world it would base its caliphate in the provincial capital Baqubah. I was embedded with soldiers who formed the spear point of the largest offensive operation since the invasion of Iraq, and I watched as people from all walks of life came forward to share information that saved the lives of American and Iraq soldiers and cleared the streets of the al Qaeda operatives.

In one of my first reports from the still unfolding Operation Arrowhead Ripper, I wrote:

Locals, who are increasingly helpful in pointing out and celebrating the downfall of AQI here, said that during the initial Arrowhead Ripper attack the morning of June 19th, AQI murdered five men. [U.S. soldiers] found the buried corpses behind an AQI prison, exactly where they'd been told to look for the group grave. Locals also directed [soldiers] to a torture house. Peering through the window, American soldiers saw knives, swords, bindings and drills. AQI is well-known for its macabre eagerness to drill into kneecaps, elbows ribs, skulls and other parts of victims.

During the operation's initial phase, U.S. soldiers encountered about 130 serious IEDs on the way in, but suffered only one fatality in the attack; Iraqis were pointing to the bombs before they could detonate.

Over many embeds, stretching out over the course of three years, I've seen massacres occur before my eyes, and I've heard more stories about the brutality (and inanity) of al Qaeda than I can or want to remember.

But one stands out, from June of this year, when I was with U.S. and Iraqi forces in a small abandoned village near Baqubah. There, in a series of shallow graves, were the remains of murdered people, among them the discarded bodies of little children whose heads had been cut off. The stench was horrific. Even the stock animals were killed and left to rot in the sun. There was no human or animal left alive in the village.

Captain Baker, Scorpion Company Commander (5th Iraqi Army), whose men had the gruesome task of digging up all the graves, told me al Qaeda had taken the village of al Hamira, which had the apparent misfortune of being located near a main road, making it ideal for launching attacks on soldiers. Days after, an Iraqi man told me in a room full of American and Iraqi military officers, that al Qaeda had “invited" parents they wanted to “influence" to lunch, and then brought in the body of their baked son. I do not know if the stories were true, and no proof was offered, but other Iraqis in the area told similar stories and all seemed to believe it. And, of course, I had just seen the decapitated heads of children in al Hamira village and smelled their rotting bodies. The stench of al Qaeda will forever remain with me.

The level of brutality against ordinary Iraqis throughout Diyala, often directed against women and children, is what prompted many Sunni insurgent militia groups to come forward and work with Coalition forces. Some groups, such as the 1920 Revolution Brigades, were formerly allied with al Qaeda, or at least willing to facilitate or ignore their attacks against Shia or Coalition forces.

The 1920s are deadly, and they had been worthy adversaries for us, but when al Qaeda control turned to indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians, the 1920s joined forces with the U.S. and Iraqi Armies and together they practically mopped the streets of AQI in Baqubah.

Before heading to Anbar in May, I'd spent some time with the soldiers of the 1-4 Cavalry as they converted an abandoned seminary in a dangerous Baghdad neighborhood into their new home and headquarters as COP (Combat Outpost) Amanche. I wrote about some early encouraging signs of how the neighbors might respond to the presence of American and Iraqi soldiers so close by. I ended an April dispatch with a photograph of LTC James Crider, commander of the 1-4 CAV, with this caption: “And so we find it here, in the Garden of Eden, in God's hands through the 1-4 Cavalry from Kansas: the last hope against genocide in the land between two rivers."
In late September I received an e-mail update from LTC Crider, which he allowed me to publish on my Web site. In it, he wrote: “One other example, recently we had seven IEDs discovered or detonated in a single seven day span. On every one, we got a phone call from a local national telling us exactly where it was or we were called immediately after and told who placed it. For the record, not one IED was effective."

MAP QUEST

Today, I'm staying at a small outpost called JSS (Joint Security Station) “Black Lions" with the 1-18th Infantry battalion. Al Qaeda are so diminished in this area, according to the commander here, LTC Patrick Frank, that they are maybe 3 percent of the problem. But JAM (the Madhi Army created by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr) is the big problem around JSS Black Lion.

A soldier was blown up and killed about 400 meters away on Thursday evening. LTC Frank told me the other day that his best weapon system is his cell phone. Calls come to him (through his interpreter) every day and into the night, with information from locals about the whereabouts of wanted JAM members. Many local people are clearly fed up with the violence. Some even send e-mails with Google Earth maps showing exactly where suspects are, and they are doing it in real time.

We'll be sitting there in the TOC (tactical operations center or HQ) and an e-mail comes in and it's literally a map (or a photo of one) with detailed descriptions of wanted men and/or caches. And the information is turning out to be true. I have never seen anything like this before,

It's becoming almost bizarre how specific the informants are becoming. Informants have called up saying they are with bad guys right now and giving their location. Our guys show up and arrest everyone. Hours later, the U.S. soldiers let the informants go. JAM and AQI are getting slammed in many areas because local people are sick of the violence and local people trust Americans to help them end it.

Where all this can end was suggested to me on Wednesday, when I was at a large Sunni-Shia reconciliation meeting where more than 80 local leaders attended and signed an agreement.

Whether it can be sustained here, or spread to other areas, is in question. But the resolve of Iraqi people to end the scourge of sectarian violence that has stalled and scarred their country is not.

Despite Advances, Kurdistan Sits in Shaky Neighborhood

I have written a number of posts about Kurdistan and my trips there. These posts have been mostly positive and have discussed the economic boom that taking place there thanks to the relatively secure environment the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has managed to achieve. Nevertheless, I have also referred to the area as the Edges of Globalization, meaning that just beyond the relative calm there remains risks to economic development. That was never clearer than yesterday when the Turkish parliament overwhelming authorized the government to send troops into northern Iraq ["Turkey Authorizes Iraq Incursion," by Molly Moore, Washington Post, 18 October 2007].

"The Turkish parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly authorized cross-border military attacks in northern Iraq against Kurdish separatist rebels, as world leaders pleaded for restraint. Lawmakers voted 507 to 19 to give Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan permission to order strategic strikes or large-scale invasions of Iraq for a one-year period. Erdogan has said he will not order an immediate attack. ... Only the small, pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party opposed the parliamentary resolution, arguing that military action would worsen the economic plight of Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast."

There is lots of finger pointing going on. Most of the world's leaders are begging Turkey for restraint while Turkey claims Iraq, the KRG, and the United States have failed to deliver on their promises to curtail terrorist activity originating in northern Iraq.

"Throughout 2 1/2 hours of debate, legislators expressed frustration that the United States and Iraq have not kept promises to curb the activities of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, known as the PKK, which the United States and European Union have classified as a terrorist organization. As the votes were tallied in Turkey's modernistic legislative chamber here, President Bush told reporters at a White House news conference that 'we are making it very clear to Turkey that we don't think it is in their interest to send troops into Iraq.' In the hours leading up to the vote, Turkish leaders were besieged with last-minute telephone calls from across the globe, imploring against military action on grounds that it could inflame the only relatively stable region of war-ravaged Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki telephoned Erdogan, asking for more time to take action against PKK rebels who have largely been allowed to operate freely in northern Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. He said he has given 'strict instructions' to the regional Kurdish administration in Iraq's north to crack down on PKK operations and said Iraqi forces could join the Turkish army in military operations 'if necessary,' according to the Anatolian news agency. Erdogan's office denied there was an offer of joint military action. ... Turkish lawmakers on Wednesday accused the United States and the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq of giving PKK leaders and fighters free rein to run their headquarters and training camps and plot attacks on Turkey, despite a 2003 agreement to assist in curbing rebel operations inside Iraq."

The KRG walks a fine line when it comes to the PKK. Historically, Kurds have been persecuted by major powers in the area and have longed for a country to call their own. As a result, the KRG finds it distasteful to have to use its military forces against ethnic Kurds. On the other hand, its economic development rests in large measure on maintaining good relationships with its neighbors, especially Turkey. There are suspicions in Kurdistan that the Turkey's real motive is slowing the economic progress in northern Iraq because success there only encourages Kurds in Turkey to seek an autonomous region of their own. Turkey, they insist, is only using PKK attacks as an excuse to disrupt the economy.

"In Kurdish-dominated northern Iraq, people expressed anger over the Turkish moves. Faisal Muhammad Abbas, 28, a university student, said that Turkey wants to bring "disaster" to his part of the country. "They think if Kurdistan will continue improving in Iraq this will be a motive for the Kurds in Turkey to call for the same thing and fight for it." Some Kurds say they have already fled their homes because of Turkish shelling.

In his press conference yesterday, President Bush noted that Turkey already had troops in Iraq and insisted that it didn't need anymore. But the Turks insist that the U.S., who pledged to help them with the PKK problem, simply is too involved elsewhere in Iraq to care about their problem. As a result, Turkish troops in northern Iraq are basically sequestered on their bases. That's what the Turks want to change.

"Turkey has had limited numbers of troops in northern Iraq since before the 2003 invasion. Morrell said there are now two or three battalions that function mainly as observers. 'They are pretty much confined to their bases,' he said. 'Their movements are limited and must be coordinated with us.' Although the Turkish government now has the authority to strike, some Turkish officials and military experts warned that the military would face serious obstacles in all types of cross-border action, including many of the same problems the U.S. military has experienced in Iraq. Turkish troops have conducted 24 cross-border attacks in northern Iraq since the conflict with PKK rebels began 23 years ago, according to Deputy Prime Minister Cemil Cicek. That included several operations with tens of thousands of soldiers and heavy aerial bombardments. The military never routed PKK rebels from northern Iraq. Now the task will be harder because the PKK has been embraced by the local Kurdish population and its authorities, officials and analysts said."

Turkey's frustration is understandable, PKK attacks have increased in the past few weeks, yet there has been no outcry from the West and little international press coverage. As a result, the Turks believe that the U.S. and EU are applying double standards when it comes to terrorist attacks.

"PKK rebels have escalated attacks inside Turkey in the last two weeks, killing 31 people including 13 military commandos and a busload of civilians. The Turkish public was enraged by the attacks, which were the deadliest in more than a decade, increasing pressure for cross-border action."

It's clear that something must be done. The U.S. certainly wouldn't tolerate such attacks without taking action and the Turks are aware of that; thus, the cries of double standards. For its part, however, the U.S. is looking at a broader regional picture. The Kurds in northern Iraq are America's strongest supporters in the region. More importantly, however, the U.S. is looking outside of Iraq to Turkey, Iran, and Syria (all of which have Kurdish populations within their borders). The U.S. fears that Turkish action against the PKK would encourage Iran and Syrian action as well. Things are already tense along the Kurdish border with Iran. The U.S., central Iraqi government, and the KRG must decide what is in the best interests of those living in northern Iraq. Whatever action is taken with be difficult, especially for the KRG, but it is essential if stability in the area is to be maintained. For its part, the PKK is not only risking the welfare of Kurds in northern Iraq, it is risking the future of Kurds in Turkey -- the very group they claim to be defending. Kurds living in Turkish areas across the border from Iraqi Kurdistan are major recipients of the economic boom taking place Kurdistan. Many of the workers and most of the businesses trading with Kurdistan are from the Kurdish areas of Turkey. If an economic miracle can take place in Kurdistan, there will likely be spillover effects that benefit Turkish Kurds. All this could come tumbling down if the PKK is not kept in check. Every group involved in this situation looks at it from its own unique perspective and each can mount reasonable arguments for why it has responded as it has. The solution to the problem, however, will require all parties being affected by PKK actions to work together. Name calling and finger pointing will only exacerbate the situation.

October 18, 2007 in Current Affairs, Development and Global Stability, Security | Permalink

From CIA Jails, Inmates Fade Into Obscurity
Dozens of 'Ghost Prisoners' Not Publicly Accounted For
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 27, 2007; A01

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- On Sept. 6, 2006, President Bush announced that the CIA's overseas secret prisons had been temporarily emptied and 14 al-Qaeda leaders taken to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But since then, there has been no official accounting of what happened to about 30 other "ghost prisoners" who spent extended time in the custody of the CIA.

Some have been secretly transferred to their home countries, where they remain in detention and out of public view, according to interviews in Pakistan and Europe with government officials, human rights groups and lawyers for the detainees. Others have disappeared without a trace and may or may not still be under CIA control.

The bulk of the ghost prisoners were captured in Pakistan, where they scattered after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Among them is Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, a dual citizen of Syria and Spain and an influential al-Qaeda ideologue who was last seen two years ago. On Oct. 31, 2005, the red-bearded radical with a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head arrived in the Pakistani border city of Quetta, unaware he was being followed.

Nasar was cornered by police as he and a small group of followers stopped for dinner. Soon after, according to Pakistani officials, he was handed over to U.S. spies and vanished into the CIA's prison network. Since then, various reports have placed him in Syria, Afghanistan and India, though nobody has been able to confirm his whereabouts.

Nearly all the Arab members of al-Qaeda caught in Pakistan were given to the CIA, Pakistani security officials said. But the fate of several Pakistani al-Qaeda operatives who were also captured remains murky; the Pakistani government has ignored a number of lawsuits filed by relatives seeking information.

"You just don't know -- either these people are in the custody of the Pakistanis or the Americans," said Zafarullah Khan, human rights coordinator for the Pakistan Muslim League, an opposition political party.

Others have been handed over to governments that have kept their presence a secret.

Since 2004, for example, the CIA has handed five Libyan fighters to authorities in Tripoli. Two had been covertly nabbed by the CIA in China and Thailand, while the others were caught in Pakistan and held in CIA prisons in Afghanistan, Eastern Europe and other locations, according to Libyan sources.

The Libyan government has kept silent about the cases. But Libyan political exiles said the men are kept in isolation with no prospect of an open trial.

Other ghost prisoners are believed to remain in U.S. custody after passing into and out of the CIA's hands, according to human rights groups.

Relatives of a Tunisian al-Qaeda suspect known as Retha al-Tunisi, captured in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002, received notice recently from the International Committee of the Red Cross that he is detained at a U.S. military prison in Afghanistan, said Clara Gutteridge, an investigator for Reprieve, a London-based legal rights group that represents many inmates at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. Other prisoners, since released, had previously reported seeing Tunisi at a secret CIA "black site" in Afghanistan.

At least one former CIA prisoner has been quietly freed. Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence agent captured after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, was detained at a secret location until he was released last year.

Ani gained notoriety before the Iraq war when Bush administration officials said he had met in Prague with Sept. 11, 2001, hijacker Mohamed Atta. Some officials, including Vice President Cheney, cited the rendezvous as evidence of an alliance between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The theory was later debunked by U.S. intelligence agencies and the Sept. 11 commission, which revealed in 2004 that Ani was in U.S. custody.

The Iraqi spy resurfaced two months ago when Czech officials revealed that he had filed a multimillion-dollar compensation claim. His complaint: that unfounded Czech intelligence reports had prompted his imprisonment by the CIA.

Guantanamo Newcomers
When Bush confirmed the existence of the CIA's prisons in September 2006, he said they had been vacated for the time being. But he said the U.S. government would use them again, if necessary.

The CIA has resumed its detention program. Since March, five new terrorism suspects have been transferred to Guantanamo. Although the Pentagon has not disclosed details about how or precisely when they were captured, officials have said one of the prisoners, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, had spent months in CIA custody overseas.

Details of the secret detention program remain classified. U.S. officials have offered only vague descriptions of its reach and scope.

Last month, in a speech in New York, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden said "fewer than 100 people" had been detained in the CIA's overseas prison network since the program's inception in early 2002.

In June, a coalition of human rights groups identified 39 people who may have been in CIA custody but are still missing. Many of those on the list, however, were identified by partial names or noms de guerre, such as one man described only as Mohammed the Afghan.

Joanne Mariner, director of terrorism and counterterrorism research for Human Rights Watch, said the CIA has moved many prisoners from country to country and relied on other spy services to take custody of suspects, sometimes temporarily and sometimes for good.

"The large majority have gone to their countries of origin," she said. "But that doesn't mean all of them. There could be some that are still in proxy detention."

In a footnote to its 2004 report, the Sept. 11 commission named nine al-Qaeda suspects who were in U.S. custody at black sites. Seven were later transferred to Guantanamo.

Still missing is Hassan Ghul, a Pakistani national captured in northern Iraq in January 2004. U.S. officials have described him as a high-level emissary between al-Qaeda's core command in Pakistan and its affiliates in Iraq.

Another prisoner on the commission's list was Ali Abd al-Rahman al-Faqasi al-Ghamdi, a Saudi accused of planning attacks in the Arabian Peninsula. He surrendered to Saudi authorities in June 2003.

Although the Sept. 11 commission reported that Ghamdi was in U.S. custody, Saudi officials said that was not the case. They said he remains in prison in Saudi Arabia and has never left the country.

"He was never, under no condition, in U.S. custody," said a Saudi security source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Officials with the International Committee of the Red Cross said they have failed to find dozens of people once believed to have been in CIA custody, despite repeated queries to the U.S. government and other countries.

"The ICRC remains gravely concerned by the fate of the persons previously held in the CIA detention program who remain unaccounted for," said Simon Schorno, a Red Cross spokesman in Washington. "The ICRC is concerned about any type of secret detention."

The CIA declined to comment on whether certain individuals were ever in its custody.

"Apart from detainees transferred to Guantanamo, the CIA does not, as a rule, comment publicly on lists of people alleged to have been in its custody -- even though those lists are often flawed," said Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman.

Out in the Cold
When the Bush administration disclosed last year that 14 senior al-Qaeda leaders had been transferred to Guantanamo -- leaving the CIA prisons temporarily vacant -- some conspicuous names were missing from the list.

One was an al-Qaeda training camp leader known as Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi. He was arrested in the Pakistani border town of Kohat in late 2001 and eventually taken to Cairo, where the CIA enlisted Egyptian intelligence agents to help with the interrogation.

Libi began to talk. Among his claims: that the Iraqi regime had provided training in poisons and mustard gas to al-Qaeda operatives.

His statements were cited by the Bush administration as part of the rationale for invading Iraq in 2003. He recanted after the war began, however, and his continued detention became a political liability for the CIA.

Although the CIA has since acknowledged that Libi was one of its prisoners, U.S. officials have not disclosed what happened to him. In interviews, however, political exiles from Libya said he was flown by the CIA to Tripoli in early 2006 and imprisoned by the Libyan government.

Libi reported that the CIA had taken him from Egypt to several other covert sites, including in Jordan, Morocco and Afghanistan, according to a Libyan security source.

He also claimed that he had been kept someplace very cold and that his CIA captors had told him he was in Alaska, the source said. Human rights groups have suggested that Libi was part of a small group of senior al-Qaeda figures held in a CIA prison in northern Poland.

In Tripoli, Libi joined several other Libyans who had spent time in the CIA's penal system. All were members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a network that had plotted for years from exile to overthrow Moammar Gaddafi.

After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, members of the Libyan network who had been staying there dispersed. The CIA helped Libya's spy agencies track down some of the leaders.

One of them, Abdallah al-Sadeq, was apprehended in a covert CIA operation in Thailand in the spring of 2004, according to Noman Benotman, a former member of the Libyan militant network.

Another, Abu Munder al-Saadi, the group's spiritual leader, was caught in the Hong Kong airport. In both cases, Benotman said, the Libyans were held briefly by the CIA before U.S. agents flew them to Tripoli.

"They realized very quickly that these guys had nothing to do with al-Qaeda," Benotman said in an interview in London. "They kept them for a few weeks, and that's it."

Benotman said he confirmed details of the CIA operations when he was allowed to see the men during a visit to a Tripoli prison this year. The trip was arranged by the Libyan government as part of an effort to persuade the Libyan prisoners to reconcile with the Gaddafi regime.

The CIA has transferred at least two other Libyans to Tripoli, Benotman said. Khaled al-Sharif and another Libyan known only as Rabai were captured in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 2003 and spent time in a CIA prison in Afghanistan, he said.

The Libyan Embassy in Washington did not respond to a faxed letter seeking comment.

A Missing 'Gold Mine'
In Spain, prosecutors have been searching for Nasar, the redheaded al-Qaeda ideologue, for four years.

In 2003, he was indicted by an investigative magistrate in Madrid, accused of helping to build sleeper cells in Spain. A prolific writer and theoretician in the jihadi movement, Nasar had lived in several European countries as well as Afghanistan.

Spain has filed requests for information about Nasar with the Pakistani government, to no avail. Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos also raised the issue during a visit to Islamabad last year.

"We don't have any indication of where he is," said a source in the Spanish Foreign Ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Brynjar Lia, a Norwegian terrorism analyst and the author of a new book on Nasar, "Architect of Global Jihad," said the radical would know valuable details about the inner workings of al-Qaeda.

"The Americans are probably the ones who want him the most because he was prominently involved in al-Qaeda in the 1990s," said Lia, a senior researcher at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment. "He must be a gold mine of information."

Some Spanish media have speculated that Nasar is being held in Syria, his place of birth. The CIA has transferred other terrorism suspects to Syria despite tense diplomatic relations between Washington and Damascus.

Other Spanish press reports have claimed that Nasar remains in U.S. custody. Another rumor is that he's being held in a CIA-run prison in India, said Manuel Tuero, a Madrid lawyer who represents Nasar's wife.

Though Nasar would go on trial if he was brought back to Spain, that would be preferable to indefinite detention in a secret prison, Tuero said.

"He's in a legal limbo," he said. "The Americans would never give him a fair trial. Spain would."

Special correspondents Munir Ladaa in Berlin and Cristina Mateo-Yanguas in Madrid contributed to this report.

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10 tribal sheiks kidnapped in Baghdad
By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 15 minutes ago
Gunmen in Baghdad snatched 10 Sunni and Shiite tribal sheiks from their cars Sunday as they were heading home to Diyala province after talks with the government on fighting al-Qaida, and at least one was later found shot to death.

The bold daylight kidnapping came as the top U.S. commander in Iraq said the threat from the terror network has been "significantly reduced" in the capital.

A suicide car bomber, meanwhile, struck a busy commercial area in the oil-rich, northern city of Kirkuk, killing at least eight people and wounding 26, police said.

A new general assumed control of the region north of Baghdad, acknowledging that violence remains high but expressing confidence that the military has al-Qaida on the run there as well.

The two cars carrying the sheiks — seven Sunnis and three Shiites — were ambushed in Baghdad's predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Shaab at about 3:30 p.m., police officials said.

The sheiks were returning to Diyala province after attending a meeting with the Shiite-dominated government's adviser for tribal affairs to discuss coordinating efforts against al-Qaida in Iraq, police and a relative said.

Police found the bullet-riddled body of one of the Sunni sheiks, Mishaan Hilan, about 50 yards away from where the ambush took place, an officer said, adding that the victim was identified after his cell phone was found on him.

A relative of one of the abducted Shiite sheiks blamed Sunni extremists and said the attackers picked a Shiite neighborhood to "create strife between Shiite and Sunni tribes that have united against al-Qaida in the area."

But, Jassim Zeidan al-Anbaqi said, "this will not happen."

The well-planned attack was the latest to target anti-al-Qaida tribal leaders and other officials in an apparent bid to intimidate them from joining the U.S.-sponsored grass roots strategy that the military says has contributed to a recent drop in violence.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Sunday that the threat from al-Qaida in several former strongholds in Baghdad has been "significantly reduced" but the group remains "a very dangerous and very lethal enemy."

He singled out success in what had been some of the most volatile Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad, including Ghazaliyah, Amariyah, Azamiyah and Dora.

"Having said that ... al-Qaida remains a very dangerous and very lethal enemy of Iraq," he said. "We must maintain contact with them and not allow them to establish sanctuaries or re-establish sanctuaries in places where they were before."

Petraeus said the reduced threat from al-Qaida had given way to nonsectarian crimes — kidnapping, corruption in the oil industry and extortion.

"As the terrible extremist threat of al-Qaida has been reduced somewhat, there is in some Iraqi neighborhoods actually a focus on crime and on extortion that has been ongoing and kidnapping cells and what is almost a mafia-like presence in certain areas," he said.

Petraeus made his comments after a transition ceremony as the 1st Armored Division, which is based in Wiesbaden, Germany, assumed command of northern Iraq from the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division at Camp Speicher, a U.S. base near Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad.

The new commander for the region, Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, said the number of attacks so far in October had dropped by more than 300 from last month, although he did not provide more specific figures.

"The levels are still high in some of the northern provinces," he said. "But while they're still high ... they have been decreasing significantly."

"We are in, I believe, a pursuit operation with al-Qaida," he said, adding that attacks were more focused on local civilians and Iraqi security forces. "They are targeting the concerned local citizens, the police stations and some of the gathering places of sheiks ... specifically to try and deter the Iraqi people from moving forward."

In all, at least 35 people were killed or found dead across the nation, including the decomposing bodies of 12 Shiites found near the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba, an army officer said.

An explosives-laden car also exploded near a market in Baghdad's northern Shiite district of Kazimiyah, killing at least two civilians and wounding 10, according to local police

The suicide bombing in Kirkuk, 80 miles north of Baghdad, struck a mainly Kurdish area in the city, which has seen a rise in ethnic tensions as Iraq's Kurds try to strengthen their presence there as a prelude to annexing it to their nearby self-rule region.

The city's Arab and Turkomen residents dispute the Kurdish claim.

Several cars and nearby stores and restaurants were set on fire and black smoke rose from the area as panicked people ran over bloodstained sidewalks.

On a separate subject, Petraeus offered some personal reflection on the plight of Sultan Hashim al-Tai, a Saddam Hussein-era defense minister who faces the death penalty after his conviction for his role in the so-called Anfal campaign that killed tens of thousands of Kurds.

The executions of al-Tai — along with Saddam's cousin "Chemical Ali" al-Majid and Hussein Rashid Mohammed, former deputy operations director for the Iraqi military — have been delayed as Iraqi politicians and legal experts wrangle over the refusal of President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, to sign the order.

Al-Tai, a Sunni Arab from the northern city of Mosul, negotiated the cease-fire than ended the 1991 Gulf War, when a U.S.-led coalition drove Iraqi forces from Kuwait. He also surrendered to U.S. forces in September 2003 after weeks of negotiations. His defense lawyers claimed the Americans had promised al-Tai "protection and good treatment" before he turned himself in.

Petraeus, who was then commander of the 101st Airborne division that oversaw the surrender, denied reports that he had promised al-Tai immunity.

"We were very hot on his heels," he said. "So we put the word out to his family through interlocutors that ... I would receive his surrender in an honorable manner and convey him to the central authorities and that's basically what we did. And I did treat him honorably."

Petraeus said they brought al-Tai's family to visit him and he said he personally flew al-Tai in his helicopter to Mosul and spent about an hour with him as they waited for a C-130 transport plane to fly him to Baghdad.

"I actually visited him there one time. Another time we took his some family members and an imam to see him," he recalled. "But the bottom line is that if the appropriate Iraqi process is followed then we will respect that process."

___

Associated Press writer Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this story.

Libyan president funding film
'Years of Torment' details Italian occupation
By ALI JAAFAR
Libyan prexy Moammar Gadhafi is bankrolling a new film about the Italian occupation of Libya to the tune of $50 million.
“Years of Torment,” or “Dhulm” in Arabic, will detail the three-decade Italian occupation of Libya from 1911-43 through firsthand accounts written by Libyans and international witnesses.

Pic will mark the feature film debut of Syrian helmer-producer Najdat Anzour, already famous across the Arab world for his hot-button Ramadan skeins, known as musalsalat in Arabic, which often deal with controversial subjects such as Islamic fundamentalism and the debate over the Danish cartoons that lampooned the prophet Muhammad. Producers have tapped Teuton d.p Rainer Klausmann (“Downfall”) to work on the pic, which will be in English.

Project will be announced today at a lavish Rome press confab -- complete with all-expenses-paid invitations to journos from around the world. Unveiling event is said to have cost producers $400,000.

The Italian occupation of Libya saw tens of thousands of Libyans interned in concentration camps in the desert. Some historical studies have claimed that up to a quarter of Libya’s population died during the period.

“The film is being made in the spirit of reconciliation and dialogue and because we need to remind people about Libya’s history. President Gadhafi wants to do something for his country,” Anzour said. “This won’t be propaganda. The film will focus on the ordinary people. It will be like ‘Crash,’ where all these similarly different characters will find themselves connected by events.”

Gadhafi’s involvement in the production is a further sign of Libya’s return to the international fold after it voluntarily revealed and halted its nuclear program following years of sanctions.

Pic will be the country’s first feature since Moustapha Akkad’s 1981 “The Lion of the Desert,” which dealt with the same time period and boasted the unlikely sight of Anthony Quinn as Libyan resistance hero Omar Mukhtar. Italian authorities banned the film in 1982 after then-Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti labeled it damaging to the honor of the Italian army. Gadhafi reputedly bankrolled that pic as well.

“It’s important for people to know the extent of the oppression that took place,” said producer Ramzi Rassi. “The film will be testimony to that period. We owe it to present generations to know what happened so that we can avoid misrepresentations and misunderstandings.”

Despite his reputation for generating media storms, Anzour is keen to avoid drawing any comparisons with the situation in Iraq, focusing instead on what occurred in Libya. “We want to make something deep that affects people,” said Anzour. “The DVD will be full of extras and documentaries about the occupation.”

Pic is set to start lensing early next year.

Read the full article at:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117974893.html