Seraphim
09-25-2003, 03:38 PM
http://www.msnbc.com/news/870749.asp?vts=092520031030
http://a799.g.akamai.net/3/799/388/1b51c129756d65/www.msnbc.com/news/2023591.jpg
Dr. Aquila al-Hashimi, a member of the 25-person Iraqi Governing Council, died Thursday from gunshot wounds suffered during an assassination attempt.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 25 — The violence in Iraq claimed a prominent victim Thursday with the death of Aquila al-Hashimi, one of three women on Iraq’s U.S.-picked Governing Council, who died of wounds suffered five days earlier in an assassination attempt.
AL-HASHIMI’S DEATH marked the first time Iraq’s violence has claimed the life of a member of the U.S.-appointed administration.
Her death came as a bomb damaged a hotel housing the offices of NBC News, raising fears of attacks against international media. A Somali guard was killed and an NBC sound engineer was slightly wounded in the early morning explosion at the small al-Aike Hotel in the city’s fashionable Karrada district.
In the north, eight U.S. soldiers were wounded — three of them seriously — when their convoy was ambushed with roadside bombs and small arms fire in Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city.
The tenuous security situation prompted U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to order a further reduction in U.N. international staff in Iraq after two bombings at U.N. headquarters, including one on Aug. 19 that killed 22 people.
It also led the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, to warn he would use whatever force necessary to defeat those who attack U.S. soldiers.
Al-Hashimi, who was severely wounded in the abdomen Saturday when her convoy was ambushed by six men in a pickup truck near her home in western Baghdad, died shortly before noon from her wounds. At the time of the attack, she was preparing to attend the U.N. General Assembly, which opened in New York on Tuesday.
Al-Hashimi will be buried Friday, and the Governing Council announced a three-day mourning period beginning Thursday.
In a statement, the council said al-Hashimi “fell as a martyr on the path of freedom and democracy to build this great nation. She died at the hands of a clique of infidels and cunning people who only know darkness.”
L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator for Iraq who currently is in Washington, issued a statement of condolences.
BREMER OFFERS CONDOLENCES
“Today, the people of Iraq have lost a courageous champion and pioneer for the cause of freedom and democracy. On behalf of the Coalition Provisional Authority and all its members, I offer my heartfelt condolences to her family, her colleagues at the Governing Council and the people of Iraq,” Bremer said.
Al-Hashimi, who was not married and thought to have been in her mid-40s, had been cared for a U.S. military hospital in the compound at Saddam Hussein’s former Republican Palace in central Baghdad where the U.S.-led coalition has its headquarters.
A career diplomat and Shiite Muslim, she had been expected to become Iraq’s new ambassador to the United Nations. She served in the Foreign Ministry during the Saddam government and was the only official of the ousted regime appointed to the 25-member Governing Council.
The Governing Council president, Ahmad Chalabi, blamed remnants of the Saddam regime, ousted by U.S.-led forces in April.
Chalabi attended the Security Council session along with Adnan Pachachi, the elder statesman on the council and a former foreign minister in a government before Saddam Hussein seized power. The council was established by the U.S.-led coalition in mid-July to put an Iraqi face on the process of rebuilding the country.
As-Hashimi was the first member of the Iraqi Governing Council to die in postwar violence, but others allied with the U.S. coalition also have been targeted.
Last month, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, a top Shiite cleric who leads a movement with a seat on the Governing Council, was killed in a car bombing that left at least 85 people dead. Al-Hakim’s brother, Abdel-Aziz, is a council member.
The police chief of the central town of Khaldiyah, who was working with U.S. forces, was assassinated by gunmen last week, and other attacks have killed police recruits trained by the Americans.
BLAST HITS NBC’S BAGHDAD BUREAU
Al-Hashimi’s death was announced after an explosion rocked the al-Aike Hotel in Baghdad, headquarters of NBC News in Baghdad.
The bomb, which was detonated shortly before 7 a.m., was placed about 3 feet from the outside wall of the hotel in a hut that housed the hotel’s generator, police said. It killed a Somali desk clerk, they said.
A dozen NBC staffers were inside the building when the explosion occurred. A Canadian soundman, David Moodie, was slightly injured by flying glass, but appeared on MSNBC TV to describe the blast. (MSNBC is a joint venture of NBC and Microsoft.)
“I was awake,” Moodie said. “A chest of drawers in the room fell on me. I sleep in the room immediately above the generator, so I guess I was lucky.”
Moodie said he suffered one deep cut from flying glass and would require stitches. He said no other NBC employees were hurt.
Lt. Col. Peter Jones, a local U.S. commander, said it was too early to say if NBC had been the target.
“Right now I can’t say for certain,” he said. “We have spoken to the security personnel. They have not received any threats.”
But Rutha al-Dahligi, who works at a nearby building site, said it was well known foreign journalists were at the hotel.
“Of course people know there are journalists in the hotel,” he said. “There are lots of Americans in the area.”
NBC television issued a statement saying “We are grateful that all of our NBC News employees are safe, and are saddened by the loss of life at the hotel,” adding its media coverage of events in Iraq would continue.
SECURITY CONCERNS PARE U.N. STAFF
Attacks have killed 79 U.S. soldiers in Iraq since Washington declared major combat over on May 1, and almost daily bombings and guerrilla ambushes continue to plague the reconstruction of Iraq.
Concern over security was behind Annan’s decision to pare down U.N. staff even as major countries urge a greater role for the world body in Iraq’s reconstruction.
At the time of the Aug. 19 bombing there were about 300 international staff in Baghdad and another 300 elsewhere in Iraq. That figure was reduced to 42 in Baghdad and 44 in the north, and U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said those numbers “can be expected to shrink further in the next few days.”
Sanchez, the U.S. commander, said “terrorist elements” were “targeting the international community, targeting the Iraqi people and targeting coalition forces.”
Sanchez also said U.S. troops would respond robustly to any attacks and defended a decision by a unit of the 82nd Airborne Division to call in an airstrike on a farmhouse in al-Sajr this week in which three men were killed and three other people, including two boys, were wounded. U.S. officials said the airstrike was launched after gunmen fired on a U.S. patrol and took refuge in a house.
“We will use the force that is necessary to defeat an enemy force that has been declared hostile,” Sanchez said. “And when an individual engages our force, he, or that entity, is a hostile force.”
Bush is struggling to win international support for a U.N. resolution designed to bring fresh peacekeeping troops and financial support.
The Pentagon is considering a call-up of more reserves and National Guard units. There are 130,000 American troops in Iraq, supported by several thousand peacekeepers from Britain, Poland and other supporting countries.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
The U. S. military said Thursday that Sanchez, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, was discussing a previously unreported killing of two Iraqi policemen in the city of Fallujah when he responded a question about the Sept. 12 friendly fire killing of eight Iraqi policemen and a Jordanian hospital guard.
The mistake prompted the Associated Press to quote Sanchez as saying that the investigation of the killing of the eight police officers showed no misconduct.
“The initial findings are that the soldiers acted within the construct of the military’s rules of engagement,” the AP quoted Sanchez as saying when asked about the status of the investigation into the Sept. 12 incident. “... The initial reports were clear. There was initial fire and it was a 30-second engagement. At the end of it, the policemen were dead.”
But Col. Bill Darley subsequently telephoned the AP and said Sanchez was referring to an earlier incident.
Early Thursday, two suspected Iraqi resistance leaders accused of organizing and financing attacks against U.S. soldiers near Saddam Hussein’s birthplace were arrested in raids. Their identities were not released.
The arrests in Tikrit’s affluent neighborhoods were part of an intensified campaign against people believed responsible for a series of deadly attacks against U.S. troops.
On Wednesday, a bomb rocked a teeming quarter of Baghdad and a hand grenade exploded in a ***-film theater in Mosul, reportedly killing at least three Iraqis and wounding dozens. Police said a witness told them the theater was showing a ****ographic film when the grenade exploded. Islamic militants have attacked some theaters in postwar Iraq for showing movies they regard as immoral.
A military spokeswoman said Wednesday that U.S. troops had killed nine Iraqi guerrillas, the most in more than a month, in scattered action north and south of Tikrit over the previous 24 hours. A mid-level financier of the guerrillas was arrested, and nearly 40 other rebels detained.
http://a799.g.akamai.net/3/799/388/1b51c129756d65/www.msnbc.com/news/2023591.jpg
Dr. Aquila al-Hashimi, a member of the 25-person Iraqi Governing Council, died Thursday from gunshot wounds suffered during an assassination attempt.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 25 — The violence in Iraq claimed a prominent victim Thursday with the death of Aquila al-Hashimi, one of three women on Iraq’s U.S.-picked Governing Council, who died of wounds suffered five days earlier in an assassination attempt.
AL-HASHIMI’S DEATH marked the first time Iraq’s violence has claimed the life of a member of the U.S.-appointed administration.
Her death came as a bomb damaged a hotel housing the offices of NBC News, raising fears of attacks against international media. A Somali guard was killed and an NBC sound engineer was slightly wounded in the early morning explosion at the small al-Aike Hotel in the city’s fashionable Karrada district.
In the north, eight U.S. soldiers were wounded — three of them seriously — when their convoy was ambushed with roadside bombs and small arms fire in Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city.
The tenuous security situation prompted U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to order a further reduction in U.N. international staff in Iraq after two bombings at U.N. headquarters, including one on Aug. 19 that killed 22 people.
It also led the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, to warn he would use whatever force necessary to defeat those who attack U.S. soldiers.
Al-Hashimi, who was severely wounded in the abdomen Saturday when her convoy was ambushed by six men in a pickup truck near her home in western Baghdad, died shortly before noon from her wounds. At the time of the attack, she was preparing to attend the U.N. General Assembly, which opened in New York on Tuesday.
Al-Hashimi will be buried Friday, and the Governing Council announced a three-day mourning period beginning Thursday.
In a statement, the council said al-Hashimi “fell as a martyr on the path of freedom and democracy to build this great nation. She died at the hands of a clique of infidels and cunning people who only know darkness.”
L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator for Iraq who currently is in Washington, issued a statement of condolences.
BREMER OFFERS CONDOLENCES
“Today, the people of Iraq have lost a courageous champion and pioneer for the cause of freedom and democracy. On behalf of the Coalition Provisional Authority and all its members, I offer my heartfelt condolences to her family, her colleagues at the Governing Council and the people of Iraq,” Bremer said.
Al-Hashimi, who was not married and thought to have been in her mid-40s, had been cared for a U.S. military hospital in the compound at Saddam Hussein’s former Republican Palace in central Baghdad where the U.S.-led coalition has its headquarters.
A career diplomat and Shiite Muslim, she had been expected to become Iraq’s new ambassador to the United Nations. She served in the Foreign Ministry during the Saddam government and was the only official of the ousted regime appointed to the 25-member Governing Council.
The Governing Council president, Ahmad Chalabi, blamed remnants of the Saddam regime, ousted by U.S.-led forces in April.
Chalabi attended the Security Council session along with Adnan Pachachi, the elder statesman on the council and a former foreign minister in a government before Saddam Hussein seized power. The council was established by the U.S.-led coalition in mid-July to put an Iraqi face on the process of rebuilding the country.
As-Hashimi was the first member of the Iraqi Governing Council to die in postwar violence, but others allied with the U.S. coalition also have been targeted.
Last month, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, a top Shiite cleric who leads a movement with a seat on the Governing Council, was killed in a car bombing that left at least 85 people dead. Al-Hakim’s brother, Abdel-Aziz, is a council member.
The police chief of the central town of Khaldiyah, who was working with U.S. forces, was assassinated by gunmen last week, and other attacks have killed police recruits trained by the Americans.
BLAST HITS NBC’S BAGHDAD BUREAU
Al-Hashimi’s death was announced after an explosion rocked the al-Aike Hotel in Baghdad, headquarters of NBC News in Baghdad.
The bomb, which was detonated shortly before 7 a.m., was placed about 3 feet from the outside wall of the hotel in a hut that housed the hotel’s generator, police said. It killed a Somali desk clerk, they said.
A dozen NBC staffers were inside the building when the explosion occurred. A Canadian soundman, David Moodie, was slightly injured by flying glass, but appeared on MSNBC TV to describe the blast. (MSNBC is a joint venture of NBC and Microsoft.)
“I was awake,” Moodie said. “A chest of drawers in the room fell on me. I sleep in the room immediately above the generator, so I guess I was lucky.”
Moodie said he suffered one deep cut from flying glass and would require stitches. He said no other NBC employees were hurt.
Lt. Col. Peter Jones, a local U.S. commander, said it was too early to say if NBC had been the target.
“Right now I can’t say for certain,” he said. “We have spoken to the security personnel. They have not received any threats.”
But Rutha al-Dahligi, who works at a nearby building site, said it was well known foreign journalists were at the hotel.
“Of course people know there are journalists in the hotel,” he said. “There are lots of Americans in the area.”
NBC television issued a statement saying “We are grateful that all of our NBC News employees are safe, and are saddened by the loss of life at the hotel,” adding its media coverage of events in Iraq would continue.
SECURITY CONCERNS PARE U.N. STAFF
Attacks have killed 79 U.S. soldiers in Iraq since Washington declared major combat over on May 1, and almost daily bombings and guerrilla ambushes continue to plague the reconstruction of Iraq.
Concern over security was behind Annan’s decision to pare down U.N. staff even as major countries urge a greater role for the world body in Iraq’s reconstruction.
At the time of the Aug. 19 bombing there were about 300 international staff in Baghdad and another 300 elsewhere in Iraq. That figure was reduced to 42 in Baghdad and 44 in the north, and U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said those numbers “can be expected to shrink further in the next few days.”
Sanchez, the U.S. commander, said “terrorist elements” were “targeting the international community, targeting the Iraqi people and targeting coalition forces.”
Sanchez also said U.S. troops would respond robustly to any attacks and defended a decision by a unit of the 82nd Airborne Division to call in an airstrike on a farmhouse in al-Sajr this week in which three men were killed and three other people, including two boys, were wounded. U.S. officials said the airstrike was launched after gunmen fired on a U.S. patrol and took refuge in a house.
“We will use the force that is necessary to defeat an enemy force that has been declared hostile,” Sanchez said. “And when an individual engages our force, he, or that entity, is a hostile force.”
Bush is struggling to win international support for a U.N. resolution designed to bring fresh peacekeeping troops and financial support.
The Pentagon is considering a call-up of more reserves and National Guard units. There are 130,000 American troops in Iraq, supported by several thousand peacekeepers from Britain, Poland and other supporting countries.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
The U. S. military said Thursday that Sanchez, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, was discussing a previously unreported killing of two Iraqi policemen in the city of Fallujah when he responded a question about the Sept. 12 friendly fire killing of eight Iraqi policemen and a Jordanian hospital guard.
The mistake prompted the Associated Press to quote Sanchez as saying that the investigation of the killing of the eight police officers showed no misconduct.
“The initial findings are that the soldiers acted within the construct of the military’s rules of engagement,” the AP quoted Sanchez as saying when asked about the status of the investigation into the Sept. 12 incident. “... The initial reports were clear. There was initial fire and it was a 30-second engagement. At the end of it, the policemen were dead.”
But Col. Bill Darley subsequently telephoned the AP and said Sanchez was referring to an earlier incident.
Early Thursday, two suspected Iraqi resistance leaders accused of organizing and financing attacks against U.S. soldiers near Saddam Hussein’s birthplace were arrested in raids. Their identities were not released.
The arrests in Tikrit’s affluent neighborhoods were part of an intensified campaign against people believed responsible for a series of deadly attacks against U.S. troops.
On Wednesday, a bomb rocked a teeming quarter of Baghdad and a hand grenade exploded in a ***-film theater in Mosul, reportedly killing at least three Iraqis and wounding dozens. Police said a witness told them the theater was showing a ****ographic film when the grenade exploded. Islamic militants have attacked some theaters in postwar Iraq for showing movies they regard as immoral.
A military spokeswoman said Wednesday that U.S. troops had killed nine Iraqi guerrillas, the most in more than a month, in scattered action north and south of Tikrit over the previous 24 hours. A mid-level financier of the guerrillas was arrested, and nearly 40 other rebels detained.