EFL and News - breaching the "quagmire"?
U.S. forces said Wednesday they arrested 19 suspected members of the anti-U.S. resistance and killed another, and found a huge stockpile of weapons in a series of raids in northern Iraq. But the big prize Elvis Saddam Hussein remained elusive. - Iraq’s postwar recovery continued: In Baghdad, the U.S.-installed Governing Council asked for U.S. help in creating desperately needed jobs, while to the south in Diwaniyah, Spanish soldiers began setting up a base for troops from Spain and four Latin American countries to replace U.S. forces heading home.
- For the fifth straight day, no U.S. military personnel were reported killed in attacks. Military combat deaths had been coming almost daily, with 52 U.S. soldiers killed in combat since May 1, when U.S. President George W. Bush declared major combat over.
- The U.S. military announced the arrest of a man it said was organizing guerrilla attacks against American soldiers. The man, nabbed Sunday by Iraqi police officers, was the brother of a Saddam bodyguard captured by U.S. forces on July 29, said Lt. Col. Steve Russell of the 4th Infantry Division. Russell did not identify the man, but said he was the brother of Adnan Abdullah Abid al-Musslit, who was believed to have detailed knowledge of Saddam’s hiding places.
- Eighteen other suspected guerrillas were arrested in seven overnight raids across north-central Iraq, Maj. Josslyn Aberle said.
- She also said soldiers uncovered a large weapons cache 40 kilometers (25 miles) northeast of Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown, on Sunday. It included two 7-meter-long (20-foot) missiles, 3,000 mortar rounds, 250 anti-tank rockets and almost 2,000 artillery rounds. She said an Iraqi informant led soldiers to the cache.
|