| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq-Jordan |
| Zarqawi sez he'll keep fighting |
| 2005-02-01 |
| Al Qaeda vowed to pursue "holy war" in Iraq on Monday after failing to wreck elections, and Prime Minister Iyad Allawi urged rival ethnic and religious groups to unite after the first multi-party vote in 50 years. Al-Qaeda Islamist militants denounced the historic elections on Sunday as an "American game" but leaders around the world hailed the vote as an unexpected success, regardless of whether they had supported or opposed the US-led war in 2003. War opponents France, Germany and Russia all hailed Iraqis' bravery in voting and, in a sign of warming transatlantic ties, pledged to back US efforts to restore stability. But the al Qaeda group in Iraq, whose leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had threatened voters with death in a bid to wreck the election, said it would pursue its war against US-led occupying forces and Iraqis working with them. "We in the al Qaeda Organization for Holy War in Iraq will continue the jihad until the banner of Islam flutters over Iraq," said the statement posted on an Islamist Web site. A videotape on Monday purported to show insurgents from another militant group downing a British military plane with a missile near Baghdad in a crash that killed 10 people on Sunday -- Britain's worst single death toll in Iraq. The video, aired by an Arabic TV channel and issued by the 1920 Revolution Brigades, showed an explosion then smoldering debris of what looked like a plane, including an engine, on the ground and filmed at close range in a large field. Analysts said the wreckage on the video looked authentic but the first part -- shots of a button being pressed and a rocket streaking off skyward -- was less convincing. In a televised speech, Allawi warned Iraqis violence had not ended just because the election had exceeded expectations and he urged rival factions to forge unity: "The whole world is watching us. As we worked together yesterday to finish dictatorship, let us work together toward a bright future -- Sunnis and Shi'ites, Muslims and Christians, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen." Allawi, who could be reappointed, is keen to build popular support after a poll in which election officials estimate 8 million Iraqis voted, confounding predictions many would be scared away by insurgent threats of a bloodbath. Yet while the election day onslaught of suicide bombers and mortars was less bloody than expected, violence persisted. On Monday, three US Marines were killed in action south of Baghdad, the US military said, and US guards shot dead four detainees during a riot at a military prison in southern Iraq. The riot raged for 45 minutes, with six other detainees wounded by guards or other inmates, before the Americans opened fire to quell the disturbance, a military spokesman said. Millions of Iraqis cast ballots on Sunday but the numbers appeared low in Sunni Arab areas where insurgents are strongest -- highlighting the communal rifts facing a new government. Shi'ites, about 60 percent of the population, are expected win the most votes and officials in the Shi'ite-led coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, have claimed a degree of victory. Shi'ite leaders quickly declared they would bring the Sunni minority, dominant under Saddam, into the fold. President Bush also encouraged Iraq's leaders to ensure minority Sunni Arabs are in the political process, and the White House brushed aside Democratic calls for a timetable for US troops to begin withdrawing. Bush is to talk about Iraq in his State of the Union address on Wednesday night but was not expected to announce a withdrawal plan, instead emphasizing the need over the next year to train and equip Iraqi forces to allow for an American pullout. "Timetables sometimes can send a message to terrorists that all they have to do is wait and coordinate attacks around that timetable," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #7 smn, What makes you think Zack is a fighter or any braver than Saddam? Because he bravely sawed the head off of a few hogtied and scared innocent civilians and can order some poor fools to go kill themselves? I hope we do capture him and he embarases himself on video. He might go down in a 'blaze of glory' like Saddam's sons or he might come out weeping and crying from some spiderhole. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2005-02-01 7:08:27 PM |
| #6 This is what Kedwards said too. Losers. |
| Posted by: someone 2005-02-01 11:57:06 AM |
| #5 Preferrably to another plane of existence. Heard that sheitans use peeled red hot chilli peppers as condoms and the white raisins are actually dehydrated tapeworms. |
| Posted by: Sobiesky 2005-02-01 10:29:18 AM |
| #4 C'mon, Zarqi baby, it's time to moveon.org. |
| Posted by: BH 2005-02-01 10:13:04 AM |
| #3 Why do we have to prove anything? Once he's been silent -- and his boyz embarrassingly ineffective -- long enough, no one will admit to ever having cared about him. He declared war on democracy in Iraq, and lost. His paymasters must not be at all pleased with him right now. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-02-01 6:21:26 AM |
| #2 I would be shocked if Abu Musab al-Zarqawi allowed himself to be captured alive! He's no Saddam, and I'm sure unless the US captures him during a sleeping session, he's going to go out like Saddam's boys! I just hope we get enough of him to prove to the arab street that We Got Him! |
| Posted by: smn 2005-02-01 3:59:37 AM |
| #1 Cripes, all the good news is filled with carefully placed Fnords. |
| Posted by: Dishman 2005-02-01 3:19:07 AM |