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Iraq
US Troops Detain 59 Men Traveling West from Iraq
2003-04-12
U.S. special forces have detained 59 terrorists men traveling toward the western border of Iraq carrying cash and letters offering rewards for killing U.S. soldiers, the U.S. military said on Saturday. "At a checkpoint in the west, coalition special operations forces stopped a bus with 59 military-aged men traveling west," U.S. Brigadier General Vincent Brooks told a news briefing at Central Command war headquarters in Qatar. "Among their possessions were letters offering financial rewards for killing American soldiers and 630,000 U.S. dollars in 100-dollar bills. The men and all their possessions have been taken into coalition control."
"Well, Mahmoud, you can start 'splainin' any time now. We're real interested in hearing what y've got to say. Are you making off with the head money you were supposed to hand out? Or did you earn it in Baghad? And where, pray tell, did the money came from?"
Several U.S. soldiers have been killed or wounded in a number of suicide bomb attacks on checkpoints in Iraq. Brooks said he did not have any information on the nationalities of the men nor any details on who the letters they were carrying were from. Arab volunteers from across the Middle East came to Iraq to pot a few Merkins help fight the U.S.-led invasion. "We've found people who were not Iraqis in a variety of places. We don't know in this case if they were or were not. We certainly know they were leaving Iraq to the west," Brooks said.
With the money...
On Friday, the U.S. military said Iraqi leaders were trying to escape to other countries, including Syria to the west, and said it had issued troops with a list of 55 key Iraqi figures to be captured or killed.
One of whom is reported by FoxNews to have turned himself in this morning...
Posted by:Spot

#1  The Paleo influence is felt:
In Baghdad, where U.S. troops have been wary of suicide attacks, Marines showed reporters a cache of about 50 explosives-laden suicide-bomb vests in an elementary school less than 20 feet from the nearest home.
At a nearby junior high school, seven classrooms were filled with hundreds of crates of grenade launchers, surface-to-air missiles and ammunition. Residents said Iraqi soldiers and militiamen had positioned weaponry throughout the neighborhood before U.S. forces moved in.

"We didn't imagine this much stuff here," said Lt. David Wright, of Goldsboro, N.C. "Every 200 meters we find something."

Searching for weapons, and for holdout pro-Saddam fighters, has been the primary task of American troops in Baghdad. But U.S. officials, criticized for doing too little to curtail the looting, say restoration of law and order will become a higher priority.

The State Department said it is sending 26 police and judicial officers to Iraq, the first component of a team that will eventually number about 1,200.
Posted by: Frank G   2003-04-12 08:54:44  

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