Iraq prepares for violent reactions to Hussein verdicts
Pastor Dale Morgan
Iraq prepares for violent reactions to Hussein verdicts*
POSTED: 0654 GMT (1454 HKT), November 4, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- In a new month already shaken by a spasm of
killings, the Iraqi military is bracing for more violence Sunday with
the expected verdicts in the Saddam Hussein case.
In preparation, Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul Qader al-Obeidi on Friday
canceled leave for all army officers, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.
Those who are on vacation are to return to duty within 12 hours, the
spokesman said.
Former Iraqi leader Hussein and seven co-defendants are on trial for
crimes against humanity stemming from a brutal crackdown against
citizens in the town of Dujail after an attempt on Hussein's life in 1982.
People were jailed and tortured, and the government is suspected of
ordering the execution of 148 people.
U.S. troop deaths rising
In a troubling trend of increasing violence against U.S. troops this
autumn, 11 service members have died in the first two days of November,
all but one killed in combat.
Of those, three were Marines killed Thursday in combat in Anbar province.
The 11 bring the number of American fatalities in the war to 2,822.
Seven contractors working for the Defense Department also have been killed.
Six of those killed in the past two days were Marines based in Anbar
province and five were soldiers in the Baghdad area.
November's deaths come on the heels of a high level of violence in
October, when 105 U.S. troops died, the fourth-highest monthly total of
the war
In another all-too-common grisly occurrence, 56 bullet-riddled bodies
were found Friday in Baghdad by Iraq police in the previous 24 hours, a
Baghdad emergency police official said Friday. (Watch Iraqis prepare
rows and rows of bodies for burial -- 1:03)
Some of the bodies showed signs of torture, the official said. Iraqi
police were unable to identify the bodies.
Dumped, slain bodies are found daily in the capital and police think
these deaths have evolved out of Sunni-Shiite sectarian vendettas.
Reports: Soldier's kidnappers asking for ransom
The family of a U.S. soldier kidnapped in Iraq has been contacted by a
"person in Baghdad who claims to have contact with the abductors," and
reported they are seeking $250,000 for the soldier's release, the
soldier's half-brother said Friday.(Watch details of reported capture,
search -- 1:39 Video)
The half-brother, Laith Hadi, said contact was made by a person who
touched base with Entifadh Qanbar, the soldier's uncle and an Iraqi
government official.
Hadi said the person told Qanbar he had seen pictures of Army Spc. Ahmed
Altaie, the kidnapped soldier, on a cell phone, and that he had been
beaten and was blindfolded.
Hadi said the family asked the person who contacted Qanbar to provide
proof of Altaie's condition. He said they had heard nothing since.
A former spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress, Qanbar is now an
aide at the Iraqi Embassy in Washington.
The U.S. military said Altaie left the Green Zone of Baghdad on October
23 to visit his wife. He was handcuffed and taken away by gunmen,
according to a relative.
U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the military has
intelligence on who might have taken the soldier and that the people who
kidnapped Altaie probably still have him. He would not name the
suspects, but did say there has been "a particular focus east of the
Tigris River."
More than 2,000 coalition forces troops and more than 1,000 Iraq
security forces troops have taken part in the search, Caldwell said.
Kidnapped Greek activist freed
A Greek human rights activist kidnapped in Iraq earlier this week is
free, her group and the Iraqi government said.
Eleni Sotiriou, vice president of Heart Doctors according to the Greek
Foreign Ministry in Athens, was kidnapped Monday. A Web site for the
group, which distributes food to the needy throughout the world, said
Sotiriou "managed to escape" and is "safe at the Greek Embassy."
The Iraqi Interior Ministry has a different account.
A spokesman said police rescued her after receiving reliable
intelligence about her whereabouts. She was taken to the Greek Embassy
in Baghdad and is planning to stay in the capital and continue her work,
the Interior official said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of followers of anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr gathered Friday in the southern town of Ahrar to demand
the release of recently detained compatriots, a provincial governor told
CNN. They chanted "No for America" and "No for occupation," witnesses said.
The protest focused on the detention four days ago of al-Sadr supporters
who were arrested in a joint operation by U.S. and Iraqi army troops,
the official said.
Other developments
# The U.S. Army dog handler who was one of the soldiers who abused
detainees at Abu Ghraib prison will not go on to Iraq with his unit,
which has arrived in Kuwait, the Army decided Friday. (Full story)
# Elsewhere, gunmen shot and killed a professor along with his wife and
son Thursday as they drove in northern Baghdad, officials with Iraq's
Health and Interior Ministries said. According to the officials, Jasim
Mohammed al-Zahri was dean of the Economic and Management college at
Mustansariya University.
# Iraqi security forces intercepted six donkeys carrying 53 anti-tank
mines and an anti-tank rocket near the Iranian border in Iraq, the U.S.
military said on Thursday. The bomb team determined that the mines were
Soviet and Italian-made. One was set up to be used as a roadside bomb,
the military said.
CNN's Allan Chernoff, Jomana Karadsheh, Erin McLaughlin, Mohammed
Tawfeeq and Michael Ware contributed to this report.