Note that almost half of the "foreign insurgents" in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia. The Decider wants us to think the Iranians are the bad guys.
Note another car bomb in Baghdad, where the surge is strongest and where people are supposedly in love with U.S. troops.
Note once-peaceful Kurdistan is now becoming a target of Al-Qaeda. The right-wing who adore Petraeus should remember his "balloon analogy" and realise that putting pressure in one area only moves the problem to another area.
Note the "US commanders" say the Iraqi police are "often" infilitrated by Shiite militias.
These are all facts from Iraqi officials or US commanders, not the "liberal media".
From the Daily Star
Iraq announces it is holding more than 2,000 foreign suspects
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Monday, July 16, 2007
A top Iraqi official said Sunday Baghdad supports Saudi efforts to prevent cross-border infiltrations while the Interior Ministry announced having detained over 2,000 foreign suspects. In another day of violence, at least 25 Iraqis were killed in separate attacks.
In an interview with the Saudi Okaz newspaper, Iraqi National Security Adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie said that security in the region is inseparable from that of Iraq's.
"Whatever threatens neighboring countries, namely Saudi Arabia, constitutes a direct threat against Iraq," he said in comments carried out by the Kuwaiti official news agency. He said Iraq and Saudi Arabia face the same goal of fighting terrorism, adding that both governments have agreed to establish a "security fence" to prevent cross-border smuggling of arms and drugs and the infiltration of militants, he said.
Rubaie was part of a delegation of senior Iraqi security, defense and diplomatic officials who visited Saudi Arabia last week to seek increased cooperation in dealing with terrorism.
The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday that 45 percent of all foreign militants targeting US troops and Iraqi security forces were from Saudi Arabia, 15 percent from Syria and Lebanon, and 10 percent from North Africa, according to an unidentified senior US military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.
Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, the paper said.
Rubaie said about 160 Saudi militants have been tried in Iraq for taking part in its insurgency while hundreds of others are in detention.
"There are hundreds of Saudis in Iraq. Many were killed in suicide attacks," he said, claiming that foreign militants infiltrate Iraq "from a neighboring country," in an apparent reference to Syria.
"Many returned home after undergoing training on violence in Iraq, posing a threat to the kingdom's security," he said.
Meanwhile, the head of the National Command Center at the Interior Ministry, Major General Abdel-Karim Khalaf, said Iraqi authorities have recently arrested 2,489 suspected terrorists, mostly from Iran, Egypt and Afghanistan, KUNA reported. He did not specify the period the arrests were made.
He reporters that among those still being questioned, "11 were Jordanians; 64 Syrians; nine Saudis; two Algerians; six Moroccans; six Yemenis; two Libyans; 57 Palestinians; 284 Egyptians; 113 Sudanese, two Emiratis; three Lebanese and one Somali."
He added that the suspects included 461 from Iran and others came from Kenya, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan, India, Britain, France, Holland, Tanzania, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
Meanwhile, 10 people were killed by a car bomb in central Baghdad, Iraqi police said.
Twenty-five people were wounded by the blast which ripped through shops and restaurants near Hussein Square in Baghdad's mainly Shiite Jadriyya district. Two women were among the dead.
In other violence, seven Kurdish guards were killed near the Iranian border in normally calm northern Iraq, in an attack police and a local official blamed on Al-Qaeda-linked militants.
US commanders warn that Iraqi forces are not ready to handle security alone, in part due to tensions between ordinary Iraqis and police, who the United States says have often been infiltrated by Shiite militia.
"There is a certain element of the Iraqi security forces and in particular the Iraqi police ... that have had shortfalls in terms of loyalty ... to the central government," Rear Admiral Mark Fox, the top military spokesman in Iraq, told a news conference.
A wide-ranging British report by the Iraq Commission, released Saturday evening, recommended the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq once Iraqi forces have been trained, regardless of the security situation.
Its central recommendation was for Britain to "preserve and underpin" the territorial integrity of Iraq, promote regional engagement in its reconstruction and prevent Al-Qaeda using it as a base to launch attacks.
It also urged British Premier Gordon Brown to work more with the UN and Iraq's neighbors to support and promote the country's reconstruction and build up its state infrastructure.
Maliki said Saturday that Iraqi security forces were ready to take over from the Americans at "any time," but also stressed they needed more training.
Iraq's top military spokesman, Brigadier General Qassem Atta, said at the news conference with Fox that Maliki's remark was supposed to be a "general" observation. - Agencies
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