Iraq Nab 1,000 Al-Qaeda, Pelosi Still At Large

[submarinepainter]

Iraq detains 1,000 in anti-al-Qaida crackdown
17 May, 2008

By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD - Nearly 1,000 people have been detained in a sweep to break al-Qaida in Iraq‘s sway in Iraq‘s third largest city, Mosul, but many of the fighters have fled to nearby areas, where troops are hunting for them, Iraqi officials said Saturday.

But the flight of al-Qaida fighters raises the concern they can regroup elsewhere, as has often happened in the past.

“Operations will continue and the Iraqi army will not leave Mosul until security and stability have been accomplished,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

The sweep was launched Thursday, after five days of preparatory operations and arrests in the city. U.S.-backed Iraqi police and soldiers have been conducting raids on homes and have fanned out with checkpoints on city streets, though no clashes have been reported in the city, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

The assault on the Sunni al-Qaida in Iraq group was launched in the wake of two other major crackdowns against Shiite militiamen in the southern city of Basra and the Baghdad district of Sadr City in the past two months. Those two sweeps continue but uneasy truces with the powerful Shiite Mahdi Army militia have eased the heavy violence they sparked.

Al-Bolani told a gathering of some 300 former Saddam Hussein-era officers in Mosul that the army and police would make room for them and that al-Maliki was urging them to return. Many in the crowd cheered the announcement.

On Friday, al-Maliki offered amnesty and cash to fighters in Mosul who surrender their weapons within the next 10 days. Al-Bolani said no one has surrendered any weapons yet and warned they had “no other choice” but to comply or face being targeted by security forces in the coming days…

This is great news of course.

But how the Iraqis could let one of their biggest enemies slip through their fingers when she was right there is hard to understand.


http://sweetness-light.com/archive/iraq-nab-1000-al-qaeda-not-counting-nancy

[iluvfreebeer]

Pelosi is a slippery bitch