...but when the violence started, we didn’t see any sign of them...

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=11873

Why didn’t the U.S. troops intervene to save Balad?

With a new wave of violence claiming more lives in Iraq, Sunni Arabs are fleeing the Iraqi city of Balad, saying that gunmen had been going door to door, giving them two hours to leave their homes, and "burned everything related to Sunnis."

"Militiamen gave them just two hours to leave the house. But after half an hour, they broke into the house and killed four of them," The Associated Press quoted Ahmed Ali, a 32-year-old Sunni truck driver who was trying to reach his wife's family in Balad, as saying.

Balad is now strewn with dead bodies, as Sunnis in neighboring towns started arming themselves to protect their families against militia raids. snip

Why did the U.S. troops not intervene to stop the string of killings that began earlier this week, even though their Camp Anaconda, one of the largest U.S. military bases in Iraq, which offers amenities including movie theaters, fast food courts, and dance lessons, and operated by Halliburton subsidiary KBR, is located nearby.

[MadMaddie]

1. Is it possible that are soldiers have been told to stand down..

and stay in the Green zone to limit the injuries and deaths before the elections?

I hate to say this is possible but with Rummy I think it is possible...

[kenny blankenship]

2. this could well be the new shape of our deployment in Iraq beyond Nov. 7

A Shia dictatorship will be allowed to liquidate the Sunni people until all Sunni militia give up. The pretense that the gov't in Baghdad represents all of Iraq's people and is elected democratically is dropped. We do nothing to stop any of it from happening in the interests of "bringing stability" to Iraq.

Basically we adopt the same laissez-tuer attitude towards the Shia majority in Iraq that Bush has shown towards Israel in its program of disproportionate violence towards Palestinians. If the Sunni won't put down their weapons and seek peace with the Shia majority, the killing will continue, in order to demonstrate the futility of resistance by the weaker against the stronger side. Only of course we won't say "the killing will continue", we'll say regrettably, the government must continue its miltiary actions in the Sunni areas until all militia are disarmed, and order is restored.

[stillcool]

3. I don't think we're going to know ...

what's going on there until our soldiers come home.

http://www.sundayherald.com/58553
Bombs, gun squads, burials ... one week in Iraq
As US troops fear a new onslaught, the head of the British army calls for a pullout, leaving Iraq’s future in the balance. By James Cusick
Last Tuesday night in Baghdad the Iraqi skyline was lit up. In what was believed to be one of the most sustained and ferocious mortar and rocket attacks in three years, there was widespread fear among senior US military personnel that the protected international zone (IZ), formerly the “green zone”, was about to experience a direct assault.

Major gun battles were being fought in two of Baghdad’s districts – Doura and Mansoor. Doura has a large oil refinery, Mansoor is technically an affluent area close to the IZ. Gunfire and explosions were louder than normal and then, at around 7pm, the first large rocket landed inside the IZ itself. Another hit came after 10 minutes, then another two minutes later. Then a series of explosions, different to the daily “normal” rocket attacks were felt. For those in the IZ, the explosions were so close and so fierce that, even for experienced military personnel, “you could taste the cordite in your teeth”.

Iraq | 17.10.2006
With 48 killed since January, 2006 is deadliest year for press since start of war

Toll of employees killed in attack on new TV station rises to 11

The toll of employees left dead by the targeted attack on 12 October on the new Iraqi TV station Al Shaabiya has risen to 11. The dead include director Abdel Rahim Nasrallah Al Shumari, deputy director Nawfal Al Shumari, technicians Hussein Ali, Dhakir Hussein Al Shuwaili and Ahmad Shaaban, and head administrator Sami Nasrallah Al Shumari. Five security guards were also killed, while journalists Mishtak Al Maamuri and Mohammed Kazem Al Finiyin are still in a critical condition in hospital.

Two Al Irakiya journalists killed, cartoonist shot and wounded

Raid Qais Al Shammari, a journalist working for the TV station Al Irakiya and the radio station Sawt Al Irak, was shot dead at the wheel of his car on 13 October in the Baghdad district of Al Dora. Another Al Irakiya journalist, Ali Halil, was murdered by gunmen yesterday in the Baghdad district of Al Hurriye.

Police say a car bomb has exploded outside an Iraqi bank, killing 10 people and wounding 15 in the town of Suweira, south of Baghdad.

In Baghdad itself, two explosions almost an hour apart have rolled across the centre of the city.
One bomb killed a policeman and wounded four others.
Three more police and a civilian were wounded when the second bomb detonated nearby.
Police in Baquba, north of Baghdad, meanwhile reported finding the bound corpses of three policemen who had been kidnapped on their way back from a training course in Jordan.

A civilian was also killed by gunmen in the city of Baquba itself, the scene of repeated sectarian killings.

http://www.optusnet.com.au/news/story/abc/20061017/08/international/1766279.inp

The death toll from a brutal conflict continues to rise steeply and a senior UN official has warned that Iraq is spiralling out of control. In continuing violence on the ground, the leader of a religious minority was shot dead in front of his home and US soldiers battled to control a fire triggered by a mortar attack on an ammunition store. The attacks, on October 11, came after two days in which Baghdad police found the corpses of 110 murder victims scattered across the capital, which is in the grip of a vicious turf war between Sunnite and Shiite factions. In other violence near the Iraqi capital, two car bombs detonated almost simultaneously near the Ministry of Labor in the northeast of the city, killing two civilians and wounding 12 more. Another booby-trapped vehicle exploded in the southeast of the city, killing two bystanders and wounding 22 people, including eight policemen.

One civilian was killed and another six injured including three policemen in explosion of a roadside bomb behind the Yarmouk Hospital.
In Doura, south of Baghdad, gunmen killed a family of four people at their home. And in the Amil neighborhood of the capital Baghdad five stonemasons were killed by an improvised bomb as they waited for work as day laborers.

An umbrella organisation of Sunni muslim insurgents has proclaimed an independent Islamic state in Iraq. The Mutayibeen Coalition is believed to incorporate branches of Al Qaeda into its network. The group announced in a video statement that the new state consisted of six provinces with large Sunni populations and parts of two others which are predominately Shi'ite.

The insurgents' spokesman claimed the Islamic state stretched 250 kilometres north of Baghdad to Kirkuk. Ten people died and dozens more were injured when six bombs exploded in the ethnically-mixed city on Sunday. It's believed several of the explosions involved car bombs detonated by suicide attackers.www.euronews.net
http://www.aina.org/news/20061016104534.htm

http://www.aina.org/index.shtml
Bombs Rip Through Iraqi Oil City
Posted GMT 10-17-2006 14:27:58

KIRKUK, Iraq (AFP) -- Insurgent car bombers blitzed the Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk on Sunday, killing 14 people and wounding 72 in seven brutal attacks, including one on a school training young women teachers.

...In Baghdad, bombers targeted a convoy carrying Hala Mohammed Shakr, head of the interior ministry's financial affairs department, killing two bodyguards and five civilian bystanders, Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf said.....

.....The blast on Ghadir Street in southeast Baghdad also wounded five people.

....Another bomb killed one person and wounded two in the Amil neighborhood, a confessionally mixed area of southwest Baghdad that has seen a number of attacks.

....South of the capital, a policeman and a civilian were killed in separate incidents near the city of Kut. Two bodies partially eaten by fish were pulled out of the Tigris river downstream of the capital near the town of Suweira.

By Marwan Ibrahim

© 2006, Assyrian International News Agency. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use.
http://www.aina.org/news/2006101792758.htm