Iraq may put six Blackwater guards on trial

Iraq yesterday said it reserves the right to try six guards working for private security firm Blackwater USA for their alleged role in the killing of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad last year.

"There is information that half a dozen Blackwater guards who have been accused of shooting and killing 17 Iraqis are to be tried in Washington," government spokesman said.

"The Iraqi government stresses its rights and that Blackwater guards have committed crimes against Iraqi victims. The government reserves the right to prosecute them," he said.

On September 16, the Blackwater guards shot dead 17 Iraqi civilians while escorting an American diplomatic convoy through Baghdad.

Blackwater says its guards were acting in self-defence.

Spokesman' commment came after the Washington Post reported that six Blackwater guards had received "target letters" from the US Justice Department in a probe of the shootings.

Such letters are often considered a prelude to indictment, the report said, adding the guards were former US military personnel.

The report said any charges against the guards would likely be brought under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which has previously been used to prosecute only the cases referred to the Justice Department by the Pentagon for crimes committed by military personnel and contractors overseas.

Despite strong opposition, the US Department of State earlier this year renewed a contract with Blackwater to protect American officials in Iraq.

Foreign security companies at present are not subject to Iraq law, but at the same time are not governed by US military tribunals, effectively allowing them to operate with impunity.

Meanwhile, more than three million Shi'ites marked the annual pilgrimage to Karbala amid tight security and attacks on the way to the holy city that killed dozens of people.

Turkish fighter planes hit a Kurdistan Workers Party guerilla base in northern Iraq, the army said yesterday.

It gave no details of casualties but said the operation was successful and the group of guerillas, hiding in a cave, was preparing for an attack against Turkey.

Border guard sources in Iraq could not immediately confirm Turkish strikes. Residents in border area reported seeing warplanes but no shelling.

Working the 'Road of Hell' With Iraq's Army

Over 24 hours, I learned that in this place, your next step could easily be your last.

So there I was, with a colleague, staring at the gaping hole in the wall. On the other side was the school -- rigged with explosives, we were told.

In such situations, a moment can seem like eternity -- more so when you have watched a man dying in front of you or when you have come close to meeting death yourself. I had experienced both, less than 24 hours earlier.

The day before, I was walking on a dusty, rugged strip that local villagers called the Road of Hell. I was with Washington Post photographer Andrea Bruce and our Iraqi translator, Zaid Sabah. We were embedded with the Iraqi army and had arrived with Gen. Ali Ghaidan, their top commander in Diyala province. The road was clogged with U.S. and Iraqi vehicles. The bomb sweepers were working. The sun was burning like a furnace.

Gen. Ghaidan and his entourage walked up and down the road. Then he left, leaving us with the Iraqi army's 1st Division, 3rd Battalion. Less than a half hour later, the explosions began. There was the detonated one, near where Ghaidan stood. Maj. Adil Muhammed, the head bomb sweeper, found it and quickly disposed of it.

Then there was the blast nobody expected. An American armored bulldozer had run over an anti-tank mine in a stretch of road that was supposedly clear. Minutes earlier, I had walked by that spot a couple of times, contemplating whether to interview the American soldier seated inside the bulldozer. I didn't.

When the explosion happened, Zaid and I were about 30 feet away. Andrea was inside a Humvee on the other side of the bulldozer. My first thought was that Andrea had been hit, and later Maj. Muhammed informed us that he and his men had thought the same. I ran toward the black column of smoke as injured Iraqi soldiers emerged. Fortunately, Andrea was unharmed.

"We saw a piece of tire fly into the air, and we thought she was killed," said Sgt. Hassan Shegas, 31, another bomb sweeper.

About an hour later, a white flatbed truck drove fast across the barren plains, bouncing like a boat on the high seas, heading toward the road. In the bed was Nazar Ayed, an Iraqi soldier in his 20s. A sniper had shot him.

When the truck reached the tangle of vehicles on the road, Ayed was motionless. His feet were yellow from a lack of blood. His comrades thought he was dead and left him on the stretcher. Ten minutes later, someone noticed that his heart was faintly beating and informed the Americans.

As Muhammed and other Iraqis watched, a group of U.S. soldiers quickly huddled around Ayed, struggling to revive him. They inserted an IV into his arms and closed his wound. Their leader, 1st Lt. Jeffery Wright, was not satisfied. The tall, wide shouldered Georgia native urged his men to focus on keeping Ayed breathing.

Two U.S. Blackhawk helicopters landed in a patch of sand and shrubs. Iraqi and American soldiers carried Ayed on a stretcher to the lead aircraft, then walked backed in silence, covered in dust. He died later.

At the wall of the school, these memories were speeding through my mind, mingling with concern of the unknown. Andrea was there, too, motionless.

A few minutes earlier, the last remaining residents of this wisp of a village that looked like a Spaghetti Western set had told us that they had seen insurgents walk into the school carrying explosives. Muhammed and Shegas had hopped over a wall a few feet away, instead of rushing through the opening. We thought surely that was a sign the school had been mined.

But then an Iraqi soldier ran through the opening and made his way to the school buildings. Then Zaid did the same. As he walked, he looked back at us.

Motionless, we stared at him. I wanted to reach out and pull Zaid back. But then he smiled.

"Come on, don't you want to do your reporting?" Zaid asked me.

Andrea and I looked at each other, our pride taking over.

We stepped into the compound.

15 killed in bombing at Sunni mosque in Baghdad

The plaza in front of Baghdad's famous Abu Hanifa mosque in the Adhamiyah district has lately been a place of joyous celebration and worship. On Sunday evening it was a scene of terror, as a suicide bomber struck a crowded street in front of the mosque.

Police and witnesses said the blast killed 15 people and wounded 29 others. Among the dead was Faruq Abdul Sattar, a deputy commander of Adhamiyah's Sunni Awakening Council, the U.S.-backed local force that guards the neighborhood, which is a Sunni stronghold.

Witnesses said the bomber, a man, may have been riding a motorcycle that was parked about 65 feet from a traffic light on the street.

Sattar, a popular figure in the neighborhood who was known by the nickname Abu Omar, was standing on the median that divided the street with a group of other Awakening Council members when the bomb went off, witnesses said.

"Abu Omar is gone! Abu Omar is gone!" many in the crowd shouted when Omar's torn body was identified by a silver ring he wore on his right hand and the distinctive green pattern of his uniform.

An Awakening Council official confirmed that the explosives were detonated by a male suicide bomber. The victims included other Awakening Council members and some civilians.

Adhamiyah, once the site of fierce fighting between insurgents and American and Iraqi forces, has been quieter in recent months. Last spring, thousands of people, drawn by the reduced levels of violence, gathered at the Abu Hanifa mosque for the first time in years to celebrate the Prophet Muhammad's birthday.

Also Sunday, The Washington Post reported that half a dozen Blackwater Worldwide security guards have gotten target letters from the Justice Department in a probe of shootings in Baghdad last year that killed 17 Iraqis.

The Post described the six guards as former U.S. military personnel but did not identify them by name.

Attributing its information to three sources close to the case, the Post said that any charges would be brought against the six guards under a federal law used to prosecute cases referred to the Justice Department by the Pentagon for crimes committed by military personnel and contractors overseas.

British troops to leave Iraq in nine months

MOST of the British troops serving in Iraq will be withdrawn in the next nine months, senior defence sources have disclosed.

Only a few hundred will remain after May next year, effectively ending Britain's involvement in the country after six years of fighting.

The Ministry of Defence insisted the move was backed by the United States, which it said was "intimately involved" in discussions about the withdrawal.

More than 4000 British troops are in southern Iraq despite pledges from Prime Minister Gordon Brown that numbers would have been reduced by now.

Mr Brown has been careful over the past few months not to specify a time for a withdrawal, but sources have given the clearest indication yet that Britain's involvement is poised to end.

The Iraqis are close to a deal with the Americans, which could mean US soldiers leave within three years, starting next northern summer.

Major General Barney White-Spunner, who has just finished a six-month tour in charge of the British force in southern Iraq, said Mr Brown's hope for a "fundamental mission change" in Iraq would be able to "take place next year".

Senior sources said it was now "fairly clear" that there would be a "pretty major reduction in troops" in Iraq early next year.

"We have achieved what we set out to achieve in Iraq," an official military source said. "So it is possible to envisage a mission next year which is in the early hundreds."

However, many soldiers are likely to be redeployed quickly to Afghanistan where fighting has intensified.

The precise details of the remaining number of troops, who will be based at Basra airport, is still to be agreed with the Iraqi Government, although detailed talks are believed to have been held with the country's Foreign Minister in London earlier this month.

The Ministry of Defence refused to be drawn on numbers. A spokesman said: "Although it is hoped that the UK military presence in Iraq will decrease significantly in the future, it is still too early to discuss the size and shape of a reduced UK force's footprint."

On Thursday, the Ministry of Defence announced the death of a soldier after his convoy was attacked by a suicide bomber. This took the British death toll in Iraq to 115.

At least 19 Shiite pilgrims heading to the holy city of Karbala for a religious festival were among 27 people killed in a spate of bomb blasts across Iraq.

In the deadliest of the attacks on Thursday, as many as 18 were killed in a suicide bombing among a crowd of pilgrims heading to the city, police Lieutenant Kazem al-Khafaji in Babil province said. He said the attack by two women suicide bombers also wounded at least 75 people.

There were contradictory reports, however, about the bombing in Iskandiriyah, 60 kilometres south of the capital, with the US military saying it believed only one woman was behind the deadly attack.

Bomb in Baghdad strikes Shiite pilgrims, kills 3

Iraqi police and hospital officials say a car bombing targeting Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad has killed three people and wounded nine others.

The officials say the parked car exploded at about 9 a.m. Saturday near minibuses assembled to pick up pilgrims in the city's mainly Shiite district of Shaab.

The officials gave the casualty toll for the bombing on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

Several bombings in recent days have targeted Shiites heading to Karbala for a major religious festival. U.S. and Iraqi troops have stepped up security measures for the pilgrimage but the hundreds of thousands of travelers remain vulnerable on the road.