A secret poll commissioned by senior British officers shows that millions of Iraqis believe that suicide attacks against British troops are justified, a newspaper reported yesterday.
The poll shows that up to 65 percent of Iraqi citizens support attacks and fewer than one percent think allied military involvement is helping to improve security in their country, the Sunday Telegraph said.
The nationwide survey, undertaken for the Ministry of Defense, demonstrates for the first time the true strength of anti-Western feeling in Iraq after more than two-and-a-half years of bloody occupation, the newspaper said.
The survey also suggests that the coalition has lost the battle to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, which British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush believed was fundamental to creating a safe and secure country, it said.
The newspaper also said Lieutenant Colonel Nick Henderson, the commanding officer of the Coldstream Guards in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, in charge of security for the region, has resigned from the army.
He recently voiced concerns over a lack of armored vehicles for his men, another of whom was killed in a bomb attack in Basra last week.
The secret poll appears to contradict claims made by General Sir Mike Jackson, the Chief of the General Staff, who only days ago congratulated British soldiers for "supporting the Iraqi people in building a new and better Iraq."
Andrew Robathan, a former member of the elite Special Air Service and the Conservative shadow defense minister, said on Saturday night that the poll clearly showed a complete failure of government policy.
"This clearly states that the government's hearts-and-minds policy has been disastrous. The coalition is now part of the problem and not the solution," Robathan was quoted as saying.
"I am not advocating a pull-out but if British soldiers are putting their lives on the line for a cause which is not supported by the Iraqi people then we have to ask the question, `what are we doing there?'" he said.
South Korea would soon no longer be one of the few countries where Google Maps does not work properly, after its security-conscious government reversed a two-decade stance to approve the export of high-precision map data to overseas servers. The approval was made “on the condition that strict security requirements are met,” the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. Those conditions include blurring military and other sensitive security-related facilities, as well as restricting longitude and latitude coordinates for South Korean territory on products such as Google Maps and Google Earth, it said. The decision is expected to hurt Naver and Kakao
THE TRAGEDY OF PUNCH: Footage of the seven-month-old Japanese macaque has gone viral online after he was rejected by his mother and formed a bond with a soft toy A baby monkey in Japan has captured hearts around the world after videos of him being bullied by other monkeys and rejected by his mother went viral last week. Punch, a Japanese macaque, was born in July last year at Ichikawa City Zoo. He has drawn international attention after zookeepers gave him a stuffed orangutan toy after he was abandoned by his mother. Without maternal guidance to help him integrate, Punch has turned to the toy for comfort. He has been filmed multiple times being dragged and chased by older Japanese macaques inside the enclosure. Early clips showed him wandering alone with
MONEY GRAB: People were rushing to collect bills scattered on the ground after the plane transporting money crashed, which an official said hindered rescue efforts A cargo plane carrying money on Friday crashed near Bolivia’s capital, damaging about a dozen vehicles on highway, scattering bills on the ground and leaving at least 15 people dead and others injured, an official said. Bolivian Minister of Defense Marcelo Salinas said the Hercules C-130 plane was transporting newly printed Bolivian currency when it “landed and veered off the runway” at an airport in El Alto, a city adjacent to La Paz, before ending up in a nearby field. Firefighters managed to put out the flames that engulfed the aircraft. Fire chief Pavel Tovar said at least 15 people died, but
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday said he did not take his security for granted, after he was evacuated from his residence for several hours following a bomb threat sent to a Chinese dance group. Albanese was evacuated from his Canberra residence late on Tuesday following the threat, and returned a few hours later after nothing suspicious was found. The bomb scare was among several e-mails threatening Albanese sent to a representative of Shen Yun, a classical Chinese dance troupe banned in China that is due to perform in Australia this month, a spokesperson for the group said in a statement. The e-mail
RSS