The US defense secretary said he hoped US troop levels in Iraq could be cut to 100,000 by the end of next year, well beyond the cuts US President George W. Bush has approved, while an al-Qaeda front group warned it would hunt down Sunni Arab tribal leaders who cooperate with the US and its Iraqi partners.
Stressing that he was not expressing an administration plan but only his hopes, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said it was possible that conditions in Iraq would improve enough to merit much deeper troop cuts than currently are scheduled for next year.
Asked at a news conference on Friday whether he was suggesting that today's level of about 169,000 US troops might be lowered to about 100,000 by the end of next year, Gates replied: "That would be the math."
He quickly added, however, that because "there is no script" in war, his hoped-for cuts could vanish.
It was the first time a member of Bush's war Cabinet had suggested in public such deep reductions, which perhaps was meant as a conciliatory gesture to anti-war Democrats and some wary Republicans in Congress who have been pushing for troop reductions, a change in the US mission and an end to the war.
Democratic leaders seized on a White House report sent to Congress on Friday as evidence that Bush's war policy is failing. The assessment showed that the Iraqi government was making satisfactory progress toward meeting nine of 18 political and military goals, which is only one more satisfactory grade than the first such report showed in July.
"As hard as they may have tried to spin it, today's assessment by the White House on the political situation in Iraq once again shows that the president's flawed escalation policy is not working," said the majority Democrats' leader in the Senate, Harry Reid. "It certainly does not justify keeping 130,000 soldiers mired in an open-ended civil war as the president has chosen to do."
Meanwhile, an al-Qaeda front group warned it would kill Sunni Arab tribal leaders who cooperate with the US and its Iraqi partners in the wake of the assassination of the leader of the revolt against the terror movement.
In a separate statement, the Islamic State of Iraq announced a new offensive in Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting that began this week. The statement said the offensive was in honor of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed by a US airstrike in June last year.
The statements were posted on Friday and yesterday on Islamist Web sites and among other things claimed responsibility for the assassination of Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, who spearheaded the uprising against al-Qaeda in Anbar Province west of the capital.
In claiming responsibility for Abu Risha's death on Thursday, the Islamic State said it had formed "special security committees" to track down and "assassinate the tribal figures, the traitors, who stained the reputations of the real tribes by submitting to the soldiers of the Crusade" and the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
US officials hope Abu Risha's death will not reverse the tide against al-Qaeda, which began last year when he organized Sunni clans to fight the terror movement, producing a dramatic turnaround in Ramadi and other parts of Anbar.
Some 1,500 mourners called for revenge as they buried Abu Risha on Friday.
See:
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS