Thirteen fugitives remain from the original "deck of cards" of top Saddam Hussein regime members, but US forces are increasingly focusing on new lists of individuals thought to be taking a more active role in the anti-US insurgency, military intelligence sources say.
To create these lists, US military units and their coalition allies have developed computer databases, which they have updated with information on every bomb blast, firefight, suspect detained and tip provided by a local resident.
The deck of cards, prepared by US intelligence before the March invasion, contains images of the 55 figures that the US military was particularly interested in capturing, beginning with Saddam himself as the ace of spades.
The US troops who entered Iraq also carried a so-called black list of hundreds of second-tier leaders targeted for arrest as well as an even larger gray list, which contains "persons of interest" -- Iraqis wanted for questioning. Those lists have not been updated and have grown less relevant to the current insurgency, a senior US military official said on condition of anonymity.
In Tikrit, Saddam's hometown north of Baghdad, the Army's 4th Infantry Division has found its own informants and databases more useful than the CIA's lists of former regime loyalists, said the division's Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Russell.
The old CIA lists "were the starting point" for rounding up the top officials in Saddam's Baath Party, especially those believed to have committed or ordered atrocities or who had knowledge of unconventional weapons, said Lieutenant-Colonel Ken Devan, the top intelligence officer of the Army's 1st Armored Division, which controls Baghdad.
Since many of those fugitives have already been captured, their interrogations have provided fodder for further fugitive lists and arrests, Devan said.
"It's kind of like pulling on a string. You just keep on pulling and you don't really know what's on the other end," Devan said.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
STILL IN POWER: US intelligence reports showed that the Iranian regime is not in danger of collapse and retains control of the public, casting doubt on Trump’s exit Nearly every US Senate Democrat on Wednesday signed a letter sent to US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth requesting a “swift investigation” of airstrikes on a girls’ school in Iran that killed scores of children and any other potential US military actions causing civilian harm. Reuters reported on Thursday last week that US military investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for the Feb. 28 strike on the school, as US and Israeli forces launched attacks on Iran. “The results of this school attack are horrific. The majority of those killed in the strikes were girls between the ages
RSS