US Jets Dropping 500 lb bomb In Iraq

U.S. F-16 fighter planes dropped a series of 500 lb (220 kg) bombs on insurgent targets in western Iraq overnight as the U.S. military launched a heavy offensive against rebels near the Syrian border. Nine of the powerful bombs were dropped, the U.S. military said, two of them targeting suspected rebel safe houses near the town of Qaim, an insurgent stronghold on the Euphrates river about 20 km (12 miles) east of Iraq's border with Syria.

You know i hate it for the children in Iraq. But i wish they would let our soldiers do what they should do for once. We need to end this civil war and end the attacks, before this war does exactly what the post on the backdoor draft does, creates more division in this country.
We don't need no more times like Korea or Vietnam or heck Afghanistan. But for some reason our troops are held at bay doing police action, yet launch one offensive.
With the troops we have and could pour into Iraq, i honestly think should our government want this over, they could within a matter of days. All it takes is the all out commitment. We did it when Kuwait was taken, well we have 1,700 fallen so far, i think it's time to take care of our own. As i had on one post Let them Finish the Mission and come back home.

[PVVikeFan]

Amen Brother

The United States on Friday blocked the assets of Muhammad Yunis Ahmad, a Syrian-based former member of Saddam Hussein's regime who it said was wanted for funding and coordinating insurgent attacks in Iraq.
It is the latest of several designations by the U.S. Treasury aimed at militant supporters based in Syria. The United States has repeatedly said Syria was not doing enough to crack down on funding and support for Iraqi insurgents, and has imposed sanctions to push Syria to stop the financial flows.
The U.S. Teasury Department said Ahmad was a leader of the reconstituted Ba'ath party and a former regional governor in Iraq.
"Ahmad is first among the U.S. Central Command's list of key insurgent leaders, and the multinational forces in Iraq are offering a reward of $1 million for his capture," the director of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control Robert Werner said in a statement.
The United States ordered Ahmad's assets blocked under a presidential executive order that allows the government to freeze assets of individuals or groups it believes are members of the former Iraqi regime or are supporting terrorist organizations.
The Treasury said the United States was also submitting Ahmad's name to the United Nations with the recommendation that he be listed by the 1518 Committee under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1483, which requires members states to identify and freeze related assets as well.

[Shoe]

Are we even looking for Osama still? I mean you never hear anything about whats going on over there anymore. Maybe occassionally a tape might surface of Osama but thats about it.

US, Iraq troops launch second offensive.

About 1,000 U.S. Marines and Iraqi troops launched a second offensive Saturday against insurgents in restive Anbar province, this time targeting the marshy shores of a remote lake just north of Baghdad.

Operation Dagger, or Khanjar in Arabic, aims to uncover insurgent training camps and weapons caches in the southern part of the Lake Tharthar area in central Iraq, some 60 miles northwest of Baghdad. The region was the focus of a major campaign in late March that killed 85 insurgents.

"Operation Khanjar is focused on locating hidden weapons caches and denying insurgents sanctuary in the area that is a suspected insurgent and terrorist logistical hub," Marine Capt. Jeffrey Pool said from Ramadi, the provincial capital.

The operation began a day after another 1,000 Marines and Iraqi forces, backed by battle tanks, fought their way into Karabilah, 200 miles west of Baghdad in Anbar province. U.S. fighter aircraft dropped bombs and the tanks fired shells at insurgents holed up inside buildings.

The Marines said Saturday that about 50 insurgents had been killed and 100 insurgents had been captured in that campaign, codenamed Operation Spear.

"Marines and Iraqi soldiers continued operations through the night securing key objectives in and around the city while conducting presence patrols in order to hamper the insurgents movement," Pool added.

During their sweep, four Iraqi hostages were found "beaten, handcuffed and chained to a wall in a bunker located in central Karabilah," he said.

On March 23, U.S. and Iraqi forces killed about 85 militants at a suspected training camp along Lake Tharthar. That raid turned up booby-trapped cars, suicide-bomber vests, weapons and training documents. The insurgents included Iraqis, Filipinos, Algerians, Moroccans, Afghans and Arabs from neighboring countries, officials said.

In early June, Marines sweeping the eastern part of the lake discovered an underground bunker complex in a rock quarry that had recently been used by insurgents and included air-conditioned living quarters and high tech military equipment, including night vision goggles. The military later destroyed the complex and weapons caches.

"The approximate 1,000-man force assigned to Operation Khanjar will search the area for signs of these camps and hidden weapons caches used by insurgents and foreign fighters to launch attacks on Iraqi citizens, soldiers, police and Coalition Forces," Pool said.

Today from the Bush Administration.

Bush: Pulling out of Iraq is not an option?

President Bush said Saturday that pulling out of Iraq now is not an option, rejecting calls by some lawmakers and many people asked in polls to start bringing U.S. troops home. "The terrorists and insurgents are trying to get us to retreat. Their goal is to get us to leave before Iraqis have had a chance to show the region what a government that is elected and truly accountable to its citizens can do for its people," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

So when do we ever get to leave Iraq and Afghanistan? Ever?

Read this morning where now even the British people are wanting to pull their troops out of Iraq. Pretty soon it's gonna be us in this thing all alone, if Bush and some of these other countries don't start to make something happen.

A suicide bomber wearing a vest laden with explosives blew himself up Sunday inside a popular Baghdad kebab restaurant at lunchtime, killing at least 16 people and injuring at least 25 others, police, officials said.
The attack took place 2:45 p.m. around lunchtime at Ibn Zarzour, one of Baghdad's most popular restaurants, police 1st Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said. Many injured were taken to Baghdad's Yarmouk hospital, he added.
The explosion occurred about 400 yards from the main gate of the heavily-fortified Green Zone, a section of Baghdad that contains the Iraqi government and U.S. and British embassies. All that remained of the bomber was his head, an arm and one leg.
Militants killed a total of at least 17 around the country Sunday and seemed undeterred by two joint U.S.-Iraqi offensives "? Operations Spear and Dagger. They began earlier this week and seek to destroy militant networks "? one near the Syrian border and another north of Baghdad.
Nearly 60 insurgents have been killed and 100 captured so far in the campaigns, the military said. Three Americans have been wounded.
In other insurgent violence, a suicide car bomber killed two Iraqi soldiers and two civilians at a military operations center in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown 80 miles north of Baghdad, Army Capt. Muhanad Ahmed said. The civilians killed were employees at the security checkpoint.
The wounded included eight soldiers and four civilians, Ahmed said. Civilians were at the checkpoint because construction workers were fixing the gate.
Another car bomb parked near the Shiite al-Nawab mosque in the northern Baghdad suburb of Kazimiyah exploded, killing one civilian and wounding 26 others, police Maj. Falah al-Muhammadawi said. One policeman was seriously injured.
Meanwhile, Marines and Iraqi soldiers battled insurgents as part of Operation Spear, in its third day in the desert town of Karabilah, an outpost in western Anbar province near the Syrian border.
Troops fired Hellfire missiles overnight at two homes where insurgents holed up after shooting mortars at coalition forces, said Lt. Col. Tim Mundy, who commands the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment. The military said they believed four or five militants may have been killed in the counterattack.
Intelligence officials believe Anbar province is a portal used by extremist groups, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist group, to smuggle in foreign fighters. Syria is under intense pressure from Washington and Baghdad to tighten control of its porous 380-mile border with Iraq.
On Thursday, a U.S. general called Syria's border the "worst problem" in terms of stemming the flow of foreign fighters to Iraq.
The majority of the region's residents are Sunni Muslims, who are thought to make up the core of an insurgency that has killed at least 1,123 people since Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's Shiite-led government was announced April 28.
U.S. and Iraqi forces carrying loudspeakers have been shouting out to Karabilah's residents to leave their homes with white flags for a safer part of the dusty town, 200 miles west of Baghdad.
The 1,000 Marines and Iraqi soldiers taking part in Operation Spear have found that most of the town's homes are already empty, said Marine Capt. Christopher Goland of Lima Company, a unit of the 3rd Battalion.
Dozens of buildings in Karabilah were destroyed after airstrikes and tank shelling, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene.
On Saturday, troops searching the town found four Iraqi hostages beaten, handcuffed and chained to a wall in a torture center, the military said. Some of the men were believed to be Iraqi border guards. Troops searching the bunker found nooses, electrical wire and a bathtub filled with water for electric shocks and mock drownings.
U.S. and Iraqi forces also found a bomb-making factory. It contained blasting caps, cell phones and other materials to make roadside and car bombs. They uncovered sniper rifles, ammunition and a mortar system. A nearby schoolhouse believed to be used for training terrorists had instructions for making roadside bombs written on a chalkboard.
Operation Dagger, a second offensive of similar size, was launched Saturday, targeting the marshy shores of a lake north of Baghdad. Dagger seeks to eliminate insurgent training camps and weapons caches in the Lake Tharthar area, 53 miles northwest of Baghdad.
Both operations come on the heels of two other major offensives in the same areas that killed about 125 militants earlier this month and in March.
But the western region has been flush with militant fighters in recent weeks. Insurgents in the area killed 21 people, believed to be missing Iraqi soldiers, whose bodies were found June 10.
Iraqi troops did not participate in earlier offensives in the area. This time, they fought alongside the Americans and used their language skills and local knowledge to spot foreign fighters, said Col. Bob Chase, chief of operations for the Second Marine Division.
Elsewhere, gunmen killed two Iraqi policemen in western Baghdad as they headed to work, while a second band of gunmen killed an electrical engineer who was on his way to work at an oil refinery in the Iraqi capital.
Two mortar rounds meant for the governor's building in central Mosul "? 225 miles northwest of Baghdad "? missed and landed at a butcher's market, killing a 12-year-old boy and wounding 14 others, hospital officials said.
A series of clashes left at least one person dead and two wounded in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad.