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On Anniversary of Saddam Lynching, Iraq "on Alert"
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
AP via Yahoo - Dec 31, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071231/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
Iraq on alert for Saddam anniversary
By PATRICK QUINN
Associated Press Writer
Hundreds of people, including many children, chanted slogans praising
Saddam Hussein on Sunday as they tossed flowers onto his tomb one year
after he was executed.
The muted anniversary of Saddam's death saw little violence, a far cry
from the blood spilled on the day the former Iraqi leader was executed
and the horrific wave of killing that ensued until the surge of U.S.
troops six months later.
But there were a number of operations carried out by American and Iraqi
forces. The U.S. military said coalition forces killed six insurgents
and detained another 14 on Saturday and Sunday during operations
targeting al-Qaida in Iraq in central and northern parts of the country.
"We realize that security in Iraq is very fragile and tenuous," said
U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Gregory Smith. He added that although much progress
had been made since thousands of extra U.S. troops deployed in June,
"there is no place in Iraq today that is safe from terrorism."
Most of the al-Qaida activity has been pushed east out of Anbar
province and to the north of Baghdad, into Diyala province and the
northern city of Mosul.
"Diyala has been one of the tougher fights," Smith said. "Diyala is an
area of significant interest for al-Qaida."
Police re****tedly killed a group of four men just outside the city of
Beiji, about 155 miles north of Baghdad. The men were thought to be
connected to a Christmas Day bombing in Beiji that killed 25 people and
wounded another 80.
The four men were later re****ted to be two Afghans, a Saudi Arabian and
an Iranian, according to a police spokesman, who asked not to be named
because he was not authorized to speak to the media. There was no way
to independently confirm the incident. and the U.S. military said it
did not have any re****ts about it.
In Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, sup****ters gathered at his burial site
to pay homage. Some gave fiery speeches while others just stood quietly
by the tomb, in a large mausoleum in the Tigris River village of Ouja "
the small hamlet just outside Tikrit where Saddam was born.
"With our blood, with our souls, we sacrifice for you Saddam!" the
children chanted, AP Television News footage showed. The tomb was
covered in Iraq flags and flowers and flanked by large pictures of a
smiling Saddam.
He is buried next to his sons Odai and Qusai, who died in a gun battle
with U.S. forces in a 2003 in the northern city of Mosul.
Saddam was hung on Dec. 30 in Baghdad. Footage of the execution, filmed
on a mobile phone and showing Saddam being taunted just before he died,
was leaked to the media and shown across the world. It provoked an
outcry, particularly among many of Iraq's Sunni Arabs, and sparked a
horrific day of violence that left 80 people dead in bombings and other
attacks.
Iraq then plunged into its bloodiest cycle of violence since the
U.S.-led invasion in 2003, and American officials at the time feared
the country was on the brink of civil war. The violence forced them to
rethink their strategy and they sent 30,000 troops back into the
country.
The surge, combined with a cease-fire declared by radical ****ite
extremist Muqtada al-Sadr for his Mahdi Army militia and the growth of
mainly Sunni tribal groups that turned against al-Qaida in Iraq, has
reduced violence by 60 percent, according to the U.S. military.
Copyright (c) 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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