Looks like Baghdad is a new airbase for us to bounce into other middle eastern countries that need an ass whuppin. Although I am begining to feel that this thing has dragged on, I do know the reasons for going into Syria. They are assiting the local terrorists and always have.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/05/09/iraq.main/index.html

U.S. offensive near Syria kills 75

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — U.S. forces have launched an offensive against “insurgents and foreign fighters” near Iraq’s border with Syria, killing at least 75 of them in the first 24 hours of the operation, the U.S. military said Monday.
According to the military, coalition and Marine Corps aircraft and forces from the U.S. Army, Navy and Marines are involved in the fighting in Iraq’s Anbar province.
“The operation is currently on the area north of the Euphrates River, in the Al Jazirah Desert. The region is a known smuggling route and sanctuary for foreign fighters,” the military said in a statement.
“The offensive is aimed at eliminating insurgents and foreign fighters from the area,” the statement said.
The military made no mention of U.S. casualties.
Earlier Monday, a suicide car bomb detonated at a police checkpoint in southern Baghdad, killing at least four people — two police and two civilians — and wounding eight others, police said.
The wounded include six police and two civilians. Three people inside the car also. died.
According to police, the attack took place at 9:10 a.m. (1:10 a.m. EDT) when the vehicle — with a driver and two passengers — pulled up to the checkpoint. After being stopped by police, the vehicle detonated.
Government appointments
Insurgent attacks have risen in recent weeks even as the Shiite and Kurd-dominated parliament reached out to Sunnni Arabs on Sunday, approving four more of their number to serve in the government.
The ministries of defense, industry and human rights are to be headed by Sunnis, and a newly named deputy prime minister is a Sunni.
The defense minister will be Sadun al-Dulaimi, a Sunni. The Oil Ministry will be headed by a Shiite, Ibrahim Bahrululum.
Hashem al-Shibli, a Sunni who was tapped to be the minister of human rights, refused the post, saying he did not believe Cabinet positions should be allocated based on ethnic or religious affiliation.
Last month, transitional Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari announced all 36 Cabinet positions in the new government — some of them temporary. The new Cabinet members were sworn in one by one last Tuesday — altogether 28. (Cabinet list)
The transitional government’s main goal is to write a constitution that must be put before voters in a referendum this year.
But scores of people have been killed in a string of attacks since Iraq’s Cabinet was sworn in on April 28.
1,600 U.S. casualties
Total U.S. troop casualties in the Iraq war passed 1,600 Sunday, according to a CNN count, when two soldiers were killed near Khaldiya and a third died in Samarra.
All three were killed by roadside bombs, the U.S. military said.
To date, 1,602 American forces have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. In all, 1,780 coalition forces — not counting Iraqi forces — have been killed.
The U.S. death toll passed 1,000 in September 2004. (Full story)
According to news reports compiled by Pat Kniesler of the Web site iCasualties.org, more than 2,000 Iraqi soldiers, police and guardsmen have been killed since U.S.-led troops began working with Iraqis to build a security force under the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003.
Also Sunday, two attacks in northern Iraq left four civilians dead, the U.S. military said.
The number of Iraqi civilians killed in the war remains unclear. Data compiled by the Web site iraqbodycount.org suggests that between 21,000 and 25,000 civilians have been confirmed killed.
Aide’s ‘intelligence documents’ found
The U.S. military said Sunday that an aide to terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been captured by Iraqi security forces in Baghdad.
U.S. forces identified him as Ammar al-Zubaydi, also known as Abu Abbas.
Al-Zubaydi was captured Thursday, the military said. He was responsible for many recent suicide car bombings and an attack on Abu Ghraib prison in April that wounded U.S. troops and detainees at the facility, the military said. (Full story)
The military said al-Zubaydi was responsible for a string of car bombs in the Baghdad area on April 29. On that day, 12 explosions were reported in eight areas of the capital within a matter of hours.
Twenty-three Iraqi security troops died across the city and 31 others were wounded, authorities said. At least one civilian died and dozens more were wounded. (Full story)
Al-Zubaydi is not the same Abu Abbas who masterminded the terrorist hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985. That man, leader of the Palestine Liberation Front, was captured in Iraq in the early days of the war and died in custody.
Iraqi officials said “intelligence documents” seized at al-Zubaydi’s home indicated he was preparing to assassinate a senior government official, who the officials did not identify.
Al-Zubaydi confessed to supporting another suspected al-Zarqawi aide, Abu Omar al-Kurdi, captured in December, Iraqi officials said.
The officials released a statement Sunday saying al-Zubaydi also confessed to stealing 400 rockets and 720 cases of explosives from weaponry warehouses in Yusifiya in 2003.
A U.S. military statement said he told the Iraqis he gave al-Kurdi access to the stolen explosives, which he stockpiled on and near a farm in Yusifiya. Al-Kurdi used them for car bombs, the military said.
Tip leads to capture of 54 insurgents
Another al-Zarqawi associate — captured April 26 — helped U.S. and Iraqi forces kill six insurgents Sunday and capture another 54 in western Iraq near the Syrian border, the U.S. military said.
The anti-insurgent operation took place near the Rawa region in the Anbar province north of Qaim, the military said. The region is a base for rebel attacks in Baghdad and Falluja.
Information provided by al-Zarqawi associate Ghassan Muhammad Amin Husayn al-Rawi helped the operation, according to the military.
During the mission, U.S. and Iraqi “forces also destroyed car bombs, bomb-making material and two buildings that contained large weapons caches,” the military said.
Before his capture, al-Rawi “facilitated movement and meetings for al-Zarqawi in the Rawa region, facilitated movement of foreign fighters, and was responsible for terrorist activity resulting in the murder of innocent Iraqis,” according to Saturday’s announcement of his capture by the military.
Word of the raid came a day after U.S. soldiers captured 33 suspected terrorists, including two men described as “high value targets” in the Baghdad area, the U.S. military said.

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