Oh no what are the libs gonna say ?

[BFDNJFF]

Surge is working and al-qaeda is loosing more of a foothold?:eek:


large numbers of al-qaeda in iraq defecting from group to work with America

Al-Qaeda faces rebellion from the ranks

Sickened by the group’s barbarity, Iraqi insurgents are giving information to coalition forces

Fed up with being part of a group that cuts off a person’s face with piano wire to teach others a lesson, dozens of low-level members of al-Qaeda in Iraq are daring to become informants for the US military in a hostile Baghdad neighbourhood.

The ground-breaking move in Doura is part of a wider trend that has started in other al-Qaeda hotspots across the country and in which Sunni insurgent groups and tribal sheikhs have stood together with the coalition against the extremist movement.

“They are turning. We are talking to people who we believe have worked for al-Qaeda in Iraq and want to reconcile and have peace,” said Colonel Ricky Gibbs, commander of the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, which oversees the area.

The sewage-filled streets of Doura, a Sunni Arab enclave in south Baghdad, provide an ugly setting for what US commanders say is al-Qaeda’s last stronghold in the city. The secretive group, however, appears to be losing its grip as a “surge” of US troops in the neighbourhood – part of the latest effort by President Bush to end the chaos in Iraq – has resulted in scores of fighters being killed, captured or forced to flee

Al-Qaeda’s days are numbered and right now he is scrambling,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Stephen Michael, who commands a battalion of 700 troops in Doura.

A key factor is that local people and members of al-Qaeda itself have become sickened by the violence and are starting to rebel, Lieutenant-Colonel Michael said. “The people have got to deny them sanctuary and that is exactly what is happening.”

Al-Qaeda informants comprise largely members of the Doura network who found themselves either working with the group after the US-led invasion in March 2003, or signed up to earn extra cash because there were no other jobs going. Disgusted at the attacks and intimidation techniques used on friends, neighbours and even relatives, they are now increasingly looking for a way out, US officers say.

“It is only after al-Qaeda has become truly barbaric and done things like, to teach lessons to people, cut their face off with piano wire in front of their family and then murdered everybody except one child who told the tale afterwards . . . that people realise how much of a mess they are in,” Lieutenant James Danly, 31, who works on military intelligence in Doura, said.

It is impossible to corroborate the claims, but he said that scores of junior al-Qaeda in Iraq members there had become informants since May, including one low-level cell leader who gave vital information after his arrest.

“He gave us dates, places and names and who did what,” Lieutenant Danly said. When asked why he was being so forthcoming, the man said: “Because I am sick of it and I hate them, and I am done.”

Working with insurgents – even those who claim to have switched sides – is a leap of faith for both sides. Every informant who visits Forward Operating Base Falcon, a vast military camp on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, is blindfolded when brought in and out to avoid gleaning any information about his surroundings.

The risk sometimes pays off. A recent tip-off led to the fatal shooting of Abu Kaldoun, one of three senior al-Qaeda leaders in Doura, during a US raid last week. “He was turned in by one of his own,” Colonel Michael said.

Progress with making contacts and gathering actionable information is slow because al-Qaeda has persuasive methods of keeping people quiet. This month it beheaded two men in the street and pinned a note on to their corpses giving warning that anyone who cooperated with US troops would meet the same fate.

The increased presence of US forces in Doura, however, is encouraging insiders to overcome their fear and divulge what they know. Convoys of US soldiers are working the rubble-strewn streets day and night, knocking on doors, speaking to locals and following up leads on possible insurgent hideouts.

“People in al-Qaeda come to us and give us information,” said Lieutenant Scott Flanigan, as he drove past a line of fruit and vegetable stalls near a shabby shopping street in Doura, where people were buying bread and other groceries.

The informants were not seeking an amnesty for crimes that they had committed. “They just do not want to be killed,” Lieutenant Flanigan said.

Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi – who was killed in a US raid last year – established the Iraqi al-Qaeda network in 2004, but opinions differ on its compilation, size and capabilities. Some military experts believe that the group is a cell-based network of chapters who are loosely linked to an overall leader by go-between operatives.

Others, however, describe al-Qaeda in Iraq as a sort of franchise, with separate cells around the country that use the brand – made infamous by Osama bin Laden – and cultural ideology but do not work closely with each other or for one overriding leader.

Despite the uncertainties one thing seems guaranteed. A hardcore of people calling themselves al-Qaeda in Iraq remains devoted to the extremist cause and is determined to fight on whatever the cost.



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2121006.ece

[scfire86]

This lib is going to say, "let's get the hell out and turn the shootin' match (no pun intended) over to the Iraqis."

[BFDNJFF]

This lib is going to say, "let's get the hell out and turn the shootin' match (no pun intended) over to the Iraqis."

kind of figured when things start going better you just want to cut and run.

[scfire86]

kind of figured when things start going better you just want to cut and run.
I'm just following the example of Ronald Reagan when he bugged out of Lebanon.

[HotTrotter]

Seems to me we need to get out of all the forign countries in order of invasion. So once we have left Europe, Africa, South America, we can then work on Asia.

[DaSharkie]

Seems to me we need to get out of all the forign countries in order of invasion. So once we have left Europe, Africa, South America, we can then work on Asia.

Actually, you would want to leave Africa first given our invasion of some of those lands BEFORE Europe. Then Asia since we also invaded Pacific Islands (Guadalcanal) LONG before great men landed at Normandy.


What has irritated me this week is the people saying that we will now have to wait until November (after being told September) to see how the surge is really working.

Pick a time and stick to it.

[BFDNJFF]

Actually, you would want to leave Africa first given our invasion of some of those lands BEFORE Europe. Then Asia since we also invaded Pacific Islands (Guadalcanal) LONG before great men landed at Normandy.


What has irritated me this week is the people saying that we will now have to wait until November (after being told September) to see how the surge is really working.

Pick a time and stick to it.

Here is a good article on the surge and how its working.



Pace Walks Ramadi’s Streets, Notes Progress
This Anbar province city was once held up as a symbol of U.S. failure in Iraq. Al Qaeda in Iraq controlled Ramadi. It was enemy territory, and American service members called it the Wild West of Iraq.

Just a few months ago, the idea that Americans could walk around the center of the city would have been unthinkable. U.S. personnel could not move from one heavily fortified area to another without receiving small-arms fire or an improvised explosive device attack.

Times change. A striking illustration of the changing fortunes of Ramadi took place today, when Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took a walk around downtown.

“This is incredible,” Pace said as he stood in the middle of a street that doubles as a bazaar.

“In April, we could not have done this,” said Marine Maj. Gen. Walter Gaskins, commander of Multinational Force West. “That’s how quick things have turned around.”

This wasn’t some staged event highlighting the changed security situation in the Sunni city. It was a spur-of-the-moment visit occasioned by a dust storm that shut down flying in the province.

Pace is on a visit to the U.S. Central Command area of operations. He flew to Ramadi and visited with servicemembers based there. He was supposed to fly on to Tikrit, but the dust storms grounded his helicopters.

Army Col. John Charlton, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, invited Pace to see for himself what it was like downtown. Pace and his party left the compound, drove over the Euphrates River bridge and visited with Ramadi Mayor Latief Eyada at the newly renovated government offices.

“The security situation is much, much better now,” Eyada told Pace through an interpreter. “People were jailed in their houses by the violence of the terrorists. Now we are out. We can meet friends and relatives. We can build again. We are all after the terrorists.”

The chairman and his party left the government center and drove to the center of town. Pace got out of his vehicle and walked along into a market. Children and adults came to see who was in the street. He spoke to the owners of a watch store and a grocery store. He spoke with children and their parents who came out to see what all the commotion was about.

“This is typical,” said Kristin Hagerstolm, chief of the brigade’s provincial reconstruction team. “We are able to go into every part of the city. We are able to work with the department heads and make some real progress. This has become a permissive environment, and we are able to interact with all levels of citizens in the city.”

Hagerstolm, a State Department consular officer, volunteered for the assignment and arrived in the city in April. “It was still very much an armed and distrustful area then, but changes were happening,” she said.

She traces the change to the rescue from al Qaeda of a local tribal sheikh.

“The rescue showed the Iraqis that we were the ‘good guys’ in this area,” Hagerstolm said. The people of Ramadi suffered terribly at the hands of al Qaeda. She said there were instances of al Qaeda raping and killing and chopping off the heads of teenage girls to intimidate the population. For a while, it worked.

The change is dramatic, but it didn’t happen overnight, Gaskins noted. “We’re building on the groundwork that our predecessors laid,” he said. “None of this would have been possible without the contributions and sacrifices of the units that fought in this area before us.”

But the change is not irreversible, Charlton said. Al Qaeda has been humiliated and kicked out of the city, but they want to come back. The soldiers and Marines of the unit continually patrol the city. They are working with the Iraqi police and with Iraqi soldiers. Last month, they had a pitched battle against al Qaeda terrorists who were trying to re-infiltrate into the city. The unit killed all but three, who were detained, Charlton said.

Pace visited with Marines and Iraqis manning a combat outpost in the city and in a Joint Security Station. At the combat outpost, he met Marine Sgt. Kurt Bellmont. The 25-year-old noncommissioned officer is serving his fourth tour in Iraq – his third in Ramadi. The rifle platoon Marine saw the worst of times in the city and is enthusiastic about the changes.

“If you don’t come down here for two weeks, you don’t recognize the place,” he said. “The changes are happening that fast. The Iraqi police are helping us with intelligence, and we’re learning also. Ramadi is a big city, but you learn the families and learn who is out of place.”

Pace has been talking about what the Iraqi sheikhs call the “Anbar Awakening” for months. He got the opportunity to see what it means on the ground with the young men and women who must make it happen. Surrounded by Iraqi children, the chairman threw back his head and laughed.

“It is amazing,” the chairman said afterward. “This is an example of what can happen when the coalition and the Iraqi government gain the trust of the people.”

The changes must be nurtured. “We are all worried that we won’t be given the time to see these (efforts) through,” Gaskins said. “After all the Iraqi people have been through – the terror of Saddam, the vicious attacks of al Qaeda – it would be a shame to end this.”

http://cdn-58.liveleak.com/liveleak/14/media14/2007/Jul/23/LiveLeak-dot-com-73954-pace_in_Ramadi_july_2007.jpg
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/global.php?id=1166994

[Raughammer1]

The plan for Iraq is working, but Americans it seems want a 30 minute war, all clean and tidy...and over quickly like a sit com.

Forging a nation takes time.

[DaSharkie]

I did not say it was or was not working. I said that the timetable was changed.


Interesting picture though. Note that General Pace is surrounded by at least 7 people who are protecting him (not the 3 immediately talking to him) as he walks through that market.

"Safe" is relative.

I support the actions in Iraq, don't think that I do not. However, I am rapidly losing faith in the twits in Washington to get the job done. Let the boots on the ground run it as it needs to be run, not run it for the press coverage.

[ThNozzleman]

Interesting picture though. Note that General Pace is surrounded by at least 7 people who are protecting him (not the 3 immediately talking to him) as he walks through that market.
He was surrounded by a hell of a lot more than that.
The "surge" is a joke.
Forging a nation takes time.
You mean propping up puppet governments that will do our bidding? :rolleyes:

[BFDNJFF]

He was surrounded by a hell of a lot more than that.
The "surge" is a joke.

You mean propping up puppet governments that will do our bidding? :rolleyes:



Expected nothing less of a comment like that from you. Please move out of the country.

I am glad you think our troops are a joke. :rolleyes: Did you actually read the article?

[scfire86]

Expected nothing less of a comment like that from you. Please move out of the country.
Why should we? I didn't ask conservatives to move out of the country when they were critical of Clinton during the Balkan's campaign. I love the double standard.

I am glad you think our troops are a joke. :rolleyes: Did you actually read the article?
How was the comment critical of the troops? I'd like to see your logic.

I agree with Sharkie. We'll never get out of Iraq as long as the Bushbots keep moving the goal line.

[ThNozzleman]

Expected nothing less of a comment like that from you. Please move out of the country.
If one chooses to play your little game, I think it's guys like you who need to hit the road. The majority of America is sick of your crap.
How was the comment critical of the troops? I'd like to see your logic.

There is no logic to his remarks...just the same tired old rhetoric and character assassination. He sends people to die for nothing, yet we are the ones that don't support the troops?? Nice. :rolleyes:
I agree with Sharkie. We'll never get out of Iraq as long as the Bushbots keep moving the goal line.
And the majority of them are too weakminded to know when they've been had, too. Bush's neverending war of imperialism. What a sad legacy.

[DaSharkie]

He was surrounded by a hell of a lot more than that.

You are right. I meant to post that there were likely A LOT more not visible in the pic, but I was very rushed this morning almost leaving late for work.

You only see 7 armed Warriors in the picture that appear to have the express purpose of protecting the Chairman. Likely a platoon of Marines around the General plus a few helos above or "nearby" with a Medevac designated specifically to the mission as well as the troops in the convoy.

Not exactly what every troop on the ground has.....let alone every Iraqi.


The "surge" is a joke.

True. Asked for 20,000 and there have been closer to 30,000 additional deployed when one includes the additional support troops. Equivalent to a division-and-a-half of troops.

If you want the faith and trust of the people, be honest.

[DaSharkie]

I meant to post this last week when I heard it. I am disgusted when politicians of ANY party say that troops should be paid better and then take any chance they get to shaft them.

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/05/military_payhike_whitehouse_07 0516/

White House: 3.5 percent pay hike unnecessary

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday May 16, 2007 17:34:13 EDT

Troops don’t need bigger pay raises, White House budget officials said Wednesday in a statement of administration policy laying out objections to the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill.

The Bush administration had asked for a 3 percent military raise for Jan. 1, 2008, enough to match last year’s average pay increase in the private sector. The House Armed Services Committee recommends a 3.5 percent pay increase for 2008, and increases in 2009 through 2012 that also are 0.5 percentage point greater than private-sector pay raises.

The slightly bigger military raises are intended to reduce the gap between military and civilian pay that stands at about 3.9 percent today. Under the bill, HR 1585, the pay gap would be reduced to 1.4 percent after the Jan. 1, 2012, pay increase.

Bush budget officials said the administration “strongly opposes” both the 3.5 percent raise for 2008 and the follow-on increases, calling extra pay increases “unnecessary.”

“When combined with the overall military benefit package, the president’s proposal provides a good quality of life for service members and their families,” the policy statement says. “While we agree military pay must be kept competitive, the 3 percent raise, equal to the increase in the Employment Cost Index, will do that.”

The House of Representatives plans on passing the bill tomorrow. The Senate Armed Services Committee has announced it will start writing its version of the bill next week.

Two items in the House defense bill could lead to a veto, the policy statement warns. One is a change in the National Security Personnel system that would back away from the pay-for-performance initiative pushed by the Bush administration and reverse some of the flexibility provided in current law. The second issue that could prompt a veto are Buy America provisions in the bill that White House officials said “would impose unrealistically arduous requirements.”

In addition to the pay raise, there are other personnel initiatives in the bill that the White House opposes.

A prohibition on converting medical jobs held by military members into civilian positions drew opposition. “This will eliminate the flexibility of the Secretary of Defense to use civilian medical personnel for jobs away from the battlefield and at the same time use the converted military billets to enhance the strength of operating units,” the policy statement says.

A death gratuity for federal civilian employees who die in support of military operations, and new benefits for disabled retirees and the survivors of military retirees also drew complaints.

This includes the transfer of the GI Bill benefits program for reservists from the Department of Defense to the Department of Veterans Affairs, a step that GI Bill supporters said is needed to set the stage for increases in reserve benefits that have been kept low by the military because it views the program as a retention incentive rather than a post-service education program.

Refusal by lawmakers to approve Tricare fees for beneficiaries, something administration officials view as an important step in holding down health care cost, also drew opposition, along with a provision imposing price controls on prescription drugs dispensed to Tricare users.

[scfire86]

If one chooses to play your little game, I think it's guys like you who need to hit the road. The majority of America is sick of your crap.


You have to love the "Love it or Leave it" crowd demanding blind obedience to the president because he troops in harms way. This same group had no problem impeaching the previous president under similar circumstances. I guess they believe we forgot about that.

[HotTrotter]

I did not say it was or was not working. I said that the timetable was changed.


Interesting picture though. Note that General Pace is surrounded by at least 7 people who are protecting him (not the 3 immediately talking to him) as he walks through that market.

"Safe" is relative.

I support the actions in Iraq, don't think that I do not. However, I am rapidly losing faith in the twits in Washington to get the job done. Let the boots on the ground run it as it needs to be run, not run it for the press coverage.

It shouldn't be up to the folks in Washington, we learned that lesson in Nam. Washington merely needs t oprovide the funding and toold to the Generals in the field and let them do their jobs. To politicize the war means definite failure.

[HotTrotter]

Why should we? I didn't ask conservatives to move out of the country when they were critical of Clinton during the Balkan's campaign. I love the double standard.


How was the comment critical of the troops? I'd like to see your logic.

I agree with Sharkie. We'll never get out of Iraq as long as the Bushbots keep moving the goal line.

As well you should love the double standard. You are an expert at it.. ;)

But it wasn't the Bush folks that moved the timeline around, it was the Generals in the field. By the way, I saw that one of the Generals has said we need to stay the course until 2009.

[scfire86]

It shouldn't be up to the folks in Washington, we learned that lesson in Nam. Washington merely needs t oprovide the funding and toold to the Generals in the field and let them do their jobs. To politicize the war means definite failure.
Great. Let them pay for it. How many of those generals are on the front lines leading patrols?

As well you should love the double standard. You are an expert at it..
Are you going to dazzle us with more of "all I know" comments that are wrong?

[BFDNJFF]

20 or 30 thousand is not much of a troop surge when you consider we had over 600 thousand troops in the 1st gulf war.

[emt161]

If the progress report on the surge is due in September, why are Democrats calling it a failure now? I thought September had been agreed to already by both parties. I guess one feels like they need the headlines.

Why is Murtha trying to legislate a 2-month pullout that's logistically impossible? I thought the days of LBJ plotting airstrike routes from the Oval Office were over. I guess not.

[BFDNJFF]

If the progress report on the surge is due in September, why are Democrats calling it a failure now? I thought September had been agreed to already by both parties. I guess one feels like they need the headlines.

Why is Murtha trying to legislate a 2-month pullout that's logistically impossible? I thought the days of LBJ plotting airstrike routes from the Oval Office were over. I guess not.


Its called using our troops for dirty politics because elections are coming up soon. They want us to fail so they can say we told you so and they can use that as there running platform.

[DaSharkie]

20 or 30 thousand is not much of a troop surge when you consider we had over 600 thousand troops in the 1st gulf war.

I don't care. Don't tell me 20,000 when you know it will take 30,000.

Don't tell me September when you know it will be November or later.

Don't lie to me and expect me to jus tswallow it and not call you on the carpet for it.

[DaSharkie]

20 or 30 thousand is not much of a troop surge when you consider we had over 600 thousand troops in the 1st gulf war.

I don't care. Don't tell me 20,000 when you know it will take 30,000.

Don't tell me September when you know it will be November or later.

Don't lie to me and expect me to just swallow it and not call you on the carpet for it.

[scfire86]

Its called using our troops for dirty politics because elections are coming up soon. They want us to fail so they can say we told you so and they can use that as there running platform.
Or it could be they are expressing the desires of the voters.

[scfire86]

I don't care. Don't tell me 20,000 when you know it will take 30,000.

Don't tell me September when you know it will be November or later.

In my son's line of work it's known as the 'bait and switch.'

[HotTrotter]

Or it could be they are expressing the desires of the voters.

1 in 10 voters actually understands Iraq and what is going on. We are fighting Al Qaeda on their soil. And some of us still remember 9-11-2001.

[BFDNJFF]

Or it could be they are expressing the desires of the voters.

Yeah they voted in this president. Now let him do the job.

[scfire86]

Yeah they voted in this president. Now let him do the job.
That doesn't mean they don't change their minds. It's why they also rejected a number of people he supported last November.

[BFDNJFF]

Another one for the libs.......


Wounded, feeling cheated, Saudi turns against 'jihad'

Published Date: July 27, 2007
RIYADH: The last time Ahmed Al-Shayea was in the news, he was in the hospital at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, being treated for severe burns from the truck bomb he had driven into the Iraqi capital on Christmas Day 2004. Today, he says, he has changed his mind about waging jihad, or holy war, and wants other young Muslims to know it. He wants them to see his disfigured face and fingerless hands, to hear how he was tricked into driving the truck on a fatal mission, to believe his contrition over havi
ng put his family through the agony of believing he was dead. At 22, the new Ahmed Al-Shayea is the product of a concerted Saudi government effort to counter the ideology that nurtured the 9/11 hijackers and that has lured Saudis in droves to the Iraq insurgency.

The deprogramming, similar to efforts carried out in Egypt and Yemen, is built on reason, enticements and lengthy talks with psychiatrists, Muslim clerics and sociologists. The kingdom still has a way to go in cracking the jihadist mind set. Most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis, and Saudis make up nearly half of the foreign detainees held in Iraq, according to Mouwaffak Al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser. They number hundreds, he said this month following a visit to Saudi Arabia. Dozens more ar
e fighting alongside Al-Qaida-inspired militants at a Palestinian camp in Lebanon.

Several hundred prisoners, as well as returnees from Guantanamo, are thought to have passed through the rehabilitation program.

Al-Shayea says his change of heart began when he was visited by a cleric at Al-Ha'ir Prison in Riyadh following his repatriation from Iraq.

He says he put two questions to the cleric: Was the jihad for which he traveled to Iraq religiously sanctioned? And were the edicts inciting such action correct in saying the militants should not inform their parents or government of their intentions?

No and no, came the reply.

I realized that all along, I was wrong," Al-Shayea said in a two-hour interview at a Riyadh hotel before returning to an Interior Ministry compound that serves as a sort of halfway house for ex-jihadists rejoining Saudi society.

There is no jihad. We are just instruments of death," he said.

Saudi Arabia's campaign against terrorism began in earnest after al-Qaida-linked militants struck three residential expatriate compounds in Riyadh in May 2003, killing 26 people.

The government says it cracked down on charities suspected of using donations to finance terrorism, banned mosques from holding unlicensed religious sessions and warned preachers against inciting youths to jihad. Officials as well as the government-guided media began to clearly and unequivocally refer to suicide bombings as terrorism. The Interior Ministry sponsored programs on government-run TV stations showing repentant jihadists warning youths against joining al-Qaida and clergymen trying to correct mi
sconceptions about jihad and dealing with non-Muslims. Al-Shayea has appeared on Al-Majd, a Saudi religious TV channel.

Three years ago it set up the prison program. "The aim is to reform the youths, to listen to them and talk to them," said Ahmed Jailan, one of the clerics. "We also try to instill a sense of hope in them by telling them they still have the chance to make up for what they lost if they follow true Islam." The prisoners later appear before a panel of judges who decide whether they can move from prison to the Interior Ministry compound, where activities include reading, civic and religious courses, sports and
family visits.

They get help finding jobs and wives, and after release they get free medical care, monthly stipends and sometimes cars. At the time he was first approached to join the insurgency, al-Shayea was already becoming a devout Muslim in his ultraconservative town of Buraida. He grew a beard, prayed five times a day and stopped listening to Arabic love songs he used to enjoy. He was 19 and jobless. Then he was contacted by a school friend whom he doesn't identify.

My friend started telling me about Iraq, how Muslims are getting killed there and how we should go there for jihad," said al-Shayea. "He told me there were fatwas (edicts) and DVDs issued by Saudi and Iraqi clergymen that called for jihad." "We didn't think of jihad as something that would lead to our death. It was a fight against occupiers," said al-Shayea.

Finally, the friend told him he was going to Iraq, and invited al-Shayea to join him.

He was told to shave his beard and pack Western clothes to avoid looking like a would-be jihadist. He got a passport and an airline ticket to Syria. And he managed to save $1,600 -- travel fees, he was told, that would go to smugglers, weapons training and al-Qaida's coffers. On a cool November night toward the end of the holy month of Ramadan, he donned a black T-shirt and jeans and told his parents he was going camping in the desert with his friends.

He and his friend flew to Syria, a favored transit point for Iraq-bound fighters because Syria doesn't ask visiting Arabs for visas, and its 360-mile (580-kilometer) border with Iraq is thinly policed. A network of al-Qaida operatives sheltered him in Damascus, Aleppo and the border town of Abu-Kamal, and about two weeks later he and 23 other men were smuggled into Iraq.

Four Iraqi teenagers guided them to the Iraqi border town of Al-Qaim. They saw Syrian border guards in the distance who fired in the air. "They didn't try to stop us. We were already in Iraq," al-Shayea said.

At al-Qaim, the men were split into two groups. Al-Shayea said his group of 12 met an al-Qaida leader who had direct links with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida chief in Iraq who was later killed by a US airstrike. He took the men's money and gave each $100.

Then he asked us a question: 'Those who want to carry out martyrdom (suicide) attacks, raise your hands,"' said al-Shayea. "No one did." Al-Shayea's group then spent a week at the Sunni fundamentalist stronghold of Rawa before al-Shayea and another Saudi man were taken to Ramadi and finally Baghdad.

Al-Shayea met his new "emir," or leader, an Iraqi who told him his first assignment was to take a fuel tanker to a Baghdad neighborhood to be collected by others. "I felt scared. I didn't know Baghdad at all, and I also didn't know how to drive heavy vehicles," he said. Also, he says, he was never told that the truck would contain 26 tons of butane gas, rigged to explode outside the Jordanian Embassy.

That evening, we performed the last prayer of the day and had dinner _ a dish of chicken and aubergines," said al-Shayea. "The emir gave me a crude map of my route." Two al-Qaida militants drove with al-Shayea, but then jumped out 1,000 yards (meters) from where he was supposed to park the truck and fled in a waiting car. "I felt something bad was about to happen," he said. The farther he drove, the more nervous he got until, 60 feet (20 meters) from the embassy, an explosion _ believed triggered from a
far -- turned the back of the tanker into a fireball.

I saw the fire and I started to scream and pray," he said.

I looked around me and I saw everything had melted. My hands had turned black. I jumped from the window and started running without thinking of what I was doing." The blast killed nine people.

Thinking he was an innocent victim and a Shiite by his fake ID card, passers-by took Al-Shayea to a Shiite-run hospital. There he kept silent for several days until he finally told his doctors the truth.

The world's first encounter with Al-Shayea was on footage of his interrogation which was sent to Arab TV stations. Back in Buraida, his parents saw their son, face charred, head heavily bandaged, but alive. They were stunned. They had been notified he was dead and had held a wake for him. Al-Shayea said he told his interrogators where to find a senior al-Zarqawi aide in Baghdad, revealed all he knew about al-Qaida, and denounced al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden as killers of innocents.

He says he hasn't seen nor heard from the friend who accompanied him since they parted soon after entering Iraq. Today, his hair has grown back, he sports a thick black beard and he can move without difficulty. He credits the medical care he received, including 30 operations, at the hospital of US-run Abu Ghraib prison. He says that when he was handed over to the Americans a couple of days after his interrogation at the Iraqi Interior Ministry, he was scared because he had heard about the prisoner abuse
at Abu Ghraib.

But the care with which the American officers carried me down to the car when they came to take me made me relax," said Al-Shayea. "One spoke Arabic and tried to put me at ease." After almost six months of medical care and interrogations during which al-Shayea said he was treated well, he was visited by three Saudi officers.

They told me they were there for my sake," said Al-Shayea. "They allowed me to write a letter to my parents." They also asked him if he would tell his story publicly. He says he replied that he would have volunteered to do so even if they hadn't asked.

A couple of weeks later, in mid-2005, Al-Shayea was flown home. His parents were at the airport. "I took my dad in my arms, crying, and kept asking for forgiveness," he said.

He spent a couple of months in the hospital and then was moved to Al-Ha'ir Jail where he says he was given a TV set, newspapers and plenty of food. He also read a lot of books. One of them _ which he says he would never have imagined he would read -- is the Arabic classic "One Thousand and One Nights." --- AP

http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=NTY2NDA4M TE0

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He spent a couple of months in the hospital and then was moved to Al-Ha'ir Jail where he says he was given a TV set, newspapers and plenty of food. He also read a lot of books. One of them _ which he says he would never have imagined he would read -- is the Arabic classic "One Thousand and One Nights." --- AP
No doubt he would enjoy fiction. The real story in Iraq has already lasted much longer.