"Four Russian embassy workers were abducted June 3 after an attack on their car in Baghdad's Mansour neighborhood," reports MosNews. "A fifth Russian was killed in the incident. The captives include the embassy's third secretary, Fyodor Zaitsev, and three other staffers: Rinat Agliulin, Anatoly Smirnov and Oleg Fedoseyev."

In response to this senseless attack, "Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian special services to find and kill the criminals" responsible, in other words "al-Qaeda in Iraq," a documented Pentagon black op pseudo-gang designed to discredit the legitimate resistance and deluge Americans with scary images of al-Zarqawi terrorists determined to chop off heads and blow up Shia mosques.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this effort. It should be noted, however, that Russia is basically the flip side of the United States, an authoritarian police state engaged in covert dirty tricks both abroad and at home.

"Russian operations in other countries are wrapped in secrecy, but in 2004 a court in the Middle East state of Qatar convicted two Russian intelligence officers for killing Chechen terrorist leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev," MosNews continues. "After serving some time in Qatar jail both men were handed over to Russia which claimed they will continue to serve their life sentences.... At the trial, the judge said the plot to assassinate Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was carried out with the approval of the 'Russian leadership' and coordinated between Moscow and the Russian Embassy in Qatar," a modus operandi similar to that employed by the CIA, or more specifically (in regard to targeted assassination in foreign countries), the Israeli Mossad.

According to the lap dog United Nations, Yandarbiyev had "suspected links to al-Qaeda," in other words the possibility exists he was connected to Pentagon intelligence operations. It is a well established fact the CIA and U.S. intelligence have aggressively midwifed terrorism, as noted by B. Raman, writing for the Asia Times Online:

The various pan-Islamic terrorist groups [in Chechnya] are estimated to have a total strength of about 6,000, including a large number of foreign mercenaries. There are widely varying estimates of the strength of the foreign mercenaries, ranging between 200 (Western estimate) and 1,100 (Moscow's). The foreign mercenaries, many of them trained by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the first Afghan war of the 1980s through Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for use against Soviet troops, come from countries such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan, the Lebanon, Indonesia and China (Xinjiang).

As Michel Chossudovsky explains, the "two main Chechen rebel armies (respectively led by Commander Shamil Basayev and Emir Khattab) estimated at 35,000 strong were supported by Pakistan's ISI, which also played a key role in organizing and training the Chechen rebel army." Chossudovsky cites Levon Sevunts, who wrote for the Gazette, Montreal, 26 October 1999:

[In 1994] the Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence arranged for Basayev and his trusted lieutenants to undergo intensive Islamic indoctrination and training in guerrilla warfare in the Khost province of Afghanistan at Amir Muawia camp, set up in the early 1980s by the CIA and ISI and run by famous Afghani warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. In July 1994, upon graduating from Amir Muawia, Basayev was transferred to Markaz-i-Dawar camp in Pakistan to undergo training in advanced guerrilla tactics. In Pakistan, Basayev met the highest ranking Pakistani military and intelligence officers: Minister of Defense General Aftab Shahban Mirani, Minister of Interior General Naserullah Babar, and the head of the ISI branch in charge of supporting Islamic causes, General Javed Ashraf, (all now retired). High-level connections soon proved very useful to Basayev.

As well, the "Chechen cause" (in the guise of the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya) is supported by the neocons, including "Richard Perle, the notorious Pentagon adviser; Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra fame; Kenneth Adelman, the former US ambassador to the UN who egged on the invasion of Iraq by predicting it would be "a cakewalk"; Midge Decter, biographer of Donald Rumsfeld and a director of the rightwing Heritage Foundation; Frank Gaffney of the militarist Center for Security Policy; Bruce Jackson, former US military intelligence officer and one-time vice-president of Lockheed Martin, now president of the US Committee on Nato; Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, a former admirer of Italian fascism and now a leading proponent of regime change in Iran; and R James Woolsey, the former CIA director who is one of the leading cheerleaders behind George Bush's plans to re-model the Muslim world along pro-US lines," writes John Laughland of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group.

Allegations are even being made in Russia that the west itself is somehow behind the Chechen rebellion, and that the purpose of such support is to weaken Russia, and to drive her out of the Caucasus. The fact that the Chechens are believed to use as a base the Pankisi gorge in neighboring Georgia-a country which aspires to join Nato, has an extremely pro-American government, and where the US already has a significant military presence-only encourages such speculation. Putin himself even seemed to lend credence to the idea in his interview with foreign journalists...

If Putin indeed sends Russian special services to Iraq in an effort to uncover the "al-Qaeda" operatives putatively held to be responsible for the politically retarded assassination of Russian embassy staff, interesting details may emerge, as interesting and revealing details on British involvement in the black op war against the Iraqi resistance emerged after SAS goons (actually SRS, or Special Reconnaissance Regiment goons) were captured in Basra, disguised as Arabs and driving around in a car loaded up with explosives (see my British "Pseudo-Gang" Terrorists Exposed in Basra, September 24, 2005).

However, as in the case of the Basra story, the corporate media will naturally ignore it and concentrate on meaningless nonsense, for instance, in the current news cycle, a large photo and accompanying story over at the CIA's favorite newspaper, the Washington Post, on Mexican golfer Lorena Ochoa (or on the same page, a "story" about a pregnant Britney Spears posing nude for Harper's Bazaar), while the war crime of Israeli IOF troops abducting members of the democratically elected government of Palestine (and no doubt abusing and torturing them as I write this) is nowhere to be found.

The case represents the latest allegations against U.S. soldiers stemming from the deaths of Iraqis. At least 14 U.S. troops have been convicted.

The United States also is investigating allegations that two dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians were killed by U.S. Marines in the western town of Haditha on Nov. 19 in a revenge attack after one of their own died in a roadside bombing.

The entire investigation will encompass everything that could have happened that evening. We're not releasing any specifics of an ongoing investigation, military spokesman Maj. Todd Breasseale said of the Mahmoudiyah allegations.

There is no indication what led soldiers to this home. The investigation just cracked open. We're just beginning to dig into the details.

The Shiite militiamen had distributed fliers in the morning warning Sunni storeowners to keep their shops closed or they would be killed, he said. Sunni Arab guerrillas then put out fliers telling the storeowners to open their shops or risk death.

The Shiite fighters, members of the Mahdi Army, rolled in at noon, and "a battle took place with grenades and mortars," Mr. Abdul Fattah said.

Violence flared across other parts of Iraq on Thursday, with at least 31 people killed or found dead.

In the evening, a suicide car bomber rammed into a funeral tent in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing at least 5 and injuring at least 23, a police official said. The funeral was for a Shiite soldier killed earlier in the week. Gunmen killed a dentist on Wednesday night in Kirkuk, and two murdered bodies were found separately in the province today.

In Baghdad, two civilians were killed and five were injured by gunmen in the Dawra neighborhood, an Interior Ministry official said. A concealed bomb detonated next to a minibus killed a civilian and injured another. Seven bodies were found in five different locations, three of them recruits in the Iraqi commando forces, the official said.

In the areas of Karbala and Hilla, south of Baghdad, 13 people were killed or found dead in various incidents, officials said.

The Romanian prime minister, Calin Tariceanu, said in Bucharest that he would ask for the withdrawal of the country's troops from Iraq by the end of this year because the war was proving too costly, news agencies reported. Romania has 890 soldiers in the country. Any withdrawal must be approved by a defense council headed by the president and parliament.

Two Romanian soldiers have died in Iraq and four in Afghanistan, where Romania has 809 soldiers. Italy has announced the withdrawal of its troops from Iraq, and Japan is already removing its roughly 500 soldiers from Samawa province in the south.

The Romanian defense ministry said that four soldiers who are helping to train Iraqi forces would stay in the country.

Mona Mahmoud contributed reporting for this article from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Kirkuk.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/29/world/middleeast/29cnd-ira
q.html?pagewanted=print

Here is what the Iraqi police said

US, Iraqi forces clash with Shi'ite militia

29 Jun 2006
Reuters

BAQUBA, Iraq, June 29 (Reuters) - Iraqi and U.S. troops battled Shi'ite militiamen in a village northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, and witnesses and police said U.S. helicopters bombed orchards to flush out gunmen hiding there.

Iraqi security officials said Iranian fighters had been captured in the fighting, in which a sniper shot dead the commander of an Iraqi quick reaction force and two of his men. They did not say how the Iranians had been identified.

A civilian was also killed and five people were wounded in the clashes. The U.S. military had no immediate comment.

In violence elsewhere, a suicide car bomber rammed into a funeral service for a Shi'ite soldier and killed seven people in the Iraqi northern city of Kirkuk on Thursday, police said.

Deputy police commander Turhan Abdul Rahman said the bomber, who died in the attack, targeted a tent set up for mourners outside the house of an Iraqi soldier killed two days ago.

The blast wounded 25. Oil-rich Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, is an ethnically mixed city claimed by Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen which has seen violence in the past.

The fighting between Iraqi and U.S. troops and Shi'ite militias was taking place in the predominantly Shi'ite village of Khairnabat, outside Baquba, capital of Diyala province.

Local residents reported hearing shooting and explosions.

A bomb in the town's main market killed 18 people on Monday. On Wednesday, Shi'ite militiamen fired mortars at a Sunni mosque in nearby Miqdadiya, destroying the building and 20 shops.

Police said the mosque attack and other attacks on Sunnis in Khairnabat itself persuaded Sunnis that it would be safer to leave the village. But as a convoy of vehicles was leaving on Thursday, "gunmen surrounded them and started shooting," a captain in Diyala's police intelligence unit told Reuters.

Baquba's quick reaction force, an Interior Ministry unit, responded and clashed with the fighters, the captain said. Iraqi and U.S. reinforcements then arrived and sealed off the village.

Police and witnesses said U.S. helicopters had bombed orchards where militiamen were believed to be hiding under date palms. Police said the bombing continued as night fell.

"IRANIAN PRISONERS"

The captain and other Interior Ministry sources said the commander of the quick reaction force, Colonel Sami Hussein, and two of his men were killed by a sniper.

No other casualties were reported from the clashes and police said it was not clear how many civilians had been killed or wounded in the initial shooting.

"We captured a number of militants and were surprised to see that some of them were Iranian fighters," the police intelligence captain said.

An Interior Ministry official, who did not want to be named, also said Iranian gunmen had been captured. Baquba lies 90 km (60 miles) from the Iranian border.

The United States and Britain have accused Shi'ite Iran of meddling in Iraq's affairs and providing military assistance to Iraq's pro-government Shi'ite militias. However, there have been few instances of Iranians actually being captured inside Iraq.

Some Iraqis, particularly Sunnis, are quick to label Shi'ite fighters as Iranian agents. And among the militants are Iraqis who grew up in refugee camps in Iran, speak Iranian-accented Arabic and, in some cases, carry Iranian identity papers.

Police have said Shi'ite fighters in the area belong to the Mehdi Army of radical, Iranian-backed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr's movement, which staged two uprisings against occupying troops in 2004, denies being behind sectarian violence.

Diyala, where al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed earlier this month, has seen much sectarian violence.

Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has made controlling Shi'ite militia groups, as well as Sunni insurgents, a goal of a national reconciliation plan unveiled on Sunday.

Sunni political leaders dismissed on Thursday reports of significant peace moves from insurgents since Maliki's speech in parliament.

Several politicians and figures who claim to speak for militant groups said the plan was short on guarantees about curbing Shi'ite guerrillas and on the withdrawal of U.S. troops. (Additional reporting by Ross Colvin, Mohammed al-Ramahi, Alastair Macdonald, Mussab Al-Khairalla, Ibon Villelabeitia and Hiba Moussa in Baghdad)

"We hadn't been informed about them. They're certainly not consistent with what we've heard from senior Romanian leadership, and I think we'll be looking for clarification."

Basescu said the manner in which Tariceanu and Defence Minister Teodor Atanasiu had presented their withdrawal plan, without consulting other Romanian decision-makers, hurt Romania's credibility.

The surprise announcement was the first time that Bucharest, an early US ally in the "war on terror", had indicated it wanted to pull out.

Tariceanu invoked similar decisions taken recently by other countries - including Italy - in justifying the move.

Basescu has insisted several times in recent months that Romanian troops will remain in Iraq "as long as necessary" and that any eventual pull-out will only be decided in coordination with other members of the US-led coalition in the oil-rich country.

Relations between the president and the prime minister have been very strained in recent months, especially after Basescu said that he "regretted" that Tariceanu had been named head of government.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Michigan Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra, wrote to U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte accusing intelligence officials of downplaying the significance of the finds.

Hoekstra said intelligence officials at a June 21 press briefing told journalists the weapons predated the 1991 Gulf War, were too degraded to be used as originally intended and posed no threat to U.S. forces deployed in the region during the run-up to the 2003 invasion.

"I am very disappointed by the inaccurate, incomplete, and occasionally misleading comments made by the briefers," Hoekstra said in the letter.

At the Armed Services Committee, Maples also asserted that the rockets and artillery rounds that had been found were produced in the 1980s and could not be used as intended.

If the chemical agent, sarin, was removed from the munitions and repackaged, it could be lethal. Its release in a U.S. city, in certain circumstances, would be devastating, Maples said.

LITTLE THREAT TO U.S.

But despite statements of concern by Republicans about the risk of terrorists releasing the chemical in the United States, defense officials said the munitions pose as much a threat to people who try to handle them as potential victims.

When asked by a Democrat to confirm the weapons pose a risk to troops in Iraq, not Americans at home, Maples said, "Yes."

Republican lawmakers, some facing tough election battles amid growing anti-war sentiment, called the discovery of the weapons significant.

Republican Rep. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania suggested the munitions were in fact the weapons of mass destruction that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein lied about, leading the United States to war.

"For those who claim that these weapons are not the weapons of mass destruction that the United States went to war over, I would refer them to 17 United Nations Security Council resolutions that Saddam Hussein violated," Weldon said. "It didn't say pre-'91 chemical weapons. It didn't say post-'91 chemical weapons. It said chemical weapons."

But Democrats dismissed such arguments and said the weapons were not the "imminent threat" used to justify the war.

"It's very difficult to characterize these as the imminent threat weapons that we were told we were looking for," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a California Democrat.