Ahmadinejad Claims U.S. Tried To Kidnap Him
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the U.S. had plans to kidnap him during his recent trip to Iraq. According to him, the plan was never carried out because of “intentional” last minute changes to his schedule. As a result, the alleged plotters found out about the changes after he was already out of Iraq.
Read Ahmadinejad’s personal blog HERE
Militia Leader ID’d as Mastermind of Iraqi Kidnappings
A renegade Mahdi Army militia commander is responsible for the kidnapping Sunday of 10 Shiite and Sunni tribal leaders.
Arkan Hasnawi, identified as a former brigade commander in Jaysh Al Mahdi, was behind the kidnappings, which took place in the Diyala Province as the chiefs were returning from a meeting in Baghdad with a representative of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
In August, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army fighters to law down their arms for up to six months in an attempt to stop attacks and reduce violence in the region.
-Samantha Giles
8 Turkish Soldiers Taken Hostage in Kurdish Attack
The Turkish military confirmed today that eight of its soldiers were still missing after an ambush by Kurdish militants a day earlier that left at least 12 Turkish soldiers dead and touched off a major escalation in Turkey-Iraq tensions.“Despite all search efforts, no contact has been established with eight missing personnel since shortly after the armed attack on the military unit,” the military said in a statement.
The attack early Sunday brought fears that Turkey would retaliate immediately by sending troops across the border into Iraq, and today Turkey continued to bolster its forces on the border, including both land and air units.
However, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Sunday that he had delayed a decision about retaliation, after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had personally intervened. The foreign minister, Ali Babacan, said today during an official visit in Kuwait that all political means would be tried before a military operation, NTV television reported.
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