April saw 49 U.S. casualties in Iraq, the highest total in seven months. Does this mean, as some insist, that the enormous progress we have made since the start of the military surge is being lost?

As one who has spent nearly two years with American soldiers and Marines and British Army troops in Iraq - having returned from my last trip a month ago - here's my short answer: no.

We are taking more casualties now, just as we did in the first part of 2007, because we have taken up the next crucial challenge of this war: confronting the Shia militias.

In early 2007, under the leadership of Gen. David Petraeus, we began to wage an effective counterinsurgency campaign against the reign of terror Al Qaeda in Iraq had established over much of the midsection of the country. That campaign, which moved many of our troops off of big centralized bases and out into small neighborhood outposts, carried real risks.

In every one of the first eight months of 2007, we lost more soldiers than we had the previous year. Only as the campaign bore fruit - in the form of Iraqi citizens working with American soldiers on a daily basis, helping uncover terrorist hideouts together - did the casualty numbers begin to improve.

Now we are helping the Iraqis deal with a much different problem: the Shia militias, the most well-known of which is "Jaysh al-Mahdi," known as JAM, largely controlled by Moqtada al-Sadr.

To comprehend our strategy here, we need to understand the goals of these militias, which pundits, politicians and the press all too often gloss over. Al Qaeda's aim was to destroy Iraq in civil war. Allegedly devout Muslims, the terrorist savages were willing to rape, murder and pillage their own people just as long as they could catch America in the middle. One reason Al Qaeda in Iraq can regenerate so quickly, despite being hated by most Iraqis, is that, armed with generous funding from outside Iraq, they mostly recruit young men and boys from Iraqi street gangs, giving them money, guns and drugs.

In the northern city of Mosul, an Iraqi army commander announced the start of a long anticipated offensive against Al Qaeda in Iraq's last urban stronghold.

Maj. Gen. Riyadh Jalal Tawfiq, the commander of military operations in the northern city of Mosul, issued a statement on Saturday announcing Operation Lion's Roar and Righteousness Battle against Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Mosul was considered the last important urban staging ground for Al Qaeda in Iraqi and allied groups after losing strongholds in Baghdad and other areas during the U.S. troop "surge" last year.

Provincial forces are "undertaking a new phase of operations in Mosul to counter the terrorist threat there," said Maj. John C. Hall, a military spokesman in Baghdad. "These operations build on operations that have been under way for the past several weeks, targeting Al Qaeda in Iraq cells."

He added that "this Iraqi-planned and Iraqi-led series of operations continues to be closely supported by Coalition forces."

In January, Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki promised his military was preparing for a "decisive" showdown with insurgents in Mosul, about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad. But no major offensives were mounted, even as Al Qaeda in Iraq tried to exert its influence in Iraq's third-largest city through attacks and intimidation until now.

On Friday evening, Iraqi officials imposed an indefinite vehicle ban in the northern province of Nineveh, which includes Mosul. Brig. Gen. Khalid Abdul-Sattar, the provincial security spokesman, said Friday the ban was prompted by intelligence that Sunni insurgents might carry out car bombings.

After four days of fierce fighting in which at least 24 people died, the Lebanese army revoked two government measures in obedience to Hizballah demands: the Shiite group’s independent telecommunication network will not be shut down and the pro-Hizballah Brig. Gen Wafiq Shqeir would keep his job as Beirut international airport head of security.

In a broadcast speech, Saturday, May 10, the pro-Western prime minister Fouad Siniora asked the army to defuse the crisis after Hizballah seized control of western Beirut, besieged the government center and attacked pro-government Sunni centers across Lebanon. Government loyalists found no support from Sinora’s powerful backers, the United States, France or even Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The pro-Western government was therefore forced to back down.

This means its acceptance of Hizballah’s communication system in central, southern and eastern Lebanon and its direct link to Syrian and Iranian command centers in Damascus; and the Shiite group’s Beirut headquarters online communications link to its Revolutionary Guards bosses in Tehran.

DEBKAfile's military sources report: Triumphant, the Hizballah chief Hassan Hasrallah will be a more dangerous enemy than ever. The army rather than the government laid down the condition that Hizballah withdraw from the Sunni districts of Beirut and the rest of the country and remove its armed men from the streets.

Even so, a government minister remarked that the deal awaits approval by Hizballah leaders and the Iranian ambassador in Beirut. It is far from certain that the Shiite terrorists will give up the territory they gained in the last four days.

Also in question are the roadblocks on highways and the shutdown of Beirut air and sea ports.

BEIRUT, May 10, 2008 (AFP) - The Lebanese army said on Saturday it had frozen measures taken by the government against the Shiite Hezbollah movement, and called for all armed militants to withdraw from the streets.

"The army command calls on all parties to (help restore calm) by ending armed protests and withdrawing gunmen from the streets and opening the roads," the military said in a statement.

It said that the head of airport security, who had been reassigned from his job, would remain in his post pending an investigation and that the army would look into a communications network set up by the militant group.

"The head of airport security, Brigadier General Wafiq Shqeir, will remain in his post until appropriate procedural measures have been taken after a probe," the statement said.

"As for the telecommunications network, the army will look into the issue in a manner that is not harmful to the public interest or the security of the resistance" against Israel, it said.

The military said it had taken these decisions in the light of a government wish that it rule on these matters. The army statement came shortly after Prime Minister Fuad Siniora made a televised address to the nation.

Tuesday's government decision to reassign Shqeir and launch a judicial probe into the communications network sparked bloody clashes that saw Hezbollah seize control of west Beirut.

The army's announcement was seen as a way out of the violence that has rocked the country, leaving at least nearly 40 people dead and virtually closing Lebanon off from the outside world.

Following this announcement, the opposition said it would withdraw its armed militants from the capital and called on the country's army to take control of Beirut, an official close to the opposition said. "The opposition welcomes the army's decision and will proceed with the withdrawal of all its armed elements so that control of the capital is handed over to the military," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

His comments came shortly after the army said it was freezing government measures against Hezbollah that sparked four days of deadly unrest.

The official, said however, that the opposition would maintain a civil disobedience campaign against the Western-backed government.-AFP

BEIRUT: Lebanon's governing coalition, the March 14 Forces, accused Hizbullah of staging a military coup against the state and said that Hizbullah's arms have become illegitimate after they were used against their fellow Lebanese citizens. "Hizbullah's claim that its arms were only targeted at Israel have proved false and invalid in the past two days, which witnessed the uses of such arms against the Lebanese people," the statement said.

Lebanese Forces boss Samir Geagea, reading the March 14 Forces statement after a meeting at his residence in Maarab, rejected Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's claim that the group's weapons were used against other Lebanese in a bid to protect Hizbullah's possession of arms.

In a news conference on Thursday, Nasrallah said that Hizbullah were ready to use their arms against other Lebanese, if the desired goal was to defend the resistance.

The March 14 statement compared "Hizbullah's occupation" of Beirut to the Israeli occupation of Beirut after the invasion of 1982.

"Beirut did not fall to Israel in the past and will not fall to Hizbullah today," the statement said.

Geagea also said that the Hizbullah "coup" was aimed at putting Syria back in control and increasing Iranian influence. "The armed and bloody coup which is being implemented aims to return Syria to Lebanon and extend Iran's reach to the Mediterranean."

DEBKAfile’s military sources report: Hizballah’s advance on two key Lebanese locations Saturday, May 10 had immediate effect on the strategic balance between the Iran-backed Shiite group and Israel. Sidon in the south, Lebanon’s second largest city, which provides Hizballah with control of a continuous coastal strip from its southern Beirut district all the way to Tyre.

The second point is on the northern slopes of the Hermon range. After Hizballah seizes control of this enclave and the Syrian 10th and 14th armored divisions step over the border into Lebanon, the two forces can join to form a strong military line opposite Israel near the Litani River.

Our military sources report that the vanguard of the 10th Division has already moved across to the Lebanese side of the border.

Hizballah’s victory in taking over western and central Beirut therefore has had the effect of adding another link to the pro-Iranian chain encircling Israel. In many ways it is a more damaging setback for Israel’s national security than the Palestinian Hamas' seizure of the Gaza Strip

Yet Israel’s prime minister, defense minister and foreign minister are all too busy with the political fallout of the bribery case against Ehud Olmert to lift a finger to arrest Lebanon’s decline to a Tehran satellite before it is too late - any more than Hamas was stopped from developing into a major military menace.

Equally inert are the two presidents who are pledged to support the Siniora regime, George W. Bush and Nicolas Sarkozy. The United Nations, which maintains 15,000 armed peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, backed by marine forces off the shores of Beirut, has no thought of stopping the Iranian-Syrian-backed terrorist militia from capturing the country.

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert defied a barrage of calls to resign on Friday after he admitted taking cash from an American businessman at the centre of a police inquiry into allegations of bribery.

Mr. Olmert, whose departure could disrupt U.S.-sponsored peace negotiations with the Palestinians, continued with his duties after telling the nation in a late-night address on Israel's 60th Independence Day that he would resign only if the attorney-general could produce sufficient evidence to indict him.

The Prime Minister, who is due to host U.S. President George W. Bush next week, looked relaxed when he addressed Canadian Jewish fundraisers for Israel in Jerusalem on Friday.

He made only an oblique, passing reference to his troubles, saying: “I have enough political issues to deal with here.”

“Millions of shekels – cash in hand,” screamed the front page of top-selling tabloid Maariv.

Legal sources say police suspect that Mr. Olmert took hundreds of thousands of dollars from a New York Jewish financier. Morris Talansky was tagged “The Laundry Man” in coded records that investigators say were kept by Mr. Olmert's secretary.

Newspapers freed from a gag order on the investigation splashed lengthy coverage of an affair that broke as Israelis celebrated the 60th anniversary of the state's founding – although some questioned the strength of prosecutors' case after series of other inquiries that failed to indict the premier.

“It is doubtful Olmert can survive,” wrote Nahum Barnea, a senior columnist for Yedioth Ahronoth. “If not because of the Talansky affair, ... then because of the cumulative effect of all the ongoing investigations against him.”

(IsraelNN.com) Cabinet ministers and coalition partners are hurrying to get their ducks in line as the storm clouds gather in the latest investigation against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Even US President George W. Bush has recognized the winds of change.

Bush’s long-heralded trip to Israel in which he hoped to crown 60th Independence Day celebrations with significant progress toward a final status agreement between the Jewish State and the Palestinian Authority was hastily reworked in light of the allegations.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak is convinced Olmert will have no choice but to leave office, according to an aide quoted by the Reuters news agency. The source said Barak has knowledge of details of the current criminal investigation and that the case is serious enough that the Prime Minister will be forced to quit.

The chairman of the Labor Party, who is not a member of the Knesset at this time, is reportedly weighing his options carefully.

Publicly, the Defense Minister is carrying out business as usual and declaring that the Prime Minister is innocent until proven guilty. But privately Barak has been quietly discussing the issue of when to topple the government.

“Barak has little doubt that Olmert is on his way out, but the question is: Elections now, or later?” the source told Reuters.

If Labor, the second largest party in the coalition, pulls out of the government and forces new elections, Likud Party chairman Binyamin Netanyahu is likely to lead his party to a victory. Such a scenario would likely mean a nationalist/religious coalition, leaving Labor out of the government.

(IsraelNN.com) Italian President Giorgio Napolitano opened the prestigious Turin book fair Thursday amid opposition from Muslims and the Italian Left over the choice of Israel as the event's guest of honor.

"No dialogue is possible if there is a refusal to recognize Israel," Napolitano said at Israel's stand at the fair, the European Jewish Press reported. Napolitano added that there can be no "rejection of the reasons for [Israel's] birth or of its right to exist in peace and security."

Like the Paris book fair in March, the Turin fair is honoring the modern state of Israel on the 60th anniversary of its creation. Israel's stand was swamped by hundreds of people, many draped in the Israeli flag, with one group holding a banner that read: "I feel Jewish today."

"A special thank-you, with all my heart, goes to President Napolitano for his strong position this year, after the calls over recent months to boycott the Book Fair because of Israel's presence," Israel’s new ambassador to Italy, Gideon Meir, said at the fair's opening. Meir said the calls for a boycott were “an attempt to undermine the state of Israel.”

"The President's choice of inaugurating the book fair dedicated to Israel represents a very important moral position to left and right wing extremists that come to Turin to boycott the fair and want to de-legitimize Israel," Meir told Italian daily La Repubblica.

A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry blamed Israel and the US for fueling tensions in Lebanon, Iranian news agency FARS reported. 

 

According to Spokesman Muhammad Ali Hosseini, "The efforts and adventurous intervention of the US and the Zionist regime are the main cause for the ongoing chaotic situation in Lebanon."

Ali Hosseini added, "Ever since they failed to obtain their objectives in the Second Lebanon War, they have focused on Lebanon's independence, sovereignty and unity out of revenge.

"Part of the political conspiracy we have warned of… has been carried out," he stated.

 

Ali Hosseini also expressed hope that "those responsible for this situation in Lebanon will invest the necessary efforts to restore order and stability in the country."

He also pledged that Iran would invest "tireless efforts" to help the rivaling factions reach an understanding.

Here in Israel this week for her 16th visit in three years, Secretary of State Rice again attended to urgent business for the United States such as: has Israel been taking down checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank that have been a crucial element in its success in stopping suicide bombings for the last couple of years? Do Palestinians have comfort and freedom of movement?

With Defense Minister Ehud Barak, backed by the entire Israeli defense establishment, insisting on the indispensability of the checkpoints, Americans will be relieved to know that the secretary of state met with him Sunday night to try to get him to take down some more of them.

She also met with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Palestinian chief negotiator Ahmed Qurei to talk about a “shelf agreement”—in which, even if a Palestinian state doesn’t get set up this year, Israel commits itself in advance to turn over vital strategic assets to Arab sovereignty.

This time, though, even for Israelis concerned about Israel’s future survivability, Rice’s visit has less of an air of menace and more of an air of unreality, for three glaring reasons. 

1. Olmert’s days may be numbered.

2. The “moderate Palestinians” could not be less interested in peace with Israel.

 

3. There are much more serious issues at stake than getting Israel to remove checkpoints.

Bangkok (AP) - In the eyes of Myanmar's military rulers, everyone is a potential enemy. Even foreign aid workers.

As the international community waits to deliver desperately needed aid to Myanmar's cyclone survivors, it is getting a lesson in the mind-set of the country's military rulers: reclusive, xenophobic generals who despise the Western world.

Six days after Cyclone Nargis slammed into Myanmar's western coast, killing more than 22,000 people, the impoverished country's needs remain enormous. After initially pleading for urgent help, the junta now seems in no rush to welcome it.

"The military regime is extraordinarily xenophobic. They are afraid of everything," said Sean Turnell, a Myanmar expert at Australia's Macquarie University.

Among the junta's fears are internal uprisings, a U.S. invasion, globalization and its capacity to dilute traditional Burmese culture. In the aftermath of Saturday's cyclone, the junta appears to be afraid of losing face with its people.

"If they can't handle the situation and they let Westerners come in with helicopters, this will demonstrate to their own people the shortcomings of the military," Turnell said. "They are more concerned with control and maintaining an omniscience in front of their people than saving lives."

Myanmar's Foreign Ministry indicated Friday that it wants relief supplies but not foreign aid workers in the country, saying in a statement carried in state media that the government was delivering emergency aid "with its own labor to the affected areas."

After days of stalling, the junta gave clearance Thursday for the first major international airlifts carrying aid to cyclone survivors. But it was not allowing U.S. military planes to fly in critical relief and continued to withhold visas for several U.N. teams seeking entry, said Richard Horsey, a U.N. spokesman in neighboring Thailand.

A foreign military's presence in Myanmar would mark a major concession for the junta.

"They're afraid that if foreign soldiers come in they are the spearhead to overthrow the government," said Josef Silverstein, a retired Rutgers University professor who studied Myanmar for more than a half century.

From the junta's perspective: "Aid workers could be carrying weapons to give to the people, they could give them ideas of how to overthrow the government."

Aid agencies say efforts to rush relief supplies to large-scale disasters are often slowed by red tape, but Myanmar's foot dragging has a deeper, historical context.

I had the honor of meeting Pat Toomey at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference a few weeks ago. He has the conservative vision and principle that so many feckless GOP officials in Washington lack. In a WSJ op-ed today titled “In defense of RINO hunting,” Toomey puts liberal Republicans in his sights, names names, and takes no prisoners

Read the whole thing, but here’s the bottom line:

A Republican majority is only as useful as the policies that majority produces. When those policies look a lot like Democratic ones, the base rightly questions why it should keep Republicans in power. As the party gears up for elections in the fall, it ought to look closely at the losses suffered under a political strategy devoid of principle. Otherwise, it can look forward to a bad case of déjà vu.

Club for Growth should print that paragraph on greeting cards so we can send an avalanche of them to the GOP elite in Washington.

Sen. Barack Obama quickly severed ties today with a Middle East policy adviser who acknowledgd holding private meetings with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

Robert Malley – as WND reported in January – advocated negotiations with Hamas and providing the group, which rules Gaza, with international assistance. The U.S. State Department regards Hamas as a terrorist organization.

Malley was sacked by the Obama campaign after disclosing to the Times of London today he had been in regular contact with Hamas in conjunction with his work for a conflict resolution think tank, the International Crisis Group.

He insisted the contact had no connection with his position on Obama's Middle East advisory council.

"I've never hidden the fact that in my job with the International Crisis Group I meet all kinds of people," he told the Times.

But Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt responded swiftly, the Times said.

"Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future," the spokesman said.

At least 11 people were killed Friday, May 9, Day 3 of fierce clashes between Hizballah and pro-government forces, the worst since the 1975-90 civil war. At noon, Syrian Social Nationalist Party’s units entered Beirut to support Hizballah’s advancing occupation of Sunni West Beirut districts.

DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources report that Thursday night, army chief Gen. Michel Suleiman refused to obey prime minister Fouad Siniora’s order to declare a state of emergency for the crisis created by Hizballah’s declaration of war against the government. The general warned that if the government enacted an emergency, he would order the troops to return to barracks.

The SSNP is a Greek Orthodox arm of Syrian military intelligence.

Hizballah and fellow Shiite Amal fighters were thus able to seize control of most of pr-government Sunni West Beirut in clashes that have spread to other parts of the Lebanon while the government was left unprotected.

The urban warfare shut down Lebanon's port and all but closed the international airport, with burning barricades on major highways in Beirut.

The army has only interfered in extreme situations. Friday, soldiers rescued the anti-Syrian majority leader Saad Hariri and allied Druze leader Walid Jumblatt when their mansions were surrounded and attacked by Shiite forces, but they did not make the assailants move out. The Lebanese army, half of whose members are Shiites, thus permitted Hizballah and Amal clinch their control of the Sunni neighborhoods.

The Lebanese army also took over the pro-government Future TV station and newspaper owned by Hariri after they were blown up. The army agreed to keep the station off the air.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the United States, France and Israel are watching passively as Lebanon falls to Iran’s surrogate terrorist group Hizballah. Since the 2006 Lebanon war, prime minister Ehud Olmert has insisted improbably that the conflict had left Hizballah seriously weakened.

Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Thursday night that the only way to stop the violence was for the “black gang” ruling the government to withdraw its decisions to close his military telecommunications network and restore Hizballah loyalists to key positions at Beirut international airport.