October 2004 - Iraq Special Weapons News

26 October 2004 - Iraq Special Weapons News

OIF/OEF Casualty Update 26 Oct 2004 [PDF]
DoD Identifies Marine Casualty
DoD Identifies Army Casualty
MNF-I strike kills Zarqawi associate MNF-I/MNC-I 26 Oct 2004 -- A precision strike in northwest Fallujah, conducted at 3 a.m. Oct. 26, by Multi-National Force-Iraq has taken another toll on the Zarqawi network. This strike on a Zarqawi safe house further erodes the organizations capability to conduct attacks on the citizens of Fallujah and Iraq.
U.S. Says Air Strike Kills Al-Zarqawi Associate RFE/RL 26 Oct 2004 -- The U.S. military says an associate of Al-Qaeda ally Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi has been killed in a U.S. air strike on the Iraqi city of Al-Fallujah.
Iraq Vows To Punish Killers RFE/RL 26 Oct 2004 -- Iraq vowed today to catch and punish the culprits of a weekend attack in which 52 people -- 49 unarmed soldiers and three civilian drivers -- were massacred.

Inquiry Launched Over Missing Explosives in Iraq AFPS 26 Oct 2004 -- Multinational Force Iraq and the Iraq Survey Group are examining facts and circumstances regarding when several hundred tons of explosives went missing from the former Al-Quaqaa military facility in Iraq and where they are now, defense officials said today.
U.S. Says Securing All Arms Caches In Iraq 'Impossible' RFE/RL 26 Oct 2004 -- The United States has defended its effort to secure weapons depots in Iraq after the revelation that some 350 tons of explosives went missing from one site.

Iraq: IAEA Notifies UN About Missing Explosives RFE/RL 26 Oct 2004 -- The United Nation's nuclear watchdog agency has informed the UN Security Council that more than 340 metric tons of explosives have been looted from a previously secured site in Iraq. The agency acted after a newspaper report quoted Iraqi officials' disclosure of the theft, which occurred sometime in the past 18 months. The news quickly became an issue in the U.S. presidential election campaign, with challenger John Kerry accusing the Bush administration of incompetence in Iraq. U.S. officials say they are treating the report seriously but note the difficulty in securing all Iraqi arms sites.

IRAQ: Reconstruction moving slowly in southern holy city IRIN 26 Oct 2004 -- Six weeks after major fighting in the southern holy city of Najaf, which left hundreds dead and a large number of buildings destroyed, civilians say that reconstruction is moving very slowly.

U-S/IRAQ VOA 26 Oct 2004 -- Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is accusing the United States and its coalition partners of being partly to blame for Saturday's deadly ambush of dozens of Iraqi soldiers. U-S defense officials are rejecting that charge but are looking into why the soldiers did not have adequate protection, and whether this and other recent attacks suggest insurgents have infiltrated Iraq's security forces.
IRAQ / U-S CAMPAIGN VOA 26 Oct 2004 -- A new public opinion poll shows more Iraqis favor Democratic challenger John Kerry than President Bush, who launched the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. But more than half of the two-thousand peopled polled throughout Iraq don't care who wins the U.S. presidency in next week's election.

Iraqi Media Monitoring UNAMI 26 Oct 2004
Analysis: Iraq's Domestic Media Active In Election Discourse RFE/RL 26 Oct 2004 -- News of Iraq's upcoming January elections has dominated the pages of Iraq's major dailies in recent weeks, to some extent crowding out the more detailed coverage of the growing insurgency, the presence of multinational forces, and even the workings of the interim administration.