The US military is investigating allegations that American soldiers may raped an Iraqi woman and murdered her and three members of her family, including a child.

Confirming another major investigation into alleged killing and abuse of Iraqi civilians by at least three US soldiers, one officer said the incident in March just south of Baghdad had initially been blamed on insurgents active in the area.

The probe is the latest in a series launched in recent weeks since the revelation of investigations into the killings of 24 people in Haditha in November.

Officers said a criminal probe was launched on June 24 into whether soldiers killed four people in their home at Mahmudiya on March 12.

Police in the district said they could not recall a case meeting the description given by the US military.

Major-General James Thurman, the commander of the Baghdad area, ordered the army’s Criminal Investigation Command to mount a full investigation within a day of two soldiers coming forward, the military said in its brief initial statement.

Major Todd Breasseale, a US military spokesman, said in Baghdad: “We’re not going to leave any stone unturned.”

The suspicion

In Washington, an army official said the suspicion was that two soldiers from the 502nd Infantry Regiment, later seen with blood on their uniforms, had raped a young woman and then one of them killed her and three of her family, among them a child.

At least one other soldier was being investigated.

The suspected killer had been discharged from the army and was in the United States.

Officials have said in similar cases that discharged soldiers can be recalled to face a court martial.

Last week, 12 American troops were charged with murder in two separate cases of killing civilians and another was charged with voluntary manslaughter in a third.

Charges are expected to be brought soon in the Haditha case.

AGENCIES

An audio tape purportedly of Osama bin Laden praising Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of al -Qaeda in Iraq, has been posted on a website.

According to the tape released on Friday, Bin Laden said: “The lion of jihad … Abu Musab al-Zarqawi … was killed in a US raid. We hope to God he accepts him as a martyr.”

The speaker sounded similar to previous recordings attributed to Bin Laden, al-Qaeda’s leader.

Relevant

On the tape, bin Laden also said that al-Qaeda will continue fighting US forces and their allies.

“We will continue, God willing, to fight you [US forces] and your allies everywhere, in Iraq and Afghanistan and in Somalia and Sudan until we waste all your money and kill your men and you will return to your country in defeat as we defeated you before in Somalia.”

Earlier this month in a video, Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, said the organisation would seek vengeance against the United States for the death of al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US air strike in Baquba, Iraq, on June 8.

Last month, Bin Laden released an audiotape saying Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in a US court for the September 11, 2001, attacks, had nothing to do with the operations.

AGENCIES

The US Supreme Court has ruled that the president overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp.

The court ruled on Thursday that the military tribunal for a Guantanamo prisoner cannot proceed because it violates the Geneva Conventions.

The ruling, a rebuke to the administration and its aggressive anti-terrorism policies, was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who said the proposed trials were illegal under US law.

The case focused on Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who worked as a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda chief.

Hamdan, 36, has spent four years in the US concentration camp in Cuba. He faces a single count of conspiring against US citizens from 1996 to November 2001.

Two years ago, the court rejected Bush’s claim to have the authority to seize and detain terrorism suspects and indefinitely deny them access to courts or lawyers.

In this follow-up case, the justices focused solely on the issue of trials for some of the men.

Stevens wrote for the court majority in the 5-3 decision that “the military commission convened to try Hamdan lacked power to proceed” because its structure and procedures violated the international agreement that covers treatment of prisoners of war, as well as US military laws.

Chief Justice John Roberts, named by Bush in September to the lead the court, was sidelined in the case because as an appeals court judge he had backed the government over Hamdan.

Thursday’s ruling overturned that decision.

No comment

Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said he would make no comment until lawyers had had a chance to review the decision.

Officials at the defence and justice departments were planning to issue statements later.

The Bush administration has hinted in recent weeks that it was prepared for the Supreme Court to set back plans for trying Guantanamo detainees.

The president told reporters: “I’d like to close Guantanamo. I also recognise that we’re holding some people that are darn dangerous.”

The court’s ruling says nothing about whether the prison should be closed.

The concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay, erected in the months after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, has been a flashpoint for international criticism.

Hundreds of people suspected of ties to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, including some teenagers, have been seized by the US military and secretly shipped there since 2002.

Three detainees committed suicide there this month, using sheets and clothing to hang themselves.

The deaths touched off new scrutiny and criticism of the prison, along with fresh calls for its closing.

AGENCIES

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, expressed “deep regret” for army operations that have killed 14 Palestinian civilians in Gaza in just nine days but said the lives of Israeli citizens threatened by Qassam attacks were “even more important”.

The deaths in three separate missile attacks overshadowed Mr Olmert’s first meeting with the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, since taking office, as grieving relatives gathered here to mourn the two latest civilian victims, Fatima Ahmed, a 37-year-old pregnant mother of two small children, and her brother Zakaria, 45.

Palestinian fighters have agreed to a conditional release of the kidnapped Israeli soldier, but Israel has not yet accepted their terms, an Egyptian newspaper quoted Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, as saying.

In an interview published on Friday, Egypt’s leading pro-government newspaper, Al-Ahram, quoted Mubarak as saying:”Egyptian contacts with several Hamas leaders resulted in preliminary, positive results in the shape of a conditional agreement to hand over the Israeli soldier as soon as possible to avoid an escalation.

“But agreement on this has not yet been reached with the Israeli side,” Mubarak said.

The president said that he had asked Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, “not to hurry” the military offensive in Gaza, but to “give additional time to find a peaceful solution to the problem of the kidnapped soldier”.

Israel suspended a planned ground invasion of northern Gaza on Thursday, giving diplomacy another chance to free the Israeli soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, whom fighters linked to Hamas captured on Sunday from an Israeli camp near Gaza.

Mubarak’s remark implied that he was claiming a role in Israel’s decision.

Israeli airstrikes

Meanwhile, witnesses have said that Israeli warplanes hit offices of the Fatah movement and a Hamas facility in Gaza City early on Friday. There were no reports of casualties.

The military had no immediate comment. The air strikes followed an attack on the Palestinian interior ministry in Gaza City, among more than a dozen air attacks by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip in the past few hours.

Israel unaware

However, in Jerusalem, Gideon Meir, a senior Israeli foreign ministry official, said Israel did not know of such an offer.

Reached just after midnight on Friday morning, Meir told The Associated Press that Israel would have no comment until daybreak.

“In general, Israel’s stance is, as the prime minister said earlier, that the soldier will only be released unconditionally and there will be no negotiations with a gang of terrorists and criminals who abducted a soldier from Israeli territory,” Meir said.

Hamas leaders in Gaza were not answering their phones early on Friday.

“Israeli leaders promised, and I hope they will stick to it, not to shed the blood of innocent Palestinian civilians in any hurried military operation,” Mubarak said.

“At the same time, Egypt warned Hamas leaders of the dire consequences of adopting of tough positions and urged them to shoulder their responsibilities in view of the dangers and difficulties faced by the Palestinian people at the present time,” Mubarak said.

Israeli retaliation

In a bid to force the release of the soldier on Wednesday, Israeli aircraft blasted two bridges and a power station in Gaza, cutting off electricity for the southern part of the territory, and deployed tanks and thousands of troops near the southern town of Rafah.

On Thursday, Israeli aircraft and artillery pounded sites across Gaza, hitting suspected weapons factories, an electrical transformer and militant training camps.

No deaths or serious injuries have been reported since the operation began.

Israeli forces have rounded up dozens of Palestinian Cabinet ministers and lawmakers from Hamas, increasing pressure on militants to release a captured Israeli soldier.

Witnesses said on Thursday that tanks moved into northern Gaza, widening Israel’s largest military operation in the year since it pulled out of the seaside territory.

Adding to the tension, a Palestinian militant group claimed on Thursday that it had killed an 18-year-old Jewish settler kidnapped in the West Bank. Palestinian security officials said they believed the body of Eliahu Asheri had been found in the West Bank city of Ram Allah.

Hamas officials said more than 30 lawmakers have been arrested in the West Bank.

Palestinian security officials said Israeli forces detained Nasser Shaer, the Palestinian deputy prime minister, and three other Cabinet ministers, as well as four lawmakers in Ram Allah. Several others were arrested in the town of Jenin, they said.

Israeli media reported a roundup of Hamas lawmakers in Jerusalem and other locations. Also, the Hamas mayor of the West Bank town of Qalqiliya and his deputy were detained, security officials said.

The Israeli military refused to comment. Israel blames Hamas for the Sunday attack in which two soldiers were killed and a third captured when militants tunnelled under the border and attacked an army post, setting off the invasion.

According to the witnesses, before daybreak on Thursday, Israeli tanks and bulldozers moved into northern Gaza, stopping about 200m inside Palestinian territory across from the Jabaliya refugee camp. No clashes were reported. But the military denied its forces had moved into northern Gaza.

AGENCIES

Israeli warplanes have flown over one of the Syrian president’s palaces to warn Damascus against supporting Palestinian fighters who abducted an Israeli soldier, the Israeli army says.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said the planes early on Wednesday flew over Bashar al-Assad’s palace near the city of Latakia, “because the Syrian leadership supports and harbours terrorist leaders, among them Hamas, the kidnappers of the soldier”.

Syria said its air defences opened fire on Israeli warplanes that overflew the country, forcing them to flee.

State-run Syrian television said two Israeli planes flew near Syria’s Mediterranean coast but did not mention Israel’s claim that the planes swooped low over the president’s summer residence.

“The overflight by two Israeli planes near the Syrian shores is an aggressive act and a provocation,” the television news said, quoting an unindentified information ministry official.

Israeli television reports said the overflights, early on Wednesday morning, created several sonic booms.

The armed wing of Hamas was among the three factions that took part in the cross-border raid from Gaza in which the Israeli soldier was seized on Sunday, but it has not said it is holding him. Israeli leaders have accused Damascus-based Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal of being responsible for the kidnapping.

Four warplanes

Israeli television reports said four planes were involved and al-Assad was home at the time.

The flyover was the second time Israel has buzzed al-Assad’s summer palace. In August 2003, warplanes reportedly flew so low that windows in the palace shattered.

At the time, Israel said the flyover was aimed at pressuring al-Assad to dismantle Palestinian resistance groups based in his country.

In October 2003, an Israeli warplane bombed an Islamic Jihad training base deep in Syria.

It was the first attack on Syrian soil in more than two decades.

The air strike followed a bomb attack by Islamic Jihad that killed 19 Israelis in a restaurant.

Talks with Jordan

Separately, the Syrian leader held talks on Wednesday with Marouf al-Bakhit, the Jordanian prime minister. The talks centred on “new political developments in the region, especially in the Palestinian Territories and Iraq”, Syria’s official news agency Sana reported.

Al-Bakhit also handed al-Assad a letter from Jordan’s King Abdullah II dealing with bilateral relations between the two countries, Sana said.

Al-Bakhit, who arrived in Damascus early Wednesday to co-chair meetings of the Higher Joint Syrian-Jordanian Committee, discussed with al-Assad the committee’s role in strengthening bilateral cooperation in all fields, it said.

AGENCIES

Israeli troops and tanks have moved into southern Gaza after diplomatic talks failed to secure the release of a soldier abducted by Palestinian fighters.

An Israeli army spokesman confirmed the incursion that occured early on Wednesday shortly after Palestinian security forces stationed near the border town of Rafah said they were ordered to leave by the Israelis.

The offensive followed air strikes overnight that took out three strategic bridges and hit the main power station, causing a huge fire and plunging Gaza City into darkness.

Palestinian witnesses reported the strikes on Tuesday and early on Wednesday, after Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, approved a “limited operation” in the south of Gaza.

Military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the operation was aimed at “terrorist infrastructure”.

The deployment seems to be the start of a major Israeli incursion into the territory to recover 19 year-old Corporal Gilad Shalit who was captured on Sunday in an attack that left two other soldiers dead.

Strategic hits

Tensions have been high ever since with large numbers of Israeli troops deployed to the border and on Monday Olmert promisied a punitive strike if Shalit was not freed.

One of the bridges hit by the airstrikes was in central Gaza, another near the town of Deir al-Balah and the third south of Gaza City, the Israeli military and Palestinian security officials said. There were no reports of casualties.

An Israeli military statement said the aim of attacking the bridges was “to impair the ability of the terrorists to transfer the kidnapped soldier”.

Palestinian security officials said Gaza would be cut in two by hitting the bridges.

Negotiations to secure Shalit’s release appeared to have failed when the Israeli television station, Channel Two, quoted a source close to Egyptian and French-led mediators saying there was “zero chance” of recovering the soldier through talks.

AGENCIES

Hamas says it has not agreed to recognise Israel despite a political deal reached with Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday.

Hamas - whose charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state - rejected any suggestion the deal to end its damaging power struggle with rival Fatah could imply it now accepts Israel’s existence.

With Israel and the Palestinians preparing for a possible Israeli push into the Gaza Strip following the tank gunner’s abduction, there appeared little chance that the agreement over the document could open a path towards peacemaking soon.

Israeli troops massed at the Gaza border while Palestinian fighters planted land mines and piled up mounds of sand as obstacles.

Abbas, the Palestinian president, had sought to soften Hamas’s line in the hope of ending the US-led financial siege aimed at forcing the group to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept peace accords.

Power struggle

During weeks of wrangling in the power struggle, Abbas tried to get Hamas to accept a document penned by Palestinians in Israeli jails which implicitly recognises Israel.

Hamas accepted it only after amendments it insisted would allow it to stick to its “agenda of resistance” to Israel.

“The document included a clear clause referring to the non-recognition of the legitimacy of the Occupation,” said Sami Abu Zuhri, the Hamas spokesman, using the group’s term for Israel.

Officials close to the negotiations said Abbas of Fatah, and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas, drafted a platform accepting a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, areas captured by Israel in a 1967 war.

Such a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be in line with Fatah’s recognition of Israel.

Hamas clarification

But Hamas legislator Salah al-Bardaweel said: “We said we accept a state (in territory occupied) in 1967 - but we did not say we accept two states.”

A senior aide to Abbas said the agreement clearly meant Hamas accepted Israel. Yasser Abed Rabbo accused Hamas of “playing with words in order to save face”.

The agreement appeared likely to mean the cancellation of a July 26 referendum Abbas had scheduled, over Hamas’s objections, on the prisoners’ document. Under the accord, Hamas, which won elections in January, would agree to form a unity administration with Fatah and other factions.

The European Union, main donor to the Palestinians, praised the agreement as a good first step while Washington said it wanted to see more details. Both said Hamas now has to clearly recognise Israel and renounce violence.
David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said the deal appeared aimed at getting the Europeans to break ranks with the United States to ease the embargo.

“I don’t think it will be successful,” he said.

Israel has said the document is a non-starter and ruled out dealing with Hamas until the group met those terms.

“The document unfortunately would appear to be just more double-speak,” said Mark Regev, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman.

AGENCIES

Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades

on High Alert against any Occupation Operation

Zionist Occupation forces suffered a humiliating defeat in Operation Dispelled Illusion, violently shaking the image of the army and dispelling its superficial assumptions about Palestinian resistance. Palestinian mujahideen conducted the operation quickly and effectively. Occupation commanders were quick to issue threats and statements in a vain effort to cover up and limit the damage of their grave military and intelligence failures to prevent the sophisticated operation.

Palestinian resistance commanders ordered the operation fully expecting the aftermath of the exceptional success. And thus, the Palestinian resistance is aware and prepared to confront this situation.

After the threats issued by occupation commanders, Al-Qassam Brigades declares a state of high alert among its members to respond to any new occupation aggression, in line with lessons learned from previous encounters with the occupation army.

Al-Qassam Brigades warns the occupation army against committing additional crimes in Palestinian cities. Let this be a final warning that any foolish steps taken by the occupation leadership will exact a heavy price. Operation Dispelled Illusion was the price paid by the occupation army for the arrogance and ignorance of its commanders. In the operation, we opted to strike a sophisticated military target despite the repeated and indiscriminate targeting of Palestinian civilians. But if the occupation army attacks Palestinian civilians, they should brace themselves for an unexpected and surprising response.

Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades

Information Office

June 27, 2006

AGENCIES/INFORMATION OFFICE