Suicide attack Iraq: bombers, gunmen kill 23 in attacks against M

Baghdad--Suicide bombings inside a Shiite mosque during evening prayers and other attacks north of Baghdad killed 23 people in Iraq on Saturday, as they announced preliminary results for the local elections in two provinces which showed the block of the President of the Parliament to the head.

The attacks are the latest in a wave of killings that has claimed more than 2,000 lives since the beginning of April. It is the bloodiest and most sustained violence run hit Iraq since 2008.

The deadliest attack occurred after sunset, when a suicidal blew up inside a Shiite mosque in the village of Sabaa al - Bour, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) North of Baghdad. He killed 14 and injured 32, police said.

The community used to be an area of mixed religious who was Sunni and Shiite Muslims, but the Sunnis were displaced by members of the Shiite militia of army Mehdi during the subsequent wave of sectarian killings peaked in 2006 and 2007, according to the police.

Many major religious sites in Iraqi cities are surrounded by walls of concrete of the explosion and armed roadblocks and police did not express the mosque of the village protective barriers.

At least five of the victims died in ambulances as they made their way from the remote village to the nearest hospital in Baghdad, police said.

Earlier, a suicide bomber rammed his car bomb on a police patrol in the village of al - Athba near the restive northern city of Mosul, said a police officer. Three civilian bystanders and a policeman were killed and six other people were injured.

Al - Qaida in Iraq and other militant groups have been gaining momentum in the vicinity of Mosul, about 360 kilometers (220 miles) northwest of Baghdad.

In the city of Tuz Khormato, 210 kilometers (130 miles) North of Baghdad, gunmen on motorcycles riddled a civilian vehicle with four police officers off-duty with bullets, killing three and wounding another, said a police officer.

Another group of gunmen attacked a police checkpoint in the city of Samarra, killing two police officers and it injured four, said another police officer. Samarra is 95 kilometers (60 miles) North of Baghdad.

Police said two civilians were killed and nine wounded when a bomb ripped through a small market late Friday in Baghdad.

Medical officials confirmed the figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity since they were not authorized to disclose information.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the arm of al - Qaeda Iraq and other Sunni extremists often target the Shiite security forces and in an attempt to undermine public confidence in the Shiite-led Government.

Meanwhile, the electoral authorities said a partial recount of votes for provincial elections held Thursday in block Kingdom dominated by the Sunni Anbar and Nineveh provinces showed Sunni Parliament Speaker Osama al - Nujaifi, with the largest number of votes in both provinces. That block is backed by Iraqi Minister Rafia al - Issawi and prominent Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha Sunni.

A coalition of Kurdish parties was in second place in Nineveh, which has a substantial Kurdish minority. A bloc led by the existing Governor of Anbar, Qassim al - Fahdawi, was in second place in that province.

Iraqis voted in 12 of the 18 provinces of Iraq two months ago. Officials had delayed elections in Anbar and Nineveh because of what they said were security concerns, although some Iraqis questioned that rationale and dismissed it as a political ploy linked to disturbances in the provinces. The provinces have been the scene of months of protests against the Government.

The final election results are expected to be published in the coming days.

Also on Saturday, the United Nations said that another 27 residents of a camp housing members of an Iranian exile group have been relocated to Albania. The movement follows an attack with deadly rockets at the facility last week.

A total of 71 residents of the camp liberty have now moved towards the Southeast European country, which has agreed to accept 210 of them. Germany has also offered to take 100 residents. UN Urges all other States members to accept some of the more than 3,000 live in Iraq.

The dissident group, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, is the militant wing of a movement of Iranian opposition in Paris which is opposed to the clerical regime of Iran and has carried out assassinations and bombings there. He fought alongside the forces of Saddam in the Iran and Iraq's 1980-88 war, and thousands of its members received sanctuary in Iraq. It renounced violence in 2001 and was removed from the list of terrorism in the United States last year.

Government of Iraq wants to exit, MEK members and the UN has been working to resettle them overseas.

Two residents of the camp liberty were killed in an attack with rockets on June 15 at the facilities. A Shiite militant group claimed responsibility, saying that he wants to prevent the group out of Iraq.

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Associated with writers of press Sinan Salaheddin and Sameer N. Yacoub contributed to this report.

Fort Hood shooting victims want designated as terrorism attack

-The Commander Nidal Malik Hasan army admits taking a gun, shouting "Allahu akbar" (God is great) and open fire on unarmed people, killing 13 of them. All, says, in an effort to stop Afghanistan and killing fellow Muslims.

Concluding that it was on the "wrong side" in America's war, he told jurors at his Council of war who switched sides.

Then, what victims and others are demanding, it is the attack of November 2009 in Fort Hood, being treated as a case of violence at work and not as an act of terror?

Scott L. Silliman expert military law says the answer is simple. Because the uniform code of military justice does not have a punitive article by "terrorism".

"Don't really have a choice," said Silliman, director emeritus of the center of Duke University in law, ethics and national security at Durham, North Carolina "was an official asset. The crime occurred in a military installation. ... It was obvious that he was going to face a court-martial".

The victims of the shooting rampage filed a lawsuit last year by the Administration's decision to treat the incident as workplace violence. They say that the designation has stolen benefits and made them ineligible to receive the purple heart, given to service members wounded in battle.

On Monday, the staff of the National Review magazine launched a petition drive directed the Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, arguing that the army psychiatrist should be tried as an enemy combatant by what they regard as "an act of Terror".

"By not designating this event as such an Act, does not respect the lives of the 13 who lost their lives that day and dozens more wounded," reads the petition. "This is outrageous and I call to change the official designation now" before continuing proceedings against Hasan.

While Silliman understands the indignation, says that it was not possible to transfer the case to civilian courts - where you could attach a load of terror-.

"It would have been totally unprecedented to have such things occur," said Silliman, who has served as a senior lawyer in two large military installations and three major air force commands. "Now, if the crime had occurred outside the post, then could be what we call a concurrent jurisdiction between civilian authorities and military authorities."

Why cannot the administration calls this an act of terror without charge Hasan as a terrorist? According to a position paper of the widely cited Pentagon opposition purple hearts to the victims that would allow the defense to argue that Hasan "can get a trial just because a branch of the Government has indirectly stated that major Hasan is a terrorist - who is criminally guilty."

Reed Rubinstein, one of the attorneys representing a number of the victims of the shooting and their families, calls this "false" argument.

The National Counterterrorism Center and the State Department told the incident between the attacks of terror that year, says. The White House and the Defense Department have been frustrated, argues, for many people doesn't pay attention to the warning signs that Hasan was becoming increasingly radical that preceded their deployment in Afghanistan.

"The truth of the matter is, that it is policy," said Washington lawyer. "It boils to conceal the political correctness which was the immediate cause of this attack in the first instance". Rubinstein is not asking for an accusation of terrorism but argued that the Government could govern administratively that this was an act of terror so that their customers can qualify for benefits more and the purple heart, which comes with its own set of privileges and awards.

Hasan is representing himself during the court martial. Because he faces the death penalty, military law had prevented him from entering a plea of guilty. But he admitted in his statement of opening Tuesday, as he has done before, did the shooting.

Military prosecutors could have added a civil charge of terrorism, said Geoffrey Corn, a Lieutenant Colonel retired and former military lawyer. But argues that it would have added a layer of unnecessary complexity with little, if any, benefit.

"Never been in a military court soon," says corn, a professor at the South Texas College of Law. "Was it motivated by a terrorist agenda? Without a doubt. It will present the evidence? Without a doubt. But the crimes he committed were premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder".

Corn says it would be difficult in the case of Hasan as a combatant enemy. While Hasan may have been inspired al - Qaida and even had contact with known terrorist suspects, it does not appear that he received orders from the group, says the corn.

Rubinstein negative terms of the Government called the shooting a terrorist attack for the purposes of the granting of benefits "a kick in the teeth to the victims."

"They have to hear about workplace violence," he says. "They tell them that what happened was not. Do not pay attention to the fact that he was a jihadist. They knew that we knew and the FBI. But his career, because of their race and religion, was more important to us than their lives. You forget all of that."

Government lawyers have asked a federal judge to delay the civil case, to reclassify the incident as well as make combat-related pay and other benefits available to victims, until after the court martial and processing subsequent have been completed. That could take up to nine months.

Victim Shawn Manning estimated that it lost $2,000 a month in wages and benefits due to the decision to classify injuries resulting from violence at work rather than combat or terrorism-related. They had their wounds have been classified in this way, the army would have paid the difference between their pay of civilian and reserve, offered better medical benefits and awarded higher payments for disability.

"And Hasan is still collecting their higher pay," growls Manning, who now works as a specialist in civil mental health at Fort Lewis, Washington

"That is not correct," accepts the former Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, who was shot seven times and still has a bullet in the back. Manning and he spoke with The Associated Press before the order of a military judge this week not to discuss the case.

Silliman said that, it is also the way in which the military system operates.

"Remember, he is innocent until found otherwise," he says. "It will be drawing full pay as a United States Army major... until a judgment is awarded in the case and the sentence is approved by the authority of call".

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Breed reported from Raleigh, North Carolina and Plushnick Masti-from Houston.

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