Unbelievable: AP’s Iraqi police source isn’t Iraqi police
Contrary to recent media reporting that four mosques were burned in Hurriya, an Iraqi Army patrol investigating the area found only one mosque had been burned in the neighborhood.
Soldiers from the 6th Iraqi Army Division conducted a patrol in Hurriya Friday afternoon in response to media reports that four mosques were being burned as retaliation for the VBIED attacks in Sadr City on Thursday.
The Soldiers set up a checkpoint near the Al Muhaimen mosque at approximately 2 p.m. and found the mosque intact with no evidence of any fire at the location.
While investigating the Al Meshaheda mosque, the patrol received small arms fire from unknown insurgents. The patrol returned fire, and the insurgents broke contact and fled the area. A subsequent check of the mosque found the mosque intact with no evidence of a fire.
At approximately 3:50 p.m., a local civilian reported to the patrol that armed insurgents had set the Al-Nidaa mosque on fire by throwing a gas container into the mosque. The patrol pursued the insurgents but lost contact with them.
The Soldiers called the fire department and set up a cordon around the mosque. Local fire trucks responded to the scene and extinguished the fire at approximately 4:00 p.m. The mosque sustained smoke and fire damage in the entry way but was not destroyed.
An alleged attack on a fourth mosque remains unconfirmed. The patrol was also unable to confirm media reports that six Sunni civilians were allegedly dragged out of Friday prayers and burned to death. Neither Baghdad police nor Coalition forces have reports of any such incident.
Flopping Aces is all over the story with all kinds of wonderful links. I, too, would like to know who Capt. Jamil Hussein is. He sure does get coverage though. His name is mentioned when Sunni’s are attacked :
This one from April:
In yesterday’s worst violence, the bodies of six handcuffed, blindfolded and tortured men were found in the Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein.
This one from May:
Violence resumed Saturday as a bomb in a parked car exploded near a busy bus station in southern Baghdad, killing at least four civilians and wounding seven, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said.
[:]Elsewhere, a policeman was killed and an officer wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their convoy in Baghdad’s western district of Mansour, Razzaq said. He also said three policemen were wounded when gunmen ambushed a convoy of Interior Ministry commandos in the southern neighbourhood of al-Bayaa in the capital.
Gunmen in three speeding cars also ambushed a patrol in western Baghdad, wounding 10 people, including six policemen, and two other policemen were injured in drive-by shootings in a nearby neighbourhood, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said.
Two other policemen were injured Saturday in drive-by shootings elsewhere in western Baghdad, when gunmen in two speeding cars attacked their patrol in Amiriya neighbourhood of western Baghdad, police Capt. Jamil Hussien said.
Here is one from June:
Two explosions struck an Interior Ministry patrol and a market in the Baghdad area on Monday evening, killing at least seven people and wounding 16, police said. The first attack was a car bomb that struck an Interior Ministry patrol in western Baghdad, killing four commandos and wounding six, Capt. Jamil Hussein said. About 30 minutes later, a bomb exploded in a market in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 10.
July:
Gunmen also ambushed a bus in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Amariyah in western Baghdad, killing six passengers, including a woman, and the driver, police Capt. Jamil Hussein said.
A suicide truck bomb slammed into a Baghdad police headquarters on Wednesday, killing seven and wounding at least double that many, in a deadly 24 hours that saw more than 45 killings in Iraq, including two American soldiers, authorities said.
The truck bomb attack in the southern Baghdad neighbourhood of Dora came at 07:45 as policemen were coming on duty and the blast razed the building, said captain Jamil Hussein. He said the number of casualties was expected to rise.
ALLAHPUNDIT is all over this, as is, Florida Cracker , Patterico, Don Surber, and Junkyard Blog.
November 27, 2006 - 03:20 PM on November 27th, 2006
Maybe Dan Rather is AP’s information source? Could he now be working with Baghdad Bob to feed breaking “stories” to the AP? We all know how expert Dan Blather is at making up “news”.
Editor: What news have you got for today, Dan?
Blather: What news do you want?
November 27, 2006 - 03:48 PM on November 27th, 2006
Do you actully think the Ultra-liberal, leftist, marsist loving American press and news media, is going to admit any wrong that might be favorable to the military thay they so hate?
November 27, 2006 - 03:53 PM on November 27th, 2006
2- Of course not!
November 27, 2006 - 04:01 PM on November 27th, 2006
Sourcing the News Turns Up Interesting Development
Curt at Flopping Aces was definitely on to something when he originally wrote about the curious Iraqi police Capt. Jamil Hussein. Curt found out that Captain Hussein was neither a Captain in the Iraqi police nor was in the employ of the Iraqi Interio…
November 27, 2006 - 06:54 PM on November 27th, 2006
Okay. We can all agree that there has been false reporting out of Iraq. We don’t hear everything, and some things that we hear are incorrect.