Word: checkpointed
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...pictures. TV also managed itself: as the statue fell, troops were in a fire fight blocks away, but viewers saw little of that scene - it didn't fit the master story line. Still, no stage management could keep Marines from undiplomatically raising Old Glory or shooting civilians at a checkpoint, as Australian TV caught Wednesday night in footage widely replayed in the States...
...situation for the villagers along the road, and that could quickly become a political problem for the U.S. On Monday, a few hours after the Marines moved into Tikrit, we drove down from Kirkuk. Just before the bridge that leads to the city, we were stopped at an impromptu checkpoint. Armed Arab tribesmen invited us - without the option of refusal - to meet their sheik, Said Badr Alihani. They led us along the dusty side roads of their settlement, where we noticed scouts strategically positioned along...
...station had been exasperated by outsiders - Kurds, apparently - taking fuel at gunpoint without payment. The tribe had called in reinforcements and opened fire on suspected looters. They would let us go by, we were told, but would shoot anybody trying to get into the station. A well-armed checkpoint waved us by with salutations just outside the gas station. Twenty or so men with automatic rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades waved from the ditch where they had taken up positions. We drove on past the usual sights along the Tikrit road: a missile laying on its upturned transporter...
...said we had Baghdad plates, perfect for this part of the country. Removing the plates was, in itself, a dangerous act given the inflamed situation. The tribesmen could easily have assumed that the car had just been stolen, and act accordingly. I also had visions of Karim charging the checkpoint instead of stopping to chat. So I fired him. He leaves for his hometown Suleymaniya this evening, with a nice bonus. This is a pain...
While attention is diverted to the war in Iraq, hostilities in Afghanistan are on the rise. In the past three weeks, two special-forces men were killed in an ambush, three Afghan soldiers had their throats slit at a lonely checkpoint, and a close ally of Afghan President Hamid Karzai was gunned down in southern Afghanistan. A former top Taliban chief, Mullah Dadullah, told the BBC in a phone interview that the warrior clerics were coming out of hiding to renew their war against Karzai and the U.S.-led coalition backing him. Dadullah claimed they are taking orders directly from...