In the news today:
UN Ambassador John Bolton said there was a sense of urgency about Tehran's defiance of the world community.
His remarks came after the UN nuclear agency, the IAEA, decided to send a report on Iran's nuclear activity to the Security Council.
Iran said it had done all it could to reach a peaceful settlement but the US had "hijacked" the diplomatic process.
Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said: "We don't want confrontation but if this is the wish or policy of the Americans, then the Iranian nation will of course defend its integrity and national interests."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the agency should continue to lead efforts to resolve the dispute.
He expressed doubt that sanctions against Tehran would be effective.
"I don't think sanctions as a means to solve a crisis have ever achieved a goal in the recent history," he told reporters.
The US believes Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons, while Iran insists its nuclear programme is purely peaceful.
The Security Council is expected to discuss the issue as early as next week.
Source: BBC NEWS
50 Abducted in Iraqi Raid; 24 Bodies Found in Baghdad
By KIRK SEMPLE
Published: March 8, 2006
The New York Times
At least 24 bodies, most of them hanged, were found in Baghdad during a 15-hour period.
The raid came on the same day that the Iraqi police and the American military announced that 24 bodies, most of them apparently garroted, had been discovered in Baghdad over a 15-hour period.
The workers at the security company were forced into the government vehicles and, according to witnesses, did not resist because they assumed their abductors were government forces on a legitimate operation.
"It's a terrorist operation, 100 percent," said an official who runs the Baghdad Police operations room. He refused to provide his name because he was not authorized to speak with the media.
The company, al-Rawafid Security Co., is owned by a relative of Sheik Ghazi al-Yawir, one of Iraq's two vice presidents and a Sunni Arab, according to a company employee who asked for anonymity for fear of retribution. Many of the company's employees are Sunni Arabs and related to Mr. Yawir, the employee said.
Reports of illegal raids by uniformed government security forces or criminals masquerading as police, often targeting Sunni Arab interests, have become commonplace in the past year. Sunni Arab leaders have accused the Shiite-led Interior Ministry commandos of operating death squads in a dirty war against Sunni Arabs.
The 24 bodies found in the city before the raid marked one of the highest single-day tallies of execution-style victims in the capital since the American invasion.
Though the bodies were stripped of identification documents, the authorities have often discovered sectarian motivation for such executions in the past. Sectarian violence has gradually seized this country in the past year but worsened considerably following the Feb. 22 bombing of a major Shiite shrine that pushed the country to the brink of a full-scale civil war.
American soldiers, responding to a report of a suspicious vehicle parked on the side of a road, discovered 18 bodies lying in and around a minibus at about 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday in the predominantly Sunni district of Amariya, officials said. The victims, all men, had been bound at the wrists and had bruises on their necks, suggesting they had been strangled with cord or wire, morgue and Interior Ministry officials said.
Four of the men were Sunni drivers, according to a ministry official, though the police have not identified the sectarian allegiances of the other men.
The day's six other victims, all but one of them blindfolded and shot, were dumped in four separate locations and found today, the official said; the final victim had been beheaded. The authorities said they did not know whether the killings, which they have grouped for the time being into five separate cases, were related in any way. Government officials had earlier reported that they had found as many as 29 victims but later reduced that number.
The discoveries came two weeks after the dramatic bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, which sparked a wave of retributive killings, mainly by Shiite militias in eastern Baghdad, that left hundreds of people dead. Amid pleas by religious leaders and an expanded nationwide curfew, the violence subsided.
But the sudden appearance of so many bodies on today suggested that the violent expression of rage that sprung from the shrine bombing had not so much dissipated as gone underground.
The bodies were found in scattered locations around the city. In addition to the 18 in Amariya, another was dumped separately in the same neighborhood, officials said; one in Rustamiya, a mixed Shiite and Sunni neighborhood in eastern Baghdad; two in Baladiyat, an eastern Baghdad neighborhood with a mixed population that witnessed a lot of violence following the Feb. 22 bombing; and two in Kadamiya, a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in north-central Baghdad.
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
This has been Day to Day bringing you up to date news, Around the clock.
His remarks came after the UN nuclear agency, the IAEA, decided to send a report on Iran's nuclear activity to the Security Council.
Iran said it had done all it could to reach a peaceful settlement but the US had "hijacked" the diplomatic process.
Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said: "We don't want confrontation but if this is the wish or policy of the Americans, then the Iranian nation will of course defend its integrity and national interests."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the agency should continue to lead efforts to resolve the dispute.
He expressed doubt that sanctions against Tehran would be effective.
"I don't think sanctions as a means to solve a crisis have ever achieved a goal in the recent history," he told reporters.
The US believes Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons, while Iran insists its nuclear programme is purely peaceful.
The Security Council is expected to discuss the issue as early as next week.
Source: BBC NEWS
50 Abducted in Iraqi Raid; 24 Bodies Found in Baghdad
By KIRK SEMPLE
Published: March 8, 2006
The New York Times
At least 24 bodies, most of them hanged, were found in Baghdad during a 15-hour period.
The raid came on the same day that the Iraqi police and the American military announced that 24 bodies, most of them apparently garroted, had been discovered in Baghdad over a 15-hour period.
The workers at the security company were forced into the government vehicles and, according to witnesses, did not resist because they assumed their abductors were government forces on a legitimate operation.
"It's a terrorist operation, 100 percent," said an official who runs the Baghdad Police operations room. He refused to provide his name because he was not authorized to speak with the media.
The company, al-Rawafid Security Co., is owned by a relative of Sheik Ghazi al-Yawir, one of Iraq's two vice presidents and a Sunni Arab, according to a company employee who asked for anonymity for fear of retribution. Many of the company's employees are Sunni Arabs and related to Mr. Yawir, the employee said.
Reports of illegal raids by uniformed government security forces or criminals masquerading as police, often targeting Sunni Arab interests, have become commonplace in the past year. Sunni Arab leaders have accused the Shiite-led Interior Ministry commandos of operating death squads in a dirty war against Sunni Arabs.
The 24 bodies found in the city before the raid marked one of the highest single-day tallies of execution-style victims in the capital since the American invasion.
Though the bodies were stripped of identification documents, the authorities have often discovered sectarian motivation for such executions in the past. Sectarian violence has gradually seized this country in the past year but worsened considerably following the Feb. 22 bombing of a major Shiite shrine that pushed the country to the brink of a full-scale civil war.
American soldiers, responding to a report of a suspicious vehicle parked on the side of a road, discovered 18 bodies lying in and around a minibus at about 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday in the predominantly Sunni district of Amariya, officials said. The victims, all men, had been bound at the wrists and had bruises on their necks, suggesting they had been strangled with cord or wire, morgue and Interior Ministry officials said.
Four of the men were Sunni drivers, according to a ministry official, though the police have not identified the sectarian allegiances of the other men.
The day's six other victims, all but one of them blindfolded and shot, were dumped in four separate locations and found today, the official said; the final victim had been beheaded. The authorities said they did not know whether the killings, which they have grouped for the time being into five separate cases, were related in any way. Government officials had earlier reported that they had found as many as 29 victims but later reduced that number.
The discoveries came two weeks after the dramatic bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, which sparked a wave of retributive killings, mainly by Shiite militias in eastern Baghdad, that left hundreds of people dead. Amid pleas by religious leaders and an expanded nationwide curfew, the violence subsided.
But the sudden appearance of so many bodies on today suggested that the violent expression of rage that sprung from the shrine bombing had not so much dissipated as gone underground.
The bodies were found in scattered locations around the city. In addition to the 18 in Amariya, another was dumped separately in the same neighborhood, officials said; one in Rustamiya, a mixed Shiite and Sunni neighborhood in eastern Baghdad; two in Baladiyat, an eastern Baghdad neighborhood with a mixed population that witnessed a lot of violence following the Feb. 22 bombing; and two in Kadamiya, a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in north-central Baghdad.
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
This has been Day to Day bringing you up to date news, Around the clock.
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