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'Chemical Ali' Sentenced to Hang for Genocide of Kurds
Rubbar Mohammed visits the graves of family members killed in a chemical attack in 1998 in Halabja, Iraq. Ali Hassan al-Majeed, also known as "Chemical Ali," and two other former Hussein officials were sentenced to hang for their roles in the deaths of as many as 180,000 Kurds.
(By Yahya Ahmed -- Associated Press)
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Justice officials are considering trials in other high-profile cases, including the killings of thousands of Shiites in southern Iraq after they rebelled against Hussein's rule following the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Elsewhere Sunday in Iraq, Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek, commander of a U.S. offensive north of Baghdad against the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, said U.S. troops had cleared insurgents out of at least 60 percent of western Baqubah, the focus of the operation, but that Iraqi troops were not yet ready to hold the territory.
"One of our biggest challenges is how are we holding and retaining the terrain that we clear," Bednarek said in an interview, adding that Iraqi security forces are "not quite up to the job yet" of holding the territory themselves.
A key problem for Iraqi troops is a lack of proper equipment, he said. "It runs the gamut from uniforms, weapons, helmets, body armor, boots, ammunition, trucks, radios."
Bednarek said it could take several weeks to clear insurgents from Baqubah, capital of Diyala province, and that it would probably be several more months before Iraqi forces in Diyala can stand on their own.
He said some senior leaders of al-Qaeda in Iraq had fled the town, about 25 miles northeast of Baghdad, and that U.S. and Iraqi forces are trying to "tighten the noose" around three western Baqubah neighborhoods where 50 to 100 insurgents are still hiding.
A U.S. military spokesman, Maj. Robbie Parke, said that 49 al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters have been killed in the offensive and 50 detained. One U.S. soldier has been killed and about 14 injured, Bednarek said.
Also on Sunday, the Associated Press reported that a 35-year-old Iraqi journalist was shot to death on her way home from work in Mosul, the second female journalist to be killed in the northern city this month, officials said.
The attack on Zeena Shakir Mahmoud occurred even as Maliki, the prime minister, marked Iraqi Journalists' Day by acknowledging the high numbers of media workers killed in the country, saying their "blood was mixed with the blood of Iraqi people who die every day for the sake of defending Iraq."
Correspondent Joshua Partlow in Baqubah and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.
