Iraq

Iraq extends ban on Al-Jazeera

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government shut down Al-Jazeera's Baghdad operations indefinitely on Saturday, extending a one-month closure order imposed after the pan-Arab channel was accused of inciting violence.

Officials at Al-Jazeera reacted with outrage, but did not say how it would respond to the order.

"This decision runs contrary to pledges made by the Iraqi authorities to pursue a policy of openness and to safeguard freedoms of the press and expression," a statement from the station said.

Iraq's Ministerial National Security Committee said in an e-mail statement that it had decided to extend a suspension ordered Aug. 5 because al-Jazeera had failed to offer an explanation of its editorial policies.

"Based on this lack of respect for an official government order," the committee extended the ban "until a time when Al-Jazeera TV headquarters sends an official response," the English-language statement said.

CAIRO, Egypt - Iraqi militants threatened to behead a Turkish truck driver if his company and the Kuwaiti contractor it works for don't stop their operations in Iraq within 48 hours, according to a videotape aired on Arab television Saturday.

The video on the Al-Arabiya television channel came from a previously unknown group calling itself the Islamic Resistance Movement Al-Noaman Brigades. It showed a bearded man, purported to be the Turkish truck driver, sitting in front of a black banner bearing the group's name in gold Arabic characters. It was not immediately possible to verify the tape's authenticity.

"We demand that the two companies stop these acts (in transporting supplies to coalition forces in Iraq), which make it necessary for those carrying them out to be killed," according to a statement read out by a suspected militant not shown during the tape.

BAGHDAD - About 1,100 U.S. soldiers and Marines were wounded in Iraq during August, by far the highest combat injury toll for any month since the war began and an indication of the intensity of battles flaring in urban areas.

U.S. medical commanders say the sharp rise in battlefield injuries reflects more than three weeks of fighting by two Army and one Marine battalion in the southern city of Najaf. At the same time, U.S. units frequently faced combat in a sprawling Shiite Muslim slum in Baghdad and in the Sunni cities of Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra, all of which remain under the control of insurgents two months after the transfer of political authority.

"They were doing battlefield urban operations in four places at one time," said Lt. Col. Albert Maas, operations officer for the 2nd Medical Brigade, which oversees U.S. combat hospitals in Iraq. "It's like working in downtown Detroit. You're going literally building to building."

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