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["Toni Hawryluk" <tonihawr AT msn.com>]

http://famulus.msnbc.com/famulusintl/ap10-22-125746.asp?reg=mideast&vts=102220041328

 

 Developments concerning Iraq

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Oct. 22 -        Developments concerning Iraq on Friday:

 

       - Trembling, haggard and weeping into a tissue, Margaret Hassan, the 
kidnapped British aid worker who has spent nearly half her life delivering 
food and medicine in Iraq, begged Britain to help save her by withdrawing its 
troops, saying these ''might be my last hours.'' Hassan's statement, 
televised by Al-Jazeera, came a day after <>Britain agreed to a U.S. request 
to transfer 850 British soldiers to the Baghdad area to free American forces 
for new offensives against insurgents. 


       - The Macedonian Foreign Ministry confirmed that three Macedonian 
contractors kidnapped in Iraq on Aug. 21 had been beheaded by their captors. 
A Turkish welder, Abdurrahman Yildirim, escaped this week from his Iraqi 
captors, who left a door open, his uncle Mehmet Balli said. 


       - U.S. troops battled insurgents with small arms, rocket and artillery 
fire near Buhriz, a former Saddam Hussein stronghold about 35 miles northeast 
of Baghdad. U.S. troops killed nine suspected insurgents but suffered no 
American casualties, the military said. 


       - Trial dates were set for two soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi 
inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison. Spc. Charles Graner Jr., 36, of Uniontown, 
Pa., will face court-martial on Jan. 7, while Sgt. Javal Davis, 26, of 
Maryland, will stand trial Feb. 1. 


       - A car bomb exploded near an American armored vehicle in the northern 
city of Mosul, wounding five U.S. soldiers, the military said. 


       - Roadside bombs near the southern port city of Basra hit two patrols, 
wounding three Danish soldiers, the Danish military said. 


       - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's appeal for international troops 
to protect U.N. monitors during Iraq's elections next year is unlikely to get 
a reply from Europe before the U.S. elections, analysts and diplomats said. 
However, analysts believe a John Kerry victory could increase pressure on 
French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to 
send in troops. 



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