- BAGHDAD (AFP) -- Despite
a drop in violence across Iraq, there is still no place in the country
that is safe from attack by extremists, the US military warned on Sunday.
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- "We have made no projections of peace at hand. We
realise that security is very fragile and that at any moment any attack
could occur at any place in Iraq," military spokesman Rear Admiral
Gregory Smith told a news conference in Baghdad.
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- "There is no place in Iraq today that is safe from
terrorism," Smith added.
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- "We still have car bombs, we still have suicide
attacks. Taking the fight to Al-Qaeda in Iraq is still very serious. Al-Qaeda
in Iraq is still very much determined to use car bombs and other means
of destruction against innocents."
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- Smith disputed claims by Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden
in an audio tape released on Saturday that his terror network does not
target innocent civilians.
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- "Their actions demonstrate otherwise. Continued
bombings, car bombings, suicide... and other attacks of violence have all
targeted innocent civilians."
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- Al-Qaeda's real intention, he said, was to turn Iraq
into a regional power base but this ambition was being thwarted by Iraqi
tribal leaders and local citizens who were forming "Awakening"
councils across the country aimed at driving out the extremist group.
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- "These actions by the tribes and the voluntary citizens
have become a central concern to Al-Qaeda," Smith said, making reference
to bin Laden's comments castigating as "traitors" Iraqis who
have joined the Awakening councils.
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- The Al-Qaeda leader said those battling his group have
"betrayed the nation and brought shame and scandal, that will be followed
by damnation forever unless they repent," according to an excerpt
translated from Arabic by SITE, a US-based institute that monitors extremist
web forums.
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- Smith said bin Laden was trying to "rationalise"
Al-Qaeda's setbacks and was ignoring "the most obvious fact that the
tribes and citizens have rejected Al-Qaeda ideology."
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- Despite bin Laden singling out Awakening groups in western
Anbar province, where the first Awakening council was formed in September
2006, Smith said he did not believe the extremist network "has the
strength to regain any capacity in Anbar." <snipt>
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- The Iraqi interior ministry on Saturday trumpeted its
achievements over the past year, saying that most of Al-Qaeda's networks
in the country had been destroyed.
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- "We have destroyed 75 percent of Al-Qaeda hide-outs,
and we broke up major criminal networks that supported Al-Qaeda in Baghdad,"
ministry spokesman Abdul Karim Khalaf told a news conference.
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