Iraq Notebook
War aiding terrorists, says Israeli think tank

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TEL AVIV, Israel — The war in Iraq has not damaged international terror groups but instead distracted the United States from confronting other hotbeds of Islamic militancy and actually "created momentum" for many terrorists, a top Israeli security think tank said in a report released yesterday.

President Bush has called the war in Iraq an integral part of the war on terrorism, but the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University said that instead of striking a blow against Islamic extremists, the Iraq war "has created momentum for many terrorist elements, but chiefly al-Qaida and its affiliates."

The concentration of U.S. intelligence assets in Iraq "has to be at the expense of being able to follow strategic dangers in other parts of the world," said Jaffee Center director Shai Feldman.

Shlomo Brom, a retired Israeli army general, said the U.S.-led effort was strategically misdirected. If the goal in the war against terrorism is "not just to kill the mosquitoes but to dry the swamp," he said, "now it's quite clear" that Iraq "is not the swamp."

Kidnappers free 10 Turkish hostages

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey's foreign minister early today said 10 Turkish hostages had been freed by kidnappers and had arrived at the Turkish embassy in Baghdad.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said the construction-company employees' families were notified.

Islamic Web site shows twobeheadings

BAGHDAD, Iraq — An Islamic Web site yesterday showed the beheading of two hostages, one a Turkish contractor and the other an Iraqi Kurdish translator.

A statement said the two were killed by the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, which also claimed responsibility for slaughtering 12 Nepalese workers and three Iraqi Kurds on Aug. 31.
 
A written statement appearing on the video showing the beheadings accused the Kurdish translator of participating in raids with U.S. troops in the Ramadi area.

A second statement claimed the Turkish contractor was working for the Americans at an air base north of Baghdad.

Also

The Iraqi border patrol yesterday took over responsibility for protecting southern oil installations, deploying at least 200 officers to guard a 100-mile stretch between the Iraqi cities of Nasiriyah and Basra. They will replace a private U.S. security firm that had been paid $1 million a day to protect the installations, which have been attacked more than 200 times in the past 18 months.

Australian troops will stay in Iraq, Prime Minister John Howard declared yesterday, two days after he won a fourth term in office. His opponent had pledged to bring the 900 soldiers still in Iraq home by Christmas.

A U.S. warplane early today destroyed a popular Fallujah restaurant the U.S. military said was a meeting place for members of Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's organization. Residents said the restaurant was closed at the time but two night watchmen were killed.