Sunday, February 10, 2008

Acta Diurna - Iraqi Style

While so much of our attention has been attracted away from the War to Line Dick Cheney's Pockets, what with elections and caucuses and Brittney and the Chelsea Pimp Remark and all, we might have missed the following:

Five US soldiers died in separate IED attacks earlier this weekend, while US and Iraqi forces detained 22 members of a splinter group of the Mahdi Army. We're trying to tread softly around the followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, or the truce will end and we'll be back in shit up to our necks.

A diary was purportedly found in the Iraqi town of Balad, dating back to October, where the local insurgent/jihadist commander bemoans the progress made against him and his minions. If this is true, then at least the escalation worked in Balad.

And finally, two cakes were delivered to an Iraqi Air Force officer's club. They were taken home and eaten by a couple of families, who then quite inexplicably fell ill. The cakes, you see, were laced with poisonous thallium, which can cause a painful death (and according to the article was a favorite stealth tactic by Saddam's old secret police). Two children have died so far.

The idea of using thallium as a poison jumped out at me, since in 1991 a local man named George Trepal used thallium to poison his neighbors (he didn't like the noise they were making). He killed one and sickened six others, and is currently on Death Row in Florida.

So! What's happening in your neck of the woods this fine day?

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