The Great Game

The great game is in full swing.

The UN:

The United Nations Security Council agreed on a statement demanding that Iran's government curb its nuclear program and assist inspectors, amid concerns from the U.S. that the research is an attempt to produce a bomb.

Iran will be given 30 days to show compliance with International Atomic Energy Agency requirements, including the suspension of uranium enrichment.

The news that the U.S. and Iran plan to hold talks on mutual concerns in Iraq seemed somewhat incongruous, to say the least, coming at the end of a week during which President Bush had reiterated that Tehran was part of an Axis of Evil, Secretary of State Rice had chided Iran as the "central banker of terrorism," and Washington's man at the UN, John Bolton, had spoken of a threat from Iran akin to "9/11 with nuclear weapons." Yet within hours of Iran's national security chief announcing on Thursday that Tehran was open for talks on Iraq, the Bush Administration made clear that it was, too.
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The Bush administration had, in fact, some time ago authorized its Baghdad ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, to seek talks with Iran about the situation in Iraq.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi on Monday expressed outrage at ruthless mass killing of worshipers at Mustafa Mosque in Baghdad and termed it as savage act of terrorism.

Asefi said that the reports indicated involvement of US forces in the heinous crime which resulted in the killing of 20 worshipers at the Baghdad mosque.

He called on the international community and human rights organizations to bring those responsible for the mass killing of worshipers to justice.

"US wrong policies in Iraq never helped restore peace and stability in that country and instead caused escalation of tension and crisis there," Asefi said.

Iraqi media said that US forces invaded Mustafa mosque in Baghdad, opening fire on worshipers in which 20 died instantly.

Iraqi premier's spokesman Abdel Razzaq al-Kazemi said that Iraqi government has formed a committee to hold inquiry into the mass killing of worshipers by US forces.

United Alliance of Iraq (UAI) on Monday urged U.S. forces to return control of security to Iraqis after last night's mass killing of worshipers in a Baghdad mosque in a military raid.

Issuing a strongly worded statement, the alliance made the demand as angry Shias buried victims of the massacre on Sunday night's military operation by US forces and elements of Iraqi forces working with US troops.

"The Alliance calls for a rapid hand-over of control of security matters to the Iraqi government," Jawad al-Maliki, a senior spokesman of the United Iraqi Alliance told reporters.

The building was not a traditional mosque but a former Baath party compound used by Shia Muslims for prayers and other religious events and was known locally as the Mustafa mosque.

Baghdad:

American journalist Jill Carroll, abducted in early January by gunmen in Baghdad, was released to a Sunni Arab political party in the capital Thursday morning after 82 days in captivity.
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Tariq al-Hashimi, the party's secretary general, said in a telephone call at 12:30 p.m. local time that "unknown people" released Carroll to the Iraqi Islamic Party's branch office in Amariyah, in the western part of Baghdad. The party then transported her by armed convoy to its headquarters in the Yarmouk district.

The Iraqi commander during a controversial raid by American and Iraq forces is backing the U.S. version of a battle that left 16 Iraqis dead, CBS News correspondent Lara Logan reports.
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The commander insisted his Iraqi Special Operations troops had to fight their way into the target building where they killed gunmen guarding a hostage and found various weapons including rocket launchers and heavy machine guns.

"We know this, the building, is used for to capture the civilians, the civilian people, by bad guys and they need money," the commander tells Logan.

A man who claims he was held hostage in the building, says of his captors, "They beat me, they kicked me and they used an electric drill on me. I thought I was going to die."