Oliver Willis reports that the FBI is negotiating with the Taliban...Jesse at Pandagon and Jim Henley have more.

So you thought the war in Iraq was over?

U.S. forces killed 27 Iraqi fighters in a ground and air pursuit Friday after the Iraqis attacked an American tank patrol north of Baghdad, the military said. The fighting came as U.S. forces pressed forward with a massive, four-day-old sweep to crush resistance by supporters of Saddam Hussein's regime north of Baghdad.

U.S. Central Command said an "organized group" ambushed the tanks with rocket propelled grenades in Balad, about 35 miles from the capital on the main highway north. The statement made no mention of U.S. casualties.

The U.S. military is investigating whether U.S. troops are responsible for the mystery death of an Iraqi POW.

One military official said tonight there were indications of "foul play" in the death of a 52-year-old Iraqi whose corpse was found last Friday at a prisoner camp run by the First Marine Division near Nasiriya.

The official emphasized it was unclear whether American soldiers, other prisoners or something else was to blame, and that a preliminary autopsy was inconclusive.

British authorities are investigating the deaths of two Iraqis under British control, and accusations that British forces tortured Iraqi prisoners.

It is unclear whether, "whether the prisoner's illness or injuries were related to the interrogation or whether other prisoners, suspecting he had cooperated with the Americans, may have attacked him. "

Here's more. And here's the press release from Headquarters, United States Central Command.

The famous and mysterious blogger from Iraq, Salam Pax, is real. Journalist and author Peter Maas says Pax worked for him in Iraq as an interpreter and guide. [link via Instapundit]

Update: Salam Pax will be writing a bi-weekly column in the Guardian, beginning Wednesday. [link via Demagogue] You can read a profile of Salam here.

Today in Mother Jones: Forgotten in Memorial by Chris Appy

President Bush's Memorial Day address was suitably reverent, paying tribute to those Americans who have died fighting for their country. But, as Chris Appy writes, the president's rhetoric seems out of step with his administration's actual practice. Appy, who has been compiling an oral history of the Vietnam war, notes that the White House and the mainstream media seem to have little interest in keeping count of the GI's who continue to die in Iraq -- never mind the Iraqi civilians.

We hope this story gets legs:

The top U.S. Marine commander in Iraq said Friday that U.S. intelligence was "simply wrong" in its assessment that Saddam Hussein intended to unleash chemical or biological weapons against U.S. forces during the war, but he stopped short of saying there was an overall intelligence failure.

If that's true, the Bush Administration's ineptitude is simply astounding.

Hessiod at Counterspin and Daily Kos have more.

Photographs have been found that suggest Iraqi soldiers were tortured by British troops.

A British soldier was arrested today after he left a roll of film at a photo store that appeared to show an Iraqi prisoner being tortured, the Defense Ministry said today.

The film depicted a bound and gagged Iraqi inside a net that was suspended from a forklift, according to The Sun, which first reported the story this morning. The Sun also reported that the roll included pictures of soldiers performing sex acts near Iraqi prisoners.

The story came to light after a lab technician who was developing the film alerted the local police. The police arrested the soldier at his home in Tamworth, Staffordshire.

If the allegations prove true, the soldier, and perhaps others at the scene in Iraq, would be in violation of the Geneva Conventions, which require that prisoners of war must be treated humanely.

This isn't the first such allegation.....

Salam Pax returned to his blog recently. UPI has this report:

Salam Pax is back. The anonymous Iraqi whose cyber-reporting of life in Baghdad during the war made him an Internet star, is back in business, issuing a grim warning after a roving tour through Iraq's postwar chaos: "I came back from the trip seriously worrying that we might become an Iran clone."

"If anyone went to the streets now and decided to hold an election we will end up with something that is scarier than (Ayatollah) Khomeini's Iran," Salam Pax writes, using the nom-de-plume that became famous during the war. It means peace-peace, in Arabic and Latin.

Don't miss Mother Jones today and The Return of the Poppy Fields in Afganistan

With America's attention elsewhere, the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan is faltering. As a result, poor and desperate farmers are once again turning to the only crop they can count on.

Last year opium production in Afghanistan increased 18 fold to 3,400 tons, leaving the fragile country once again responsible for more than 75 percent of the world's heroin. The harvest this summer is expected to break new records, owing to high prices and new poppy fields in the country's most remote reaches.

This resurgence is among the greatest threats to the country's stability. Ashraf Ghani, the nation's finance minister, recently warned that Afghanistan could soon revert to a "narco-mafia" state. As it stands, the lawless and tribal foes of Hamid Karzai's government outside Kabul have become the country's primary moneymen. Warlords and militias oversaw a crop harvest worth more than $1.2 billion in 2002, according to the United Nations, more than twice as much as the Afghan government's annual operating budget.

Let's get something straight. According to Unicef, children in Iraq are in grave peril and undergoing crisis conditions as a result of the war. Our war in Afganistan (and our failure to provide rebuilding tools and money) has resulted in a huge increase in production of the world's most addictive substance. But the war was a success? Not to us.

[comments now closed]

From the BBC....Via Tapped:

Witnesses told us that the special forces knew that the Iraqi military had fled a day before they swooped on the hospital.

"We were surprised. Why do this? There was no military, there were no soldiers in the hospital," said Dr Anmar Uday, who worked at the hospital.

"It was like a Hollywood film. They cried 'go, go, go', with guns and blanks without bullets, blanks and the sound of explosions. They made a show for the American attack on the hospital -- action movies like Sylvester Stallone or Jackie Chan."

There was one more twist. Two days before the snatch squad arrived, Harith had arranged to deliver Jessica to the Americans in an ambulance. But as the ambulance, with Private Lynch inside, approached a checkpoint American troops opened fire, forcing it to flee back to the hospital. The Americans had almost killed their prize catch.

Tapped isn't sure whether to believe the story.

On the other hand, this kinda fits. It might explain, for instance, the shifting stories about Lynch's injuries. First the Pentagon reported that she had broken bones, but no gunshot wounds. Then, later, she was somehow discovered to have wounds "consistent with low-velocity small arms," according to a family spokesman in Lynch's home town, who, oddly, seems to speak in military jargon. Did they add the story of the gunshot wound after the fact to make it sound more dire? It would also explain why the man who supposedly alerted U.S. forces to Lynch's whereabouts, an Iraqi lawyer known only as Mohammed -- they know he's a lawyer but not his last name, even though, according to Newsweek, he had three visits with a Marine detachment before the raid -- has mysteriously disappeared. If the BBC is to be believed, maybe he didn't exist at all.

The curious part of the story to us has always been that the lawyer disappeared and was reported to have been sent to a refugee camp. If he was really the hero the press made him out to be, why wouldn't he be rewarded? But then , a few weeks ago, reports came out saying that the lawyer and his wife and child had been flown to America where they will receive asylum.

10. "We've only looked through 99% of the country"

9. "We spent entire budget making those playing cards"

8. "Containers are labeled in some crazy language"

7. "They must have been stolen by some of them evil X-Men mutants"

6. "Did I say Iraq has weapons of mass destruction? I meant they have goats"

5. "How are we supposed to find weapons of mass destruction when we can't even find Cheney?"

4. "Still screwed up because of Daylight Savings Time"

3. "When you're trying to find something, it's always in the last place you look, am I right, people?"

2. "Let's face it -- I ain't exactly a genius"

1. "Geraldo took them"

There has been a lot of coverage today of Saddam and his son Qusay taking $1 billion in cash from the Iraqi Central Bank right before the bombing. The BBC says some are speculating the money went to Syria.

the possibility that some of the cash may have gone to Syria could refocus attention on Damascus' relations with the former regime. During the war, the US accused Syria of giving help to Saddam Hussein and threatened reprisals. Washington officials also said they believed that a number of regime officials had sought refuge in Damascus.

On April 14, we wrote

After the second bombing targeting Saddam, we began leaning towards believing Saddam escaped both bombings.

Here's our current theory: One of Saddam's sons was killed in the first "decapitation" attack. Saddam was slightly wounded. He was at the location of the second attack and survived. He used a cell phone to put into effect pre-arranged plans to transfer $1 billion to Syria in exchange for safe haven. He and his second son are in Syria.

We have no idea if the money went to Syria or not, but that's still our best guess.