Steve Gilliard, 1964-2007

It is with tremendous sadness that we must convey the news that Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog, passed away June 2, 2007. He was 42.

To those who have come to trust The News Blog and its insightful, brash and unapologetic editorial tone, we have Steve to thank from the bottom of our hearts. Steve helped lead many discussions that mattered to all of us, and he tackled subjects and interest categories where others feared to tread.

Please keep Steve's friends and family in your thoughts and prayers.

Steve meant so much to us.

We will miss him terribly.

Loveandlight: "The botched raid that led to the hostage crisis"

A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security
officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol
for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British
sailors and Marines.

Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched
a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the
city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior
Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and
still holds.

In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The
Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without
informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very
heart of the Iranian security establishment.

Labels: Bush, Iran