Iraq Watch: November 8, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Adel al-Zubeidi, a defense lawyer for former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, was assassinated Tuesday as he drove through the Baghdad neighborhood of Adil. Another defense lawyer, Thamir al-Khuzaie, was wounded in the early-afternoon ambush.

The latest shooting, which follows the kidnapping and murder of another defense lawyer - Saadoun al-Janabi - in October, puts into question whether the trail against Sadam Hussein and seven co-defendants, stemming from an alleged 1982 massacre of over 140 Shiites in Dujail, can move forward. The trial is scheduled to resume later this month.

Saddam's chief lawyer, Abdel Haq Alani, told the Associated Press that the U.S. was to blame for the insecurity surrounding the landmark legal proceedings. "The whole trial, the bloodshed in Iraq, the killings, the violence and everything else wouldn't have happened, had the Americans not invaded Iraq."

Also on Tuesday, the U.S. military announced that the town of Husaybah, located near the Syrian border, is now secure as a result of 'Operation Steel Curtian'. The offensive, designed to root out militants with ties to al-Qaida in Iraq, has resulted in the deaths of 36 suspected insurgents and the apprehension of more than 150 men of military age the military said. One U.S. Marine has died in the fighting thus far.

Four Iraqi soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb explosion in Dali Abbas, northeast of the capital while two Iraqi policemen died in separate bombing near Daquq, south of Kirkuk.

South of Baghdad, the bodies of six people, all handcuffed, were found near a water treatment plant.