Photo: U.S. soldiers stand guard near blindfolded suspected insurgents who were arrested during a raid in Baghdad, April 20, 2007. (Thaier al-Sudani/Reuters)
[What’s wrong with this photo? The so-called insurgent is wearing slip off shoes. All the better for not running away, I suppose. – dancewater]
Baghdad:
Clashes erupted between gunmen and U.S. and Iraqi forces around a Shiite mosque in western Baghdad just before Friday prayers, witnesses and local media said. The U.S. military said it was looking into the reports. One witness to the clash before prayers said American helicopter gunships fired on the mosque in Baiyaa, a religiously mixed neighborhood in western Baghdad, just before noon. He said four people were killed and seven others hurt. But Iraqi police and the U.S. military could not confirm the account. State television also reported a "coalition jet fighter" bombed the Ali al-Baiyaa mosque, but gave no further details.
In other violence Friday, police said a roadside bomb killed one civilian and wounded three others southeast of Baghdad
Gunmen opened fire on civilians in Saadoun street in central Baghdad on Thursday, killing three people and wounding two, police said.
One civilian was killed and two others wounded by "Kurkdish Peshmerga" militias on Friday, eyewitnesses said. A gunman "opened fire at a checkpoint of the Peshmerga forces in the al-Aamil neighborhood, followed by random fire by the Kurdish forces at a popular market in the area," an eyewitness told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq
In Baghdad, one suspect was killed when U.S. troops entered a building to disrupt a car bomb-making cell, the military said.
Diyala Prv:
One civilian was killed and his brother seriously wounded by U.S. forces' fire in the district of al-Khalis, Diala province, an Iraqi police source said.
Mahmoudiya:
A Task Force Marne Soldier was killed and two were wounded when a rocket struck Forward Operating Base Mahmudiyah Thursday night.
Seven suspects were killed after they fired on American troops entering a building near Mahmoudiyah, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement. Another 15 men were detained.
Diwaniya:
The Multi-National Force's Echo camp came under an attack with katyusha missiles on Friday while an Iraqi-U.S. force was conducting raids in a number of neighborhoods in Diwaniya, a security source said.
Latifiyah:
Farther south in Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of the capital, gunmen attacked a convoy belonging to the son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the country's most powerful Shiite political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Ammar al-Hakim escaped unharmed, but two of his bodyguards and four policemen were wounded in the attack, which took place Thursday afternoon, police said.
Samarra:
Two Iraqi policemen were killed and another wounded in clashes with armed gunmen in central Samarra on Friday, a Samarra police source said. "Violent machine-gun clashes broke out on Friday morning in al-Mutassem neighborhood in central Samarra," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
Ninawa Prv:
The 130 Iraqi army soldiers reported poisoned on Friday felt sick after having a bad meal prepared by a foreign company, the commander of Hammam al-Aleel training center in Ninawa province said. "The bad meal contained chicken prepared by a foreign company the army has signed a contract with for the purpose," Lt. Colonel Abdullah al-Zibari told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI), not identifying the name or nationality of this company. A police source earlier told VOI "the police was tipped that unidentified gunmen had recently purchased large amounts of toxic insecticides," adding "seventy soldiers have already been taken to a hospital in Mosul while ambulances rushed to bring the rest."
Mosul:
The body of a leader of a Sunni armed group was found on Friday in the eastern part of Mosul, 402 km north of Baghdad, a police source said. "Police patrols found this morning the body of Mulla Ghalib al-Dulaimi, a leader of the Islamic Army, dumped near a main bus station in eastern part of Mosul," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq
Kirkuk:
Four explosive devices went off near civilians' houses in northern Kirkuk on Thursday night but no casualties were reported while three other charges were defused in the same area, an official Iraqi police source said on Friday. "The explosions occurred late at night on Thursday in the al-Qadissiya al-Oula neighborhood near a mosque," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq
Thanks to whisker for ALL the links above.
REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ
Deadly blasts shake Iraqi faith in US security plan
Baghdad’s latest carnage intends to destroy public confidence in joint US and Iraqi security operation. The smoke had cleared Thursday from the scene of devastation in the Sadriyah market -- site of the deadliest single bomb attack of the Iraq war -- but the grief and anger was still raw. In a Baghdad street leading away from the wreckage of a row of shops and buses devastated in a blast that killed at least 140 people on Wednesday, an old man sat slumped, sobbing openly among a circle of his friends. The insurgents who carried out the savage attack, and several more around the city that pushed Wednesday's death toll above 190, intended to destroy public confidence in a joint US and Iraqi security operation. In Sadriyah, on Thursday, they appeared to have succeeded for now. "Where were the police, the army, the Maghaweer (task force)? Didn't they see the vehicle passing through their checkpoints?" demanded 65-year-old Abu Adnan furiously as he came to inspect the crater.
Baghdad Death Squads End Truce To Seek Revenge
Death squads are returning to the streets of Baghdad despite the security plan for the capital launched with great fanfare by the US two months ago. As Iraqis bury the 230 people killed or found dead on Wednesday, ominous signs are appearing that the Shia militias have resumed their tit-for-tat killings. There is a sharp increase in the number of dead bodies found bearing signs of torture, with 67 corpses discovered dumped in Baghdad in the first three days of the week. People in Baghdad, both Shia and Sunni, do not dare move bodies left lying in the rubbish outside their doors though they sometimes cover them with a blanket. One corpse was left lying for days in the centre of a main commercial street in the Sunni bastion of al-Adhamiyah in east Baghdad. He was believed to be a victim of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, which has been killing Sunni who belong to other guerrilla groups or are associated with the government. Local people say that US and Iraqi forces stationed in a newly renovated police station in al-Adhamiyah as part of the security plan seem unaware of what is happening around them.
U.S. Surge Strategy Successful - in Shifting the Violence
Evidence that the 'surge' is turning the tide is hard to come by. While civilian deaths in the Iraqi capital have fallen from the high levels before the surge was launched two months ago, the five horrific bombings that killed nearly 200 people in mainly Shia areas of Baghdad Wednesday marked one of the highest daily tolls in four years.
US Walls Off Baghdad Neighborhood
U.S. soldiers are building a three-mile wall to protect a Sunni Arab enclave surrounded by Shiite neighborhoods in a Baghdad area "trapped in a spiral of sectarian violence and retaliation," the military said. When the wall is finished, the minority Sunni community of Azamiyah, on the eastern side of the Tigris River, will be gated, and traffic control points manned by Iraqi soldiers will be the only entries, the military said. "Shiites are coming in and hitting Sunnis, and Sunnis are retaliating across the street," said Capt. Scott McLearn, of the U.S. 407th Brigade Support Battalion, which began the project April 10 and is working "almost nightly until the wall is complete," the statement said. It said the concrete wall, including barriers as tall as 12 feet, "is one of the centerpieces of a new strategy by coalition and Iraqi forces to break the cycle of sectarian violence" in Baghdad. [Sounds like the apartheid wall in Palestine to me. Anybody ask the locals if they want a wall to protect them? – dancewater]
…..American forces also have constructed huge sand barriers around towns such as Tal Afar, an insurgent stronghold near the Syrian border. [Lot of good that did. – dancewater]
REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS
Iraqi Politician Says Insurgents Must Unite
Insurgent groups in Iraq should unite, agree to a programme and be ready to reap the political rewards for inflicting heavy losses on U.S. troops, an Iraqi Sunni politician said on Tuesday. Saleh al-Mutlaq, whose National Dialogue group is a leading Sunni party represented in parliament, said the groups should be ready to fill the "the void" with a blueprint for a "liberated Iraq" if the U.S. plan to stem violence in Iraq fails and troops abruptly leave the country. "It's now the right time for the national resistance groups to unite its negotiating stance towards the occupation forces and to draft a political programme for the future," Mutlaq said. "The political programme will fill the vacuum in the event of an abrupt U.S. withdrawal from Iraq," said Mutlaq, who denies ties with insurgents but says he shares their goal of "liberating Iraq from foreign occupation." Iraqi sources close to groups that form the backbone of the Sunni-based insurgency say initial discussions have already begun on a broad "political programme for the resistance".
Televised 'confessions', torture and unfair trials underpin world's fourth highest executioner
Iraqi authorities are increasingly imposing the death penalty including after pretrial televised 'confessions', uninvestigated allegations of torture and unfair trials, according to a new report from Amnesty International. Iraq has now become the country with the fourth highest number of executions.
Basra Splits Between Warring Shias
Oil-rich Basra in the south of Iraq is getting caught up in an increasingly more fierce battle between warring Shia groups. Basra, the second largest city in Iraq with a population of 2.6 million, is the capital city of the southern Basra province, and Iraq's main port. The largest explored oil reserves in the country lie within the province.
Shia leader attacked in Iraq
The convoy of the son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the popular Iraqi Shia politician, has been attacked in the southern Baghdad district of Dura leaving six of his bodyguards wounded, an official said. Ammar al-Hakim's convoy was fired on as it was travelling to Baghdad from the southern Shia city of Najaf, the police said on Friday. Al-Hakim's spokesperson said: "The convoy was attacked because it was an official-looking convoy, it was not targeting Ammar al-Hakim personally." Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the biggest Shia party in government. Ammar al-Hakim also holds positions in SCIRI.
Government should be the only party with weapons, says Sistani
Grand Aytollah Ali Sistani has forbidden the killing of Muslims in Iraq and has urged the government to disarm all militia groups in the country. Sistani, Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, made the call in a meeting which grouped both Muslim Shiite and Sunni clergy from the provinces of Baghdad, Basra, Diyala, Tikreet, Ramadi, Kirkuk and the Kurdish region. The visit was to explore ways of ending the current sectarian strife in the country and methods to bring about national reconciliation.“We have come to visit (Sistani) to back the project of national reconciliation … Sistani has forbidden the shedding of blood of all Muslims and reiterated the necessity of the state being the sole possessor of arms in Iraq,” said Sheikh Mohammed Talabani, a Sunni cleric and head of the delegation.
REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ
$400 Billion for war: US Announces $100 Million For Aid
US Under-Secretary of State Paaula Dobriansky announced today that her government expects in 2007 to provide USD 100 million in humanitarian assistance for Iraqis, both inside and outside Iraq. The US will also contribute USD 18 million to the United Nations High Commissioner (UNHCR) emergency appeal for Iraqi displacement. Dobriansky added that the US might be able to take this year for resettlement some 25,000 Iraqi asylum seeker. The US official in charge of Democracy and Global affairs said that the US is taking into consideration the plight of 40,000 third-country refugees still living in Iraq among them 15,000 Palestinians. Dobriansky said it is the responsibility of the Iraqi government and UNHCR to protect those refugees. [I guess she forgot that the US is an occupying force there and THEY ARE THE ONES RESPONSIBLE. Well, they would be if the Geneva Convention had not been trashed by the bushies. – dancewater]
Fallon: Radical Islamic Leader’s Aims Remain A Puzzle
[Or, how US military leaders remain stupid. – dancewater]
The intentions of radical Islamic cleric Muqtada al-Sadr largely remain cloudy amid the shifting sands of power politics in the new Iraq, the commander of U.S. Central Command testified at a Congressional hearing today. “This is a guy that’s pretty difficult to understand for us,” Navy Adm. William J. Fallon told House Armed Services Committee members. “He holds, clearly, a large amount of influence within segments of the Iraqi population, but of late he has been absent.” Sadr is a Baghdad-based Shiite religious leader who commands the Mahdi Army militia, which has fought U.S. and Iraqi troops on many occasions. The fiery cleric advocates an immediate withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraq. But, he has mostly disappeared from public view since the mid-February start of the surge of U.S. and Iraqi forces into Baghdad and parts of western Iraq, Fallon noted. “By all accounts he appears to be in Iran,” Fallon commented on reports of Sadr’s whereabouts. Yet, the cleric’s “particularly nasty” militia members, he said, remain a nuisance to U.S. and coalition troops in the Baghdad area. News reports attribute the recent resignation of six Sadr loyalists in the Iraqi Cabinet as a stunt arranged by the cleric to protest the lack of a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.
UN Report Omits Iraqi Civilians
The United Nations will not include Iraqi civilian casualty figures in its next human rights report, a spokesman said Friday, omitting what many had viewed as a rare, reliable indicator of suffering in Iraq. The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq had been releasing bimonthly reports assessing the human rights situation and providing death and injury tolls. The last report was issued in late January, and U.N. officials in Baghdad had been saying for weeks that the new version would be released soon.
REFUGEES
Iraqi Refugee Children Trapped In Poverty And Fear
More than two million Iraqi refugees are trapped in a cycle of poverty and fear. More than half a million of these are school-age children, many with no access to education or psychological support, according to research by World Vision.
Quote of the day: "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." - Samuel P. Huntington
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