Photo: Iraqis jubilate next to a burning Danish military vehicle near Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, 550 kilometers (340 miles) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 14, 2007. A Danish soldier was killed and five others were injured by a roadside bomb Monday in southern Iraq, the army said. An Iraqi interpreter was also injured in the explosion, which occurred as the Danish unit was on a routine patrol in several vehicles near Basra, said Maj. Kim Gruenberger of the Danish Army Operational Command. The injured soldiers were in stable condition, he said. (AP Photo / Nabil al-Jurani)
REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ
VIDEO: Mortars & Rockets in Iraq
There are ongoing problems in Baghdad’s neighborhoods of mortar and rocket attacks. This facet of Iraq’s sectarian violence is not as massive in a single act as many of the carbombs, suicide attacks, and IEDs, but is just as important to understanding the nature of the conflict. Last year mortar attacks become more and more frequent, and now they are often referred to as one of the “weapons of choice” by Iraqis, in regards to the increasing sectarian conflict. They are not extremely accurate, but their range enables them to be launched by attackers from afar, with a much reduced chance of reprisal.
“I Can’t Stand The Life Of An Orphan Anymore”
Ten-year-old Majdy Imad says he cannot stand being an orphan anymore. After losing his parents and two sisters on 17 November, 2006 in sectarian killings, he was taken to an overcrowded, under-resourced Baghdad orphanage – a move that forced him to leave his school. Majdy has only one relative; an uncle who lives outside Iraq. Majdy cries every time he remembers his family. Desperate for love and care, he told IRIN that sometimes he thinks it would have been better if he had been killed with his family rather than enduring the life he is leading now. “I need someone to take care of me because I can’t stand the life of an orphan anymore. I am used to being loved, which I don’t find here in the orphanage. “My parents and sisters were killed in our home when a gang forced them to leave the house. When they refused, they were all shot dead. No one was there to help them.
……… “I don’t sleep well, I don’t feel like eating. The only thing I need is someone to take care of me. I understand that I will never meet my family again but I hope someone needs a son to look after. I promise I’ll be a good boy, do homework, help them with chores and never make them sad. “I want a family again and I’m ready to go wherever they want just to be far away from this place and find again the warmth of someone who can substitute for my family’s care.”
Disappeared Without A Trace: More Than 10,000 Iraqis
When her heart is heaviest, Sahira Kereem tries to think of the little things her husband did that annoyed her. She remembers times when she suggested they visit her parents, and he just rolled his eyes. The mental trick rarely brings her comfort. The fact remains that Riyadh Juma Saleh, her husband of nearly 15 years, went missing one day nearly three years ago and Kareem has no idea what became of him. Over the past four years, as sectarian kidnappings and killings have gripped Iraq and U.S. forces have arrested untold numbers in an effort to pacify the country, tens of thousands of Iraqis have vanished, often in circumstances as baffling as that of Kereem's husband, a Shiite Muslim father of three.
234 Bodies Dumped in Baghdad in Only 11 Days
In the first 11 days of this month, there have already been 234 bodies - men murdered by death squads - dumped around the capital, a dramatic rise from the 137 found in the same period of April. Improving security in Baghdad and reducing death-squad activity was described as one of the key aims of the US surge of 25,000 additional troops, the final units of whom are due to arrive next month.
…… Ironically, the violence in Diyala has been exacerbated by an influx of both Shia and Sunni fighters displaced from Baghdad by the surge and also from Anbar province who have relocated to Diyala to join a series of jihadi and nationalist groups already based there. Mixon, who was speaking in Tikrit, said: 'I'm going to need additional forces, to get that situation to a more acceptable level, so the Iraqi security forces will be able in the future to handle that.' He was also highly critical of Iraqi government in Baghdad, charging that it was riddled with corruption. Mixon's request coincided with yet more bad news from Iraq - a draft US government report claiming that between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq's declared oil production may have been siphoned off through corruption in the past four years. Iraqi and American officials have long contended that oil smuggling from fields controlled by Shia militias in the south is costing Iraq billions of dollars - funds that, it is feared, are going to armed groups.
Thousands flee upsurge in violence in Diyala province
Thousands of Iraqis have been fleeing Diyala province – and others fleeing villages from within the province - over the past week after an increase in attacks by armed groups and a major offensive by US and Iraqi troops. Diyala province is a volatile but religiously mixed governorate to the northeast of Bagdhad. “In the past six days more than 900 families, about 5,000 individuals, have fled Diyala governorate. Some of them were forced out by militants and others were scared of the clashes,” said Faris Abdallah, media officer for Diyala governorate office. The villages of Khalis and Ambugiya have seen considerable sectarian violence and the number of internally displaced people is greatest there, Abdallah said, adding that most are Shi’a. Most of the families which have fled Diyala have headed to places outside the province such as the southern provinces of Najaf, Kerbala or Basra. Some have moved to outskirts of the capital, Baghdad, where camps those displaced from Diyala have been set up. Few families have also been internally displaced within the province.
VIDEO: Another Funeral In Iraq
Doctor Khalid Abd’ Al-Hadi Al-Ghawas was killed in January. This video shows his funeral in Baghdad, just one of the thousands of Iraqis already killed in 2007 during the ongoing fighting. In the last month, there are believed to have been at least 234 murders in Baghdad during the first 11 days of May alone. Doctor Al-Ghawas had two sons and worked at Waqf Al-Sunni, the Sunni Endowment, an organization created to oversee Sunni Iraqi mosques and other important places. He worked at the Endowment for more than twenty years and was very famous in Iraq. Although he was a Sunni, he lived in the Al-Cairo neighborhood, east of Adhamiya, which is a primarily Shi’a district. When he was killed the news was broadcast by stations all over the Arab world, but we believe this to be the first time his funeral has been broadcast to the world.
Residents vow to destroy U.S.-constructed sectarian walls
The residents of Adhamiya have vowed to destroy the walls U.S. troops are constructing to separate Baghdad neighborhoods on sectarian grounds. “We shall destroy the walls the notorious occupation is constructing and keep our city an integral part of Iraq,” a statement by a newly formed resistance group said. The statement emailed to the newspaper, said the wall separating Adhamiya from the rest of Baghdad “must be brought down” and this will be “achieved through the power and muscles of all the residents of Baghdad.” The group, the Adhamiya National Youth, said U.S. troops have divided their neighborhood into two parts with aim of weakening its resistance. “Those who constructed the wall realize that the attacks targeting Adhamiya from all sides are being carried out by the death squads which the occupation and Israeli intelligence have set up,” the statement said. In another development, the inhabitants of Kadhimiya, a Shiite-dominated neighborhood have joined forces with the Sunni majority Adhamiya to have the pulled down. The two neighborhoods are working to demonstrate that the two sects can tolerate each other and live peacefully together.
Fuel shortages spark demonstrations
Hundreds of farmers in the agricultural province of Wasit have demonstrated against lack of fuel for their agricultural machines and tools. The farmers, who assembled at the mayor’s headquarters in the provincial capital Kut, said fuel shortages were preventing them from harvesting this year. They raised placards and shouted slogans denouncing the government and the Oil Ministry for failing to make fuel available at a time the country sits on massive oil reserves. Salman al-Awsi warned that the shortages, if not alleviated, will eventually lead to the destruction of this year’s grain produce. Wasit is major wheat, barely and rice producer in the country. Awsi said prices of fuel on the spot market were beyond many farmers’ reach. “If we buy from the black market that means the costs of planting and harvesting will soar,” he said. He said huge swathes of agricultural land planted with grains cannot be harvested because of lack of fuel.
Surge Of Iraqi Arrests Leaves Questions About Justice
This is the other side of the surge: as thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops flood Baghdad's neighborhoods, the jails are also filling up. According to figures from the Ministry of Human Rights, the number of Iraqis detained nationwide from the end of January until the end of March-a period that includes the first six weeks of the new Baghdad security plan-jumped by approximately 7,000 to 37,641. U.S. forces swept up 2,000 prisoners a month in March and April, almost twice the average from the second half of last year. Iraqi arrest numbers are roughly equivalent. Some of these detainees are falling into a kind of legal limbo, held for weeks without a hearing. Others are allegedly suffering even worse fates. The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, is worried enough that he issued an open letter to American advisers paired up with Iraqi units last week: "It is very important that we never turn a blind eye to abuses, thinking that what Iraqis do with their own detainees is 'Iraqi business'."
Iraq School Crisis: “Future Is At Risk”
Saif Abdul-Karim's path to school is often blocked by car bombings and gunbattles. Many of his teachers have quit. Most of his classmates have dropped out, fearing abduction. As high school seniors across America giddily try on prom dresses and plan graduation parties, Iraqi students consider just making it to school a cause for celebration. The security situation is so shaky that some schools have canceled graduation ceremonies and many have closed for weeks at a time. Education officials are in talks with the security services, tribal leaders and politicians to ensure schools are protected when students take final exams next month. The education crisis mirrors the breakdown of nearly all public institutions across Iraq. Educators fear, however, that the collapse in schooling will have some of the deepest repercussions for the country, leaving a generation with little education and little hope.
REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS
"Honour Killing” Sparks Fears of New Iraqi Conflict
The Yezidi minority has so far stayed well out of Iraq’s internecine battles, but violence with their Muslim neighbours has escalated following the murder of a girl who apparently converted to Islam. Bashiqa, a small town sitting in lush green hills east of the city of Mosul, used to be regarded as an island of peace and stability while vast areas of post-Saddam Iraq were plunged into civil war. Home to a population that is 70 per cent Yezidi - members of an old sect that is neither Muslim nor Christian - Bashiqa was spared the sectarian and ethnic strife between Arabs and Kurds, radical Sunnis and Shia that plagued surrounding areas. People from Mosul would drive the 25 kilometres to Bashiqa to have picnics and to enjoy the tranquility of a little town where Yezidi temples, Muslim mosques and Christian churches stand in close proximity, presenting a rare image of tolerant coexistence. Until April 7, that is. On that day, a furious mob stoned a 17-year-old girl to death while bystanders applauded and filmed the killing on their cell phones. Her crime? Duaa Khalil Aswad, a Yezidi, had run away from home because she had fallen in love with a Muslim boy. It was not the first love story of its kind, nor was it the first “honour killing” in a region where women are subject to strong social restrictions and face severe punishment for disregarding family, tribal or religious traditions. Such cases can no longer be covered up as easily these days, because of pressure from local women’s activists - but they rarely cause a stir. Duaa’s case was different. This killing has had much wider impact - unleashing widespread inter-communal strife in a formerly peaceful area, which has resulted in at least 20 deaths and the threat of more violence.
………One contentious issue which may at first sight seem of little relevance, but which may determine the dynamics of Yezidi-Muslim conflict, is the argument over whether Duaa was stoned to death for converting to Islam or for losing her virginity before marriage. Sources close to the girl’s family claim that she did not convert to Islam, but wanted to run away with Muhannad, and it was this that provoked her cousins to punish her. A hospital autopsy confirmed she was a virgin. IWPR was told in Bashiqa that the reason police did not intervene during the killing or take action immediately afterwards was that they believed Duaa was guilty of “immoral behaviour”, in other words of breaking a taboo prescribed by social tradition, rather than changing faith. Only when police heard that Duaa might have been killed for abandoning Yezidism did they issue arrest warrants.
Prime Minister blames surge in violence to ‘orchards’
The escalation in attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces as well as the upsurge in violence particularly in the Province of Diyala is due to “the great number of orchards’, according to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda has intensified attacks on U.S. troops and is reported to be in control of several major cities in the central and northern parts of the country. The Province of Diyala of which Baaquoba is the provincial center has turned into one of the group’s most fortified strongholds. Thousands of families are fleeing Baaquoba as well as other areas and for some there is almost nowhere to go. Violence has in fact surged in Iraq since U.S. and Iraqi forces began their security campaign to subdue Baghdad almost three months ago. As the troops focused their attention on subduing Baghdad, the outlying towns and villages in addition to several other areas fell to Qaeda. The rebels have opted not to confront U.S. troops directly and are reported to have withdrawn to other provinces especially Diyala.
REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ
Sadrist lawmakers, U.S. occupation soldiers in Green Zone standoff
The soldiers asked the three male lawmakers to hand over the passes giving them access to the Green Zone, home to Iraq's parliament as well as its government offices and the U.S. and British embassies. The lawmakers obliged, but an argument broke out. The Americans cleared the area as the argument was in progress but one of the lawmakers later told the AP that the argument lasted about 30 minutes and ended with the soldiers giving back the passes. "You can call (top U.S. commander in Iraq) General (David) Petraeus on the phone and demand an apology," one lawmaker, Saleh al-Aujaili, quoted a soldier as saying. "I told him that the Sadrist bloc has no wish to speak with the American occupiers," he said. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said the incident arose when a Peruvian guard approached a chauffeured car that stopped for the lawmakers at a "no stop" area near the gate of the complex housing the building where parliament meets. One of the lawmakers threw the door open, striking the guard and later stepped out and pushed him, said Garver. He said only two lawmakers were involved in the incident. He identified them as Bahaa al-Araji and al-Aujaili, but did not say which one of the two pushed the guard.
COMMENTARY
Iraq War Is All About Controlling The Oil
AFTER WORLD WAR II, the president’s national security council propounded a policy that would shape the world’s geopolitical future: “Oil operations are, for all practical purposes, instruments of our foreign policy.” More than a half-century later, that policy has not changed. With the invasion of Iraq already secretly being planned, freshly selected President George W. Bush listed “energy security” as his first action priority. Energy security is the invisible elephant in Washington, guiding Bush policy on Iraq, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. It explains the “surge,” the absence of an exit strategy from Iraq, the stubborn resistance of the Bush-Cheney team to efforts by the Congressional Democrats to impose a withdrawal deadline for 170,000 American soldiers, as well as the ongoing construction of permanent military bases in Iraq, and the costly stationing of thousands of American troops on foreign soil from Kuwait to Djibouti. Energy security is the invisible presence shaping what the 2008 presidential candidates say or don’t say about oil and energy. Energy security is the reason Hillary Clinton refuses to embrace a withdrawal deadline and why Republican presidential hopeful John McCain declares that there is “no alternative Plan B” to the ongoing build-up of American forces. In short, the American occupation and the maintenance of a shaky Iraqi government are the insurance policy for American control and access to the second largest untapped reserve of petroleum in the world. The politicians don’t say much about an energy-security policy based on foreign oil. The news media don’t report very much on it. The Big Five oil companies don’t proclaim it in their self-promoting institutional advertising campaigns.Yet the so-called “Majors” — U.S.-based Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips; the Dutch Shell Oil; and the British-owned British Petroleum — would be the principal beneficiaries of a new hydrocarbon law before the Iraqi Parliament that the press rarely mentions. The initial draft, shaped by American contractors to the Iraqi government, has been amended by the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, and approved by the Iraqi Cabinet. The draft now awaits final approval by the Iraqi Parliament, but there is much reported Iraqi resistance to it, with good reason. Oil Change International (http://priceofoil.org), an energy watchdog group, has devotedly tracked the proposed law. The law would reverse a trend in which most major petro-nations have largely nationalized their oil fields and reserves. Under the proposed Iraqi law, concessions involving 63 Iraqi oilfields, both developed and undeveloped, would go to major foreign-oil companies, assuring them of dominance over Iraqi oil for a generation or more. Only 17 already developed fields would be directly controlled by a proposed Iraqi National Oil Company (INOC).
Collateral Genocide
Two elements are necessary to commit the crime of genocide: 1) the mental element, meaning intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, and 2) the physical element, which includes any of the following: killing or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births; or forcibly transferring children to another group. Considering that such clear language comes from a UN treaty which is legally binding on our country, things could start getting a little worrisome – especially when you realize that since our government declared economic and military warfare on Iraq we’ve killed well over one million people, fast approaching two. This summer will be one year since researchers from Johns Hopkins University collected data for a study which concluded 655,000 additional deaths were caused by the military war, and things have only gotten worse since then. Then consider that the economic war killed an additional 500,000 Iraqi kids under the age of five during only the first seven years of sanctions which were in force for a dozen years, according to a 1999 U.N. report. Based on the Johns Hopkins estimate of Iraqis killed in the war, one could conservatively estimate that another 2.6 million people have been wounded. The U.N. estimates that between 1.5 million and 2 million Iraqis are now “internally displaced” by the fighting and roughly the same number have fled their country, including disproportionate numbers of doctors and other professionals. If you are sitting down and possess a healthy imagination, try conjuring up similar conditions here in our land.
IRAQI REFUGEES
Down the Line
"Life here is very tiring," Jamal sighs. "There are no schools, no money, no home and no help from Egypt. We came on our savings, but they're almost gone now. We had to sell my gold, my telephone -- just to survive." Mohamed jumps into the conversation; husband and wife finish each other's sentences: "we have six children, what do I do with them all? The situation is so bad in Baghdad, we had to get out. When we were trying to get our papers ready to leave Iraq, we had to send someone to the offices. In three months, we moved homes four times because militias kept raiding our house to take it over. This was besides the constant threat of kidnapping and killing." But aside from relative safety, life in Cairo is a matter of going from one embassy to the next -- in search of a resettlement opportunity somewhere in the world. "We don't want to live in Egypt," Mohamed says. "Egypt has its own problems with too many people here. We're just hoping someone from another country with an embassy here will take us. But they all tell us to go to the UNHCR and get our refugee status because otherwise they won't look at us."
The Flight From Iraq
To become a refugee in the Middle East is in some ways to become like a Palestinian. Their lives are the essence of statelessness. And to be an Iraqi Palestinian, it seems, is to be doubly cursed. In a no-man’s land along the Iraqi and Syrian border lie a desolate moonscape stretching several miles and, on one slab of wind-blown dirt, a collection of neatly ordered tents. When I visited in February, about 350 Iraqi Palestinians were marooned here, refugees for a second time. Most of Iraq’s Palestinians had come from three villages — Ijzim, Jaba’ and Ein Ghazal, together known as the Little Triangle, which were near Haifa in northern Palestine. Other Iraqi Palestinians came from the nearby village of Tira, still others from Ayn Hawd. All of these villages had been forcibly emptied of Palestinians in 1948 by the Israel Defense Forces. Iraqi troops, fighting as part of a small contingent of Arab volunteers who had come to defend the Palestinians, bused them to Iraq. As many as 5,000 refugees were granted asylum in Iraq by 1949, and they formed the core of Iraq’s Palestinian population. A second refugee group had lived in Kuwait from the time of their expulsion from Palestine, then been evicted by Kuwait into Iraq after the 1991 gulf war. (Many of Kuwait’s Palestinians were accused of sympathizing with Saddam’s takeover of Kuwait.) By 2003, there were as many as 34,000 Palestinians in Iraq.
Quote of the day: Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true. ~ Demosthenes
Photo: Iraqis jubilate next to a burning Danish military vehicle near 
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