News & Views 05/30/07

Photo: Iraqi's mourn during a burial service for a victim after a raid, in Najaf, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad, Wednesday, May 30, 2007. The victim was the one of two killed people when joint Iraqi American force raided Sadr city early Wednesday, with 2 civilians killed and 4 others wounded as they were sleeping on roofs of their houses the police said. Also two other civilians were arrested on the operation. (AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

Iraq Blames Shi’ite Militia for Kidnapping Britons

American forces raided Shiite militia strongholds in eastern Baghdad on Wednesday after the brazen daylight kidnapping of five British contractors from a finance ministry building. The Britons -- a consultant and his four armed bodyguards -- were snatched on Tuesday by a large group of gunmen in Iraqi police uniforms, with the finger of suspicion being pointed at Shiite militias. "We are pursuing this case very vigorously, I would say, because the nature of this kidnapping is very strange," Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told AFP. "The location of this finance ministry computer centre and the nature of the operation and the number of people involved, I think all indicate more a militia than a terrorist group, let's say," he added. In an interview with BBC radio, Zebari noted the raid had taken place near Sadr City, a stronghold for radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia, but he told AFP it was too soon to blame a specific group. Nevertheless, the minister said the nature of the kidnapping clearly pointed to the involvement of one of the Shiite militant groups that has infiltrated Iraqi forces, rather than to a Sunni insurgent outfit such as Al-Qaeda.

The US military reported two raids in Sadr City, one of which netted two members of a kidnap gang and the other a six-strong "terrorist cell" accused of smuggling guns, shells and roadside bombs from Iran. Sadr City residents said two of those arrested were Iraqi police, but the military could not confirm the raids were linked to the missing Britons. "We will give support with whatever is necessary to the British embassy, the US embassy and the Iraqi government in order to find these missing British civilians," said US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Chris Garver. Representatives of Sadr's movement, which fields thousands of militia fighters, categorically denied any involvement in the abduction. "Kidnapping operations conflict with the peaceful steps that Sadr advocates and are in direct contradiction with the course his office is adopting now," spokesman Salah al-Ubaidi told AFP from the movement's base in Najaf. The Iraqi presidency, prime minister's office and interior ministry refused to comment.

Witnesses outside the downtown ministry building where the kidnapping took place, said the operation appeared well organised and was carried out by gunmen in official vehicles and uniforms. "They went inside and escorted out the foreigners, but one managed to hide in the basement," said one of ministry's security guards, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals. US forces arrived on the scene an hour later, cordoned off the area and conducted a number of searches, witnesses said. The American troops took the foreigner away, along with several more finance ministry guards.

US Troops Raid Sadr City Again

US forces in Baghdad performed another raid on the impoverished suburb of Sadr City early on Wednesday, killing at least two civilians and wounding four others. According to residents, the operation began early in the morning when US forces began searching houses in the area. The owner of the raided house told the Associated Press that a US armored vehicle stormed the house, smashing through the wall and into their living room. "They (the troops) started shooting at us to lie down on the ground. They were waving their machine guns around and a helicopter was flying very close overhead." He said US troops blindfolded them and started beating them, shouting 'Release the Britons, Release Britons'. "I told them we don't know any Britons, how can we release them if we don't have them? They just kept shouting: 'Bring them out'," he added.

Hospitals Stretched to the Limit

Under-resourced state hospitals struggle to cope with the carnage from suicide attacks and car bombings. Conditions in Baghdad hospitals are never pleasant, but on certain days they can only be described as infernal. April 18 was such a day. A total of five car bombs and suicide attacks across the city killed 191 people and injured several hundred others. Hospitals swelled with victims suffering from internal bleeding, severe burns, and broken bones. Hadi Ahmed, a physician at Kindi hospital, in the Rusafa district of east Baghdad, recalls that on that particular day, more than 600 casualties were brought in. A shortage of beds meant bodies lay strewn in corridors, and even spilled out in the hospital’s garden, he said. Throughout the wards and in the emergency room, over-stretched medical staff struggled to treat the hundreds of injured and traumatised Iraqis caught up in the blast. With car bombings and suicide attacks a frequent occurrence in Baghdad, the massively under-resourced state hospitals are struggling to cope with the resulting carnage. Of the 14 public hospitals scattered throughout the city, most of them are old, cramped and dirty. They lack the staff and equipment to deal with the often-critical injuries sustained by bombing victims. Kindi, the second largest hospital in Baghdad, is located on the quieter eastern side of Baghdad. It receives the bulk of bomb-blast victims, as many injured Baghdadis and taxi drivers refuse to go to hospitals in more volatile areas - such as the largest hospital Madinat al-Tub on Haifa Street, which is an infamous insurgent hotbed. But when people are brought to Kindi with severe burns, mutilated bodies or organs punctured by shrapnel, there is very little doctors can do, as they lack the means to perform sophisticated surgery. “Many of them die because of the small number of staff and the lack of medical supplies,” one doctor there, who wished to remain anonymous, told IWPR. “We even lack the basics to provide first aid,” said Ahmed.

Iran spent millions to restore Iraqi Shia sites

Iran has spent more than 64 million dollars to restore Shia holy sites in neighbouring Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein, the ISNA news agency reported on Saturday. Mansour Haqiqatpour, who heads Iran’s organization for preserving religious sites, told ISNA that 600 billion rials (64.5 million USD) had been spent to restore sacred sites in Iraq over the past four years. Iraq is home to Shia Islam’s holiest sites, including the tombs of Imam Ali in Najaf and Imam Hussein in Karbala -- both scenes of suicide attacks and sectarian violence since the US-led invasion of Iraq. “One of our plans is to expand the area of the Imam Ali Shrine, building a 70,000 square-meter hall and restoring the interior and the dome,” Haqiqatpour said. “We would be ready to help expand and fortify the holy site of Samarra if security is implemented there,” he said of the mosque where two Shia Imams are buried and whose dome was destroyed in a bomb attack in 2006. Banned for decades, hundreds of thousand Iranian pilgrims have visited Najaf, Karbala and other holy sites since the downfall of Saddam Hussein..

U.S. warplanes pound residential area in Mosul

U.S. warplanes pounded a residential area in Mosul wounding four civilians, a police official in Ninewa province said on Tuesday. "U.S. aircraft bombarded the al-Islah al-Ziraaie neighborhood, southwest of Mosul, on Monday night, seriously wounding a woman and three men," Brig. Abdul-Kareem al-Juburi, director of the Ninewa police command's operations room, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) on Tuesday. The attack also caused severe damage to a number of residential buildings, Juburi added. The source said the U.S. attack was likely waged on the suspicion that there were gunmen present inside one of the houses in the area.

Women forced to give up their jobs, marriages

When Suha Abdel-Azim, 38, received a letter from her boss saying she had to stop working for security reasons, she couldn't believe it. After three years as an engineer for a local company, she was fired without compensation. "I was shocked when they told me I was being fired. I was an excellent worker and had done many fantastic and profitable projects but they didn't want a woman with them any more. They tried to explain, saying it was too dangerous for the company to employ women: the company had received threats," Suha said. "I tried to convince them that I could work from home. I have two children to bring up, and have been alone since my husband was killed by insurgents in 2004 for working for a foreign company, but in vain. They just sent me home," she said. Suha is now unemployed. She has been trying to find a job but as a woman she is finding it difficult.

For other women in Iraq the problem goes beyond unemployment. With spiralling sectarian violence, they are being forced to marry men from their own sect even if they were in love for years with a man from a different sect. "I was in love with a colleague in my college for more than three years. My family were going to accept our marriage but last year when my cousin was killed by [Shia] militants, my parents prohibited me from marrying him," said Nur Abdel-Amir, 23, a Baghdad resident. "For two months now I have been in a forced marriage. He is from my own sect but I don't like him and nor does he love me but we don't have a choice. If I refuse I would die and so I will have to live the rest of my life with a man whom I cannot imagine sleeping with," Nur added.

Women have also been prohibited by Shia militias from teaching other women. The threat has become real after two teachers - one in the mostly Shia Sadr City district and one in Kadhmiyah neighbourhood - were killed after giving lessons to illiterate women near their homes. "They were brave women who stood up against the violence, and tried to promote education among those who had never had the opportunity," Nuha said. "They were killed just because they wanted to help other women to read and write." In many villages, girls have been taken out of school and forced to stay at home without education.

Protests in southern province over powers cuts

Thousands of people went to the streets in the southern Province of Muthana, protesting power and fuel shortages. The demonstration took place in Samawa, Muthana’s capital, with the organizers warning of grave consequence if the current shortages of fuel and power were not addressed. Demonstrations also took place in Rumaitha, a provincial town. Residents say the province has been without electricity in the past few days. The total outage has had detrimental impact on public services. The outage has been aggravated by chronic fuel shortages. The crisis, officials say, is unprecedented in the province’s history. A senior provincial official, Ridaydh Dwaini, blamed the Ministry of Electricity for the crisis. He said the province does not have its own power-generating plant and totally relies on the national grid for supplies. But the ministry says acts of sabotage, particularly of pylons, have increased substantially recently making it very hard to control the national grid.

Uninvited Guests

“We’re caught in the middle here,” says her husband. The middle, for families like this, is between the largely Shiite national police and hard-core Sunni insurgents. He’s grown oranges and dates for years but this year he wasn’t able to spray the trees – his wife shows me a fig with worms in it. Gaines sits down on a wooden bench and waits. It’s a simple house – the rooms radiate out from an interior courtyard with benches cushioned by folded quilts. The huge poster of Mecca favored by Sunni families with a young girl in white praying is neatly taped to the wall. A ceiling fan powered by an electrical line they’re run from a nearby government building moves the still air. The kitchen is a propane gas stove in one room and a refrigerator in the other with plastic dishes stacked in the sink to dry. The family has grown oranges and dates for years but this year the government hasn’t sprayed the orchards in their area. Selma tears open a fig with her fingernail – showing me the tiny worms in it. “There’s no police in this neighborhood – no Iraqi national guard. How am I not supposed to be afraid?” Selma asks. Gaines has heard this before. “They say that because they don’t want me to hang out here. The terrorists know these people don’t really have a choice and we can use whatever house we want and she doesn’t really have a choice either. So really what she needs to do is move in that room for her safety and we will be out as quickly as we can be.” He tells her the family can leave if they like while they use the house. “Where would we go? My relatives live a long way from here. This house is the only thing we have.” It turns out though that her brother-in-law lives near by. Selma and her husband worriedly discuss it and finally decide to leave. “How will we know when we can come back?” she asks. “When the Strykers are gone from the street then you can come back,” Gaines says. They pack up small loaves of bread and food in a plastic tub and go. Gaines stays near the radio. The soldiers who aren’t posting guard stretch out to sleep.

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

'Iraqi police cannot control crime'

Even the Iraqi government today admitted that it could barely trust its own interior ministry police. Speaking on the BBC's Today programme, Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari was frank in spelling out the shortcomings of the interior ministry, well-known for its infiltration by Shia militias from the Mahdi army and other groups. As Mr Zebari pointed out, yesterday's brazen kidnapping was a sophisticated operation, requiring substantial numbers of people to seal off the building, set up roadblocks and to get into the building with such confidence. [When the Interior Ministry was kidnapping and murdering Iraqi civilians, few seemed to note or care. And they have been doing it for years now. – dancewater]

In North Iraq, Sunni Arabs Drive Out Kurds

The letter tossed into Mustafa Abu Bakr Muhammad's front yard got right to the point. "You will be killed," it read, for collaborating with the Kurdish militias. Then came the bullet through a window at night. A cousin had already been gunned down. So Muhammad and three generations of his family joined tens of thousands of other Kurds who have fled growing ethnic violence by Sunni Arab insurgents here and moved east, to the safety of Iraqi Kurdistan. "We had our home in Mosul and it was good there, but things are now very bad between Arabs and Kurds," said Muhammad, 70, standing outside his new, scorpion-infested cinderblock house in the nearby town of Khabat. While the American military is trying to tamp down the vicious fighting between rival Arab sects in Baghdad, conflict between Arabs and Kurds is intensifying here, adding another dimension to Iraq's civil war. Sunni Arab militants, reinforced by insurgents fleeing the new security plan in Baghdad, are trying to rid Mosul of its Kurdish population through violence and intimidation, Kurdish officials said. Mosul, Iraq's third largest city, with a population of 1.8 million, straddles the Tigris River on a grassy, windswept plain in the country's north. It was recently estimated to be about a quarter Kurdish, but Sunni Arabs have already driven out at least 70,000 Kurds and virtually erased the Kurdish presence from the city's western half, said Khasro Goran, the deputy governor of surrounding Nineveh Province and a Kurd.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

Turkey bolsters troops on Iraq border

Turkey has reinforced its border with Iraq with large contingents of soldiers, tanks and armored personnel carriers as it urged the U.S. to crackdown on Kurkish rebel bases there and debated staging a cross-border offensive. The Turkish military has said it routinely reinforces the border with Iraq in the summer to prevent infiltration by the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. "The target is to achieve results," Erdogan said Tuesday. "Our patience has run out. The necessary steps will be taken when needed." Casey said the United States wants to continue working with Turkey "to confront the challenges that are posed by PKK terrorism." He said cooperation between the U.S., Turkey and Iraq was the best way to ensure the border region remains peaceful. "Our expectation from the United States and Iraq is to scatter and destroy the bases of the terrorist organization in northern Iraq," Erdogan said. "They either turn them over or send them elsewhere."

COMMENTARY

OPINION: The Meager Food For Souls Forgot

The United States and Iran traded accusations Monday about responsibility for violence in Iraq, but agreed that the goal there should be a stable, democratic country at peace with its neighbors. And if that's not possible, both sides said they'd accept an oil producing hell on earth.

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker told the Iranians they had to stop arming, funding and training Shiite militants. "We can do that ourselves," said Crocker. "We don't need to farm this out."

Ten American soldiers were killed in Iraq on Monday as Americans back home observed Memorial Day. "I appreciate their sacrifice," said Corban Brett of Salt Lake City, Utah, "but I'm really angry that the Spurs beat the Jazz. I don't know if I'll ever get over that."

Iraqis also observe Memorial Day -- seven days a week, 365 days a year. "We don't have cookouts like the Americans," said Jassim al-Ali of Baghdad, "but you'd be amazed how much meat a burning car can grill in an hour."

Cindy Sheehan has resigned as the "face" of the anti-war movement. "I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party," said Sheehan, adding that liberals began attacking her as well when she "started to hold the Democratic Party to the same standards that I held the Republican Party." Liberal blogging mastermind Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos said he was sorry that Sheehan felt that way, but conceded, "We still have Dennis Kucinich to shit on."

How to Help Iraqi Refugees

Quote of the day: "To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace." - Tacitus