Security Incidents for 05/07/07

Photo: Residents walk through the rubble of houses destroyed in an air strike in Baghdad's Sadr City May 6, 2007. Iraqi police and witnesses said a U.S. air strike in Sadr City destroyed several houses and has killed one civilian and wounded eight others. U.S. forces has not responded to a query by Reuters about the incident. REUTERS/Kareem Raheem

In Country:

At least five al-Qaida fighters were killed, a U.S. military official told The Associated Press, providing new details on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authorization to release the details. (no details)

The self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, an al Qaeda-led militant group, said it was holding nine Iraqi police and defence personnel and demanded the release of all Sunni Muslim women prisoners in exchange for their freedom. The group said the policemen being held included high-ranking officers

Baghdad:

Five people were killed and two wounded by a mortar attack on the al-Saidiya district of southern Baghdad, police said.

Separately, six unidentified bodies were found in the Hay al-Amil, in southwestern Baghdad, the sources said. The hands of slain people were bound and their eyes blindfolded, showing signs of torture, said the sources.

An American soldier was killed by small arms fire while on patrol in western Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

8 policemen were killed and 12 were wounded when a suicide car bomb targeted a policeman check point in Al Salam district to west outskirt of Baghdad around 11,30 am

Mortar shelling hit Bayaa neighborhood injuring 1 civilian.

Mortar shelling hit Um Al-Malif killing 2 and injuring 2.

Mortar shelling hit Jisr Diyala neighborhood killing 2 civilians.

Mortar shelling hit Medayan neighborhood killing 1 civilian and injuring 2 .

Random fires took place in Bab Al-Muadham neighborhood having 1 civilian killed and 2 injured.

30 bodies were found all over Baghdad : 28 in west Baghdad (Kharkh bank); 17 in Amil, 4 in Doura, 3 in Bayaa, 2 in Ghazaliya, 2 in Mansour. 2 in east Baghdad (Rusafa bank); both bodies in Sadr city.

Diyala Prv:

A bombing in Baqouba began about 4:30 a.m. when a booby-trapped house exploded during a raid, killing two Iraqi soldiers and wounding three. .

An ambush in Baqouba About six hours later, gunmen ambushed a police station elsewhere in the city, killing two officers and wounding two others, police said.

A Russian photographer was killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb that also killed six U.S. troops, the editor of the Russian edition of Newsweek magazine said Monday. Dmitry Chebotayev, 27, was killed Sunday while traveling in a vehicle with American troops on a road between Baghdad and Baqouba, Russian Newsweek editor Leonid Parfyonov said. Chebotayev, a freelance photojournalist who often worked for Russian Newsweek, was on assignment for the magazine at the time, Parfyonov said.

An unidentified group of four gunmen shot down three brothers working in a store selling fabrics and garments in a market in central Khalis," the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq

In another incident, the source added, "unidentified gunmen attacked pedestrians in the main street in central Khalis, killing two civilians, and then escaped to an unknown place in Khalis."

The Khalis public hospital received the bodies of six Iraqi National Guard soldiers, medics in the hospital said on Monday. "The bodies were hand-tied and blindfolded and showed signs of having been shot in the head and other areas," the source, who declined to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq

4 civilians were killed and 2 others were wounded when gunmen opened fire targeting a bus carrying passengers moving towards Mandili town east of Baquba early morning today.

Before noon, terrorism group pushed into a school at Khuailis ( north of Baquba) executing two teachers ( husband and wife) in front of the pupils and teachers.

A policeman was killed when gunmen opened fire on him at New Baquba neighborhood ( west of Baquba city) shortly after mid-day.

Around mid-day, terrorism group attacked a small shop of woodcarving killing the owner of this shop with three of his sons who were helping him in his job at Hay Al-Sina'ee ( industrial complex) in Khalis (15 km north of Baquba).

Two policemen were injured in two separate accidents in Ameen neighborhood ( north of the Baquba) and Mua’almeen neighborhood (west of Baquba).

Around afternoon , three civilians were injured (father and two of his sons) when a roadside bomb targeted their vehicle at Bani Saad village (south of Baquba).

Around afternoon a police patrol found a dead body of a man which was identified later as the chairman of Al-Wajihiya town municipality who was kidnapped yesterday night near his house.

Hilla:

The bodies of two men were found shot in two different areas near Hilla, 100 km (62 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

Unknown gunmen attacked a police officer while driving his car back home in north of Hilla killing him on the spot." The source added "the attackers fled the scene." The killed was a police officer with the rank of Major working at Babel Police Command in Hilla, the source added.

Iskandariya:

Two people were killed and 10 wounded by a mortar attack on the town of Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

Basra:

The guard of a government facility was killed in crossfire of clashes between a British patrol and gunmen in central Basra, a police source said.

A civilian was killed when Katyosha rockets hit some houses near the British consulate downtown Basra city early morning today.

A woman was injured severely in an IED explosion in Al Qurna area north of Basra city early morning today.

Al-Kisk area (Mosul)

Four Iraqis were arrested early Monday after soldiers found a load of explosives planted under an oil pipeline in northern Iraq that carries crude oil to Turkey, the Iraqi Army said. About 330 pounds of TNT were discovered under a stretch of the pipeline in the al-Kisk area, about 50 miles west of Mosul, said Col. Mohammed Ahmed, a spokesman for the 3rd Iraqi Army division. The explosives were removed and safely destroyed without injuries, he said.

Mosul:

An explosive device went off near an Iraqi police patrol, wounding a policeman and destroying a vehicle in western Mosul, Ninawa police operations room chief said.

Hawija:

Around this morning , a police patrol found a body of a police commissioner which was lain on the road of Hawija – Abasi near Shakldi village to the west of Kirkuk.

Kirkuk:

The bullet-riddled body of a policeman bearing signs of torture also was found outside the northern city of Kirkuk.

An explosive charge targeting a police patrol in Kirkuk wounded one civilian, an Iraqi police source said.

Al Anbar Prv:

The first attack targeted a public market about noon northwest of Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, killing 10 civilians and wounding about 30, police said.

He said 13 people were killed at the market, including women and children. Nearly 20 people were wounded.

About 15 minutes later, another bomber detonated his vehicle at a nearby police checkpoint, killing five police officers and five bystanders and wounding 10 others, police said.

The second car bomb exploded soon after at a police checkpoint in a town called al-Jazeera, where 12 people including five policemen were killed, he added. More than 25 were wounded.

Up to 28 people were killed when gunmen attacked a wedding party for a policeman near a town east of Iraqi restive city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of Baghdad, local police said on Monday. "Dozens of gunmen riding 20 vehicles on Sunday night stormed a wedding party for a policeman near the town of Karma and kidnapped some 40 people, including the bridegroom," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Iraqi security forces rushed to the area and chased the gunmen, the source said, adding that after fighting with some of the gunmen, the police killed five militants and freed some of the kidnapped people. During the search for the attackers, the police found 23 bodies of the kidnapped people, 16 of them were burned to death along with seven more beheaded bodies, including the bridegroom, the source said.

"A suicide bomber blew up a vehicle rigged with explosives at 1:00 pm on Monday near a checkpoint of Iraq-U.S. troops at Aana city's outlet," an eyewitness told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) over the phone. "The blast destroyed the checkpoint building completely," he added. Another eyewitness underlined that the explosion left unspecified number of casualties among U.S. Marines and Iraqi soldiers. Billows of black smoke were seen rising, while U.S. choppers were hovering over the area. U.S. army could not be reached for a comment on the incident while Iraqi authorities so far made no comment on the attack. Aana, a town in Anbar province, is 340 km west of Baghdad.

Thanks to whisker for the links above.

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

"I saw my fiance and father killed on my wedding day"

When Rana Jalil, 22, wed her fiance, 25-year-old engineer Ahmed Adnan on 23 March, after four years of engagement, she did not expect her dream would turn into a nightmare on her wedding day. On that day Jalil saw dozens of masked militants invade her wedding party. They entered the room where the party was being held and began shooting to death many of those present, including her father, her fiancé and a five-year-old nephew. "It was cowardice. They destroyed my future and my dreams without excuses, turning my white bridal gown into a lake of blood and pain. "We were in love for more than four years since we joined university, and when we graduated we decided to marry and build a family. We were a couple without enemies and my Ahmed was always considered by our friends as a helpful and friendly person. "On our wedding day, we were having fun at 6pm and everyone was jolly when gunmen suddenly broke into the room and started to shoot any person in their way. The last shot hit my fiancé who was by my side, trying to protect me and whom I saw falling over my dress, bleeding and asking for help.

An innocent old man, yet they shot him

One cold London morning in January, I received a phone call from one of my brothers. Uncle Kakarash was dead, killed by American soldiers at a checkpoint. He was my mother's brother, 75, and like most Kurds had suffered greatly under Saddam and welcomed the Americans as liberators. Civilians in Iraq face everyday hazards beyond the snipers and the insurgents' bombs - hundreds have been run over by tanks or hit by stray bullets or shot at checkpoints. There are no records kept of the numbers of civilians killed during the war or by coalition troops. Figures released last month after a request from the American Civil Liberties Union revealed that the US army has paid out $32m to Iraqi civilians in compensation for 'wrongful deaths' and injuries. That does not include condolence payments which can be made at the discretion of commanders on the scene. I had been back to Iraq several times since the war, reporting for More4 News. But this time I had a personal mission to return to Kurdistan, the homeland I fled 27 years ago. My cousin Sabah took me to the checkpoint where his father died, not far from his home on the outskirts of Kirkuk. Kakarash had gone out first thing in the morning, before breakfast, to get petrol before the queues built up. As luck would have it, I found several eyewitnesses who had seen the whole incident.

THE BODY REACTS

Iraqi blogger 'Still Alive' left Baghdad recently to study in the United States. In this short diary, she captures the wrenching pain of being separated from her home, her friends and her family as her country deteriorates. 'A few days ago I looked at 300 news pictures from Iraq,' she begins. 'The next morning I talked to my family in Baghdad. A few hours later I was sick.'

DISPLACED CHILDREN UNABLE TO GET SCHOOL PLACES

The increase in the number of displaced children in the southern governorates has left hundreds of students out of school, according to education departments in the south. "The most affected governorates are Najaf, Basra and Muthana where the number of displaced families is increasing daily. As free education allows children to join schools chosen by their families, there are no places for newly displaced children or many who are already residents," said Ali Kareem, media officer for the secretary of education in Basra provincial council. "We have a shortage of books, pencils and chairs. We cannot accept more students as teachers are having difficulty teaching because the number of students has nearly doubled," Kareem added.

Families Flee Baghdad As US-led Forces Strike

Dozens of families started to flee Sadr City, the main Shi'a district of Baghdad, on Sunday following raids by US-led forces against suspected militants. "The raids were unexpected and, as Sadr City is a violent neighbourhood, some families are fleeing the area looking for displacement camps in the outskirts of the capital. Many of them have travelled to Najaf and Kerbala in the south," said Hussam al-Din, president of the Baghdad-based Iraqi Humanitarian Association for the Displaced (IHAD).

Lack of medicines

Dr Bilal Abdel-Salam, a physician at Sadr City Hospital, said they lacked emergency medicines and would not be able to save lives should the situation deteriorate further. "Conditions in the district will get worse if the raids continue and we need supplies to store in our hospital. We urge local NGOs to send us some emergency materials to prevent people dying from lack of assistance," Abdel-Salam said. "Militants have said they will fight the US troops and for sure when that happens the situation will get much worse, but we hope that we are going to be very far away when that happens in the coming days." Families fleeing the district said they were living in dire conditions and could not stay in Sadr City to watch their loved ones get killed in crossfire or see their houses being destroyed with their families inside. "We and some of our neighbors are fleeing to other districts of Baghdad and today others have left for Karbala in the south as they are scared of the raids. Militants have said they will fight the US troops and for sure when that happens the situation will get much worse, but we hope that we are going to be very far away when that happens in the coming days," said Sayf Mu'tazz, 38, a Sadr City resident who fled the district with his family.

IFJ CONDEMNS LATEST MEDIA ATTACK

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) today said that yesterday's horrific attack on private radio station Radio Dijla that killed two employees shows that the government is not protecting journalists and armed groups are able to attack media workers with impunity. On Thursday, gunmen attacked staff at the independent radio station in a predominantly Sunni area of Baghdad, killing two and wounding five, and then bombed the building and knocked the station off the air. It was the third attack on the station in five months. The station's deputy director told the Associated Press that gunmen also tried to kidnap four employees as they were riding to work, but the driver managed to get away. "The attack on Radio Dijla is shocking but it underscores the fact that media are seen as an easy target in Iraq," said IFJ General Secretary Aidan White. "Many Iraqi news organizations and their employees have been victims of numerous attacks. In 2006 alone, Radio Dijla, Al Iraqiya TV and Al Sabah newspaper lost multiple employees and the government has not been able to stem these losses."

Diyala Cries For The Government’s Immediate Help

There are so many stories to be told about the new Talibanization in Iraq. All kinds of explosions, kidnappings, killings and beheadings, but one specific article made it pretty clear that it is official now that Iraq is out of control and that the government is hiding behind the blast walls which the Americans built for them when the end of modern Iraq started with their invasion which came with no future plans, except capturing and executing Saddam. The article is published in Azzaman newspaper on a PDF version. “Public Executions Under the Name of Islam” is the second of a series of comprehensive coverage of what the insurgents are doing in Diyala province, especially in its capital Baqubah. The insurgents, who most of them belong to al-Qaeda in Iraq, are doing exactly what Talibans did during their rule of Afghanistan between 1996 to 2001. Public Execution! The article is published in Azzaman newspaper on a PDF version. “Public Executions Under the Name of Islam” is the second of a series of comprehensive coverage of what the insurgents are doing in Diyala province, especially in its capital Baqubah. The insurgents, who most of them belong to al-Qaeda in Iraq, are doing exactly what Talibans did during their rule of Afghanistan between 1996 to 2001. Public Execution!

Stoning to Death of Yazidi Girl Provokes Wave of Killings

The stoning to death of a teenage girl belonging to the Yazidi religious sect because she fell in love with a Muslim man has led to a spiral of violence in northern Iraq in which 23 elderly factory workers have been shot dead and 800 Yazidi students forced to flee their university in Mosul. The killings began with an act of brutality horrific even by Iraqi standards. A 17-year-old girl called Doaa Aswad Dekhil from the town of Bashika in the northern province of Nineveh converted to Islam. She belonged to the Yazidi religion, a mixture of Islam, Judaism and Christianity as well as Zoroastrian and Gnostic beliefs. The 350,000-strong Kurdish- speaking Yazidi community is centred in the north and east of Mosul and has often faced persecution in the past, being denounced as "devil worshippers". On 7 April, Doaa returned home after she had converted to Islam in order to marry a Sunni Muslim who was also a Kurd. She had been told by a Sunni Muslim cleric that her family had forgiven her for her elopement and conversion. Instead she was met in Bashika by a large mob of 2,000 people led by members of her family.

…… Retaliation when it came was savage. On 23 April a bus carrying back workers from a weaving factory in Mosul to Bashika, which has a Christian as well as a Yazidi population, was stopped by several cars filled with unidentified gunmen at about 2pm. They asked the Christians to get off the bus, according to the police account. They then took the bus to eastern Mosul city where they lined up the men, mostly elderly, against a wall and shot them to death. The revenge killings led to two days of demonstrations in Bashika. Sunni Muslims, also Kurds, feared retaliation. Yazidis say that 204 members of their community have been killed since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Some 800 Yazidi students at Mosul university have since fled to Kurdish cities such as Dohuk where they are safe. They say they were told to convert or die. Relations between all religious communities in Iraq have deteriorated over the past four years. The fall of Saddam Hussein led to a process in which the Shia, 60 per cent of the population, replaced the previously dominant Sunni who are only 20 per cent. The Sunni insurgency has always been sectarian and has killed Shia, Christians and Yazidis as heretics. In the Baghdad district of Dora the Christian community has been threatened in recent weeks and told to convert to Islam, pay protection money or be killed. Many have fled.

The Great Wall of Baghdad may be going up, but there's still carnage on the streets

The first thing Said, a small contractor, did on visiting a military prison in west Baghdad was to pay a $2,000 bribe. The money went to an officer in return for a promise not to torture Said's brother and business partner, Ali. The main payment comes later. For Ali's release, Said will pay a further $100,000. The brothers are Sunni, and the police commandos who arrested Ali are Shia. What happened to him explains why the US military "surge", the dispatch of 20,000 extra troops to Iraq announced by President Bush in January, is failing to end the Sunni-Shia sectarian civil war in the capital.

….. Ali, a 40-year-old with three children, was a successful businessman before the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. A member of the al-Hamdani tribe, he lived in the predominantly Sunni middle-class neighbourhood of al-Khudat in west Baghdad. After the invasion, he worked as a driver for a Western company for two years, but a bomb blast destroyed his car and seriously injured him. In 2005, one of his sons was kidnapped, and he had to pay $20,000 to get him back. It is a grim measure of the insecurity of life in Baghdad that Ali, despite his injuries and the kidnapping, was considered by his neighbours to be doing well. He had gone back into contracting, and was making money. But 10 days ago, he was driving from his home to Karada, a Shia district in east Baghdad, when he was stopped by Interior Ministry commandos. One of them said to him: "We haven't seen you for a long time. Where have you been?"

……….The sealing off of whole districts with walls has had a mixed response in Sunni neighbourhoods. "It is a little safer in my district," said Omar, a driver from al-Khadra, a Sunni district in west Baghdad. "There are fewer bodies in the streets." His problem is rather that he does not know if the soldiers at the single entrance and exit to al-Khadra are doubling up as death squads. If he is detained, he may then be passed on to a prison where Sunnis are routinely tortured.

………One casualty of the new plan is the authority of the Iraqi government. The Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, announced in Egypt that the construction of a wall around the Sunni district of al-Adhamiyah would stop, but without effect. An Iraqi army spokesman simply said that the Prime Minister had been misled. The Iraqi Defence Ministry is largely under American control - one senior Iraqi army official who obeyed a direct order from Mr al-Maliki late last year found himself jailed by US forces. The American relationship with the Iraqi government is a mixture of genuine support and contemptuous neglect. President Bush phones Mr al-Maliki once a fortnight, though government members complain the Prime Minister never passes on the contents of these conversations.

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

Shiite militias clash in Najaf, Iraq

An incident at a checkpoint escalates rapidly, underscoring the potential for open conflict between the two powerful forces. It started as a dispute at a checkpoint in the southern city of Najaf. It led to a showdown Friday between rival Shiite militias, with mortar rounds lobbed, guns fired and rumors flying that an aide to radical cleric Muqtada Sadr had been assassinated. Nobody was killed in the incident, which sent ripples of unrest from Najaf to as far as Baghdad's Sadr City, 100 miles to the north, but the rapid escalation of rage underscored the potential for open conflict between two of Iraq's most powerful Shiite forces: Sadr's Al Mahdi militia and the rival Badr Organization. Both militias are tied to political groups that are vying for dominance among Iraq's Shiite majority. The flare-up came on the weekly Muslim day of rest, which is normally relatively peaceful. But it proved volatile for Iraqis as well as U.S. troops.

………..The unrest in Najaf began when Sheik Salah Ubaidi, one of Sadr's top aides, was stopped at a police checkpoint. Most police in the city are linked to the Badr Organization, the armed wing of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, the country's biggest Shiite political party. At a news conference later, an indignant Ubaidi said the officers had refused to let him pass, even after he showed them his identification papers and explained that he was going to be late for Friday prayers. When they confiscated his ID, Ubaidi said, he angrily drove past the checkpoint, only to be blocked at another one. "The next checkpoint intercepted me and opened fire in the air as they tried to force me out of the car," he said. "One of the officers yelled at me."

US Says They Killed 10 Members of Sadr Cell Linked to Iran

The U.S. military said it killed up to 10 militants and destroyed a torture room during a raid in a Baghdad Shi'ite bastion on Sunday. The military said it was targeting suspected members of a cell known for smuggling sophisticated bombs from Iran. It was the second time in as many days that U.S. forces have conducted an operation in Sadr City, a stronghold of the Mehdi Army militia of anti-U.S. Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, in search of insurgents they accuse of procuring so-called explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, from Iran.

U.S. allows Shiite militia security role

The mosque of Imam Kadhim, the most revered Shiite shrine in Baghdad, is a tempting target for Sunni insurgents. To protect it, Iraqi and U.S. troops rely on the Mahdi Army, the same Shiite militia that Washington considers a threat to Iraq’s stability. That cuts to the heart of a dilemma for the U.S. military three months into the campaign to pacify Baghdad: whether to risk fierce battles by confronting Shiite militiamen blamed for massacring Sunnis or to deal with "moderates" in the Mahdi Army — which the U.S. believes receives weapons and training from Iran. n Kazimiyah, a densely packed neighborhood of wooden shops and cheap hotels for Shiite pilgrims, the Americans and their Iraqi partners have opted for militia help to protect the shimmering, blue-domed shrine.

Regional Conference Unlikely to End Violence, Say Analysts

The promises and commitments made at the two-day regional gathering that drew top diplomats to the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Shaikh to support Iraq are unlikely to end the country's violence, analysts and civilians said on Saturday. "So long as there are no concrete steps to meet these commitments and promises, they will remain a dead letter and not be implemented on the ground," said Dr Sa'ad al-Hadithi, a Baghdad-based political analyst. "There should be a kind of resolution from the [UN] Security Council or follow-up committees to monitor the implementation of both the Iraqi and other countries' commitments," said al-Hadithi who lectures in political science at the University of Baghdad. The Iraqi government emerged from the conference, held on Thursday and Friday, with a promise from Arab countries to stop foreign militants from joining the insurgency. In addition, Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbours demanded that Iraq's Shi'a-led government enact tough political reforms. "We will see how seriously these nations are committed to what they signed today," Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told reporters on Friday. "If these promises are not kept, we will take note, and there will be no reason to hold any further conferences."

UN REPORT SPARKS UPROAR IN KURDISTAN

A UN report on Iraq's human rights situation, which includes a substantial section on the Kurdish-controlled north, has provoked mixed reactions in the northern region. Officials accuse the UN of 'exaggeration and inaccuracy' while human rights activists say the ‘actual extent of violations has been understated by the UN.' The report by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) covering the first three months of this year has a substantial section on human rights in the Kurdish-controlled north. Kurdistan has been spared much of the bloody violence in other parts of the country. It is the safest and most prosperous part of Iraq, but the UN report says it suffers from considerable violations of human rights. The UNAMI report released in late April voiced "serious concern" over freedom of expression, detentions, and the conditions in which women live in Kurdistan. Kurdish authorities say the UN report lacks first-hand information on many alleged cases of violation. "This report is not precise in its investigations because in some cases it has relied on media reports or on reports released by other organizations," Dindar Zebari, Kurdistan Regional Government's coordinator for UN Affairs told IPS.

From Juan Cole’s Blog:

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that a new round of fighting and declared enmity between the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr and the Badr Corps of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq has has posed new dangers to security in several locales, including East Baghdad, Diwaniya, Najaf and Basra. The battle that Reuters reported this way:

'BAGHDAD - The U.S. military said it had killed up to 10 militants and destroyed a torture room during a raid in Baghdad's Sadr City that targeted suspected members of a cell known for smuggling sophisticated bombs from Iran.'

[It] was, according to al-Zaman, actually a fight between the Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps, in which US helicopters intervened on the side of Badr. Al-Zaman's sources maintain that the Badr Corps is systematically targetting the Mahdi Army, and incarcerating its leaders along with others, breaking down front doors and going into houses where they feel it necessary. It says that residents of the Baghdad neighborhood where their latest clashes took place are disgusted with the behavior of the Badr Corps. It says that US troops incarcerated dozens of Mahdi Army militiamen in Diwaniya and other cities.

COMMENTARY

The Emperor has no clothes

The world is returning to the law of the jungle, thanks to Bush and Blair. ………. This has been accomplished in a number of ways. There was the failure to abide by the regime established under the UN Charter and, in particular, the failure to obtain a second resolution from the UN before invading Iraq. Since that time, there has been British collusion with the totally unlawful regime at Guantanamo Bay, only publicly denounced by Blair in July 2006; collusion with rendition flights; a preparedness to countenance the possibility that evidence that might be the product of torture could be used in the hearings of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission and the approval given to unlimited detention of foreign suspects without trial, or charge, in Belmarsh Prison. The phrase "an abuse of power" was expressly used in 2006 by Mr Justice Sullivan in relation to the way in which three successive home secretaries had treated a number of Afghan asylum-seekers escaping the rigours of the Taliban: He said: "There was a complete failure to comply with the relevant provisions of the civil procedure rules at every level of the proceedings and to comply with the duty of a public authority to co-operate and make candid disclosure." Equally strident language was employed by their Lordships in the Belmarsh case in 2004 when comparisons were made with France before the revolution, with Stalinist Russia and with Nazi Germany. Little wonder thereafter that there have been vicious attacks on the judiciary by various politicians.

Letter

During the early days, I was mad at the bombings and brutality my people faced on the hands of US soldiers. When the Abu Ghraib pictures were made public, I was not in the least shocked or surprised. To me it was a typical thing to do for any invader. Yet, by the year 2004, something terrible rocked my family and myself. My only brother, who's loved and respected by the neighbours, cousins, friends, his classmates and teachers has become an official detainee under US custody. He was apprehended for mere suspicions based on hearsay evidence. To this day, the authorities could not come up with convincing charges that could justify his imprisonment. Only then, I could sense the human side of American soldiers. Fellow Iraqis had beaten my dear brother almost to death. His life was spared in the nick of time by American soldiers, who had more mercy on him than his countrymen, who saw in him the other sect that deserves to burn in hell. Unfortunately, my brother is still under detention. I miss him so bad. I'm counting days and nights for him to be make it home safe and sound. I am grateful for the soldiers who saved my brother's life, but I still can't see why President Bush made thousands of military men cross oceans with false claims of liberation to deprive my flesh and blood of his freedom. Sincerely, Linda from Baghdad

Quote of the day: For those who do not know what I'm Talking about, the American Army announced that they will be building a concrete wall that separates the Sonni Dominated city of A'adhamyia in Baghdad from the Entire shiat Dominated Eastern Part of Baghdad. The Americans, and the Shiat dominated Iraqi government are claiming that this wall is a "protective security wall and Not a separation wall". Through out what I will state now, I think you will come to the same conclusion that I have reached which is that all of this is a big Piece of Crap. – from Iraqi blogger, Al-Rasheed Capital