Iraqi police parade during a ceremony in Karbala. Rivalry between Iraq's two main Shiite movements vying for power in the south of the country has hit danger point, sparking fears of violence ahead of the handover of Basra by British forces. (AFP Mohammad Sawaf) See link below to VoI story on Karbala
Reported Security Incidents
Baghdad
Bomb explodes near a gas station, injuring 3 civilians lining up to buy gasoline.
AP also reports:
- Roadside bomb strikes a U.S. patrol in northeastern Baghdad. U.S. military confirms the attack, says a vehicle was damaged but no reports of casualties.
- U.S. also confirms a rocket or mortar attack on an outpost in Azamiyah, no reports of casualties.
- Iraqi police say U.S. helicopter gunships attacked a truck in Obaidi in eastern Baghdad. Truck was apparently carrying a rocket launcher. U.S. has not confirmed this.
Roadside bomb near a high school in al-Jadida district injures two.
Xinhua also reports:
- Roadside bomb injures three people in Adhamiya.
- six mortar rounds hit the former Iraqi military academy in the Rustamiyah area, where U.S. and Iraqi forces based. No information on casualties. The source says U.S. forces searched the area and seized a truck with a rocket launcher. This is not the same attack reported by AP. Rustamiyah is on the opposite side of the city from Azamiyah. This could be the same rocket launcher reported by AP, but it's odd that one source has it destroyed by gunships, and the other has it seized by troops. -- C
- Four mortar rounds struck the former super market of the Sha'b neighborhood, which houses U.S. troops. Black smoke was seen rising from the building, no reports of casualties. This could be the same attack reported by AP. -- C
- Roadside bomb hits a U.S. patrol in Baladiyat neighborhood, setting a humvee on fire. Likely the same attack reported by AP, but AP is not specific as to location.
Police find four bodies in various parts of the capital.
Reuters also reports:
- A roadside bomb hit a police commandos patrol near al-Tayaran Square in central Baghdad on Saturday, wounding two policemen.
- U.S. helicopters killed two men planting a roadside bomb south of Baghdad on Friday, the U.S. military said.
- Roadside bomb wounds two in Ameen district of southeastern Baghdad; another wounds two in Kesra neighborhood of northern Baghdad. Neither of these corresponds precisely to incidents reported by other sources. This is our continual frustration. It's impossible to tell for sure whether they really are all separate incidents, or one or another source has details wrong. -- C
U.S. forces initiate controlled detonation of a truck carrying explosives in Kamaliyah. An orchard and flour factory are reported damaged. McClatchy also carries reports of bombings which appear to correspond to incidents reported above. However, it adds that forces engaged in "random shooting" following the attack on the Rustamiyah military academy.
Amara
One police officer, one other person killed by gunfire in the center of the city.
al-Zubair (near Basra)
IED attack on British forces. British seal off area, no information on casualties.
Tikrit
One police officer killed, two others injured as they attempt to defuse a bomb. The officers found the bomb in the street and brought it back to the police station, where it exploded. AFP gives the number injured as three. This would seem to point to a deficiency in training. -- C
Mosul
Explosives hidden in a parked car go off near a police patrol, killing three bystanders and injuring 16, including five police officers.
Five bodies, including that of a police captain, are found dumped in various places.
Major props to Whisker, as usual, for the assistance. Whisker also sends in links to reports on Afghanistan, from The Associated Press, Reuters, and additional news from AP on the Pakistan border region. The situation there is clearly deteriorating. I must say that I am also far from convinced by today's news from Iraq that the security situation there is really as greatly improved as the U.S. military and Administration keeps bragging. -- C
Other News of the Day
Video shows five British men kidnapped in Baghdad in May are alive. Their captors are demanding the release of Qais al-Khazaali, a Mahdi Army leader, now apparently estranged from Muqtada al-Sadr, who U.S. soldiers arrested in March and blamed for the sophisticated attack last January in which guerrillas disguised as U.S. forces killed 5 American soldiers. The UPI report doesn't clarify the background, so I provided it myself. -- C
Iraqi police find a mass grave containing about 30 bodies in the Dora neighborhood. The bodies appear to be those of Shiites killed by Sunni militants. They have been dead for some time.
British Army Chief of Staff General Sir Richard Dannatt warns of deteriorating morale. And their burden is considerably less than that of the U.S. military. -- C Excerpt:
The head of the army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, has expressed concern over troops' morale and the strain placed on resources by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
His comments came in an internal report leaked to the Sunday Telegraph, in which the chief of the general staff said troops felt "devalued, angry" and were "suffering from fatigue".
Saying that the military covenant was "clearly out of kilter", he went on: "We must strive to give individuals and units ample recuperation time between operations, but I do no underestimate how difficult this will be to achieve whilst under-manned and with less robust establishments than I would like."
The report, drawn up for General Dannatt and entitled Staff Briefing Team Report for 2007, said the present level of operations was "unsustainable", the Army "undermanned" and increasing numbers of troops were "disillusioned" with service life.
The general also said that operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are putting soldiers and their families under "great pressure", and their long-term impact is "mortgaging the good will of our people".
Apparently at the instigation of Kurdish members, Iraq's parliament orders an inquiry into the failure to hold the constitutionally required referendum on the future of Kirkuk. Excerpt:
By SAMEER N. YACOUB -- Associated Press Writer: raq's parliament on Saturday ordered an inquiry into the delay of a referendum over whether the oil-rich city of Kirkuk will join the semiautonomous Kurdish region in the north. The Iraqi constitution requires that a referendum on the future status of the city be held by the end of this year to determine whether it will remain under Baghdad's control, become part of Kurdistan or gain autonomy from both.
"Four years have passed, and the referendum should have been done by now, but successive governments have done nothing," Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman said. "Yet we do understand that there were obstacles, such as security challenges and bureaucracy." Qadir Aziz, a spokesman for Kurdish president Massoud Barzani, said the delay "is not to the Kurds' benefit."
The head of the Kirkuk city council on Saturday accused the central government of intentionally stalling the process, saying Baghdad's Arab-dominated government stood to gain from the delay.
Kirkuk is an especially coveted city for both the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government in Baghdad and the Kurdish one in Irbil. Much of Iraq's vast oil wealth lies under the ground in the Kirkuk region, as well as in the Shiite-controlled south. Kurds refer to Kirkuk as the "Kurdish Jerusalem," and control of the area's oil resources and its cultural attachment to Kurdistan have been hotly contested.
The city's Arabs are generally in favor of continued rule by Iraq's central government, while many Kurds want Kirkuk to join the Kurdish zone to its north. The city's minority Turkomen - ethnic Turks - have said they prefer to stay under Baghdad's control, but would lobby for their own autonomous region if Kirkuk ends up being part of Kurdistan.
VoI reports on the exodus of Christians from Basra. Excerpt:
Basra, Nov 18, (VOI)- "From the tens of thousands of Christian families that used to live in Basra before 2003, only about five hundred remain in the southern city with their eyes on assistance coming from relatives living abroad," Sami Basheer, a Christian from Basra said.
Basra, a predominantly Shiite city in southern Iraq, once a secular city that dealt with people of all religious affiliation with tolerance, has since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 become a conservative society with Muslim extremists.
"The civic lifestyle in Basra has retreated into a more conservative one, mainly imposed on the society by the Muslim extremists," Amir Shaaya, a Christian, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
Christians, most from the early Assyrian sect and Catholic Chaldean churches, immigrated from northern Iraqi mountainous villages to Ninewa, Baghdad, and Basra during the Ottoman reign.
Although some challenged the percentage, Basra police chief Major General Abdul Jaleel Khalaf said in early November 2007, "more than 50% of Basra Christians have left the city."
Christians began leaving Iraq before 2003, based mainly on economic reasons, and in small numbers. The uncertain future in post-war Iraq forced large part of the world's oldest Christian communities to abandon their homes.
Shaaya, the only Christian teacher left at Ashar Prepatory Teachers' Institute, added “Our numbers have started to seriously decrease during the 12 years of sanctions from 1991-2003. Previously, hundreds of Iraqi Christian soldiers were killed in the Iraqi – Iranian eight year war."
"Large numbers of Christian families immigrated to the U.S., Australia and Canada, while some returned to the birthplaces of their ancestors in Mosul, northern Iraq," he added.
While Iraqi laws banned Muslims from owning alcoholic drinks shops, many Christians have been involved in the business for quite some time. Christians, who once made up some 3 percent of Iraq's population of about 25 million, shrank in numbers after attacks on purveyors of alcohol and music had already rattled Iraq's tiny Christian community.
"Not all the Christians are barmen, or wine shopkeepers, a lot of them were doctors, engineers, technicians, and victims of wars orchestrated by generals and idiot politicians!" Amir Azzo, a Christian, said in a rejecting tone.
In Basra, Muslims and Christians lived together in peace for decades leading to an undeclared pact of co-existence.
Dr. Nabeel Edward, an anthropologist , who was formerly a citizen of Basra and now a resident of Stutgart , Germany, revives some of his school and neighborhood memories with Basra's Muslim families, "During the Eids , we used to take part in their religious celebrations. At school, if there was a Muslim religious lesson, we were free to leave the class into the school open air yard or stay but many of us would prefer to stay and listen to Muslim teachings!"
VoI also reports on tensions in Karbala, where some blame security forces for extensive human rights violations in the wake of recent violence, others say they are glad for the crackdown, but the general mood is one of distrust and uncertainty.
Quote of the Day
Australian defense expert Hugh White believes the U.S. cannot achieve its objectives in Iraq, but will not leave either, despite the cost. I present this excerpt of this remarks not because I endorse everything he says, but because his prediction, alas, seems credible, unless we can bring about fundamental change in the U.S. political discourse. -- C
I think they're in the situation where the scale of resources that America has available, and the nature of the problems that it needs to deal with, simply preclude the United States achieving the kind of outcome that we all hope that we could find in Iraq - a stable government that controls the whole territory that governs more or less justly in the interests of all Iraqis, and so on. That just seems to be, to me, beyond reach.
And even though... there may be, as some reports suggest, short-term improvements in security, for example, I think the chances of that leading to a long-term political evolution that would achieve our long-term objectives is very low. . .
I think one could say that 2006 was the year in which Americans realised that they couldn't win in Iraq. 2007 has been the year in which they've realised that they can't get out. For Americans, terrible though it seems, the costs, including the costs in lives of staying in Iraq, are known and understood and are bearable.
Whereas the costs and risks of leaving Iraq and potentially destabilising the whole Gulf with immense consequences for oil supplies and so on, and the risk that America might then have to go back in again, in a even more costly kind of operation, I think all of that makes the option, sad though as it is, of staying engaged in Iraq in the long-term look like the less scary choice.
Prof. Hugh White, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of Canberra.
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