Photo: A woman and her children mourn near the coffin of her husband who was killed by al-Qaeda insurgents in Baghdad November 22, 2007. Al Qaeda militants killed at least eight members of a neighbourhood police patrol in southern Baghdad on Thursday after shooting two Iraqi soldiers and stealing their vehicle, police said. (Ali Shatti/Reuters)
REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ
No Relief for Camp Kids
Seven-year-old Ali Hussein’s toy is an old tyre, which he pushes back and forth in a pond of dirty water. Ali, a mud-caked, pale-faced little boy, is a Shia from Baqouba, 50 kilometres north of Baghdad, who together with his family left the town after his father was killed by Sunni insurgents. The family was told they would also be killed if they stayed there. "He was a very nice person and no one can replace him," said Ali. Ali and his family now live in a camp in the al-Habibya area east of Baghdad. The conditions in the camp are poor, its residents are impoverished and the services are limited. Ali, a first grader, no longer attends school. Recent reports of refugee and internally displaced families trickling back to their Baghdad neighbourhoods have brought some semblance of hope that the security situation is improving in the capital. But “the number being displaced still far exceeds the number of returnees”, according to a November report by the International Organisation for Migration, IOM, a Swiss-based intergovernmental organisation focusing on refugees and displaced persons. And aid for internally displaced Iraqis is not meeting needs, aid organisations report. Hundreds of thousands of families remain in camps throughout the country, where young Iraqis do not have access to education and are vulnerable to disease, according to aid agencies.
Driven to Extremes
When Ali Sadiq's car engine started acting up, he knew he was in trouble. Engine problems are bad enough under normal circumstances, but in Baghdad Ali faced an additional hurdle: he couldn’t fix his Mercedes because he is a Shia. Mechanics who repair German and American vehicles are located in a predominantly Sunni area of the capital called Sheikh Omar. Third Street in Sheikh Omar is where most of them are based - but the area is such a Sunni militant hotbed that Shia dare not go anywhere near it. Sadiq planned to have a Sunni friend drive it there to have it seen to. “No other mechanics can fix the problem,” said 37-year-old Sadiq, closing the hood of his car. “But the specialists are in the Sheikh Omar area, and I’m too afraid to go there.” Sunni insurgents have expelled non-Sunni from Sheikh Omar - once a mixed Sunni, Shia, Faili Kurd and Armenian area in the heart of Baghdad. "Insurgents even seek out Sunni mechanics that repair cars for Iraqi officials," said Mohammed Abdulqadir, a 43-year-old Sunni mechanic who specialises in Mercedes. While insurgents wage a sectarian terror campaign in the neighbourhood, criminal gangs also intimidate and steal from mechanics and car owners.
AUDIO: War News Radio - Heading Home
This week on War News Radio, we look at how the war has changed the lives and music of Iraqi musicians. We also speak to one Iraqi family who received a special immigration visa to come to the United States. And, in Iraq 101, we find out more about rival Shi’a groups in the Southern Iraqi province of Basra. Finally, in our A Day in the Life series, we hear from an Iraqi refugee now living in Syria.
UN refugee agency cautious about returns to Iraq
Responding to recent public reports about refugees returning to Iraq in limited numbers, a spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today cautioned against an organized effort to send civilians back to the war-ravaged country. “We welcome improvements to the security conditions and stand ready to assist people who have decided or will decide to return voluntarily. However, UNHCR does not believe that the time has come to promote, organize or encourage returns,” agency spokesperson Jennifer Pagonis told a press briefing in Geneva. “That would be possible only when proper return conditions are in place – including material and legal support and physical safety,” she said, pointing out that there is currently “no sign of any large-scale return to Iraq as the security situation in many parts of the country remains volatile and unpredictable.” UNHCR staff in Syria who surveyed over 100 Iraqi families said most of the refugees report that they are returning because they are running out of money and/or resources, face difficult living conditions, or because their visas have expired.
REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS
Video: Sadr Loyalists Reflect on Iraq Sovereignty
The Al-A’mel neighborhood has been wracked with as much violence and unrest as Baghdad’s roughest neighborhoods. The Sadr office in Al-A’mel has been an important source of stability and security for many residents of Al-A’mel. As we’ve reported previously, the Sadr Movement, which is connected to Muqtada Sadr’s Mahdi Army, has made a name for itself by providing aid and support to Iraqis living all over the country. The arrest of Sheikh Jassem lead to large demonstrations in the Al-A’mel neighborhood. These demonstrations targetted their anger not only at the US forces in Iraq, but also Prime Minister Maliki and the Iraqi government. Because the Iraqi prime minister has claimed to have control over where, when, and how the US forces exert pressure on Iraqi dissidents, insurgents, and militias, the residents of Al-A’mel directed their frustration at his apparent apathy regarding Sheikh Jassem’s arrest.
Nation at stake
Kirkuk is once again a matter of heated public debate. Turhan Ketene, political adviser of the Turkomen National Movement, told Al-Ahram Weekly that, "the formation of the so-called region of Kurdistan was done without holding a referendum. No Iraqi official asked himself why Mosul, which is within parallel 36, and should have been part of the safe haven area, was excluded from that area while northern Kurdish areas that were outside that parallel were included in the safe haven area. The aim, obviously, was to form a Kurdish region and divide the country. The Kurds always wanted Kirkuk. Barzani's father once said that Kirkuk must be included in Kurdish areas, even if it only had one Kurd living in it."
Last week's parliamentary session featured a fierce debate over Kirkuk. Osama Al-Nojeifi, deputy for the Iraqi List of Iyad Allawi, said that the committee the government formed to normalise the situation in Kirkuk was actually trying to change the identity of the city. The committee, he said, ignored evidence that hundreds of thousands of Kurds, people who were not originally from Kirkuk, were moved into the city. Aydin Aksu, leader of the Baghdad branch of the Iraqi Turkomen Front, told the Weekly that "Article 140 of the [Iraqi] constitution is unconstitutional, simply because it includes a date. Constitutions are not supposed to have dates. Constitutions are supposed to act as social contracts. So what happens once this article is implemented? Are we supposed to strike it out from the constitution?"
COMMENTARY
Anticipations
When I look at the history of Iraq after the war and the incidents that took place, I conclude that all of the events are part of one big major well studied plan, specially the recent events. If we look back at the announced causes of the war, and the announcements that followed the occupation which stated that the war was a mistake and no weapons of mass destruction or links between Alqaeda and Saddam's regiment were found; we will know that it was a big fat lie, because (as I see it) it's unbelievable that the US intelligence or the spies from all over the world who were in Iraq couldn't know that there was no weapons or links, so that wasn't the cause, and someone would say the war was to liberate Iraq and Iraqis, I would say it's nonsense to spend those millions and scarifies those soldiers for a country that is thousands miles away, it's nonsense because there are many countries without oil or strategic position that is ruled by a regiment much more worst than Saddam's, why didn't the US go there and liberated them? The reason behind the war was to control the oil, turn Iraq into a war zone to fight Alqaeda and terrorism (that was announced by the white house), and turn Iraq into an American base through which they can control the Middle East and the whole east including Iran and Russia (Iraq and Afghanistan).
That Disappearing Petition And The Media
Hardline U.S. rightwing blogs are beginning this evening to pick up a story about a petition in Iraq, organised by a hitherto unknown group called either the Independent National Democratic Tribes' Gathering or the Independent National Tribal Organization depending on which report you read, which condemns Iran for fomenting violence in Iraq. ……So either the folk supporting the MeK against an alleged infiltration of the Iraqi government from top to bottom are changing their minds - by the millions - or the latest version is just the MeK scaling down their entirely fictitious nonsense to a more believable level. Were it not for the fact that anti-Iranian rhetoric is currently fashionable, and is being stirred at every opportunity by U.S. neoconservatives both in and out of the White House, this latest story would have sunk without a trace too.
Gougings and killings
Although 250 surveillance cameras have been set up in Baghdad, the police still find unidentified bodies in the city streets. Teachers remain prime targets of assassination. Within the past two weeks, three teachers were killed in Baghdad, one of them in front of her students. In Kirkuk an armed group abducted a school principal. The group commandeered a school bus, released everyone inside, except the principal who was led to an unidentified destination. A university professor was abducted and killed in Kirkuk, allegedly by a Kurdish group. A recent UN study says that attacks on students and professors around the world have grown dramatically over the past three years, a trend that is nowhere more visible than in Iraq. The Iraqi educational system is "on the verge of collapse," the study notes.
Quotes of the day: Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace. ~ Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Photo: A woman and her children mourn near the coffin of her husband who was killed by al-Qaeda insurgents in 
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