News & Views 12/07/07

Photo: Girls chant slogans during a protest after Friday prayers in Baghdad's Sadr City December 7, 2007. About 1000 protesters took to the streets of Sadr City denouncing the attack of suspected al-Qaeda insurgents in a village in Diyala province on Saturday that killed 12 civilians and abducted dozen others. REUTERS/Kareem Raheem (IRAQ)

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

Iraqi bombing kills at least 12 in revenge attack

A woman bent on avenging the deaths of her sons strapped explosives to her chest Friday and blew herself up outside a meeting of Sunni Muslims who'd turned against the militant group al Qaida in Iraq, killing at least 12 and wounding at least 17. The explosion in Muqdadiyah was one of three violent acts Friday in Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, that left at least 24 people dead and 21 wounded. Ibrahim Hassan Bazlan, a member of the local ruling council, said that the suicide bomber, identified as Suheila Shlet, had vowed revenge on members of the 1920 Revolution Brigade, a Sunni insurgent group that recently had allied with the American military and turned against al Qaida in Iraq. Bazlan said the group had killed Shlet's two sons and she'd vowed to retaliate. It wasn't clear when or why Shlet's sons were killed, though Bazlan said the killings had occurred before the 1920 Revolution Brigade had allied with the United States.

Al-Qaeda mother kills 16 in suicide attack

A mother whose three sons were killed by Americans blew herself up and killed 16 other people yesterday as al-Qaeda began a new campaign against former Sunni insurgents who have joined forces with the American military in Iraq. The suicide bomber, whose sons had been members of al-Qaeda, killed six women and children and ten former fighters from the 1920s Brigades, a hardline insurgency group that until recently was attacking US and Iraqi government forces. The bomber, identified by Iraqi police only as Suheila, struck in the town of Muqdadiya, in Diyala province, a hotbed for al-Qaeda groups driven from Baghdad and western Iraq by their former Sunni allies, who had become disillusioned with the extremist group's mass slaughter of civilians. She walked into a building used as offices by the 1920s Brigades and started asking questions before suddenly blowing herself up, witnesses said. Almost 30 people were wounded. [I would like to know how they determine who is and who is not a member of al Qaeda. – dancewater]

Always a Stranger - The Survival of the Mandaeans of Iraq

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 by coalition forces led by the Americans and the British was welcomed by the Mandaean community who thought they would benefit from the promises of tolerance and democracy made by the political leaders of the invading armies. Mandaeans are a pacifist people, strictly forbidden by their religion from carrying weapons. The chaos and violence unleashed by the invasion has decimated their community – ordinary Mandaeans, their leaders and lay people have all been targets for assassination, kidnapping, forced conversion, torture, rape, expulsion and other forms of violence. Their temples have been targeted for destruction and their numbers have been reduced from an estimated 50,000 - 60,000 before the invasion to an estimated 2,500 - 5,000 today.

Iraqi Legal System Burden by War's Wake

Iraqi judges and their families live behind 12-foot blast walls. Hundreds of lawyers have fled the country. Critics complain about rapid-fire trials in an overburdened court system. This is the fractured state of Iraq's criminal justice system the destination for many of the 25,000 detainees now in U.S. custody and often held without charges for months or years. Among them is Bilal Hussein, an Associated Press photographer who was picked up by American soldiers on April 12, 2006, in Ramadi. Hussein's first hearing is scheduled for Sunday. The military has not made clear its specific allegations not required under Iraq's legal system until the hearing but has pointed to a range of suspicions that attempt to link the photographer to insurgent activity. These include claims that he offered to provide false identification to a sniper seeking to evade U.S.-led forces and took photographs that were synchronized with insurgent blasts. The AP's inquiry found no support for those claims against Hussein, who was part of the AP's Pulitzer Prize-winning photo team in 2005. The AP says it has seen no convincing evidence that Hussein was anything other than a photographer covering a conflict zone.

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

The Battle For Basra & Iraq's Oil – Democracy Now!

With over 80 percent of the country’s known oil reserves, Basra holds the key to Iraq’s economy. Without its revenues the central government in Baghdad would collapse. The struggle for power in Basra is central to the larger battle for control in the new Shiite dominated Iraq. This is a report from Basra by independent filmmaker Rick Rowley of Big Noise films.

US Plans to Form Job Corps for Iraqi Security Volunteers

The U.S. military plans to establish a civilian jobs corps to absorb tens of thousands of mostly Sunni security volunteers whom Iraq's Shiite-dominated government has balked at hiring into local police forces. The new jobs program marks a sharp departure from one of the most highly touted goals of the so-called Sunni awakening, which was to funnel the U.S.-paid volunteers, many of them former insurgents, into Iraq's police and military. President Bush and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, have said the volunteers have played a major role in the recent downturn in violence and would provide a key element of local security as U.S. forces draw down. Plans to reconfigure the program raise new questions about the permanence of security and political structures the United States has sought to impose on Iraq. The Bush administration has described the hiring of the volunteers by police forces as proof that Iraqis are beginning to reconcile sectarian differences. Yet the government here has shown only grudging interest in the program, despite constant U.S. pressure. So far the Iraqi government has approved police jobs for only 1,738 members of what the United States calls the Concerned Local Citizens program, or CLC. Of a total 60,321 registered volunteers, about 51,190 are currently on short-term U.S. contracts that pay an average of $300 a month, officials said. The program has spread beyond Anbar province, and officials said new recruits appear daily in Baghdad and the central and northern parts of the country. The Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has lagged in hiring the volunteers, more than three-quarters of whom are Sunnis. Sectarian concerns are "still an obstacle. I won't lie to you about that," said Col. Martin Stanton, who tracks the program for Petraeus's command. "They're deeply suspicious of any organized group of Sunnis," Stanton said of the government.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

U.S., Iraq at odds over Sunni groups

The Baghdad neighborhood of Saidiyah is becoming the focal point of a growing battle between the U.S. military and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government over the burgeoning number of U.S.-financed armed groups known as "concerned local citizens." U.S. officers in the neighborhood said that the Shiite Muslim-led government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki is undermining American efforts to bolster the volunteers, who are predominantly Sunni Muslims. At the same time, U.S. soldiers acknowledged that some of the volunteers could be sympathizers of al Qaida in Iraq and other anti-government organizations. Saidiyah, in southwest Baghdad, remains a battle zone between Sunni and Shiite forces in a capital where sectarian cleansing has turned most formerly mixed neighborhoods into either Sunni or Shiite enclaves. "Saidiyah is that final frontier, which is why it has the attention of the prime minister," said Lt. Col. Johnnie Johnson, the commander for the 4th Battalion, 64th Armor Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division from Fort Stewart, Ga. The 4-64 took over U.S. responsibilities in the neighborhood more than a month ago. "The government is still stoking the fires of sectarianism," he said.

Petraeus Says Cleric Helped Curb Violence

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, said Thursday he applauds Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr for helping, through a cease-fire, to reduce violent attacks in Iraq by 60 percent since June. It was unusual praise by a U.S. official for a relentless critic of the American role here. But Petraeus and other commanders also warned of enduring threats to Iraq's security, saying the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq is again carrying out suicide bombings and trying to gain control of towns in northern Iraq -- and the U.S. military must therefore carefully calibrate any future troop reductions.

Quote of the day: Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. - Chief Seattle