News & Views 12/25/07

Photo: Mourners grieve around the coffin of a victim killed in a bomb attack, after claiming his body from the hospital morgue, in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, December 25, 2007. U.S. forces killed two gunmen and detained four others in operation near Baquba, the U.S. military said. Hours later, a suicide bomber killed four people and wounded 21 at the funeral of the two men who were killed by the Americans, police said. (Stringer/Reuters)

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

Monday: 15 Iraqis Killed, 22 Wounded, 22 Kidnapped

Tuesday: 62 Iraqis Killed, 105 Wounded

27 dead in bombings north of Baghdad

Attacks in residential areas puncture the relative calm of the holiday season as insurgents take aim at volunteers helping to secure their areas. Two separate suicide bombers killed at least 27 people and injured scores north of Baghdad today, in the latest attacks to take aim at Iraqi security forces and the local volunteers credited with helping to bring about a major drop in violence in former insurgent strongholds. The attacks shattered a period of relative calm across Iraq as Muslims marked the four-day Eid al-Adha festival, which ended on Monday for Shiites and on Saturday for Sunnis. For the first time this year, the government had extended the holiday until today, when the country's tiny Christian minority celebrate Christmas.

Video: Panorama: Basra - The Legacy

Back in Damascus Amir is disappointed and fearful. He has just learnt that his asylum application has been turned down. He only worked for the British for seven months, not the 12 months demanded. His money and visa are running out but if he returns to Basra he risks being murdered. "Gordon Brown said he would help the interpreters but how can he make a distinction between someone who worked for the British for three months or three years?" Amir told me "the militias don't see it like that. They will assassinate all the interpreters even if they only worked for the British for a month." As I stood up to leave the two men, Latif begged me to bring his case to the attention of the UK authorities. "The British owe me a lot - a safe refuge," he said, his voice breaking "all I want is a peaceful life for my family and a decent future".

The Railroading of Bilal Hussein

In the dock sits the Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photojournalist Bilal Hussein. The prosecution is brought by the American Pentagon, under a Secretary of Defense who states–rather unconvincingly–that “the press is not the enemy.” I have just been given an update on the handling of the Bilal Hussein case from a Pentagon source who claimed to have been briefed on the proceedings. Bilal’s case has been assigned to investigating Judge Dhia al-Kinani, who has already conducted a long series of evidentiary hearings in the case. The source said the Pentagon is confident that they will secure a conviction in the case. “Nothing is being left to chance in this case. It’s important and a lot of resources are being thrown at it.” The Pentagon isn’t concerned about evidence or legal arguments. I wonder why. Some other points. Under strong pressure from the U.S. military, the investigating judge closed the case and imposed a gag order. This was requested principally because the U.S. military was concerned about unfavorable media coverage. The Pentagon media strategy involves leaking information as it finds convenient to “friendly new media” (this I take to be wingnut bloggers), but restricting the flow of information to traditional media. The Iraqi judge is fully cooperating with his gag order.

Christians in Kurdistan celebrate Christmas, New Year

In the relatively calm and secure cities of Iraq's Kurdistan region, particularly Arbil and Duhuk, many Christians are celebrating Christmas and the New Year these days despite the high living costs and growing poverty. Florence, a housewife in her mid-40s who left her home in Baghdad to flee violence and ethnic strife, said, "Christmas is beautiful here. We celebrate things which we never celebrated in Baghdad because of the security conditions there. Now we can have a Christmas tree, decorate our house with Christmas lights and make cookies." "But you can't have your cake and eat it," said the woman. "Living costs are extremely high here and we miss our relatives and neighbors with whom we would celebrate." "We had no option but to leave our house in al-Saidiya after armed men attacked and robbed my husband and son while they were leaving a foreign company they were working for…," Florence said recounting her memories.

Blackout in Tikrit after power plant blown up

Saboteurs blew up a power station in southern Tikrit, cutting off electricity in most parts of the city, according to local security sources. "Two huge blasts hit Tikrit's southern power station last night, resulting in a blackout in most parts of the city," a source from the city's joint coordination center, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). "The blasts destroyed all the transformers in the stationn which reduce the voltage from 400 to 130 volts to be used for home purposes," the source explained.

Iraq govt sacks police chief after truck bombing

Iraq's interior minister ordered the dismissal of Baiji's police chief, after a suicide bomber killed at least 20 people and wounded 80 in the northern Iraqi town on Tuesday, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. "There was a decision by the interior ministry to fire the Baiji police chief," the spokesman, Major-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf, told Reuters.

Iraq's Christian population shrinking

Iraq's dwindling Christian population celebrated Christmas Tuesday -- but in much smaller numbers than previous years. Some Iraqi priests estimate as many as two-thirds of the country's Christians -- about 1 million people -- have fled since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, The New York Times reported Tuesday. The homes and businesses of Christians have been frequent targets of insurgent attacks. Sacred Heart church in Baghdad attracted 120 people for Christmas Eve Mass Monday, down from 400 in 2005. "Last year it was full," said parishioner Yusef Hanna. "So many people have left -- gone up north, or out of the country."

Grief mars celebrations

Sorrow haunts the face of the Iraqi mother as she leads her two small sons into a heavily guarded Baghdad church for Christmas Mass. Making the sign of the Cross, Maida Moshy slots into an empty pew to listen to the service, held in the afternoon of Christmas Eve because midnight is deemed too dangerous. “I feel sad when I remember what Christmas used to be like with my large family,” said Ms Moshy, with a sigh. Years of violence since the war prompted six of her ten siblings to leave Iraq or move to the safer Kurdish north, while four of her husband’s five brothers and his sister have also fled. “I want my relatives to return because I hate being alone at Christmas,” said Ms Moshy, 32. “Without them I feel like a Christmas tree with no decorations.” At the Virgin Mary Church that she attended in central Baghdad, a twinkling Christmas tree by the altar offers a taste of festivity but fails to dispel the pervading sense of emptiness as the holiday season reminds Christians across Iraq about the tens of thousands of loved ones who will not be with them this year. Services that once drew thousands of worshippers to celebrate into the early hours of Christmas Day now struggle to attract enough people to fill half the pews, and barely last 60 minutes. A drop in the violence over the past six months has failed to boost attendance, with Christians saying that there are fewer people visiting the scattering of churches in Baghdad this Christmas than in 2006 because so many families have moved abroad, and the enduring fear of violence.

A new sensation in Iraq: Motor scooters

Every day, more cars venture onto Baghdad's dust-choked streets, adding to epic traffic jams and sending blood-pressure levels through the roof, as drivers spew invective, gesticulate wildly and steadfastly ignore any and all driving laws. But tens of thousands of Baghdadis have found an antidote in the venerable motor scooter. Often imported from China and bearing almost familiar names like "Yomaha" or "Mucati Classic," scooters have taken the city by storm, providing a nearly ideal way of getting about in a war-weary town riddled with checkpoints and bedeviled by car bombs. "I love it, it's really great," said Hathan Jawad, a 35-year-old with gray-flecked hair and a tobacco-stained smile. "When there's a traffic jam I can just weave around the cars, or go onto the sidewalks."

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

Over 150 PKK killed in Turkish December 16 Iraq strikes

Turkey's military said on Tuesday that between 150 and 175 Kurdish guerrillas were killed in a large-scale air offensive on December 16 that targeted rebel camps in northern Iraq, the first in a series of cross-border attacks. Turkey launched the offensive, involving some 50 war planes, against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) bases after receiving intelligence and clearance from the United States. NATO-member Turkey says it has the right to use force to combat the PKK, which uses the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq as a launch pad to mount attacks in which they have killed dozens of Turkish troops in recent months. The General Staff said in a statement more than 200 targets were hit on December 16, including three command centers, two communications centers, two training camps, nine logistical areas, 182 living quarters, and 14 arsenals.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

Turks keep up bombardment of northern Iraq

Turkish fighter jets have been in action again over northern Iraq. F16's are believed to have attacked three Kurdish villages in the Qandil mountains, where Kurdish PKK rebels are thought to be holed-up. There were no reports of any casualties. The Kurdish authorities said most of the residents had already fled. Turkey is claiming successes in its own "War on Terror". It says it hit a PKK rebel command centre on Sunday, and that it has killed hundreds of rebels in the past 10 days. The PKK admits to losing just five. While the international community remains concerned by the tens of thousands of Turkish troops stationed along the border, a Turkish ground invasion is considered unlikely in the winter. In his speech to parliament today, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not refer to the latest attacks directly, but he did reiterate Turkey's right to go after rebels inside Iraq. He claims he spoke to US President George Bush on the telephone on Monday, and that he was supportive.

Bush Backs Turkish Strikes on Kurdish Rebels

US President George Bush has spoken with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip and gave his backing for military strikes by Ankara on Kurdish rebel rear bases in Iraq. The two men hailed the cooperation in the battle against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has seen Turkey launch air raids and a limited ground incursion into northern Iraq. They agreed to continue sharing intelligence and again classed the PKK as a "common enemy", press agency Anatolia said.

HISTORY

Leaked classified U.S intelligence report into Fallujah Assault

The report was penned last year by the U.S Army National Ground Intelligence Center and is classified "SECRET/NOFORN" — meaning the report was not to be shared with coalition partners. The Fallujah assault was initiated when on March 31 2004 four rivate military personnel from the U.S firm Blackwater were killed in the town and photos of their burnt bodies received international coverage. The report said the coverage had prompted Rumsfeld, General Abizai and the then Coalition Provisional Authority Chief Paul Bremmer to order an "immediate military response". The report not only blames media driven political pressures for launching the Marine Expediary Force before it was ready, but states similar political considerations lead to a cease-fire five days later. "During the first week of April, insurgents invited a reporter from Al Jazeera, Ahmed Mansour, and his film crew into Fallujah where they filmed scenes of dead babies from the hospital, presumably killed by Coalition air strikes. Comparisons were made to the
Palestinian Intifada. Children were shown bespattered with blood; mothers were shown screaming and mourning day after day."

COMMENTARY

Bush and the Tribes

The year of "positive challenges" for US foreign policy, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called it, can easily be described as another year of disastrous challenges for the Arab region and other parts of the world, which have been led to the "fundamentalist" Bush administration's war against the terror of extremism. Another year in which the number of corpses in Iraq were counted as Somalia disappeared into total chaos, while Sudan is approaching fragmentation at the doorstep of Darfur; Palestine has become three Palestines and Lebanon has turned against itself again, lost between the nightmare of Somalization and the danger of Iraqization and its weapons, having become an arena of all conflicts involving foreign tutelage.

…..It's certain that the sectarian polarization and ethnic cleansing in Iraq are not just a passing phenomenon, even if the fact that most of these phenomena have been achieved already explains the reduction in murder rates. As for the idea that America (and Israel along with it), like Iran, are the beneficiaries of this fragmentation, no more doubt exists about this. The symptoms might be different in Lebanon and Palestine, but the disease is the same.

Quote of the day: "I have one wish to ask Santa Claus. Please bring peace to my country. Stop the bombs so I can play with my friends again." – Karrar Haider, 10 year old Baghdad resident