Anti-American demonstrations took place in Iraq on October 18, 2008. People demanded that the imperialist occupation inside the country be halted immediately.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
Mon Jan 3, 2011 6:42AM
Two US soldiers have been killed in central Iraq to become Washington's first fatalities in the violence-wracked country in 2011.
"Two US service members were killed in central Iraq Sunday night," AFP quoted a Monday statement from the US military as saying.
"This was one incident resulting in the death of two US service members. These are the first deaths of any US service member in 2011," a spokeswoman for the military said.
She declined further details about the identity of the soldiers and how they were killed.
In August 2010, the US declared an end to its combat mandate in Iraq but left 50,000 of its troops in the country to "advise and train" Iraqi security forces before they are withdrawn by the end of 2011.
The United States and its allies invaded Iraq in 2003, citing concerns over alleged weapons of mass destruction the executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein wielded.
Years after the US-led invasion, no such weapons have been discovered.
Attack on intel service in northeast Iraq wounds 28
Mon Jan 3, 2011 10:25am GMT
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber attacked an office of the
Iraqi intelligence services in a city northeast of Baghdad on Monday, wounding 28 people, officials said.
Abdul-Nassir al-Mahdawi, governor of volatile Diyala province, said a roadside bomb blew up shortly before the car bomber attacked the intelligence office's compound in the city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of the capital.
Mahdawi said 28 people were wounded in the blasts. The majority of them were female students from a next door school.
An Interior Ministry source in Baghdad put the toll at one person killed and 22 wounded, while a local police source said 15 were wounded. It was not clear whether the dead person the source was referring to was the attacker.
The suicide bomber was stopped at the gate to the compound, said Major Ghalib Attiya al-Jubouri, a spokesman for the police force in Diyala.
Overall violence has fallen sharply in Iraq since 2006-07, the height the sectarian slaughter between once dominant Sunnis and majority Shi'ites triggered by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
The number of civilians killed in 2010 was the lowest since the invasion, according to monitoring group Iraq Body Count.
But Sunni Islamist groups like al Qaeda still battle U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces, particularly in Diyala, Baghdad and the turbulent northern province of Nineveh.
Suspected insurgents have stepped up their attacks on Iraqi police officers and soldiers in an effort to undermine faith in the security forces before a full U.S. military withdrawal due by the end of this year.
Separately, two U.S. soldiers were killed in central Iraq on Sunday night, the U.S. military said in a statement. It did not provide any further details.
(Reporting by Muhanad Mohammed and Suadad al-Salhy; writing by Rania El Gamal; Editing by Michael Christie and Jon Hemming)
Recent Wave of Killings Puts Baghdad on High Alert
By SAM DAGHER
Wall Street Journal
BAGHDAD—Iraq issued an unusual high state of alert here Tuesday in response to a wave of assassinations targeting Iraqi security-force members and government employees.
Ten officials have been killed and four injured since Jan. 1 by assailants with silencer-equipped handguns, in what security officials described as a stepped-up campaign by "terror and organized crime" groups.
Baghdad provincial Gov. Salah Abdul-Razzaq convened an emergency meeting Tuesday of the city's top police commanders and members of a special security task force responsible for the capital, known as the Baghdad Operations Command.
On Monday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered an ad hoc security committee, made up of senior commanders, to investigate the assassinations and to take unspecified preventive measures.
In the latest attack, the spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, Brig. Gen. Alaa al-Taiee, was wounded Monday evening when gunmen opened fire on his vehicle after it passed a security checkpoint in the center of the capital, near Baghdad University, according to a senior officer at the ministry. Gen. Taiee was in stable condition, according to the official.
"We are in a state of high alert and security preparedness in Baghdad to prevent more assassinations," said Mr. Abdul-Razzaq, the Baghdad province governor, after his emergency meeting.
Mr. Abdul-Razzaq said additional security forces and checkpoints were being mobilized throughout Baghdad, a city of more than five million. He said a number of suspects, including some members of the security forces, have been arrested in connection with the killings.
Among those killed since Saturday in shootings throughout Baghdad were eight Iraqi army and police officers, a municipal engineer and a government lawyer, according to security officials.
The assassination of security officials using pistols has been steadily rising since last year. Authorities appeared to have been taken aback by the intensity and timing of the latest campaign at the start of the new year, following the establishment of a new government in late December. Mr. Maliki has yet to name new ministers for the crucial defense and interior portfolios.
The government has blamed similar assassinations on a mix of insurgent groups, criminal gangs and political opponents. U.S. military commanders have previously said the targeted assassination of security and government officials were signs of a resilient insurgency determined to erode public confidence in the security forces. They have said these insurgents have resorted to more discreet methods—including silencers and "sticky" bombs, which are magnetically attached to cars—after suffering significant setbacks in their capacity in recent years.
U.S. military officials believe Shiite groups backed by Iran, Sunni groups tied to Saddam Hussein's ousted regime and al Qaeda, as well as some political groups are all competing with each other for dominance ahead of the scheduled withdrawal of all remaining U.S. soldiers from Iraq by the end of this year.
The flurry of assassinations comes amid fresh U.S. casualties in Iraq. The U.S. military said this week that two of its soldiers were killed by insurgents on Sunday. Iraq Body Count, a nonprofit organization, said 4,017 Iraqi civilians and 408 members of the country's security forces were killed in 2010—the lowest annual death toll since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
But the group, which uses media reports as one of its sources, said 2010 saw the smallest year-on-year reduction in casualty figures, suggesting "a persistent low-level conflict in Iraq that will continue to kill civilians at a similar rate for years to come." Officials at the ministries of defense, health and interior all declined to provide the government's own tally of the death toll in 2010.
—Munaf Ammar, Ali A. Nabhan and Jabbar Yaseen
contributed to this article.
Radical cleric al-Sadr returns to Iraq
By Jim Michaels, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — A radical anti-American cleric whose supporters once led armed uprisings against U.S. forces in Iraq has returned to the country after spending time in Iran.
The return of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr comes as Iraq's new government is just getting its footing and at a time when U.S. forces are preparing to withdraw from the country.
Some analysts and Iraqi officials see his return as proof that Iraq's government has matured.
"I view this as a positive development," Samir Sumaida'ie, Iraq's ambassador to the U.S., told USA TODAY. "He is a participant in the political process."
Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA official and senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, agreed. "Times have changed," he said. "Sadr is now a political force in Iraq."
Ryan Crocker, a former ambassador to Iraq and now at Texas A&M University, said al-Sadr would not be in a position to return to violence. Al-Sadr once controlled a militia of thousands that challenged the authority of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's but wound up being beaten down by Iraqi and U.S. forces.
"I assume he is not going back to start standing up militias," Crocker said. "If he does he's not going to last very long." Crocker said al-Maliki would not allow it.
Al-Sadr received a hero's welcome in his hometown of Najaf, where he visited the shrine of Imam Ali. It is not clear if al-Sadr is planning on staying in Iraq. "To say the least he is a mercurial personality," Crocker said.
Al-Sadr is returning to Iraq as the Iraqi government will confront some key issues about continued U.S. presence in Iraq. All U.S. forces will have left Iraq by the end of this year under the terms of a security agreement between the two countries.
The question of whether there will be a smaller U.S. military relationship in the future is unanswered. Al-Sadr and al-Maliki both have said they want the U.S. military to leave, said Gerecht.
However, Iraq's government may have to establish a smaller U.S. military presence to support the American weapons systems it is purchasing. That may override any political rhetoric.
"It is hard to see us not having a military role" in the future, Crocker said.
Al-Sadr is the son of a revered Shiite religious figure, but his own road to power was unorthodox. He emerged as a political and religious figure in the wake of the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, but al-Sadr was dismissed by most establishment leaders in Iraq as someone with little religious standing.
Iraq's government indicted him in connection with the killing of a rival Shiite leader in 2003. It is not clear how the government will handle that. Sumaida'ie said it will be a decision for Iraq's judiciary.
Al-Sadr went on to win the backing of thousands of poor Shiites.
"The young Muqtada enjoyed the love of so many people because of his father and who he is not because of his religious or clerical accomplishments," Sumaida'ie said.
Some experts say al-Sadr's return will weaken an already fragile political system.
"You have the avowed enemy of the United States ... more powerful than he has ever been before ... in a weak government," said Kenneth Pollack, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, a think tank.
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2011-01-06-iraq06_ST_N.htm
Army efforts don't stem Fort Hood suicides
by Greg Sharkey, AP
The Army said more soldiers killed themselves or are suspected of doing so last year than in 2009 at Fort Hood, Texas
By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY
The Army's largest post saw a record-high number of soldiers kill themselves in 2010 despite a mental health effort aimed at reversing the trend.
The Army says 22 soldiers have either killed themselves or are suspected of doing so last year at its post at Fort Hood in Texas, twice the number from 2009.
That is a rate of 47 deaths per 100,000, compared with 20-per-100,000 rate among civilians in the same age group and a 22-per-100,000 rate Army-wide.
"We are at a loss to explain the high numbers," says Maj. Gen. William Grimsley, acting commander. "It's personally frustrating."
The Army had boosted staffing and psychiatric services to address the problem, particularly after the fatal shootings of 13 people on the post in November 2009. The Army alleges that Maj. Nidal Hasan, a psychiatrist, fired his pistol indiscriminately at soldiers waiting for routine medical care.
Fort Hood now has one of the largest counseling staffs in the Army with more than 170 behavioral health workers.
"Any time they've asked for it, the Army has done everything it can to provide assistance," says Army Col. Christopher Philbrick, deputy commander of an Army task force on reducing suicides.
Many of the 46,500 soldiers at Fort Hood have either returned from war zones or are on their way to them.
"It's like a chain reaction," says Maxine Trent, director of a free mental health clinic for soldiers near Fort Hood. "Being the front and back door to (Iraq and Afghanistan), on top of having had a massacre on post, we've got some pretty psychologically fragile folks."
The number of suicides at Fort Hood is far greater than at other large Army posts. Fort Bragg, N.C., reported the second highest with 12 cases. The previous high in recent history was 21 suicides in 2009 at Fort Campbell in Kentucky.
All the victims at Fort Hood were men; three killed themselves after serving in combat zones.
One was Army Sgt. Douglas Hale Jr., who had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after completing his second tour in 2007. He texted his mother, Glenda Moss, on July 6 asking forgiveness before shooting himself to death in a restaurant bathroom near Fort Hood. During the last week of September, four soldiers committed suicide.
"It's just devastating really because they're all so young, with their lives ahead of them," says Linda Chupik, a marriage family therapist who contracts with TRICARE, the Pentagon health care system, to treat soldiers at Fort Hood.
For the first time since 2003, most soldiers assigned to Fort Hood were home from deployment in 2010. The Army believes that problems relating to combat strains and family separation often surface during the months immediately after a soldier comes home.
While final numbers have not been released, the Army was hopeful that suicides among active-duty soldiers might be tracking lower than 2009. However, overall numbers — when suicides among non-active members of the National Guard and Reserve are included — will make 2010 a record year for Army suicides, it says.
"I think the military is busting their butts trying to get some answers on what the best practices will be for this population," Trent says. "It's a bloody learning curve."
2010 Iraq death toll tops 2009: government
By W.G. Dunlop (AFP)
BAGHDAD — The total number of Iraqi civilians and security force personnel killed in violence in 2010 was higher than the previous year, according to official statistics released on Saturday.
Figures compiled by the defence, interior and health ministries indicated that 151 people -- 89 civilians, 41 police and 21 soldiers -- were killed in December 2010.
According to an AFP tally based on figures from the three ministries released over the course of 2010, a total of 3,605 Iraqi civilians, police and army personnel were killed last year -- 124 more than the 3,481 who were killed in 2009.
Violence for both years is still far lower than in the past -- for instance, 6,798 people were killed in 2008 and 17,956 in 2007, according to AFP tallies based on government figures from those years.
While the total number of people killed in violence went up from 2009 to 2010, the number of civilians killed dropped, the figures showed.
According to the AFP tally, a total of 2,505 civilians were killed in 2010 -- down 295 on the 2,800 the year before.
The rise in the 2010 death toll was due to an increased number of security force personnel killed -- 215 more policemen and 204 more soldiers than the previous year.
Iraqi security forces have been increasingly on their own as the US has decreased the number of troops it has deployed in the country and shifted its focus from combat to training and advising Iraqi troops.
Some 50,000 US troops remain in the country, but a security accord between Baghdad and Washington requires that they be withdrawn by the end of 2011.
The official statistics released on Saturday also show that 271 people were wounded in December -- 114 civilians, 77 police and 80 soldiers.
That brings the total number of wounded for 2010 to 7,713 -- significantly lower than the previous year's total of 10,562.
The total death toll for December was the lowest since November 2009, and the fifth month in a row with a lower death toll than the one before.
The government figures also indicate that 34 insurgents were killed in December 2010, bringing the total to 710 for the year.
A preliminary report released on December 30 by Iraq Body Count (IBC), an independent Britain-based group, gave a significantly higher number of civilian deaths, but also said the number of civilians killed in 2010 had declined from the previous year.
The IBC report said that 3,976 civilians were killed in Iraq violence through December 25, 2010 -- down 704 from a total of 4,680 the year before, meaning that the number of civilian deaths for 2010 was set to be the lowest since the US-led invasion of 2003.
However, attacks remain commonplace. "2010 averaged nearly two explosions a day by non-state forces that caused civilian deaths (675 explosions killing 2,605)," the report said.
It also noted that attacks occur across the country -- in 13 of 18 of Iraq's provinces in 2010.
And last year saw one of the deadliest attacks on Christians, with 44 worshippers and two priests killed in an October 31 massacre at a Baghdad cathedral.
On Thursday, at least two Christians were killed and 16 others wounded in a wave of bomb attacks on Christian targets in Baghdad, an interior ministry official said.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who was approved by parliament for a second term of office along with a national unity cabinet on December 21 after more than nine months of political deadlock, has cited security as one of his top three priorities.
January 5, 2011, 6:53 pm
With the P.K.K. in Iraq’s Qandil Mountains
By STEPHEN FARRELL, SHIHO FUKADA AND STEVEN LEE MYERS
The New York Times
Painted on flat stones laid on a hillside, one of many portraits of the P.K.K. founder Abdullah Ocalan stares down from a hillside in the Qandil Mountains of northern Iraq. The remote and sparsely populated mountain range near the Iranian and Turkish borders provides a haven for the leftist Kurdish separatist group, also known as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
QANDIL, Iraq — It is not easy to visit the mountainous borderlands of northern Iraq where the Kurdistan Workers’ Party operates, but it is not impossible either.
Such is the peculiar position of a group of committed insurgents against Turkish rule in Kurdish lands — even as Turkey and Iraq seek deeper and deeper ties, through diplomacy and trade, especially with Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region.
Turkey’s ambitious desire to wield influence in Iraq — an assertion of soft power through culture, education and business — has done more perhaps than any military operation to isolate the party and its fighters, known as the P.K.K. and designated as terrorists by the United States and the European Union.
At the same time, the warming of relations could also provide the framework at least for the end of a conflict that has lasted more than a quarter of a century and cost at least 40,000 lives in Turkey.
The P.K.K.’s commander, Murat Karayilan, suggested in a recent interview here in Qandil that the group was prepared to end its fight and seek a political accommodation not unlike what Kurds now have in Iraq. His tone, while still blustery, reflected a tempering of the movement’s demands.
“They have murdered tens of thousands of our people,” he said of the Turkish state. “They have imposed sanctions on us for years. They have tried every possible means, but we are still here and we want a democratic solution.”
In northern Iraq, the contrast could not be starker. In the Kurdish regional capital, Erbil, a Turkish-built shopping mall offers a temple of consumer prosperity. A few hours’ drive away, the P.K.K.’s fighters live a spartan existence in the mountains where Iraq’s borders with Iran and Turkey meet.
Officially, the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq denies providing safe haven for the rebels and restricts access to the areas where they operate, but not particularly vigorously. Two separate visits by The New York Times — negotiated over several weeks — involved bouncing, surreptitious journeys over dirt roads that evaded the last official checkpoints of the Iraqi state.
Once in the area surrounding Qandil, the party’s presence was indisputable. In the case of a massive hillside portrait of the party’s imprisoned founder, Abdullah Ocalan, it seemed taunting.
The party’s uniformed fighters, men and women, control checkpoints or patrol the roads and tracks that wind through the harsh, craggy terrain. The party has a sewing factory to make its uniforms, a clinic to treat its wounded and a cemetery to bury its dead.
A German doctor, Medya Avyan, now works at the hospital. She has no Kurdish roots, but volunteered to help the Kurdish cause after learning of it from friends in the 1990s. Her name is a Kurdish one she assumed after moving to northern Iraq in 1993. (She declined to give her original German name, saying only that she was from Celle in Lower Saxony and had studied medicine in Hamburg.)
On a bookshelf in behind her in the hospital was Mr. Ocalan’s photograph, a volume on Hippocrates and a history of the P.K.K. Asked how she reconciled treating people in a hospital operated by an organization accused of killing thousands, she replied with remarks that many in Turkey would dispute.
“The P.K.K. don’t kill any civilians,” she said. “That’s very important. They are killing those who kill them. They defend themselves, nothing else.”
All of the party’s members — its leaders, its fighters, its volunteers — defended their fight and their cause with a romanticism that makes it difficult to imagine their laying down arms and returning to peaceful civilian life. Many have been in the mountains for years.
“I have been a guerrilla for 18 years,” Gorse Mereto, 32, a uniformed fighter, said during a break in the improbable shooting of a propaganda film. (The set was a campfire at night, illuminated by stage lights hanging from trees.) “I have seen many difficulties. In all the situations in which I myself was present, no civilian was killed, but soldiers were.”
He had his own rationale, a history, viewed through Kurdish eyes, of Turkish oppression. It suggested a cycle of violence that would take time to break. “They have destroyed a lot of villages,” he said. “They have killed innocent civilians. They have killed many of our men.”
He continued, “Anybody, even an animal, defends itself.”
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