[Centraal] Irak na de oorlog - deel 33

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Op dinsdag 4 juli 2006 16:05 schreef zakjapannertje het volgende:
Irak loopt leeg
Brian Conley en Omar Abdullah

BAGDAD, 4 juli (IPS) - Meer dan drie jaar na de invasie in Irak willen steeds meer Irakezen weg uit hun land, zo blijkt uit talloze rapporten. In de praktijk is het echter niet zo makkelijk om Irak te verlaten. In Bagdad verstrekt de overheid maar een beperkt aantal internationale paspoorten.

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3 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq battle

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three American soldiers were killed Saturday in fighting in the western province of Anbar, the U.S. military said. They were the first U.S. fatalities reported in
Iraq in four days and only the eighth so far this month.

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Op dinsdag 4 juli 2006 18:09 schreef NightH4wk het volgende:
Laat de VS maar haar troepen wereldwijd terugtrekken, kan iig niemand meer zeiken en is er de komende decennia weer nonstop geweldadige footage voor Hollywood, die films worden steeds matiger.

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20 Sunni Arabs slain in Baghdad ambush

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen stopped cars in western Baghdad and singled out Sunni Arabs in a dramatic escalation of sectarian violence Sunday. Police said at least 20 people were killed.

The attack in the dangerous Jihad neighborhood was apparently in retaliation for the car bombing of a local Shiite mosque the night before.

Police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said 20 bodies were taken to hospitals and police were searching for more victims reportedly left dumped in the streets. He also said U.S. and Iraqi forces had sealed off the area.

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Op zondag 9 juli 2006 13:03 schreef Autodidact het volgende:

[..]

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37 Sunni Arabs slain in Baghdad ambush

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Masked Shiite gunmen stopped cars in western Baghdad on Sunday, singling out Sunni Arabs. At least 37 people were killed in the dramatic escalation of sectarian violence.

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Amerikaanse militairen aangeklaagd wegens moord
BAGDAD - Vier Amerikaanse militairen zijn aangeklaagd wegens moord en verkrachting in Irak. Dat maakte het Amerikaanse leger zondag bekend. In deze zaak is vorige week al een voormalige Amerikaanse militair voor hetzelfde aangeklaagd.

Het gaat om een incident in maart dit jaar vlakbij Mahmudiya ten zuiden van Bagdad. De mannen zouden vier leden van een gezin hebben vermoord nadat ze eerst de tienerdochter hadden verkracht. De (ex-)militairen kunnen de doodstraf krijgen als zij schuldig worden bevonden.

Zaterdag was in verband met deze zaak een zesde Amerikaanse soldaat in staat van beschuldiging gesteld wegens plichtsverzuim omdat hij het incident niet had gemeld bij zijn meerdere.

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Op zondag 9 juli 2006 16:13 schreef Monidique het volgende:
Ondertussen mag het toch wel gewoon 'burgeroorlog' genoemd worden?

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Op dinsdag 4 juli 2006 11:39 schreef Autodidact het volgende:
Ex-GI charged in rape of Iraqi, killings

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Op zondag 9 juli 2006 22:31 schreef Glasnosteraar het volgende:
en nu hebben er weer zo'n 17 shia's boem gedaan.

http://www.faz.net/s/RubD(...)common~Scontent.html

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Op zondag 9 juli 2006 23:13 schreef Autodidact het volgende:

[..]

Even voor het goede plaatje, dat is dezelfde aanslag als die ik eerder meldde.

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Police Abuses in Iraq Detailed
Confidential documents cover more than 400 investigations. Brutality, bribery and cooperation with militia fighters are common, a report says.
By Solomon Moore, Times Staff Writer
July 9, 2006

BAGHDAD — Brutality and corruption are rampant in Iraq's police force, with abuses including the rape of female prisoners, the release of terrorism suspects in exchange for bribes, assassinations of police officers and participation in insurgent bombings, according to confidential Iraqi government documents detailing more than 400 police corruption investigations.

A recent assessment by State Department police training contractors echoes the investigative documents, concluding that strong paramilitary and insurgent influences within the force and endemic corruption have undermined public confidence in the government.

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Officers also have beaten prisoners to death, been involved in kidnapping rings, sold thousands of stolen and forged Iraqi passports and passed along vital information to insurgents, the Iraqi documents allege.

The documents, which cover part of 2005 and 2006, were obtained by The Times and authenticated by current and former police officials.

The alleged offenses span dozens of police units and hundreds of officers, including beat cops, generals and police chiefs. Officers were punished in some instances, but the vast majority of cases are either under investigation or were dropped because of lack of evidence or witness testimony.

The investigative documents are the latest in a string of disturbing revelations of abuse and corruption by Iraq's Interior Ministry, a Cabinet-level agency that employs 268,610 police, immigration, facilities security and dignitary protection officers.

After the discovery in November of a secret Interior Ministry detention facility in Baghdad operated by police intelligence officials affiliated with a Shiite Muslim militia, U.S. officials declared 2006 "the year of the police." They vowed a renewed effort to expand and professionalize Iraq's civilian officer corps.

President Bush has said that the training of a competent Iraqi police force is linked to the timing of an eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops and a key element in the war in Iraq.

But U.S. officials say the renegade force in the ministry's intelligence service that ran the bunker in Baghdad's Jadiriya neighborhood continues to operate out of the Interior Ministry building's seventh floor. A senior U.S. military official in Iraq, who spoke on condition of anonymity in an interview last month, confirmed that one of the leaders of the renegade group, Mahmoud Waeli, is the "minister of intelligence for the Badr Corps" Shiite militia and a main recruiter of paramilitary elements for Interior Ministry police forces.

"We're gradually working the process to take them out of the equation," the military official said. "We developed the information. We also developed a prosecutorial case."

Bayan Jabr, a prominent Shiite, was interior minister at the time of the investigations detailed in the documents and has been accused of allowing Shiite paramilitary fighters to run rampant in the security forces.

U.S. officials interviewed for this article said the ability of Jabr's replacement, Jawad Bolani, to deal with the corruption and militia influence in the police force will be a crucial test of his leadership.

The challenges facing Bolani, a Shiite engineer who has no policing experience and entered politics for the first time after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, are highlighted in a recent assessment by police trainers hired by the State Department. According to the report, corruption in the Interior Ministry has hampered its effectiveness and its credibility with Iraqis.

"Despite great progress and genuine commitment on the part of many ministry officials, the current climate of corruption, human rights violations and sectarian violence found in Iraq's security forces undermines public confidence," according to the document, titled "Year of the Police In-Stride Assessment, October 2005 to May 2006."

Elements of the Ministry of the Interior, or MOI, "have been co-opted by insurgents, terrorists and sectarian militias. Payroll fraud, other kinds of corruption and intimidation campaigns by insurgent and militia organizations undermine police effectiveness in key cities throughout Iraq," the report says.

The report increased tensions between the Pentagon, which runs the police training program, and the State Department, which has been pushing to expand its limited training role in Iraq, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The report strikes contradictory tones, saying that the Interior Ministry continues to improve and that its forces are on track to take over civil security from U.S. and Iraqi military elements by the end of the year, while outlining shocking problems with corruption and abuse.

"The document basically shows that Interior Ministry management has failed," the U.S. official said. "The document didn't directly address U.S. policy failures, but I guess it does show that too."

Interior Ministry officials have taken steps to "improve detainee life," the report says. "However, there are elements within the MOI which continue to abuse detainees."

Referring to Sunni Arab insurgent groups and Shiite paramilitary organizations, the report says "these groups exploit MOI forces to further insurgent, party and sectarian goals. As a result, many Iraqis do not trust the police. Divisions falling along militia lines have led to violence among police.

"MOI officials and forces are widely reported to engage in bribery, extortion and theft," the report says. "For example, there are numerous credible reports of ministry and police officials requiring payment from would-be recruits to join the police."

The report's findings are borne out in hundreds of pages of internal investigative documents.

The documents include worksheets with hundreds of short summaries of alleged police crimes, letters referring accused officers to Iraq's anti-corruption agencies and courts, citizen complaints of police abuse and corruption, police inspector general summaries detailing financial crimes and fraudulent contracting practices and reports on alleged sympathizers of Saddam Hussein's former regime.

In crisp bureaucratic Arabic, the documents detail a police force in which abuse and death at the hands of policemen is frighteningly common.

Police officers' loyalties appear to be a major problem, with dozens of accounts of insurgent infiltration and terrorist acts committed by ministry officials.

In one case, a ring of Baghdad police officers — including a colonel, two lieutenants and a captain — were accused of stealing communications equipment for insurgents, who used the electronics for remote bomb triggers. In another case, a medic with the Interior Ministry's elite commando force in Baghdad was fired after he was accused of planting improvised explosives and conducting assassinations.

In Diyala province, where last month U.S. forces killed Abu Musab Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, investigators were looking into allegations that a police officer detonated a suicide vest in the bombing of a police station. In a separate case, a brigadier general, a colonel and a criminal judge were accused of taking bribes from a suspected terrorist.

Police officers have also organized kidnapping rings that abduct civilians for ransom — in some of the cases, the victims are police officers. Two Baghdad police commanders kidnapped a lieutenant colonel, stole his ministry car and demanded tens of thousands of dollars from the victim's family, the documents allege. In that case, the two accused, Maj. Gen. Naief Abdul Ezaq and Capt. Methaq Sebah Mahmoud, were fired and taken to court.

The abbreviated notes on the case do not make clear whether the two officers received further punishment, but the fact that the documents mention the courts being involved in the incident at all makes it stand out from the rest of the cases.

In another case, the bodyguards of a police colonel in the Zayona neighborhood of Baghdad kidnapped merchants for ransom, according to the documents. In the capital's Ghazaliya neighborhood, a lieutenant and his brother-in-law kidnapped a man and demanded a huge ransom from his family.

Abuse by police is also a common theme. The victims include citizens who tried to complain about police misbehavior, drivers who disobeyed traffic police commands and, in several cases, other police officers.

But detainees appear to be targeted most often. The U.S. military has been working with the Iraqi government to standardize detention facilities and policies, and the U.S. assessment claims that several site visits turned up no serious human rights abuses. But the ministry documents reveal a brutal detention system in which officers run hidden jails, and torture and detainee deaths are common.

The documents mention four investigations into the deaths of 15 prisoners at the hands police commando units.

In the Rusafa section of Baghdad, a predominantly Shiite area known for its strong militia presence, police tortured detainees with electricity, beatings and, in at least one case, rape, according to the internal documents. Relief was reserved for those detainees whose relatives could afford to bribe detention officers to release them.

The Wolf Brigade, a notorious commando unit, illegally detained more than 650 prisoners, according to the documents. During a mass release of Wolf Brigade prisoners last November, a Times reporter saw dozens of malnourished men among the released detainees; several were so weak that they could not walk without assistance.

Female detainees are often sexually assaulted. According to the documents, the commander of a detention center in the Karkh neighborhood of the capital raped a woman who was an alleged insurgent in August. That same month, two lieutenants tortured and raped two other female detainees.

Among the strongest reprimands — and the most outrageous corruption — detailed in the documents are the cases involving two provincial police chiefs who were removed.


Brig. Gen. Adil Molan Ghaidan, the former Diyala province police chief, was accused of drinking on the job, illegally confiscating real estate from citizens, knowingly paying ghost employees and harboring suspected terrorists. He was removed from the force about six months ago, police sources say.

Before his removal several months ago, Maj. Gen. Ahmad Mohammed Aljiboori, the former Nineveh province police chief, allegedly assigned a private army of 1,400 officers to personal security detail. According to an internal inquiry, Aljiboori claimed the force was not under the Interior Ministry's control.

The document also accuses Aljiboori of detaining 300 Iraqis for two months without charges, wasting thousands of dollars on extravagant banquets and neglecting antiterrorism efforts to focus on arresting car dealers. The document says Aljiboori confiscated most of the cars for personal gain and gave some of them away to friends as gifts.

U.S. officials say they have known about Interior Ministry abuses for years but have done little to thwart them, choosing instead to push Iraqi leaders to solve their own problems.

"The military had been at the bunker prior to the raid in November," said the U.S. official, referring to the Jadiriya facility. "But they said nothing."

Some U.S. military leaders want American officials to have a stronger hand with the Interior Ministry, arguing that continuing corruption and militia influence are dashing any hope for a speedy American withdrawal.

Another senior military official said U.S. policy in regard to the ministry was confused and disengaged. The official, who asked not to be identified because his comments impugned his superiors, said the Pentagon and State Department had failed to coordinate their efforts and were disengaged from the Iraqi police leaders.

"They sit up there on the 11th floor of the ministry building and don't talk to the Iraqis," the official said of U.S. police trainers assigned to the Interior Ministry headquarters tower. "They say they do policy and [that] it's up to the Iraqis — well, they're just doing nothing. The MOI is the most broken ministry in Iraq."

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Op zondag 9 juli 2006 21:03 schreef dontcare het volgende:

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Van mij wel want dat is wat er aan de hand is nu.

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De Iraakse tak van al-Qaida heeft maandag een video online gezet waarop de verminkte lichamen van twee Amerikaanse soldaten te zien zijn. De twee werden in juni ontvoerd en geëxecuteerd uit wraak op de verkrachting van een jonge Iraakse vrouw bij Mahmoediyah, ten zuiden van Bagdad.



Wraak
"Ziehier een film met wat over is van de lichamen van de twee Amerikaanse soldaten die bij Yoessoefiyah (ten zuiden van Bagdad) werden ontvoerd. We tonen deze beelden om onze zuster te wreken die is verkracht door een soldaat van dezelfde divisie," aldus de al-Choura Raad der Moedjahedien, een vereniging van gewapende Soennitische bewegingen in Irak die door al-Qaida wordt gedomineerd, in een voorwoord bij de video.

Kruisvaarder
"Toen de leeuwen van onze eenheid hoorden (van de verkrachting), hebben ze hun verzuchtingen onderdrukt om te vermijden dat de zaak bekendheid zou krijgen, maar ze hebben gezworen hun zuster te wreken," aldus de Raad op zijn website. "Dank zij aan God, want zij zijn erin geslaagd twee soldaten van dezelfde divisie als deze walgelijke kruisvaarder gevangen te nemen. Ziehier hun resten (...) om de harten der gelovigen te doen juichen," zo luidt het. Het filmbestand is ongeveer vijf minuten lang en toont de zwaar verminkte lichamen van de soldaten. Dat de twee waren ontvoerd en vermoord was al bekend. (belga/afp/hln)

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Op dinsdag 11 juli 2006 12:02 schreef klez het volgende:

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Van mij niet.
Het ophitsen door extremistische milities is wat mij betreft geen burgeroorlog.
Ik heb stellig de indruk dat het gros van de Irakezen hier niets mee te maken wil hebben.
Dat was tijdens bijvoorbeeld de Spaanse burgeroorlog wel anders.

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Op dinsdag 11 juli 2006 19:14 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Denk je dat de Libanezen, Angolezen of Somaliërs te springen stonden om al het bloedvergieten? Natuurlijk niet. Toch was er een burgeroorlog. Elke dag worden er tientallen soennieten en sji'ieten vermoord om hun geloof, wijken worden gezuiverd en de hele samenleving is gepolariseerd. Honderdduizenden mensen zijn vermoord, verminkt of ontheemd ten gevolge van sektarisch geweld. Het maakt echt niet uit of de meerderheid van de Irakezen het wilt, dat is een criterium dat er niet toe doet: Irak is in een staat van burgeroorlog.

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Op dinsdag 11 juli 2006 19:30 schreef zakjapannertje het volgende:

Immediate Withdrawal: Power Vacuums in Gaza and Iraq

By Doron Ben-Atar | Tuesday, July 11, 2006

With Iraq on the brink of civil war, popularity has increased for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region. According to Doron Ben-Atar, there exist striking similarities between the proposed U.S. retreat and Israel’s 2005 pull-out from Gaza. He explores the dangers of a U.S. withdrawal while instability looms across Iraq.

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Op dinsdag 11 juli 2006 22:44 schreef Glasnosteraar het volgende:

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je ziet het! men luistert naar mij. Ze hebben blijkbaar mijn Wegwezen uit het Midden-Oosten - Pat Buchanan topic doorgenomen

Wegwezen uit het Midden-Oosten

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Op dinsdag 11 juli 2006 22:49 schreef Dubbelzuurrr het volgende:

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Heel goed, gezichtsverlies waarmee de machtspositie van de VS in de internationale betrekkingen danig aangetast raakt. Ík zou er alleen niet op rekenen dat het ook echt plaatsvindt omdat Dorot-Ben-Hatar het zegt....

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Op dinsdag 11 juli 2006 23:02 schreef Glasnosteraar het volgende:

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De machtspositie van de VS met Bush aan het roer is al dusdanig aangetast dat Bush als een leproos over de wereld rondreist.
En de verandering van opinie merk ik ook op een Amerikaans forum waar ik zo nu en dan rondhang. Of zich dat ook in beleidt vertaald moeten we natuurlijk afwachten, dat hangt in sterke mate af van de volgende president.

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Stubborn Man Tries to Govern in Violent Iraq

Mamoon Sami Rashid is the governor with 29 lives.

That’s the number of assassination attempts he has counted since joining the Anbar provincial government in January 2005.

“You see, over there, that is where the suicide bomber tried to kill me,” Governor Rashid said with a smile as he drove his armored S.U.V. to work. Across the road, where he was pointing, lay the charred shells of half a dozen automobiles.

“Over here,” he said after a time, pointing again, “this is where they tried to shoot me.”

Car bomb, suicide bomber, mortar, gun; in his car, in his house, in a mosque: insurgents have tried to kill Mr. Rashid so many times and in so many different ways that he has nearly lost count. But life being what it is in Ramadi, Anbar’s tumultuous capital, Mr. Rashid probably will need a few more lives to survive until his term expires this year.

“They want to kill me,” he said, spinning the wheel, “because I will not let them have power.”

Mr. Rashid stands as the measure of both the tenacity and the weakness of the American-backed government in Anbar Province, west of Baghdad. Like the battered outpost that he calls his office, Mr. Rashid hangs on even as colleagues and friends have either lost their will or, in some cases, their lives.

His predecessor, Raja Nawaf, was kidnapped and killed. His deputy, Talib al-Dulaimi, was shot to death. Khidr Abdeljabar Abbas, the chairman of the provincial council, was killed in April. Last month, the governor’s secretary was beheaded.

Mr. Rashid, 49, survives largely with — and only with — the protection of American marines. They hold down the Government Center and escort him to and from work. They fly him around Anbar in a helicopter. Indeed, Mr. Rashid is more than just the symbol of the Anbar government; he seems the only functioning part. Most of the senior members of the government refuse to come to work or to show their faces in public.

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Op dinsdag 11 juli 2006 23:02 schreef Glasnosteraar het volgende:

[..]

De machtspositie van de VS met Bush aan het roer is al dusdanig aangetast dat Bush als een leproos over de wereld rondreist.
En de verandering van opinie merk ik ook op een Amerikaans forum waar ik zo nu en dan rondhang. Of zich dat ook in beleidt vertaald moeten we natuurlijk afwachten, dat hangt in sterke mate af van de volgende president.

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Dozens of Shiites kidnapped from Iraq bus station

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Dozens of Iraqi Shiites were kidnapped by gunmen from a bus station in the restive town of Muqdadiyah, northeast of the capital, a leading MP has announced in parliament

"There was a very serious breach of security in Diyala province today when 60-80 Shiites were kidnapped from the bus station in Muqdadiyah," senior Shiite MP Jalaleddin al-Saghir said following the prime minister's speech in front of the chamber.

"The police appear to be complicit in this incident because they pulled out of the area right before the kidnapping," he added Wednesday, echoing a charge more commonly raised by the minority Sunni community against the security forces.

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Suicide bombing in Baghdad kills 7

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber blew himself up in a restaurant in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing seven people and wounding 31, while gunmen kidnapped at least 17 people in an ambush on a bus station north of the capital.

The attack on the restaurant occurred in New Baghdad, a mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhood in southeastern Baghdad, local police chief Col. Ahmed Aboud said.

Gunmen also stormed a bus station in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, abducting 17 civilians and taking them to an unknown destination, police said.

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In Baghdad streets, little sign of rule of law

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Private Uday Abdullah is one of 50,000 Iraqi troops and police sent on to Baghdad's streets last month to make the city safe -- but he does not see the point.

Lounging in the shade to escape the midday heat on Tuesday, the soldier said it is gunmen from rival Shi'ite and Sunni parties with clout in the government who rule the streets.

"We arrest lots of gunmen and they just walk free the next day. They're always from the Mehdi Army or the Badr Brigade or the Islamic Party. So what's the point of our job?" he said.

Many in Baghdad wonder the same thing as checkpoints set up as part of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's crackdown on violence spawn ever greater traffic jams but have failed to prevent dozens dying in sectarian shootings and bombings this week.

"We do nothing but create huge traffic jams with these checkpoints," Abdullah said.

Pointing to the traffic backed up on Senak Bridge, a major artery over the Tigris river, he said: "I am standing here. But I have no desire to be here."

Raed Abd al-Hafudh Saleem, a lieutenant in Baghdad's traffic department, is equally bemused and cynical.

From his concrete booth in the middle of a busy intersection in upmarket Mansour, he has a clear view of the many vehicles carrying heavily armed men that speed past every day.

"I don't know who these people are. I can't stop them because they never hesitate to point their guns at me."

Every morning, when he reports for duty at his little booth, he finds fresh bullet casings littering the road.

"I don't know where they come from. Everyone carries a gun in this country, from the bodyguards of officials and members of parliament to private security companies.

"How can I distinguish between all those and the insurgents, and militias?" he said.

He told how bodyguards recently fired into the air to clear the road for a ministerial convoy. When he remonstrated with them, one man fired a burst from his AK-47 just past his head.

"He said to me: 'Who are you to say this? I am the state."'

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Iraqis turn to fake IDs for safety

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A bookstore in eastern Baghdad is getting more customers these days, but they aren't looking for something to read. The owner sells fake IDs, a booming business as Iraqis try to hide their identities in hopes of staying alive.

Although it's nearly impossible to distinguish between a Sunni and a Shiite by sight, names can be telling. Surnames refer to tribe and clan, while first names are often chosen to honor historical figures revered by one sect but sometimes despised by the other.

For about $35, someone with a common Sunni name like Omar could become Abdul-Mahdi, a Shiite name that might provide safe passage through dangerous areas.

"I got a fake ID card to protect myself from the Shiite militias who are deploying in Baghdad and hunt Sunnis at fake checkpoints," said Omar Abdul Rahman, a 22-year-old university student. He refused to give the name on his fake ID.

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Op woensdag 12 juli 2006 09:43 schreef klez het volgende:

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Dat is allemaal maar schijn. De Westerse leiders (onze leiders) zijn maar wat blij dat de Amerikanen een allang sluimerend gezwel hebben blootgelegd en de gevechten weten te concentreren in het Midden-Oosten. Al-Qaida en de Arabische fascisten die allang met hun stiekeme oorlog tegen het westen bezig waren kunnen geen kant meer op. Het is nu erop of eronder.
Die terugtrekking op korte termijn komt er helemaal niet; kijk maar wat er in Afghanistan gebeurt.

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Op woensdag 12 juli 2006 14:42 schreef Glasnosteraar het volgende:

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nou, als ik die artikelen van autodidact zo lees, ook die van 2 pagina's, besluipt me toch het gevoel dat dit niet meer goed gaat komen. Deel Iraq maar in drie stukken, en in zowel het shiitische en het sunnitische deel zal alleen een brute dictator de rust nog enigzins weten te bewaren.

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Gekke is trouwens dat ik nog geeneens zo lang geleden een toeristenboekje (eind jaren 70) in handen had van Irak. M'n vader had een aanbod gekregen om te werken in Irak (voor Scania). Ging niet door omdat de oorlog met Iran uitbrak. Merkwaardige gewaarwording was dat.

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Op woensdag 12 juli 2006 17:17 schreef klez het volgende:

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Dat in drieeen delen, daar zal het wel op uit draaien als de Irakis dit niet zelf de kop in weten te drukken. Denk je dat het westen daar lang wakker van ligt...
Dat nut van die dictator zie ik verder niet zo.

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Ik weet niet wat hij nu doet, maar veel "expats" komen buitengoed terecht, weet ik uit ervaring. Irak onder Saddam was nu niet echt een makkelijk land om integriteit te bewaren, lijkt me.

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Sesame Street helps army children



US children's TV show Sesame Street is to be used to help American military families explain why a parent has to leave to serve overseas.

A DVD featuring popular character Elmo and his parents who are preparing for Elmo's dad to be deployed, will be handed out for free in August.

The DVD, produced in both English and Spanish, also features interviews with real-life families.

It also deals with the mixed feelings that occur when families are reunited.

About half a million children up to the age of five belong to families with one or both parents on active duty in the US, said Leslye Arsht, a US government undersecretary for military community and family policy.

Joanna Lopez and her family are featured in the DVD. Her husband has been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Some parents don't know how to deal with children when there is a deployment," she said.

"Other kids in school will say, 'My daddy is away killing bad guys.' This prepares the mom or dad to prepare the kids with better things to say."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/5180458.stm

Published: 2006/07/14 12:56:01 GMT

© BBC MMVI

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In one of the few comprehensive surveys of how many Iraqis have fled their country since the US invasion, the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants said last month that there were 644,500 refugees in Syria and Jordan in 2005 — about 2.5 per cent of Iraq’s population. In total, 889,000 Iraqis had moved abroad, creating “the biggest new flow of refugees in the world”, according to Lavinia Limon, the committee’s president.

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Gunmen kill 41 in raid on Iraq market

AGHDAD, Iraq - Dozens of heavily armed attackers raided an open air market Monday in a tense town south of Baghdad, killing at least 41 people and wounding 42, police and hospital officials said.

Some reports put the death toll far higher. Most of the victims were believed to be Shiites.

The attack in Mahmoudiya began about 9 a.m. with a brief mortar barrage, followed by an armed assault by dozens of gunmen. They killed three Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint, then stormed the market while firing automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades, police Capt. Rashid al-Samaraie said.

Following the attack, police rushed to the market, arresting people at random in an attempt to find the assailants, witnesses said.

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Bomber kills 26 at cafe in northern Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber detonated explosives Sunday inside a cafe packed with Shiites in northern
Iraq, killing 26 people and injuring 22, an Iraqi general said. Gunmen seized a top Oil Ministry official, the second major kidnapping in as many days.

The U.S. military said an American soldier was killed in a roadside bombing in south Baghdad. No further details were released.

In the south, a British soldier was killed and another wounded during a raid against a "terrorist suspect" in Basra, the British military said. British troops arrested a top Shiite militia leader in the city, Iraqi police said, but it was unclear if the two events were linked.

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30 at Sports Meeting In Iraq Are Abducted

BAGHDAD, July 15 -- The security guard at the Oil Ministry Cultural Center was bending down to kneel for midday prayer Saturday when someone behind him said, "Turn around and do not move."

The guard, Yasin Ibrahim Mustafa, turned to face the barrel of an AK-47, held by a man wearing an Iraqi police commando uniform. The man told Mustafa to stay in the guard room, then walked into the center in downtown Baghdad and joined dozens of other gunmen in the kidnapping of the head of Iraq's Olympic Committee and more than 30 other people who were attending a sports conference, police and witnesses said.

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Car bomb in Iraq's Kufa kills 15: police

KUFA, Iraq (Reuters) - A car bomb hit a group of laborers near a Shi'ite mosque in the southern Iraqi city of Kufa on Tuesday, killing 15 and wounding 21, police said.

Hospital sources said they had received 17 bodies after the blast hit a crowded market that is next to the mosque. Policemen who arrived in the scene were pelted with rocks by angry protesters. Police fired into the air to disperse the crowds, and a Reuters witness two wounded from the shooting.

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Op dinsdag 18 juli 2006 19:15 schreef Glasnosteraar het volgende:
At least 53 dead in latest Iraq bombing

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Op dinsdag 18 juli 2006 20:41 schreef Autodidact het volgende:

[..]

Dezelfde als deze dus: [Centraal] Irak na de oorlog - deel 33

Alleen dan geactualiseerd (even om het plaatje weer goed te krijgen )

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Op dinsdag 18 juli 2006 20:58 schreef Autodidact het volgende:
Of je leest even de berichten die al geplaatst zijn. Het is wel handig als je geactualiseerde berichten krijgt hoor, maar dat mensen niet gaan denken dat je de twee op kan tellen of zo.

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16 killed in Iraq violence

BAGHDAD (AFP) - At least 16 people were killed in violence around Iraq, including five civilians killed by a blast outside the main courthouse in the northern oil city of Kiruk.
\Twelve civilians were also wounded in the bombing, most of them staff of the court.

In the capital, five people were killed and 20 wounded in a deadly combination of explosions targeting a police patrol and then rescue workers, an interior ministry official said Wednesday.

A car bomb exploded as a police patrol drove by the technology university in the central Rusafa district, wounding three policemen.

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Iraq gunmen kidnap 20 Sunni agency workers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen on Wednesday kidnapped 20 employees of a government agency that cares for Sunni mosques and shrines nationwide, and the organization suspended its work until further notice, an official said.

Also Wednesday, at least 20 people were killed in a string of bombings and shootings, mostly in Baghdad, police said. They included a senior Interior Ministry official slain on his way to work, police said.

Sixteen other bodies were found in widely separate parts of the country — apparent victims of sectarian death squads.

The announcement by the Sunni Endowment, a major institution within the Sunni community, further escalated sectarian tensions.

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Iraqi civilian toll 6,000 for May, June

UNITED NATIONS - Nearly 6,000 civilians were slain across Iraq in May and June, a spike in deaths that coincided with rising sectarian attacks across the country, the United Nations said Tuesday.


The report from the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq describes a wave of lawlessness and crime, including assassinations, bombings, kidnappings, torture and intimidation.

Hundreds of teachers, judges, religious leaders and doctors have been targeted for death, and thousands of people have fled, the report said. Evidence suggests militants also have begun to target homosexuals, it said.

"While welcoming recent positive steps by the government to promote national reconciliation, the report raises alarm at the growing number of casualties among the civilian population killed or wounded during indiscriminate or targeted attacks by terrorists or insurgents," the U.N. said in a note accompanying the report.

In the last two days alone, more than 120 people were killed in violence in Iraq. In the worst attacks, fifty-three perished in a suicide bombing Tuesday in Kufa, and 50 were slain Monday in a market in Mahmoudiya.

According to the report, 2,669 civilians were killed in May and 3,149 were killed in June. Those numbers combined two counts: from the Ministry of Health, which records deaths reported by hospitals; and the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad, which tallies the unidentified bodies it receives.

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Japanese troops return home from Iraq


TOKYO (AFP) - The first batch of Japanese troops has returned home from
Iraq to emotional family reunions as the officially pacifist nation wrapped up its most significant military operation since World War II.

The Iraq deployment was the closest Japanese troops had come to harm's way in more than 60 years, when it renounced the use of force under a US-imposed constitution.

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In Iraq, Civil War All but Declared

BAGHDAD — Retaliatory massacres by gunmen and bombers linked to rival Muslim sects have left more than 130 people dead across Iraq over the last two days, the latest casualties of what some politicians now are calling an undeclared civil war.



At least 57 Iraqis were killed Tuesday and scores more injured when a suicide bomber lured a group of day laborers to his minivan with the promise of work before setting off explosives.

The bombing in Kufa rained blood, burnt debris and charred body parts on a small market across the street from the Muslim bin Aqil mosque, the main platform for radical Shiite cleric and militia leader Muqtada Sadr.

Since the beginning of May, attacks by Sunni Arab and Shiite Muslims have claimed the lives of more than 6,000 Iraqi civilians, according to a United Nations study and Iraqi police reports.

The Kufa blast, coming on the heels of mass killings and bombings attributed to Sadr's Al Mahdi militia and its Sunni Arab enemies, brought the battle to the Shiite cleric's doorstep, igniting fears of a fresh wave of reprisal killings.

"The message is clear, and the message confirms the sectarian differences," said Fadhil Sharih, a leader of the Sadr movement. [n]"It seems clear that it's been moving toward the direction of civil war."[/n]

U.S. and Iraqi government leaders have argued that the 150,000-strong foreign troop presence has kept the country from descending into full-scale civil war. But many Iraqi officials fear the threshold has been crossed.

"What is happening in Iraq is a disaster and a tragedy," Adnan Dulaimi, a Sunni Arab leader, said in an interview.

"It's bloodshed and killing of the innocents, killing the elderly and women and children. It's mass killings. It's nothing less than an undeclared civil war."

Many members of Iraq's political class spoke gravely of the massacres and bombings of the last few days, even as two U.S. Cabinet officials visiting Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone this week touted Iraq as a potential bonanza for private investors.

The Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni Arab political group, warned Tuesday that "Iraq is witnessing a grave escalation in violence," and it called on Iraqis "to return to their senses instead of slipping into the abyss."

The surge in violence has terrified residents of Baghdad and other mixed Sunni and Shiite areas. The Baghdad airport has been flooded with Iraqis of modest means seeking to escape even temporarily the country's upswing in sectarian slayings.

According to a U.N. study based on Health Ministry statistics, 2,669 Iraqi civilians were killed in May and 3,149 were killed in June. And this month, the violence appears to be accelerating, particularly in the Baghdad area that is the target of a sweeping security crackdown aimed at quelling the violence. U.S. and Iraqi troops launched the sweep, to great fanfare, after a visit in mid-June by President Bush.

"Things are getting worse," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker.

Even those who hesitate to call Iraq's sectarian violence a civil war have begun saying that defusing the situation will require the international mechanisms used to mediate previous ethnic, religious and political conflicts in Central America, the former Yugoslavia and Sri Lanka.

"I start to feel the need to say that there is a civil war," said Salim Abdullah Jabouri, a Sunni politician, "in order to borrow the tools and solutions of past civil wars to apply them here, and to call upon the international community to deal with Iraq's problems on this basis."

The latest cycle of violence began with the July 8 bombing of a small Shiite mosque in the Jihad neighborhood of southwest Baghdad.

Shiite militiamen took to the streets the next day, pulling Sunnis from their homes and cars and executing them on the spot.

A string of bombings targeting Shiite mosques and markets followed.

In the morgue, the bodies of Sunnis piled up, felled with single bullets to the head, apparently by Shiite death squads.

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Sistani calls for end to violence
Iraq's most prominent Shia cleric, Ali al-Sistani, has called for an end to sectarian "hatred and violence".

The grand ayatollah said the violence would only prolong the presence of US forces in the country.

His call came as the US military admitted the level of violence was little changed since a large security crackdown in Baghdad last month.

A number of people were killed in fresh violence in the capital and other parts of the country on Thursday.

'Blind violence'

Correspondents say the ayatollah's comments were his strongest public statements on the issue of sectarian violence in recent months.

We have not witnessed the reduction in violence one would have hoped for in a perfect world
US Maj Gen William Caldwell

"I call on all sons of Iraq... to be aware of the danger threatening their nation's future and stand shoulder to shoulder in confronting it by rejecting hatred and violence," he said.

Ayatollah Sistani said the bombing in February of a Shia shrine in Samarra had unleashed "blind violence".

Unless halted the violence would "harm the unity of the people and block their hopes of liberation and independence for a long time", he said.

The US military on Wednesday again urged the Sunni and Shia communities to root out militias and death squads.

But the US military admitted on Thursday the massive security clampdown that followed the killing of al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had achieved only a "slight downtick" in violence.

The security plan included up to 50,000 police and soldiers on the streets of Baghdad and more checkpoints and raids on violent areas.

US Maj Gen William Caldwell said: "We have not witnessed the reduction in violence one would have hoped for in a perfect world."

The US said attacks had risen from an average of 24 a day between 14 June and 13 July to about 34 a day over the past five days.

The threat of sectarian violence has caused an increasing internal refugee problem.

Iraq's migration ministry said more than 30,000 people had registered as refugees this month alone, bringing the total of people seeking help since the Samarra bombing to 162,000.

In other developments on Thursday:

* A US marine died as a result of hostile action in western Anbar province, the military said

* At least three car bombs exploded in Baghdad - one killing three people and injuring 10 in a market area in Shula, police say

* Iraq's National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie says Iraq will be in charge of security in eight of the country's 18 provinces by the end of the year.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/5199162.stm

Published: 2006/07/20 16:10:14 GMT

© BBC MMVI

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Op donderdag 20 juli 2006 20:23 schreef Dr-Islam het volgende:
Al-Sistani heeft al eerder eenzelfde oproep gedaan waaraan de sjiieten een lange tijd gehoor hebben gegeven. Maar het probleem was juist dat de soennieten vanaf het begin t/m heden non-stop sjiieten hebben afgeslacht en sinds een paar maanden doen de sjiieten wat terug. Als Israel het recht heeft om terreuracties te vergelden, dan hebben de sjiieten eenzelfde recht om zichzelf te verdedigen. De sjiieten worden als makke lammen afgeslacht op dit moment door Al-Qaida terroristen (soennieten), Saddam-loyalisten (soennieten) en sectarische psychopaten. Tot nu toe vergelden alleen leden van de Mahdi-leger (minderheid van de sjiieten) van Muqtada al-Sadr de aanvallen van de soennieten. Als er officieel sprake is van een burgeroorlog dan zullen de soennieten pas echt worden afgeslacht. Maar nu, nee, op dit moment houden de sjiieten zich nog redelijk goed in. Sinds tien dagen geleden de Mahdi-leger 40 soennieten heeft doodgeschoten (waaronder per ongeluk enkele sjiieten) zijn al ruim 200 sjiieten vermoord als "reactie". Drie keer raden welke incident het wereldnieuws haalde? Juist, de actie waarbij soennieten omkwamen. Als er sjiieten omkomen, dan is dat bijzaak. Want dat zijn we onderhand toch al wel gewend?

Blijkbaar moeten de sjiieten in Irak zich net zo terroristisch gedragen als een gedeelte van de sjiieten in Libanon (60%), Hezbollah, om het wereldnieuws te halen en om sympathie te krijgen.

Maar goed, blijf je ogen maar sluiten voor het leed van onschuldige mensen totdat de maat een keer goed vol is en je een zware reactie terug kan verwachten. En dan reageren de V.N en de internationale gemeenschap weer verbaasd..

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Op donderdag 20 juli 2006 20:32 schreef Slayage het volgende:

[..]

Ten eerst waarom zo'n username?

Als er nu eenmaal een all out burgeroorlog wordt ontkenetend zal niemand meer veilig en dan zal het gevaar dat het een regionale oorlag wordt alleen maar groter.

Tegen wie heb je het eigenlijk met je laaste alinea? Wie zou zijn ogen blijven sluiten voor het leed van onschuldige mensen?

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Op donderdag 20 juli 2006 21:08 schreef Autodidact het volgende:
Nu niks. Zowel Sji'ieten en soennieten plegen smerige aanslagen op burgers van de andere sekte.

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Op donderdag 20 juli 2006 21:19 schreef Autodidact het volgende:
Ik heb in dit topic van meerdere aanslagen van sji'ieten op soennieten bericht, dus van actief terrorisme is sprake. Kan ik een staatje vinden met de claim dat 5.500 van de 6.000 burgerslachtoffers shi'ieten zijn?

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Op donderdag 20 juli 2006 21:28 schreef Autodidact het volgende:
Ja, ik bericht eigenlijk over alles wat ik op nieuwssites en weblogs lees, dat kun je ook wel zien als je een beetje moeite zou doen. Ik vraag je nogmaals een staatje voor je claim dat 5500 van de 6000 burgerslachtofferse sji'ieten zijn, want ik weet helemaal niet wat de verhouding is. Show me the figures .

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Op donderdag 20 juli 2006 20:39 schreef Autodidact het volgende:
Laat me raden, hierboven twee sji'ieten?

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Op donderdag 20 juli 2006 20:58 schreef Dr-Islam het volgende:


1) Wat is er mis met mijn username?

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Op donderdag 20 juli 2006 21:25 schreef Dr-Islam het volgende:

[..]

En je hebt zeker niet bericht over de aanslagen van soennieten op sjiieten?

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Op donderdag 20 juli 2006 22:52 schreef Slayage het volgende:

[..]

Hoezo? Waaruit zou blijken dat ki Shia ben?

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Op donderdag 20 juli 2006 22:53 schreef Slayage het volgende:

[..]

Met zo'n username prfileer je jezelf als een cyber imam of moet ik dat anders zien?

Maak je maar geen zorgen. Ik ben geen imam
En al helemaal niet de opvolger van die smeerlap Van de Ven.

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Op donderdag 20 juli 2006 21:46 schreef Autodidact het volgende:
Ja, ik ben benieuwd.
In dit topic en de vorige staan bijna alle aanslagen van de laatste maand al vermeld.

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US troops kill five, including child, in Iraq raid



BAQUBA, Iraq (AFP) - US troops in Iraq have killed two suspected insurgents, two women and a child when they called in air support during a raid on an alleged hideout north of Baghdad, a military statement said.

A further 23 people, including several more women and children, were wounded in the assault, which the US said targeted "terrorists associated with senior al-Qaida in Iraq network members".

An Iraqi police officer had earlier said US troops killed six people in the raid northwest of Baquba, and an AFP photographer saw six bodies in the city's hospital following the operation.

"As the troops began to secure the area, they received small arms fire from the rooftop of one of the initial target buildings," the US statement said on Friday, adding that soldiers had shouted warnings before calling in air support.

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Curfew extended as Baghdad violence mounts

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Bombs blasted worshippers at two mosques in Iraq during Friday prayers and the authorities extended a daytime curfew on Baghdad in an apparent effort to prevent violence after one of the bloodiest weeks this year.

Bombs outside minority Sunni mosques in Khalis, north of the capital, and in the mainly Shi'ite east of Baghdad, each killed one man and wounded two, police said.

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“What do you call the situation in Iraq right now?” asked one person familiar with the situation. “The analysts know that it's a civil war, but there's a feeling at the top that [using that term] will complicate matters.” Negroponte, said another source regarding the potential impact of a pessimistic assessment, “doesn't want the president to have to deal with that.”

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Gunmen attack Iraqi Shiite areas; 18 die

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen attacked two Shiite neighborhoods Friday in the same town where Sunnis opened fire on a market earlier this week, prompting Iraqi forces to call for American air support in a clash that killed at least 18 people, the Iraqi army said.

The attacks on Shiite neighborhoods occurred in Mahmoudiya, where 50 people were killed this week in a raid by Sunni gunmen on a market. Most of the victims were believed to be Shiites.

The 18 killed Friday included 11 attackers, four Iraqi soldiers and three police officers, the Iraqi army statement said.

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On the eve of a high-profile meeting intended to demonstrate reconciliation among sectarian and ethnic factions before a White House visit by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, leaders admitted despair on the chances of averting all-out civil war.

"Iraq as a political project is finished," a top government official told Reuters -- anonymously because the coalition led by the Shi'ite Muslim prime minister remains committed in public to a U.S.-sponsored constitution preserving Iraq's unity.

"The parties have moved to Plan B," said the official, adding blocs representing Sunnis, Kurds and majority Shi'ites were looking at ways to divide power and resources and to solve the conundrum of Baghdad's mixed population of seven million.

"There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into east and west," said the official, who has long been a proponent of the present government's objectives. "We are extremely worried."

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Op vrijdag 21 juli 2006 00:38 schreef Dr-Islam het volgende:
Maak je maar geen zorgen. Ik ben geen imam
En al helemaal niet de opvolger van die smeerlap Van de Ven.

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Op donderdag 20 juli 2006 23:12 schreef Autodidact het volgende:

[..]

Gevoel...Is het zo?

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Four U.S. soldiers accused of murdering suspected insurgents during a raid in Iraq said they were under orders to "kill all military age males," according to sworn statements obtained by The Associated Press.

The soldiers first took some of the men into custody because they were using two women and a toddler as human shields. They shot three of the men after the women and child were safe and say the men attacked them.

"The ROE (rule of engagement) was to kill all military age males on Objective Murray," Staff Sgt. Raymond L. Girouard told investigators, referring to the target by its code name.

That target, an island on a canal in the northern Salahuddin province, was believed to be an al-Qaida training camp. The soldiers said officers in their chain of command gave them the order and explained that special forces had tried before to target the island and had come under fire from insurgents.

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Fourteen killed as insurgents target Iraqi security forces



BAGHDAD (AFP) - At least eight civilians and six members of the Iraqi security forces have been killed in insurgent ambushes and bomb attacks around the country.

A US soldier was also killed when a roadside bomb targeted his convoy in Baghdad, and the bodies of ten murdered Iraqi civilians were found in two locations near the city.

Gunmen killed seven Shiite civilians as they worked on a house in the Sunni Khadra neighbourhood of west Baghdad, an interior ministry official said.

Two cars drew up outside the partly built house and several armed men charged inside and shot the seven dead. Khadra borders several western Baghdad areas with strong insurgent presences.

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Iraq politician survives suicide bomb attack by own guard



SAMARRA, Iraq (AFP) - The chairman of the council in the Iraqi city of Samarra narrowly survived an assassination attempt by one of his guards who blew himself up as his boss returned home, police said.

Assad Ali Yassin, who has been council chairman of the restive city north of Baghdad for the past three months, had little reason to suspect a member of his own guard detail, a local officer said.

Waed al-Abbasi had been chosen from Yassin's own tribe and served as a guard at the chairman's home in the city's Khadra neighborhood.

But Yassin's personal bodyguards had their suspicions. Late on Tuesday night, as they accompanied Yassin home, they noticed something was amiss with Abbasi -- who then abruptly rushed towards the chairman.

The quick-acting bodyguards opened fire, killing Abbasi and setting off his vest of explosives well before he reached the chairman. One bodyguard was wounded in the blast, the officer said.

It was the third assassination attempt against Yassin, a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the main Sunni Arab party in the country.

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U.S. moving more troops into Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Seven Shiite workers were gunned down Saturday in a religiously mixed area of west Baghdad, and explosions in the capital killed one American solider and shattered a one-day calm after a ban on private vehicles expired.

The United States was moving to bolster U.S. troop strength in Baghdad to cope with escalating violence between Sunnis and Shiites.

The seven Shiites died in a drive-by shooting near Baghdad International Airport, police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said. Two other workers were wounded.

Two large explosions struck eastern Baghdad. One killed a U.S. soldier near the Rasheed military camp, the U.S. military said. Another targeted an Iraqi police patrol but killed a civilian.

Two rockets exploded later Saturday in the heavily guarded Green Zone, which includes the U.S. and British embassies. There was no report of casualties.

U.S. and Iraqi troops sealed off part of east Baghdad following the blasts and searched homes and shops looking for weapons.

A ban on private vehicles had kept down violence Friday after one of the most violent weeks in the capital this year. It expired Friday evening, and within hours, heavy bursts of automatic weapons rang out.

Elsewhere in Iraq, three people were killed and five were injured in a bombing and shooting in the market in Baqouba, where U.S. forces killed five civilians — including two women and a toddler — the day before. The U.S. troops had taken fire from a building during a raid for suspected terrorists.

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Many Iraqis have fled the country, mostly to Jordan and Syria, to avoid the violence. Syria now has 351,000 and Jordan 450,000 of these refugees, including 40 per cent of all Iraqi professionals, according to the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants.

All of the 18 Iraqi provinces are dangerous, outside the three Kurdish provinces. The health ministry revealed for the first time in June that 50,000 Iraqis have been killed violently since 2003, but added that this was probably an under-estimate. Medical care for the wounded is declining because so many doctors have left the country. The ministry says 106 doctors and 164 nurses have been killed.

Doctors in Baghdad hospitals complain that even the operating theatres are not safe because soldiers or militiamen will order them to stop an operation half way through.

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Op zaterdag 22 juli 2006 23:35 schreef Monidique het volgende:

[..]

_{[ bron ]}

Oftewel: dat land gaat helemaal naar z'n mallemoer. Een nieuw Libanon, of Afghanistan, of Somalië. Een failed state in ieder geval.

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Another sign that factions that prefer violence over dialogue are getting more isolated; this time the radical 'association of Muslim scholars' is being renounced by no less than their former allies in the Islamic Party.

This report from Radio Sawa quotes Omar al-Jubori the head of the human rights office in the Iraqi Islamic Party as saying that Harith al-Dhari, secretary of the association of Muslim scholars was "responsible for 50% of the blood of Sunni Iraqis who were killed in Iraq".

In his statement Mr. Jubori said that Sunni political and religious leaderships were wrong when they prohibited Sunni men from enlisting in the Iraqi police and army (Arabic audio available).

I realize that most of you do not know Arabic so I'm going to pick excerpts from that statement, in a part I found interesting Mr. Jubori said:


Sunni political powers now demand that American troops remain in Iraq for some time…the American forces represent a balancing element between the people and the security forces that are not balanced in their sectarian composition…the Americans should work on correcting this imbalance.
[…]
Harith al-Dhari is responsible for 50% of Sunni deaths in Iraq, the Americans are responsible for 25% and the Shia militias are responsible for the other 25% and this is something that most Sunnis admit…


I kind of agree with the above statement but in somewhat a different way; it is probably correct that al-Dhari and his gangs were responsible directly for 50% of Sunni deaths but they are equally responsible for the other 50% but rather indirectly.
Ever since Saddam was toppled the al-Dhari's association was involved in most of the violence in Iraq in more than one way; they allied with Ba'athists, Saddamists and foreign terrorists and provided them with shelter and support. They preached hatred and sectarianism and provoked violence that we saw in the form of attacks in various regions in Iraq that killed thousands of Iraqis.

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Blast kills 33, wounds dozens in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber blew up a minibus at a Baghdad market on Sunday, killing at least 33 people in addition to himself, police said.

Another 72 people, including women and children, were wounded in the attack in the Shiite district of Sadr City. The minivan exploded around 9 a.m., as the market was starting to get crowded, said police Lt. Kadhim al Garawi.

AP video from the scene showed the van's blackened hulk and an old man with bloody clothing crying for a missing relative.

Iraqi police cleared the area, warning over loudspeakers that anyone staying behind would be questioned.

Hours earlier, U.S. and Iraqi army units raided homes in the same area, killing at least one civilian and arresting seven, police said.

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Car bombs in Iraq kill more than 50

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A car bomb killed 36 civilians and wounded 72 in a Shi'ite district of east Baghdad on Sunday, a day after an inaugural meeting to start reconciling
Iraq's rival factions produced little tangible result.

Another car bomb exploded in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing at least 15 people near a court house, police and witnesses said.

The Baghdad bomb, near a police station and open-air market, was in the Sadr City neighborhood, a poor area that is a stronghold of Shi'ite militias. Three weeks ago, a car bomb at a market in the same area killed about 60 people, one of a number of very bloody incidents this month that have raised fears of civil war.

Shattered vehicles and stalls showed the power of the latest blast. Blood lay in pools. Some witnesses spoke of a suicide bomber driving a minivan but police said the cause was unclear.

There were also heavy clashes in the district overnight between the Mehdi Army of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and U.S.-led forces, residents and police said.

The U.S. military said in a statement that Iraqi troops raided a site in mainly Shi'ite eastern Baghdad targeting two people believed to be involved in "death squads" -- a term usually applied to Shi'ite militia activity.

It said eight people were detained after a battle involving machineguns and grenades and that two Iraqi hostages were freed.

Two other people were arrested in a similar raid in northwestern Baghdad, the military said.

On Saturday, leaders held the inaugural meeting of the Higher Committee for Dialogue and National Reconciliation, in a show of sectarian and ethnic solidarity before a White House visit by the prime minister. But many remain pessimistic about the chances of tackling rising bloodshed.

The biggest party from the Sunni Arab community, which forms the backbone of a raging insurgency against a Shi'ite-led, U.S.-backed government, did not join the talks.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will visit Washington to meet
President George W. Bush on Tuesday, after a stop in London on Monday, where he is expected to discuss ways of improving security in Baghdad, which is gripped by sectarian violence fuelling fears of civil war.

U.S. commanders have said they are considering sending more troops to the capital, whose 7 million people represent a rich and volatile mixture of all of Iraq's communities.

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Op zaterdag 22 juli 2006 13:54 schreef Monidique het volgende:

[..]

_{[ bron ]}

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Op zondag 23 juli 2006 10:04 schreef klez het volgende:

[..]

Kan Al-Qaida mooi roepen dat het de schuld van het Westen is. Zij hebben er niets mee te maken, tenslotte.

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P.S Autodidact, geloof je me nu wel een beetje dat sjiieten op groter schaal worden afgeslacht?

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In Iraq, Military Forgot Lessons of Vietnam
The real war in Iraq -- the one to determine the future of the country -- began on Aug. 7, 2003, when a car bomb exploded outside the Jordanian Embassy, killing 11 and wounding more than 50.

That bombing came almost exactly four months after the U.S. military thought it had prevailed in Iraq, and it launched the insurgency, the bloody and protracted struggle with guerrilla fighters that has tied the United States down to this day.

There is some evidence that Saddam Hussein's government knew it couldn't win a conventional war, and some captured documents indicate that it may have intended some sort of rear-guard campaign of subversion against occupation. The stockpiling of weapons, distribution of arms caches, the revolutionary roots of the Baathist Party, and the movement of money and people to Syria either before or during the war all indicate some planning for an insurgency.

But there is also strong evidence, based on a review of thousands of military documents and hundreds of interviews with military personnel, that the U.S. approach to pacifying Iraq in the months after the collapse of Hussein helped spur the insurgency and made it bigger and stronger than it might have been.

The very setup of the U.S. presence in Iraq undercut the mission. The chain of command was hazy, with no one individual in charge of the overall American effort in Iraq, a structure that led to frequent clashes between military and civilian officials.

On May 16, 2003, L. Paul Bremer III, the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-run occupation agency, had issued his first order, "De-Baathification of Iraq Society." The CIA station chief in Baghdad had argued vehemently against the radical move, contending: "By nightfall, you'll have driven 30,000 to 50,000 Baathists underground. And in six months, you'll really regret this."

He was proved correct, as Bremer's order, along with a second that dissolved the Iraqi military and national police, created a new class of disenfranchised, threatened leaders.

Exacerbating the effect of this decision were the U.S. Army's interactions with the civilian population. Based on its experience in Bosnia and Kosovo, the Army thought it could prevail through "presence" -- that is, soldiers demonstrating to Iraqis that they are in the area, mainly by patrolling.

"We've got that habit that carries over from the Balkans," one Army general said. Back then, patrols were conducted so frequently that some officers called the mission there "DAB"-ing, for "driving around Bosnia."

The U.S. military jargon for this was "boots on the ground," or, more officially, the presence mission. There was no formal doctrinal basis for this in the Army manuals and training that prepare the military for its operations, but the notion crept into the vocabularies of senior officers.

For example, a briefing by the 1st Armored Division's engineering brigade stated that one of its major missions would be "presence patrols." And then-Maj. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, then the commander of that division, ordered one of his brigade commanders to "flood your zone, get out there, and figure it out." Sitting in a dusty command tent outside a palace in the Green Zone in May 2003, he added: "Your business is to ensure that the presence of the American soldier is felt, and it's not just Americans zipping by."

The flaw in this approach, Lt. Col. Christopher Holshek, a civil affairs officer, later noted, was that after Iraqi public opinion began to turn against the Americans and see them as occupiers, "then the presence of troops . . . becomes counterproductive."

The U.S. mission in Iraq is made up overwhelmingly of regular combat units, rather than smaller, lower-profile Special Forces units. And in 2003, most conventional commanders did what they knew how to do: send out large numbers of troops and vehicles on conventional combat missions.

Few U.S. soldiers seemed to understand the centrality of Iraqi pride and the humiliation Iraqi men felt in being overseen by this Western army. Foot patrols in Baghdad were greeted during this time with solemn waves from old men and cheers from children, but with baleful stares from many young Iraqi men.

Complicating the U.S. effort was the difficulty top officials had in recognizing what was going on in Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at first was dismissive of the looting that followed the U.S. arrival and then for months refused to recognize that an insurgency was breaking out there. A reporter pressed him one day that summer: Aren't you facing a guerrilla war?

"I guess the reason I don't use the phrase 'guerrilla war' is because there isn't one," Rumsfeld responded.

A few weeks later, Army Gen. John P. Abizaid succeeded Gen. Tommy R. Franks as the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East. He used his first news conference as commander to clear up the strategic confusion about what was happening in Iraq. Opponents of the U.S. presence were conducting "a classical guerrilla-style campaign," he said. "It's a war, however you describe it."

That fall, U.S. tactics became more aggressive. This was natural, even reasonable, coming in response to the increased attacks on U.S. forces and a series of suicide bombings. But it also appears to have undercut the U.S. government's long-term strategy.

"When you're facing a counterinsurgency war, if you get the strategy right, you can get the tactics wrong, and eventually you'll get the tactics right," said retired Army Col. Robert Killebrew, a veteran of Special Forces in the Vietnam War. "If you get the strategy wrong and the tactics right at the start, you can refine the tactics forever, but you still lose the war. That's basically what we did in Vietnam."

For the first 20 months or more of the American occupation in Iraq, it was what the U.S. military would do there as well.

"What you are seeing here is an unconventional war fought conventionally," a Special Forces lieutenant colonel remarked gloomily one day in Baghdad as the violence intensified. The tactics that the regular troops used, he added, sometimes subverted American goals.

Draconian Interrogation Ideas

On the morning of Aug. 14, 2003, Capt. William Ponce, an officer in the "Human Intelligence Effects Coordination Cell" at the top U.S. military headquarters in Iraq, sent a memo to subordinate commands asking what interrogation techniques they would like to use.

"The gloves are coming off regarding these detainees," he told them. His e-mail, and the responses it provoked from members of the Army intelligence community across Iraq, are illustrative of the mind-set of the U.S. military during this period.

"Casualties are mounting and we need to start gathering info to help protect our fellow soldiers from any further attacks," Ponce wrote. He told them, "Provide interrogation techniques 'wish list' by 17 AUG 03."
Some of the responses to his solicitation were enthusiastic. With clinical precision, a soldier attached to the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment recommended by e-mail 14 hours later that interrogators use "open-handed facial slaps from a distance of no more than about two feet and back-handed blows to the midsection from a distance of about 18 inches." He also reported that "fear of dogs and snakes appear to work nicely."

The 4th Infantry Division's intelligence operation responded three days later with suggestions that captives be hit with closed fists and also subjected to "low-voltage electrocution."

But not everyone was as sanguine as those two units. "We need to take a deep breath and remember who we are," cautioned a major with the 501st Military Intelligence Battalion, which supported the operations of the 1st Armored Division in Iraq. "It comes down to standards of right and wrong -- something we cannot just put aside when we find it inconvenient, any more than we can declare that we will 'take no prisoners' and therefore shoot those who surrender to us simply because we find prisoners inconvenient."

Feeding the interrogation system was a major push by U.S. commanders to round up Iraqis. The key to actionable intelligence was seen by many as conducting huge sweeps to detain and question Iraqis. Sometimes units acted on tips, but sometimes they just detained all able-bodied males of combat age in areas known to be anti-American.

These steps were seen inside the Army as a major success story, and they were portrayed as such to journalists. The problem was that the U.S. military, having assumed it would be operating in a relatively benign environment, wasn't set up for a massive effort that called on it to apprehend, detain and interrogate Iraqis, to analyze the information gleaned, and then to act on it.

"As commanders at all levels sought operational intelligence, it became apparent that the intelligence structure was undermanned, under-equipped and inappropriately organized for counter-insurgency operations," Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones wrote in an official Army report a year later.

Senior U.S. intelligence officers in Iraq later estimated that about 85 percent of the tens of thousands rounded up were of no intelligence value. But as they were delivered to the Abu Ghraib prison, they overwhelmed the system and often waited for weeks to be interrogated, during which time they could be recruited by hard-core insurgents, who weren't isolated from the general prison population.

In improvising a response to the insurgency, the U.S. forces worked hard and had some successes. Yet they frequently were led poorly by commanders unprepared for their mission by an institution that took away from the Vietnam War only the lesson that it shouldn't get involved in messy counterinsurgencies. The advice of those who had studied the American experience there was ignored.

That summer, retired Marine Col. Gary Anderson, an expert in small wars, was sent to Baghdad by the Pentagon to advise on how to better put down the emerging insurgency. He met with Bremer in early July. "Mr. Ambassador, here are some programs that worked in Vietnam," Anderson said.

It was the wrong word to put in front of Bremer. "Vietnam?" Bremer exploded, according to Anderson. "Vietnam! I don't want to talk about Vietnam. This is not Vietnam. This is Iraq!"

This was one of the early indications that U.S. officials would obstinately refuse to learn from the past as they sought to run Iraq.

One of the essential texts on counterinsurgency was written in 1964 by David Galula, a lieutenant colonel in the French army who was born in Tunisia, witnessed guerrilla warfare on three continents and died in 1967.

When the United States went into Iraq, his book, "Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice," was almost unknown within the military, which is one reason it is possible to open Galula's text almost at random and find principles of counterinsurgency that the American effort failed to heed.

Galula warned specifically against the kind of large-scale conventional operations the United States repeatedly launched with brigades and battalions, even if they held out the allure of short-term gains in intelligence. He insisted that firepower must be viewed very differently than in regular war.

"A soldier fired upon in conventional war who does not fire back with every available weapon would be guilty of a dereliction of his duty," he wrote, adding that "the reverse would be the case in counterinsurgency warfare, where the rule is to apply the minimum of fire."

The U.S. military took a different approach in Iraq. It wasn't indiscriminate in its use of firepower, but it tended to look upon it as good, especially during the big counteroffensive in the fall of 2003, and in the two battles in Fallujah the following year.

One reason for that different approach was the muddled strategy of U.S. commanders in Iraq. As civil affairs officers found to their dismay, Army leaders tended to see the Iraqi people as the playing field on which a contest was played against insurgents. In Galula's view, the people are the prize.

"The population . . . becomes the objective for the counterinsurgent as it was for his enemy," he wrote.

From that observation flows an entirely different way of dealing with civilians in the midst of a guerrilla war. "Since antagonizing the population will not help, it is imperative that hardships for it and rash actions on the part of the forces be kept to a minimum," Galula wrote.

Cumulatively, the American ignorance of long-held precepts of counterinsurgency warfare impeded the U.S. military during 2003 and part of 2004. Combined with a personnel policy that pulled out all the seasoned forces early in 2004 and replaced them with green troops, it isn't surprising that the U.S. effort often resembled that of Sisyphus, the king in Greek legend who was condemned to perpetually roll a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down as he neared the top.

Again and again, in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, U.S. forces launched major new operations to assert and reassert control in Fallujah, in Ramadi, in Samarra, in Mosul.

"Scholars are virtually unanimous in their judgment that conventional forces often lose unconventional wars because they lack a conceptual understanding of the war they are fighting," Lt. Col. Matthew Moten, chief of military history at West Point, would comment in 2004.

When Maj. Gregory Peterson studied a few months later at Fort Leavenworth's School of Advanced Military Studies, an elite course that trains military planners and strategists, he found the U.S. experience in Iraq in 2003-2004 remarkably similar to the French war in Algeria in the 1950s. Both involved Western powers exercising sovereignty in Arab states, both powers were opposed by insurgencies contesting that sovereignty, and both wars were controversial back home.

Most significant for Peterson's analysis, he found both the French and U.S. militaries woefully unprepared for the task at hand. "Currently, the U.S. military does not have a viable counterinsurgency doctrine, understood by all soldiers, or taught at service schools," he concluded.

Casey Implements a New Tactic

In mid-2004, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. took over from Sanchez as the top U.S. commander in Iraq. One of Casey's advisers, Kalev Sepp, pointedly noted in a study that fall that the U.S. effort in Iraq was violating many of the major principles of counterinsurgency, such as putting an emphasis on killing insurgents instead of engaging the population.

A year later, frustrated by the inability of the Army to change its approach to training for Iraq, Casey established his own academy in Taji, Iraq, to teach counterinsurgency to U.S. officers as they arrived in the country. He made attending its course there a prerequisite to commanding a unit in Iraq.

"We are finally getting around to doing the right things," Army Reserve Lt. Col. Joe Rice observed one day in Iraq early in 2006. "But is it too little, too late?"

One of the few commanders who were successful in Iraq in that first year of the occupation, Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, made studying counterinsurgency a requirement at the Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, where mid-career officers are trained.

By the academic year that ended last month, 31 of 78 student monographs at the School of Advanced Military Studies next door were devoted to counterinsurgency or stability operations, compared with only a couple two years earlier.

And Galula's handy little book, "Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice," was a bestseller at the Leavenworth bookstore.

This is the first of two articles adapted from the book "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq" by Thomas E. Ricks. Penguin Press, New York, © 2006.

quote:

Op zondag 23 juli 2006 15:17 schreef Monidique het volgende:
Bomaanslagen, die meestal sji'ietische slachtoffers eisen, komen sneller in het nieuws dan de moordpartijen van de sji'ietische doodseskaders.

quote:

Op zondag 23 juli 2006 15:17 schreef Monidique het volgende:
Bomaanslagen, die meestal sji'ietische slachtoffers eisen, komen sneller in het nieuws dan de moordpartijen van de sji'ietische doodseskaders.

quote:

Op zondag 23 juli 2006 15:14 schreef Autodidact het volgende:

[..]

Ik zou het geloven als je statistiek hebt gedaan. Ten eerste klopte je verhouding (5500-500) niet en ten tweede is dit onderzoekje over twee weken geen conclusie waardig. Ik wacht.

quote:

Op zondag 23 juli 2006 16:14 schreef klez het volgende:
Een lang edoch weer eens uitstekend verhaal in the Washington Post:
[..]
Feeding the interrogation system was a major push by U.S. commanders to round up Iraqis. The key to actionable intelligence was seen by many as conducting huge sweeps to detain and question Iraqis. Sometimes units acted on tips, but sometimes they just detained all able-bodied males of combat age in areas known to be anti-American.
[..]

quote:

Op zondag 23 juli 2006 16:22 schreef Umm-Qasr het volgende:

[..]

Die bomaanslagen komen in het nieuws omdat meestal grote aantallen slachtoffers daarbij betrokken zijn. En de slachtoffers zijn zulke zelfmoordaanslagen zijn bijna altijd Sjie'ieten.

quote:

Vederis het tegendeel van jouw bewering juist: incidenten van Amerikaans mis-conduct tav Sooennieten halen de voorpagina's zoals Haditha en Mahmoudiyyah.

quote:

Op zondag 23 juli 2006 16:30 schreef Dr-Islam het volgende:

[..]

Omgekeerde wereld

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‘Na Abu Ghraib is er nog niks veranderd’

Maandag 24 juli 2006 - NEW YORK – De martelingen en mishandelingen van Irakezen in Amerikaanse gevangenschap gingen onverminderd door, ook nadat het Abu Ghraib-schandaal aan het licht was gekomen.
Bovendien werden de mishandelingen van bovenaf toegestaan en zelfs aangemoedigd, stelt de Amerikaanse mensenrechtenorganisatie Human Rights Watch in een gisteren vrijgegeven rapport.

In het 53 pagina’s tellende document Geen Bloed, Geen Fout: het relaas van militairen over gevangenenmishandeling in Irak, beschrijven Amerikaanse militairen de wantoestanden in de periode 2003-2005.

De onderzochte mishandelingen vonden plaats in drie detentiecentra bij Bagdad, Mosul en langs de grens met Syrië.

Gedetineerden werden stelselmatig afgeranseld, moesten zich gedurende lange tijd in een pijnlijke houding stilhouden, werden lange tijd wakker gehouden en blootgesteld aan extreme hitte en kou. Ook werden gevangenen met honden bedreigd en moesten gedetineerden op hun knieën door gravel kruipen.

„Militairen werd verteld dat de Geneefse Conventies (over het internationale humanitaire oorlogsrecht) niet van toepassing waren en dat de ondervragers ruwe technieken mochten gebruiken om de gevangenen aan het praten te krijgen“, aldus John Sifton, de samensteller van het rapport. Militairen die hogerop hun beklag deden over de martelpraktijken werden genegeerd of kregen te horen dat ze beter hun mond konden houden.

„Deze beschuldigingen weerleggen de lezing van de Amerikaanse regering, dat mishandelingen en martelingen niet van hogerhand zijn goedgekeurd en een uitzondering zijn geweest“, aldus Sifton. Een woordvoerder van het Amerikaanse ministerie van Defensie wees gisteren de beschuldigingen van de hand.

In het voorjaar van 2004 doken foto’s op van Amerikaanse bewakers en ondervragers die zich in Abu Ghraib-gevangenis bij Bagdad schuldig hadden gemaakt aan marteling en seksuele intimidatie van gevangenen. In verband met de zaak zijn tot nu toe elf Amerikaanse militairen veroordeeld, maar geen enkele leidinggevende.
_{bron: http://www.bndestem.nl}

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Sectarian break-up of Iraq is now inevitable, admit officials

"Iraq as a political project is finished," a senior government official was quoted as saying, adding: "The parties have moved to plan B." He said that the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parties were now looking at ways to divide Iraq between them and to decide the future of Baghdad, where there is a mixed population. "There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into [Shia] east and [Sunni] west," he said.

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A United Nations assessment issued last week said the death toll in Iraq has been climbing steadily, with a total of nearly 6,000 deaths recorded in May and June. U.S. military commanders say the number of major attacks in Baghdad in July is up nearly 40% from earlier this summer. While some regions remain relatively peaceful, formerly calm areas of the south -- including Basra, the second-largest city -- show growing unrest. Inside Iraq, some political leaders openly admit that communal warfare has broken out between Sunni Muslim Arabs, who constitute some 20% of the nation's population, and the Shiite majority.

"Sectarian war has already begun in Iraq," says Salih al-Mutlaq, one of the country's leading Sunni politicians and a member of its parliament. "What is happening now is a preparation for a civil war."

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Head of Saddam's tribe killed by gunmen

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The head of Saddam Hussein's tribe was killed when gunmen attacked a meeting in the office of a prominent sheik in Tikrit, police said Tuesday.

Mahmoud Ali Hussein al-Nida, head of the Baijat tribe, died following the attack around 7:30 p.m. Monday. The gunmen also killed a lawyer and wounded sheik Mizahim al-Mustafa, police Lt. Ahmed Asaad said. Two other civilians caught in the crossfire also were killed, Asaad said.

The Baijat tribe includes several clans, including Saddam's Albu-Nassir clan. Al-Nida was not directly related to Saddam.

In other violence Tuesday, police in Diyala province said five bodies were found on the streets in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad.

At least seven others were injured when a roadside bomb exploded near a passing minivan around 9:30 a.m. in east Baghdad. All were hospitalized, police said.

Gunmen also killed a police officer in front of his office in Mosul, police said.

quote:

Fourteen killed in Iraq attacks

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Six police and eight civilians have been killed in a series of attacks in and around Baghdad, police said.

As night fell on Monday, gunmen ambushed an Iraqi police unit in central Baghdad, triggering a gunbattle in which six officers were killed and 30 were wounded.

The clash took place on Haifa Street near the west bank of the Tigris River, north of the fortified Green Zone, the seat of the Iraqi government and the US embassy.

It underlined the failure of the Iraqi government's six-week-old operation to regain control of Baghdad's streets from anti-regime insurgents and sectarian militias.

On Tuesday, two roadside bombs exploded in the city, killing two civilians and wounding two bystanders and a policeman.

In another attack, a family of Shiite civilians who had been threatened by a sectarian death squad were ambushed by gunmen as they fled a mainly Sunni neighbourhood south of the city, medical and defence officials said.

Two of the family were killed and one was wounded when their removal van was sprayed with bullets.

Four other civilians were shot dead around the capital, two of them in drive-by shootings, while the corpses of two tortured murder victims were also found by the roadside, police said.