[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.