*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

Improvised explosives becoming more common in Iraq

Mosul, Iraq -- They're one of the worst nightmares for American military personnel or anyone traveling with them on the dangerous roads of Iraq, even if you're surrounded by tons of armor plate and moving at high speed. They're called IED's, military speak for Improvised Explosive Devices, and they're the devil's own invention.

These fearsome homemade weapons are responsible for many of the more than 1,700 deaths and 15,000 plus casualties suffered by U.S. and coalition forces since the invasion of Iraq two years ago this month. And they're getting more deadly and numerous.

"They've gone up exponentially in number and they're getting more powerful all the time," said Lt. Col. Michael Kurella, whose 24th Infantry Regiment's First Battalion patrols the western half of this northern Iraq city that has the highest number of attacks by insurgents of any city in Iraq.

Col. Kurella was among some 50 Army officers who briefed Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Gulf region, and Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) on the military situation in Ninevah province on Easter Sunday at a coalition base near this city of two million, the third largest in Iraq.

When his battalion arrived in Iraq last October from Fort Lewis, Wash., it didn't find a single IED while patrolling the streets of Mosul. But in November, it found three, followed by 15 in December, 50 in January, and 134 in February. One of his soldiers was killed when one of his unit's heavily armored Stryker vehicles was destroyed, and many more have been injured.

"We're still getting plenty of detonations, it's almost constant," said Col. Kurella, whose battalion has already earned 182 Purple Heart medals, given to those injured in combat.

Sgt. Loren Kirk, a member of the 25th Infantry Division's First Brigade Stryker combat team, described the constant danger posed by the IEDs.

"We go all over Mosul and everybody gets hit, even in the nice neighborhoods," he said. "We can go a week without getting hit. It just depends on where we are. We drive side-by-side with cars on the street. They tend to give us a wide berth, and because of VBEDS [Vehicle-based Explosive Devices], we try to keep them at least 50 yards away."

Kirk added, "It's all timing. We could roll down the road and drive by an IED and a minute later, a vehicle behind us will get hit."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Congressmen unimpressed after visiting unstable Iraq

WASHINGTON - Despite administration rhetoric, Iraq remains unstable and too few Iraqi security forces have been trained to allow the United States to withdraw anytime soon, Reps. Edward Markey and James McGovern said after their recent visit.

"Only if you were wearing rose-colored glasses could you reach a conclusion that the situation in Iraq is stabilizing,'' Markey said.

The pair visited Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq in a week-long swing organized by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

"The Iraq forces the United States is training are not ready by any stretch of the imagination to take over, and they won't be for months or years,'' Markey said.

He added that he saw "no indication that the United States planned to withdraw any troops for at least a year and probably longer.''

McGovern said U.S. officials told the lawmakers that 147,000 Iraqi troops were trained but admitted that only "a fraction'' of those were actually ready to patrol the streets.

"We need to accelerate that process and we need to get American troops home,'' he added.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Draft possible, analysts warn

WASHINGTON — If American forces aren't pulling out of Iraq in a year, a draft will be needed to meet manpower requirements, military analysts warned Wednesday.

With recruitment lagging and no end in sight for U.S. forces in Iraq, the "breaking point" for the nation's all-volunteer military will be mid-2006, agreed Lawrence Korb, a draft opponent and assistant defense secretary in the Reagan administration, and Phillip Carter, a conscription advocate and former Army captain.

"America's all-volunteer military simply cannot deploy and sustain enough troops to succeed in places like Iraq while still deterring threats elsewhere in the world," Carter concluded in the March issue of "Washington Monthly."

Korb is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, and a senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information. Carter is attorney who writes on military affairs for Slate.com and other media. They debated at a symposium on the draft Wednesday. While conceding that the Army, Marines, National Guard and Army Reserve — the branches serving most in Iraq — face recruitment difficulties, military officials have denied any plans to revive the draft, which was replaced by an all-volunteer force in 1973.

"The 'D-word' is the farthest thing from my thoughts," Army Secretary Francis Harvey said at a Pentagon press briefing last week. He said the all-volunteer force has proven its value and applauded the performance of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"When you get over there, there's no difference between the active, the Reserves and the National Guard. The quality is high across the board. ... It's seamless," he said. During his re-election campaign, President Bush declared flatly that he would not reinstate the draft. And there is little support for conscription on Capitol Hill.

"Today, no leading politician in either party will come anywhere near the idea — the draft having replaced Social Security as the third rail of American politics," wrote Carter.

However, the analysts said that the all-volunteer army is on the verge of "breaking" under current circumstances. The 3rd Infantry Division based in Fort Stewart, Ga., and the 4th Infantry Division based in Fort Hood, Texas, are among the units that are being sent back for a second tour in Iraq. The National Guard and Reserves historically depend on men and women leaving active duty to fill their ranks, Carter pointed out. But they're not going to join if it means they will be sent right back to Iraq in an activated unit, he said.

Military men, women and machines are all suffering from repeated deployments.

"What keeps me awake at night is what will this all-volunteer force look like in 2007," Richard Cody, the Army Vice Chief of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 16. Korb, assistant secretary defense for manpower from 1981 through 1985, said the current rotation is unfair to the "patriotic" men and women who volunteered for military service and are stuck on a cycle in and out of Iraq. Since only a tiny segment of the populace is sacrificing, there is no political pressure to change the system, he said.

"If you had a draft right now, I think you'd be out of Iraq," Korb said.

The American society "hasn't gotten the message that we're at war," agreed Carter.

"Those at peril are completely divorced from those in power," said Mark Shields, a syndicated columnist and TV commentator who moderated the symposium. "It's 'Patriotism Lite' — you put a sticker on your SUV."

"America has a choice," wrote Carter. "It can be the world's superpower or it can maintain the current all-voluntary military. But it probably can't do both."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Prison attack leaves 44 US soldiers wounded

Baghdad - The number of United States soldiers wounded in a battle with insurgents outside Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison rose to more than 40 on Sunday, from an earlier count of 20, the US military said. Most of the injuries were light, but several were serious, according to Lieutenant Colonel Guy Rudisill, spokesperson for detainee operations in Iraq. All of the wounded were being treated at the prison's medical facility.

"There are 44 US soldiers injured, but only a few of those are serious," Rudisill said, adding that there was no increase in the number of wounded detainees, 12 of whom were hurt in the well-organised attack, one of them severely. At least one insurgent was confirmed killed in the battle late on Saturday, but the colonel said he expected the true toll was far higher after intense fighting that lasted around an hour and involved US helicopters and heavy weapons. A group of between 40 and 60 insurgents attacked the prison after dark, ramming a suicide car bomb into a perimeter building, he said. Another car bomb detonated shortly afterwards, as US troops were tending to the wounded from the first.

Then rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, small arms and other weapons were fired at the extensive prison complex on the western outskirts of Baghdad. US forces called in air and armoured support and engaged the insurgents for around an hour, officers said. The assault was believed to be the largest and most determined yet against the prison, which is notorious for the US prisoner abuse scandal that emerged last year. Abu Ghraib is one of three US-run detention facilities in Iraq and holds more than 3 000 prisoners, all of them suspected of involvement in the insurgency. There is also an Iraqi-run section of the jail where criminal detainees are held.

 

[nino_savatte]

More here
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IRAQ?SITE=ININS&SECTION=HOME

 

[Barking_Mad]

Estimated (very rough) number of Iraqis dead from January 1st to April 3rd - 2,151

 

[Barking_Mad]

Compensation for Fallujah residents slow - locals

Doctor Hafid al-Dulaimi, director of the Commission for the Compensation of Fallujah Citizens (CCFC), established by the government, told IRIN that a study had been carried to assess the scale of destruction. He reported 36,000 destroyed homes in all districts of Fallujah, along with 8,400 shops. Al-Dulaimi pointed out that 60 children's nurseries, primary and secondary schools and colleges were destroyed and 65 mosques and religious sanctuaries were almost demolished by the attack, with 13 government buildings requiring new infrastructure.

"Most of the houses need to be rebuilt from scratch and the government should offer much more for families to enable them to return to their homes and [go back] to what it was like before the conflict started. Some shops have even disappeared and we hope that they stop discussing who will take the new government seats and remember that they have a lot to do here in Fallujah," al-Dulaimi urged.

 

[Barking_Mad]

I've lost the link for this, but here's the full piece....

An Iraqi friend asked me to visit his cousin. Lafta Rahim, 39, who has four children, was at home in his bed. Immediately his smile drew me as we met. Then I noticed contraptions on his body. His upper left arm had an 8-inch rod parallel to the bone, attached with six pins and two clamps. His lower right leg had a similar rod, this one with five pins and five clamps. Bullets had shattered both bones. Lafta told his story. On January 7, 2005 at about 6:00PM, he and a companion were on their way to visit a friend. As they passed some university buildings, shots rang out. The barrage of weapons fire stopped his car. It had 52 bullet holes in it. Eight bullets lodged in Lafta's body and five in his companion's body.

The attack came from a U.S. convoy driving out of university buildings that had become a U.S. base. Apparently, an unknown person fired shots at the buildings from across the road. The convoy responded, but aimed its fire randomly at the innocent passing vehicles. Lafta's car was not alone on the street, but was last in a line of four cars. The convoy shot his car from behind, but still five people in the other cars died and fifteen were injured.

I asked if the soldiers stopped to assist when they saw what had happened. My friend interrupted, "I was returning from Jordan a week ago. A driver parked his GMC along the road to use the bathroom at the gas station. He returned to see that his empty car had been sprayed with bullets from a passing U.S. convoy. The soldiers kept moving." Lafta replied to the original question. "The soldiers did not stop, but two young people took me to the hospital." He continued, "The bad things Saddam Hussein was doing, now the U.S. is doing. They give us no help."

He and four brothers manufacture metal frames for windows and doors. He has good family support and has had a good job. Now he is unable to work because he is unable to move the fingers in his left hand. Lafta has a nicely trimmed beard and moustache and a friendly shine in his eyes. His brother had asked a U.S. army officer, "Why did you shoot civilians?" The officer responded, "We have in our army too many people acting irrationally."

It is not clear whether incidents of uncontrolled U.S. shooting at checkpoints or from convoys arise from fear, training, or lack of training. But Lafta's story represents dozens of others CPTers have encountered, both directly from victims and from security reports and Iraqi news. Something is out of control.

 

[Barking_Mad]

They're having a laugh? The list I have has 2,167 dead and thats just for the 96 days of this year.

Iraq insurgency has killed 6,000 civilians

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas and criminal gangs have killed 6,000 Iraqi civilians over the past two years and wounded 16,000, according to the first comprehensive government estimate of the toll from the insurgency. "These people in the insurgency are involved in looting, terrorism, killing, kidnapping, drug dealing, beheading and all that," Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin told Reuters on Tuesday.

"There are around 6,000 Iraqis who have been killed by these people and 16,000 who have been wounded," he said, citing figures compiled from records kept by the health, human rights, interior and other ministries.

"We have also found that around 5,000 Iraqis have been kidnapped since the fall of the regime, which does not include those cases that have gone unreported," he said.

It has been notoriously difficult to estimate the number of civilians killed since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. While there have been estimates of the number of civilians killed by U.S.-led forces and insurgents before, there has not previously been a breakdown of the overall toll. U.S. and British authorities have been criticised for not keeping a count, while Iraq's health ministry has produced some figures, saying 3,274 civilians died as a result of military and insurgent activity in the last six months of 2004. Iraq Body Count, a website run by academics and peace activists and based on reports from two media sources, estimates between 17,316 and 19,696 Iraqis have been killed since the war.

A household survey done in Iraq by U.S. scientists, which was rejected by the British government as unreliable, put war-related civilian deaths at about 100,000 since the invasion -- a figure Iraq's health ministry also dismissed. Part of the difficulty in coming up with an accurate figure is the fact Iraqis are not just being killed by insurgents, but also as a result of criminal activity, militia fighting, private vendettas and tribal conflicts. Many criminal gangs carry out their activities under the guise of insurgency, kidnapping Iraqis and foreigners for ransom while making the abductions appear politically motivated. In many cases, criminals and insurgents work hand-in-hand.

The insurgency has been estimated to be at least 20,000 strong, including former members of Saddam Hussein's regime and foreign fighters. It is not clear how many are involved in criminal activity, but it could be more than previously thought. In October 2002, Saddam freed all the country's criminals in an amnesty, letting loose thousands of murderers, rapists, thieves and gunmen, as well as many political prisoners.

The total number was thought to be around 40,000, but the human rights minister said the number may have been far higher. "We believe the actual number war around 110,000 and the vast majority of those are now involved in kidnapping, murder and terrorism," Amin said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Army Recruiting Still Struggling

WASHINGTON - The Army fell almost one-third short of its recruiting goal in March, its second consecutive month of shortfall amid concerns that the Iraq war is discouraging young people from enlisting. Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey had said recently that internal forecasts indicated the Army was likely to miss its monthly recruiting goals in March and April, although he and other Army officials have said they remain cautiously optimistic of reaching the full-year target of 80,000 recruits.

The Army has not missed its full-year target since 1999.....

The Army's goal for March was to enlist 6,800 recruits, but it fell short by 2,150, or 32 percent, according to official statistics released Tuesday. That was slightly worse than in February when a goal of 7,050 enlistees was missed by 1,936, or 27 percent. The target for April is 6,600. The Army Reserve did even worse in March than the regular Army. It recruited barely half the 1,600 soldiers it wanted for the month. It has not met a monthly goal since December 2004, and for the period from October 2004 through March it has met only 82 percent of its goal.

The regular Army, as of March 31, is at 89 percent of its full-year goal.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Interesting piece from 'The Iraqi Resistance'

http://www.albasrah.net/maqalat/english/1204/IPA_031204.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

US fears civil war in Kirkuk

American officers have warned that giving all senior positions to the Kurds in Kirkuk would lead to rioting by the Arab and Turkomen communities. The US military has warned that ethnic tension in the oil rich northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk has reached flashpoint, according to a report carried by the Knight Ridder news agency.

The report cited US officers as saying that while attention was being focused on the formation of the central Iraqi government Kirkuk was becoming a powder keg. Speaking to the agency Colonel Anthony Wickham said that in the post election period Kurds had seized all senior positions in this region and that Arabs and Turkomens were arming and could stage an uprising. “The worst scenario is a civil war,” Wickham said, adding that this would damage the stability of all Iraq. The agency also reported that Kurdish migration to the city was continuing at full scale, adding that after some Kurdish police were killed in an attack last month two Turkomen street salesmen had been badly tortured in the town.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Interesting piece on the handover to Iraqi forces.......

Handoff to Iraqi Forces Being Tested in Mosul

"It's all about perception, to convince the American public that everything is going as planned and we're right on schedule to be out of here," said one adviser, Army Staff Sgt. Craig E. Patrick, 40, a reservist from Rock Island, Ill. "I mean, they can [mislead] the American people, but they can't [mislead] us. These guys are not ready."

Waters, who has lived with the 23rd Iraqi Battalion's 1st Company since Jan. 15, said that the Iraqi soldiers "have a lot of heart and are making progress" but that "we need to slow it down and do it right. The worst thing that could happen is to have to come back in and fix the problem."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Estimated (very rough) number of Iraqis dead from January 1st to April 14th - 2,320

At least 160 people have died in the last 7 days alone.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Turkish troops kill 21 Kurds

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish troops backed by attack helicopters killed 21 Kurdish rebels near the Iraqi border overnight in the biggest clash since the rebels declared a unilateral truce more than five years ago, officials said Thursday.

The Turkish military has intensified anti-rebel operations following intelligence reports that hundreds of rebels had infiltrated Turkey from Iraq, a local military official said on condition of anonymity.

Three Turkish soldiers and a village guardsman also were killed in the clash 25 miles from the Iraq border between the town of Pervari in Siirt province and Eruh in Sirnak province, the governor's office in Sirnak said in a statement. The area is in southeast Turkey.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq hit by riot and bomb attacks

Detainees at Iraq's largest US-run jail have rioted, and bombers in Baghdad attacked US and Iraqi convoys. At least 12 people at Camp Bucca jail were hurt after the murder of one detainee sparked a mass brawl. In Baghdad at least one civilian died and several others were hurt in a series of explosions, the US said. A suicide car bomber attacked a US convoy in the western suburb of Mansour, and a bomb exploded in an eastern area, killing the civilian. The attacks came the day after a double suicide car bombing in central Baghdad killed at least 15 people.

At Camp Bucca, near the south-eastern Iraqi port of Umm Qasr, the fighting was not directed at US guards or prison staff, the US military said in a statement. According to the statement, a fight broke out between inmates after the murder of a man inside the compound. Two weeks ago a large riot broke out at the camp. Rocks were thrown and tents were burned after word spread that a Shia supporter of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr had been denied medical treatment. The US holds 6,000 mainly Iraqi detainees at Camp Bucca.

In Baghdad on Friday the US military confirmed that two separate convoys were attacked in different parts of the city. In Mansour, an affluent area in western Baghdad, a suicide bomb intended for a US convoy killed the bomber and injured at least three civilians others, officials at a local hospital said. Ten minutes later a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad exploded close to an Iraqi convoy, killing one civilian and wounding three, an interior ministry official told the AFP news agency.

 

[jeff_leigh]

Iraq hostage drama

there seems to be conflicting reports about what is happening in Madain a town south of Baghdad with the coalition forces and Iraqi government claiming Sunni gunmen are holding 60 Shia Muslim hostages allegedly threatening them with death unless the shia leave the area, however this is being denied by Muqtada al-Sadr who claimed the reports were meant to incite sectarian tensions, it's also being denied by the Sunni group led by
Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F7F35B9E-1038-457A-852B-2902D6561E30.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Apparently there were no hostages - just a US excuse to raid the town....would you believe it?

'No hostages found' in Iraqi town

Iraqi forces have reportedly found no hostages in the Iraqi town of Madain, where Sunni militants were said to have taken scores of Shia captive. The security forces say they saw no sign of unrest after entering the town.

A leading Sunni cleric has told the BBC the reports of hostage-taking were fabricated as an excuse to raid Madain. Iraq's outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi had described the reported hostage-taking as a "dirty atrocity" designed to foment sectarian strife. Reports say a force of 1,500 Iraqi soldiers, backed up by US forces, entered the town of Madain, some 30km south of Baghdad in an area known as a stronghold of bandits and insurgents.

"The whole city is under control," Brig Gen Mohammed Sabri Latif of the Iraqi army told the AFP news agency. "We've secured houses where people said there were hostages. We could not find any. I don't think we'll find any. There are no signs of any killings," he said. He added that militants may have fled across the river, taking with them any people they may have taken hostage.

Iraqi officials said last week that Sunni militants had called on the town's Shia residents to leave, and a local mosque has been destroyed. A Shia official had claimed the militants had taken up to 100 Shias hostage. A spokesman for the Committee of Muslim Scholars, Sunni cleric Sheikh Abdulsalem al-Qubaisi, told the BBC the story had been fabricated as an excuse to raid the town and rid it of insurgents.

Some of the town's residents have also dismissed the reported hostage-taking. According to a website used by militants, Iraq's most-wanted insurgent, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said his al-Qaeda-linked organisation had not taken any hostages in Madain. He too claimed the story was a pretext for cracking down on the town's Sunnis. Correspondents say tribal divisions may have been behind original reports, which later became exaggerated. At a session of Iraq's new parliament on Sunday, politicians warned of attempts to divide the country along sectarian lines. An MP in the Shia-dominated house said security forces had done nothing to stop "sectarian cleansing" in Madain.

 

[nino_savatte]

I've noticed that the news media has been at great pains to inform us that "Iraqi security forces" have been sent to Medain. We all know who is there and roughly what proportion of the total numbers involved is Iraqi. This will be a US led mission.

 

[Raisin D'etre]

Apparently there were no hostages - just a US excuse to raid the town....would you believe it?

'No hostages found' in Iraqi town

Er... yes!

 

[Raisin D'etre]

So what was going on?
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C2627EEB-4186-4872-BDE9-0948C2EC830B.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq - Unreported attacks and $40m worth of stolen arms and equipment .

Most violent incidents in Iraq go unreported. We saw one suicide bomb explosion, clouds of smoke and dust erupting into the air, and heard another in the space of an hour. Neither was mentioned in official reports. Last year US soldiers told the IoS that they do not tell their superiors about attacks on them unless they suffer casualties. This avoids bureaucratic hassle and "our generals want to hear about the number of attacks going down not up". This makes the official Pentagon claim that the number of insurgent attacks is down from 140 a day in January to 40 a day this month dubious.

US casualties have fallen to about one dead a day in March compared with four a day in January and five a day in November. But this is the result of a switch in American strategy rather than a sign of a collapse in the insurgency. US military spokesmen make plain that America's military priority has changed from offensive operations to training Iraqi troops and police. More than 2,000 US military advisers are working with Iraqi forces.

With US networks largely confined to their hotels in Baghdad by fear of kidnapping, it is possible to sell the American public the idea that no news is good news. General George Casey, the top US commander in Iraq, said recently that if all goes well "we shall make fairly substantial reductions in the size of our forces". Other senior US officers say this will be of the order of four brigades, from 17 to 13, or a fall in the number of US troops in Iraq from 142,000 to 105,000 by next year.

....

...when guerrillas captured almost all of Mosul on 11 November last year, the police had collaborated, abandoning 30 police stations without a fight. "They didn't fire on terrorists because they were terrorists themselves," he said. Some $40m-worth of arms and equipment was captured by the insurgents. It is a measure of how far the reality of the war in Iraq now differs from the rosy picture presented by the media that the fall of Mosul to the insurgents went almost unreported abroad because most journalists were covering the assault by the US marines on Fallujah.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Bit more info........

The incident threatens to raise sectarian tensions

"They (the fighters) have either left or are just laying low," said US Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Johnson. "The Iraqis have secured most of the town, from here on there will be a police presence in Salman Pak." Johnson said Iraqi forces were pushing south of the town along the Tigris to sweep through villages in the region. The latest incident threatened to raise sectarian tensions between the country's majority Shia, who won control of parliament in January, and the Sunnis, who have lost the privilege and power they enjoyed under the ousted government of Saddam Hussein.

Abd al-Salam al-Kubaisi, a member of the influential and mostly Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMS) told Aljazeera that he had contacted some people in al-Madain and they confirmed there was a fierce attack on the town despite the apparent absence of fighters.

"We can call this another Falluja," al-Kubaisi said. He went on to say that the Iraqi Interior Ministry announced on 14 April that there would be an attack against al-Madain town.

"We have urged them to keep the situation calm, but they have insisted to storm this safe city with its Sunni and Shia residents. Therefore, this operation comes to create a sectarian strife in the town," he added.

Al-Huriya area in al-Wihda neighbourhood was raided 22 days ago although there were no fighters there, al-Kubaisi said. Five days later, all families were thrown out, he added.

 

[Raisin D'etre]

Killed in Baghdad

Human Rights Watch mourns the death of Marla Ruzicka, a tireless human rights activist working to provide compensation for civilian victims of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The 28-year-old Ruzicka, founder of the non-governmental Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), was killed by a suicide bomber while traveling on the Baghdad Airport road on Saturday. Ruzicka's colleague, Faiz Ali Salim, 43, also died in the explosion. Five others were injured in the attack, which seemed aimed at a security convoy driving ahead of Ruzicka's car. Human Rights Watch extended its condolence to the families of Ruzicka and Ruzicka's colleague, Faiz Ali Salim, 43, also died in the explosion. Five others were injured in the attack, which seemed aimed at a security convoy driving ahead of Ruzicka's car. Human Rights Watch extended its condolence to the families of Ruzicka and Salim.

Ruzicka had worked extensively in Iraq and in Afghanistan to document the exact number of civilians killed or injured by U.S. forces, and helped victims receive compensation from the U.S. government.

During her last trip to Iraq, Ruzicka managed to obtain information from the U.S. military about the number of civilians killed during hostilities after the end of major combat operations. The information she received related only to a brief period in the Baghdad area, but was important in establishing that the U.S. did in fact record civilian injuries. She was trying to get the U.S. government to publicly release these statistics about all areas of Iraq...

Ruzicka and her colleagues at CIVIC (nearly all local volunteers) worked to identify victims individually, gathering detailed information about the circumstances of their injury, their personal lives, and the impact of the war on them. This information was widely viewed as some of the most accurate data about the condition of civilians and helped put a human face on their suffering. Its reliability made it possible for many civilian victims to receive compensation.

source

 

[Raisin D'etre]

Would she ever consider doing something a little ... safer?

"To have a job where you can make things better for people? That's a blessing," she said. "Why would I do anything else?"

More on Marla Ruzicka

 

[Raisin D'etre]

Bit more info........

The incident threatens to raise sectarian tensions

Thanks - reading that report and this one makes me wonder whether the aim was to incite sectarian violence.

Riverbend:- Medain is a town of Sunnis and Shia who have lived together peacefully for as long as anyone can remember. The people in the town come from the local "Ashayir" or tribes. It's one of those places where everyone knows everyone else- even if only by name or family name. The tribes who dominate the town are a combination of Sunni and Shia. Any conflicts between the townspeople are more of the tribal or family type than they are religious.

The whole concept of a large number of Sunni guerrillas raiding the town and taking 60 – 150 of its members (including women and children) was bizarre, frightening and by the second day of the rumor, a little bit suspicious.

People in Baghdad didn't believe it. Most of them waved a hand dismissing the report and said, "They just want to raid Medain." It's a town that has been giving the Americans quite a bit of trouble this last year, a part of the Sunni Triangle . Many attacks were reported to have come from the area, but at the same time, it's not like Falloojeh, Samarra, or Mosul- it's half Shia. It wouldn't be as easy or politically correct to raid.

Yesterday, there were actually Shia demonstrators from the town claiming that the rumors were false and the town was peaceful and there was no need for a raid or for door-to-door checks.

The last few days, Iraqi officials have been on television claiming that the whole hostage situation was "under control" and things were going to be sorted out, except that apparently, there's nothing to sort out. There have been no reports of hostages, even from the majority of Shia residents themselves. Someone mentioned that it was possible a couple of people had been abducted, but it had nothing to do with Sunni guerrillas chasing out Shia.

 

[bigfish]

People Around the World Mourn Marla Ruzicka's Tragic Death

It is with deep sadness and regret that I am writing to inform you that Marla died yesterday at the age of 29 in a suicide bomb attack. Faiz, her Iraqi partner, was also killed.

http://www.civicworldwide.org/#

 

[Barking_Mad]

Interesting read.........

Violence is 'off the chart' in area on Iraq border

HUSAYBAH, Iraq — Uprooting the criminal gangs that control this violent border town and defeating a small but well-trained insurgent force here may be left to new Iraqi security forces when they begin moving into the western desert this year, Marine Maj. John Reed says. Until Iraqi forces can be deployed to this remote outpost, a small contingent of Marines is focused on stopping foreign religious warriors, or jihadis, from entering Iraq, and rounding up insurgents that launch attacks here. Untamed even by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the area has been a haven for insurgents, smugglers and thieves who wage daily battles among themselves in the city, Reed says. Almost as frequently, he says, the combatants turn their automatic weapons, grenades and mortar blasts on Marines camped at the town's edge.

"We're facing a well-developed, mature insurgency with the support of the local population" of about 100,000 townspeople, Reed says. "There is no Iraqi security force here. They are not effective. There are no police. They are dead or doing something else."

In stark contrast to the inroads multinational forces have made in such hot spots as Fallujah, Ramadi and Mosul, Marines in Husaybah have been forced to hunker down in defensive positions. Their base, Camp Gannon, is named for Capt. Rick Gannon who died April 17, 2004, while leading an effort to rescue two sniper squads trapped on a rooftop in the city. Five Marines died that day in a fight against about 100 insurgents. Unable for safety reasons to patrol the city on foot and in vehicles, troops are limited in their ability to gain important street-level intelligence. So the Marines primarily mount counterattacks on insurgents and criminals who fire into the camp. Last week, the Marines averted disaster when three car bombers backed by 30 insurgents assaulted the camp. Marine Lt. Col. Tim Mundy, commander of the Third Battalion, Second Marine Regiment, who oversees Husaybah from his base in Al-Qaim, about 10 miles away, says he believes many insurgents recently pushed out of Fallujah and Ramadi by coalition forces regrouped here even as foreign fighters continued to flow in from Syria.

Mundy, 40, says, "This is about as complex a situation as I can imagine any battalion facing."

The insurgents face not only the Marines but also resistance from two Sunni Muslim tribes. The Mahalowis and Salmanis historically controlled the town's cross-border trade. Reed says those tribes dominate the local criminal gangs, police and politicians. They feud with each other but unite to oppose the U.S. presence. "There was always violence here, and now it's much higher. It's off the chart. They're killing each other every day, and we're killing them," Reed says. Saddam once talked of converting the area's smuggler trails into a major trade route from Syria through Baghdad to Kuwait. That ended with the Gulf War in 1991. In April 2003, U.S. forces entered Baghdad and toppled Saddam, but they didn't reach Husaybah until three months later.

Violence became routine here last fall after U.S. financial aid to the area dried up in anticipation of Iraq's provisional government taking over the local administration. That still hasn't happened. In October, U.S. forces closed a border gate to constrict the flow into Iraq of foreign jihadis. But with trade shut down, merchants began to convert their shops into bombmaking studios, Reed says. Insurgents hired local youths to set the bombs and mines and fire on U.S. troops, and they terrorized families to get them to cooperate, he says. "When they go into a house, decapitate the men, rape the women and disappear with a few children, I guarantee you the rest are doing what they're told," Reed says.

New Iraqi security forces might help stabilize the situation when they are trained and arrive in the late summer or fall, Reed says. He adds, "If we go it alone, we will have a flash point like Fallujah. We're near that point now." Reed says he has doubts about this border town's future.

"When the multinational force leaves, maybe the insurgency does," he says. "I don't think so. I think it has a higher goal: to make the new Iraq fail. What the future here is, it's kill them all. It really is. Or make them run somewhere else."

 

[Raisin D'etre]

Iraqis cry foul over 'hostage' mystery

More on Madain...

Religious and civic leaders expressed fears of a conspiracy Monday after a reported kidnapping siege in an Iraqi town ended without resistance and in the apparent absence of any hostages.

For some leaders, the mysterious standoff in the town of Madain was part of a self-serving campaign by some politicians or worse, a sinister plot to start a sectarian war...

The three-day standoff around Madain -- marked by rumor, suspicion and conflicting reports -- had threatened to spiral into an all-out national crisis as Sunnis and Shiites negotiate on the formation of a new government.

It started on Friday with Shiite residents who fled the mixed town speaking of Sunni militants holding up to 100 people hostage and threatening to kill them unless the Shiites left.

This was later confirmed by the interior and defense ministries with officials in the outgoing government of Iyad Allawi promising a military operation to rescue the hostages. At one point the defense ministry said Sunday that 15 hostages were freed.

"Yes, there is tension in the area and, yes, Shiites are being targeted by Saddamists and militant Islamists," said Darraji.

He confirmed that a Shiite mosque was blown up in Madain, which lies southeast of Baghdad in a belt of towns known as insurgent hotbeds.

"But nothing on the scale that was portrayed on television...It is intentional and premeditated," he added.

Darraji, like some members of parliament's dominant Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) charged that exaggerated reports of events in Madain may be the work of former regime elements operating in the interior and defense ministries to sow instability and sectarian strife.

But influential Sunni clerics including those in the Committee of Muslim Scholars said the whole affair was staged to justify a military operation against Sunnis in the area.

"They found no Zarqawi when they went into Fallujah, and the same thing happened here, no hostages," said Sheikh Rafi al-Ani referring to the US-led offensive on the former rebel stronghold of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, to find Al-Qaeda's frontman in Iraq Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.

Ani spoke of Sunnis from the tribes of Dulaim, Jubur and Mawla who have intermarried and lived with Shiite tribes from the Albuamer and Tamim for more than 100 years in the area of Madain.

He, like fellow Sunni outgoing interior minister Falah al-Naqib, accused Iranian intelligence services and their "agent Shiite politicians" of being behind events in Madain.

"Shiites want to control the shrines in the city," said Ani, referring to the tombs of Prophet Mohammed's companions Salman the Persian and Hudhifa bin al-Yaman, both revered by Shiites.

Arab Media Watch

 

[Raisin D'etre]

Marla Ruzicka - Military officials admitted they kept tally of Iraqis killed

A week before she was killed by a suicide bomber, humanitarian worker Marla Ruzicka forced military commanders to admit they did keep records of Iraqi civilians killed by US forces.

Tommy Franks, the former head of US Central Command, famously said the US army "don't do body counts", despite a requirement to do so by the Geneva Conventions.

But in an essay Ms Ruzicka wrote a week before her death on Saturday and published yesterday, the 28-year-old revealed that a Brigadier General told her it was "standard operating procedure" for US troops to file a report when they shoot a non-combatant.

She obtained figures for the number of civilians killed in Baghdad between 28 February and 5 April, and discovered that 29 had been killed in firefights involving US forces and insurgents. This was four times the number of Iraqi police killed.

"These statistics demonstrate that the US military can and does track civilian casualties," she wrote. "Troops on the ground keep these records because they recognise they have a responsibility to review each action taken and that it is in their interest to minimise mistakes, especially since winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis is a key component of their strategy."

This is an edited extract of an article written by Marla Ruzicka a week before her death:

In my two years in Iraq, the one question I am asked the most is: "How many Iraqi civilians have been killed by American forces?" The American public has a right to know how many Iraqis have lost their lives since the start of the war and as hostilities continue.

In a news conference at Bagram air base in Afghanistan in March 2002, General Tommy Franks said: "We don't do body counts." His words outraged the Arab world.

During the Iraq war, as US troops pushed toward Baghdad, counting civilian casualties was not a priority for the military. Since 1 May 2003, when President Bush declared major combat operations over and the US military moved into "stability operations", most units began to keep track of civilians killed at checkpoints or during patrols by US soldiers.

Here in Baghdad, a brigadier general explained to me that it is standard procedure for US troops to file a spot report when they shoot a non-combatant. It is in the military's interest to release these statistics.

A number is important not only to quantify the cost of war, but as a reminder of those whose dreams will never be realised in a free and democratic Iraq.​

The Independent