*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq: Further information on: Fear for safety / possible "disappearance"/ fear of torture or ill-treatment: Huda Hafez Ahmad al-'Azawi (f), businesswoman

Huda Hafez Ahmad al-‘Azawi is believed to be held by US forces near Baghdad Airport. She has managed to send a message to her family in which she confirmed where she is being detained. There is no news regarding the reasons for her arrest and detention. Since her arrest, Huda Hafez Ahmad al-‘Azawi has not seen her family or a lawyer.

Huda Hafez Ahmad al-'Azawi was arrested on 17 February, when US soldiers and members of the Iraqi National Guard forced their way into her home in Baghdad. The soldiers handcuffed and blindfolded her, and beat, handcuffed and blindfolded her daughters, as well as taking jewellery and cash from the house. The soldiers reportedly accused Huda Hafez Ahmad al-'Azawi of "supporting the resistance" before arresting her and taking her away.

Thousands of Iraqis are detained in Iraq without charge or trial at locations under US control. Some have been held for more than two years. Their legal status remains unclear and Amnesty International has raised its concerns about the fate of the detainees with the US and Iraqi authorities.

Muqtada as-Sadr Office, local notables refute hoax about "Shi'ah kidnappings," "Shi'ah expulsions" from al-Mada'in

Numerous residents of the al-Mada'in area southeast of Baghdad have refuted the claims, carried by western wire services and satellite TV stations, that some 80 or 100 Shi'i citizens had been kidnapped by an armed "insurgent" group that threatened to kill them if all Shi'i families fail to evacuate the city.

Shaykh Ibrahim al-Jabburi, a local notable and tribal chief in the district of al-Mada'in denied that there were any armed actions of this sort. A report carried by albasrah.net said that he called such stories lies that the media had been relaying without doing any investigation.

In a telephone interview with QudsPress, Shaykh al-Jabburi said that the city is indeed tense but the tension is not something that has arisen among the local people, rather it is the tension that exists between the local population, on the one hand, and occupation forces on the other, that routinely storm into houses and carry out arbitrary mass arrests.

A teacher in al-Mada'in Boys' Secondary School also denied the reports of any sectarian kidnappings and expulsions. Ahmad al-Jumayli told QudsPress, "the city hasn't witnessed any such events because it exists on the basis of large-scale social relationships that link together the Sunnah and Shi'ah communities." Al-Jumayli noted, however, that
sectarian tension was on the rise as a result of the actions of the puppet police and puppet "national guard" who launch raids and searches only of houses belonging to the Sunnis. The majority of the members of the puppet police and "national guard," he noted were remnants of the militias of a number of Shi'I chauvinist parties. But he said despite such malfeasance on the part of the regime, he did not believe that things would reach a point of mass expulsions.

The Office of the Shi'i religious leader Muqtada as-Sadr in Baghdad also refuted the hoax, noting that the stories were aimed at sparking sectarian conflicts among Iraqis. A source in the as-Sadr Movement Office told QudsPress that the information being received by the office confirmed that nothing of this sort had taken place. He said that the story was being broadcast solely on the basis of "witnesses" and had not been officially confirmed.

Iraq rebels ‘unite’ to fight coalition

The terrorist group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, America’s most wanted man in Iraq, has joined forces with other Iraqi insurgents to carry out “spectacular” attacks, a rebel commander claimed last week.

The commander said Zarqawi’s group, known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, had agreed to work with insurgents ranging from Islamic radicals to supporters of Saddam Hussein in a loose affiliation called Iraq’s mujaheddin.

“Targets have been selected and plans are in place for coming attacks which will introduce new strategies and updated tactics,” said the commander.

A sharp fall in insurgents’ attacks from a peak of 140 a day just before the January 30 elections to 40 a day now had prompted predictions last week that American and British forces would be scaled back next year. The insurgency has been hit hard by mass arrests and offensives against rebel strongholds such as Falluja.

The commander’s warning of attacks by groups working together came after one of the most radical, the Army of Ansar al-Sunna, claimed to have carried out a joint raid with Zarqawi’s men on a pipeline in Kirkuk, in which nine police officers died.

US officials said they had believed for some time that the groups had been collaborating but this appeared to be the first time they had admitted working together.

Campus battlegrounds - Desperate military recruiters and a growing opposition square off in local schools

As the body counts rise in Iraq and Afghanistan, military recruiters in the United States must contend with an increasingly formidable mission of their own: to convince the nation's young people to join the ranks of a military at war.

After falling short of recruitment goals in February and March of this year, with another miss expected for April, the increasingly desperate U.S. Army and Marine Corps have dumped more money and personnel into the pursuit of new cadets. But in high schools and colleges across the country, a growing counter-recruitment movement is fighting to keep potential soldiers at home and out of uniform.

One recent battle in the war over recruitment was waged March 9 and 10 at San Francisco State University, when the military rented a booth at the university's two-day spring career fair. Students Against War showed up the first day with more than 150 protesters to picket air force and army recruiting tables. According to SAW member David Carr, protesters staged a peaceful teach-in around recruiters' tables until they left.

When two activists returned to the student center to pass out flyers the following day, police forcibly removed them from the building. In a letter to activists, university officials wrote that the protesters – who face possible suspension from school, while SAW and other groups face unspecified sanctions – were removed because their activities disrupted a university-sponsored event.

It was a scene that's becoming increasingly common across the country, one that pits a military that uses federal policies to force access into schools against activists who oppose unjust wars, recruiting efforts aimed at low-income people of color, and the military's discrimination against homosexuals.

As Carr told the Bay Guardian, "All we were doing was exercising our right to voice our grievances against the government. Military recruiters are predatory, deceptive, and discriminatory. Under the university's own antidiscrimination bylaws, it's them who should be removed, not us."

Berenice Morales is a young woman caught in the middle of the recruitment struggle. A 17-year-old junior at Philip and Sala Burton High School in San Francisco, Morales is not sure what she wants to do after she graduates next year. She's worried about the future.

When navy recruiters came to her Career Education class a couple weeks ago, they offered a solution that seemed too good to be true. "They said that they give you free money and pay everything for school," Morales told us. "Plus you get a job faster when you get out because you already have experience. At first I was concerned about going to war, but they were like, 'Oh, it's not true that we take you to war.' Most people in the navy don't go to Iraq – it's just a small percentage." About 10 percent of the active-duty navy was forward-deployed as of April 18.

Counter-recruitment activists say recruiters routinely assure potential cadets that they are extremely unlikely to see combat. "They make promises they can't keep," says Aimee Allison, an Oakland City Council candidate and army veteran who became a conscientious objector during the first Gulf War. Allison is one of a growing group of former soldiers who speak to students about the realities of military service.

"Recruiters are telling young people a number of falsities," Allison told us. "For example, they'll go after Asian and Latino youth and tell them they will get citizenship. The irony is that it really only kicks in after the person is killed in battle."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Health Officials Fear Outbreak of Hepatitis in Iraq

Apr 19 - Untreated sewage flowing through the streets of Baghdad has led to an increase in the number of cases of hepatitis there, raising new fears among health officials that a major outbreak of the disease is imminent. Dr. Abdul Jalil, director of the Iraq’s Infectious Diseases Control Center, told IRIN, the United Nations humanitarian news service, that there had been a 30 percent increase in hepatitis cases in March 2005 compared to the same period in 2004. He said open sewers and polluted water were causing the problem to worsen. Dr. Jalil said he expects a possible outbreak in the suburbs of Baghdad because sewage systems have not been restored in many neighborhoods. The extreme heat of summer is also expected to intensify the spread of hepatitis and other water borne diseases in the coming months.

"The system of sanitation in the capital should be fixed quickly," Jalil told IRIN. "The Ministry of Public Works is moving slowly to solve this problem, and it’s affecting the health of Iraqis," he added. According to a recent State Department report, reconstruction of Iraq’s sewage treatment systems and other civilian infrastructure is badly behind schedule due largely to faulty contracting procedures established by US-led occupation authorities in Iraq, mismanagement on the part of both contractors and occupation officials, the strength of the armed insurgency, and the dilapidated state of Iraqi facilities after more than a decade of extreme economic sanctions and war.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Very rough estimate of number of Iraqis killed between January 1st - April 20th = 2399

Very rough totals for each month -

January = 556
February = 853
March = 714
April = 256 (to 19th April)

Id point out that although the media reported the number of attacks has been 'dropping off' since the 'success' of the elections, the number of Iraqis dying from that date has gone up above the January total. Obviously these numbers for any month arent complete, but the basic numbers for February and March are higher than those of January.

edit - the numbers do include killed insurgents (some might argue they shouldn't be counted) - however that total is a small percentage of the final total.

 

[Barking_Mad]

50 bodies plucked from Tigris river

Iraq 'hostages dumped in river' - The bodies of more than 50 men, women and children have been recovered from the River Tigris in the town of Suwayra, south of Baghdad. Many had been badly mutilated, Iraqi authorities said. President Jalal Talabani said the bodies were those of people who had been taken hostage and then killed in the nearby town of Madain.

And in the town of Haditha, north-west of Baghdad, at least 19 men were found dead at a football stadium. They had apparently been lined up against a wall and shot. The interior ministry said they were Iraqi soldiers who had been abducted by insurgents while travelling to Haditha.

 

[bigfish]

Aid worker uncovered America's secret tally of Iraqi civilian deaths

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8598.htm

04/20/05 "The Independent" - - 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.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Riverbend, the girl blogger interviewed by Alternet.http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/21782/

One of the most powerful aspects of your writing is your ability to convey how much all that is horrifying in the human experience -- death, violence, terror -- has become a part of an Iraqi's everyday life. Could you talk about the ways the experience of war and occupation has changed you? First, as a human being, i.e. how you you see yourself, and secondly in terms of your politics, i.e. how you see the world.

I think the occupation and war has made me more aware of the world. I think the average Iraqi has begun to look differently at certain world situations -- for example the tsunami. Before, it would have been difficult to empathize with the thousands of people who were living in fear and without the basic necessities. Now, seeing them without homes and running water and schools, etc. reminds us of our own refugees who come from cities and villages being bombed or evacuated. Personally, I think it has hardened me in some aspects. We're accustomed now to hearing explosions and sirens. It becomes less frightening and shocking with time.

It has helped me realize that the many people all over the world (but especially in the U.S. and UK) are quite naive and uninformed. It was disturbing to see their emails making claims that simply weren't true. For example, the Western perception of women in Iraq prior to the war. Until I began writing the blog, I had no idea that many Americans thought Iraqi women were like Afghani women or Saudi women. I had no idea that many Americans thought their military had brought computers and internet into Iraq. It has been disturbing and frustrating to know that so many people who supported the war supported it for the wrongest reasons.

The blog has also helped me realize that many people support certain issues not from certain beliefs but because they support a certain party or political group. This was made especially apparent after the whole WMD fiasco. It always amazes me how chameleon-like many Bush supporters are -- how they go smoothly from WMDs and protecting America to human rights and protecting Iraqis to terrorism and protecting the whole Middle East.

There is a lot of disagreement as to what the recent elections meant to the average Iraqi. Do you see it as a sign of hope or just an empty exercise in perception management?

I think elections are a nice concept. They give the image of democracy, but what we currently have on the ground is far from democracy. The problem is that the people who were running in the elections were the same people being rotated for positions during the first year of the occupation. It was just a process of choosing the best of a bad bunch.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Worth the read this one.......

The shadow Iraqi government

According to Washington's script, progressive invisibility of the occupying force means increasing repression exercised by Iraqi forces. This means the return - in full force - of Saddam's Mukhabarat agents, now posing as agents of the new Iraqi security and intelligence services. Seemingly, that is the way the disenfranchised Muqtada-regimented masses see it: Bush equals Saddam because the same people who repressed us are back. Not to mention that everyone painfully remembers how George Bush senior did nothing to prevent Saddam from smashing the Shi'ite uprising at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. The masses correctly interpreted the meaning of Rumsfeld's "message" to the Shi'ite al-Jafaari: don't touch the defense and interior ministries, ie, don't touch our old Mukhabarat allies and counterinsurgency experts.

Not featured in the elaborate Pentagon plans to regiment Mukhabarat agents is that these same Sunni, Saddam-era operatives may not be exactly inclined to fight the Sunni resistance. To complicate the equation, 70% of the US-trained Iraqi security forces are former Ba'athists. The top commando, with 10,000 operatives, is almost 100% composed of former Saddam army officers. If Jaafari's government purges them, it's the end of the American dream of having Iraqis doing the dirty jobs.

.........

Baghdad is a hellish labyrinth of concrete walls and barbed wire, where a BMW is "the kidnappers' car", 4X4s are favored by candidates for suicide attacks and there's no safe place to hide. Reuters staff survive barricaded behind sandbags and concrete walls; the only one able to venture out to collect images by motorbike is Abu Ali, a kind of local hero. Gas lines are endless. The resistance is relentless. The al-Batawiyyin district has become a Dantesque hell of criminal gangs, drug trafficking, prostitution and trafficking of human organs. Western Iraq is totally out of US control. Mosul is infiltrated by the Iraqi resistance. Ramadi, the resistance capital of the Sunni triangle, is controlled by - who else - the resistance.

There may be no funds for rebuilding American-bombed Iraqi infrastructure, but US$4.5 billion promptly found its way to Halliburton's subsidiary KBR for the construction and maintenance of the 14 "enduring camps" or permanent military bases. The most notorious of these may be Camp Victory North, a sprawling complex attached to Baghdad (former Saddam) International Airport. Camp Victory is a KBR-built, bungalow-with-air-con American city for 14,000, complete with Burger King and gym. When finished, it will be twice the size of giant Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, the base attached to surveillance of oil pipelines in the Balkans.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Interview with the man who conducted the Lancet Report into deaths in Iraq

Counting the dead in Iraq

In 2004 the US-based scientist Dr Les Roberts led a survey into deaths caused by the invasion of Iraq. His results showed that approximately 100,000 Iraqis had been killed after the invasion. He spoke to Joseph Choonara about his survey

 

[Barking_Mad]

US helicopter shot down in Iraq, 9 killed

A US commercial helicopter was shot down north of Baghdad on Thursday and nine people on board were believed to be killed, Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV channel reported. In a video footage aired by the pan-Arab channel, the wreckage of the aircraft was blackened and clothes dotted the site, but no bodies of the dead were shown. US military sources believed the helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, the channel said.

The three crew and six passengers were all civilians, it said, adding the nationalities of the victims were not immediately known. There was no official confirmation from the US military or the American embassy in Baghdad yet. Insurgents in Iraq sometimes managed to shoot down helicopters and damage planes with projectiles.

 

[Barking_Mad]

And the rest.....

1000 Iraqis dying each month: expert

DESPITE a decrease in American deaths in Iraq, Iraqis continue to die and suffer under poor economic conditions, a foreign policy expert said today.
Between 500 and 1000 Iraqis would be killed each month in the war-torn country, the Washington-based The Brookings Institution foreign policy expert Michael O'Hanlon said. "Unfortunately, things have not yet gotten much better for the Iraqi population either in terms of car bombings or general casualties from crime or from the ongoing civil conflict," Dr O'Hanlon told ABC radio.

Despite a weakening of insurgent forces since the US-led invasion in 2003 and a declining casualty rate for US forces, the situation had not improved for the Iraqi people.

"In the security arena, we've seen a great improvement in the rate of casualties taken by American forces - a much lower rate of fatalities and wounded; probably a 50 to 70 per cent reduction relative to the late fall," he said.

"Unfortunately, those improvements have not yet affected the overall security landscape in Iraq for most Iraqis."

The economic conditions in the country, although gradually improving, were no better than under the leadership of Saddam Hussein.

"I think that the progress here is probably only about back now to where things were under Saddam Hussein.

"The economy is only a little better than it was under Saddam. It may be no better at all if you look at certain indicators like unemployment."

Despite this, the insurgency was weakening - but not defeated, he said.

"I would not want to push the argument so far as to say that the insurgency is fundamentally on its heels or to say that it is so much weaker that it's been unable to continue to inflict random carnage on fellow Iraqi citizens."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Seven Blackwater USA employees, all Americans, died Thursday in Iraq

The deaths bring the number of Blackwater employees killed in Iraq to 18.Six employees of the American security contractor were killed Thursday when a Bulgarian commercial helicopter crashed north of Baghdad. A seventh died when a roadside bomb detonated next to one of the company's armored personnel carriers near Ramadi. Four Blackwater employees were wounded in the Ramadi attack. All were working under contract to the U.S. military.

"This is a very sad day for the Blackwater family," Blackwater USA President Gary Jackson said in a statement. "We lost a number of our friends to attacks by terrorists in Iraq and our thoughts and prayers go out to their family members."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Aegis can confirm that one member of staff was killed Today

Earlier Thursday, one employee from the British-based Aegis defence services company was killed and another injured when a bomb exploded as their car headed from the capital towards the airport, company spokeswoman Sarah Pearson said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Pentagon admits increase in attacks in Iraq

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita says insurgent attacks have increased in Iraq in the last two weeks -- and he says most of the attacks have been aimed at Iraqis.Di Rita describes insurgents as "increasingly desperate" as the Iraqi government gains more support among the people. And he says the attacks may be just the insurgents' way to "grab headlines with more spectacular attacks."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq's murky corpse mystery

In a country where things often turn out to be different from the way they at first seem, the retrieval of around 60 corpses from the Tigris River near al-Suwayra, south of Baghdad, is one of the murkiest and most complex stories to hit the headlines in recent months. At first, it seemed straightforward enough. A few days earlier, there were persistent reports of a "hostage drama" in the mixed Sunni-Shia town of Madain, about 30km upstream.

Sunni militants were alleged to have captured as many as 150 Shia inhabitants and to be holding them hostage, demanding that the entire Shia population move out of the area. Spurred by angry pressure from Shia political factions, Iraqi government security forces backed by US troops arrived in strength on Monday. They encountered no resistance and found no trace of hostages or hostage-takers. Two days later, the Arabic-language TV station al-Arabiya broadcast an on-the-spot report from al-Suwayra, quoting local police as saying that 58 bodies, all of them murdered, had been pulled from the river.

The connection seemed obvious and Iraq's newly-elected transitional President, Jalal Talabani, appeared to confirm it when he said emphatically that the bodies were those of hostages who had been murdered. But closer investigation made it clear that it was not quite as simple as it seemed.

Senior police officials at the regional headquarters for the area gave a detailed breakdown of when the bodies had been found. They said they had started to appear in the al-Suwayra stretch of the Tigris nearly two months earlier, on 27 February. On the first three days, 27 bodies were retrieved, while during and after the supposed hostage crisis only six corpses were pulled from the river. But in the 26 days between 26 March and 20 April, there was a steady flow of cadavers. A total of 33 were retrieved during that period, an average of just over one a day. The police statistics said that of 60 bodies 56 were men, two women and two children. Fifty-three had died of gunshot wounds, five had had their throats cut and two were beheaded. Only seven of the corpses were identified by relatives. The remainder were photographed, numbered and buried in unmarked graves.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Horror Glimpsed From the Inside of A Humvee in Iraq

.....Soldiers here have refined the deadly calculus of traveling Iraqi roads. They know the rear seat on the driver's side is the safest in a Humvee. They know the lead vehicle in a convoy is often the least likely to get hit. They have memorized the worst stretches of highway, and the twists in the road that leave them vulnerable by forcing them to slow down. They also understand that no matter how hard they try, any mission could be their last.

..............

"Watch out here. This is the mixing bowl right here. This is a big, dangerous area," he called to Knott as we moved farther south to a tangle of highways. Soon, we entered the town of Mahmudiyah, in the so-called Triangle of Death. The town lies in a stretch of northern Babil province bordered by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The area courses with a loosely allied web of insurgents as complex as the network of canals that make this terrain so hard to navigate for U.S. forces. Ten-foot-tall reeds grow in the waterways, offering hiding places for triggermen. Yet relatively few American troops have been dispatched to the region, one of several critical gaps between major U.S. commands in Iraq.

"Already there were a large number" of insurgents in this region, McMaster said. "Then over time, as the insurgency coalesced, it moved its base to areas where there were not significant coalition forces. So I think that's one of the reasons why this area is a problem."

On Sunday, Caldwell and McMaster were on a mission to prepare plans to strike back against insurgents, who have stepped up their attacks in the triangle in recent days, wounding or killing about a dozen U.S. soldiers in complex ambushes and roadside bombings. So far, attempts at counterstrikes have been hampered by a shortage of U.S. forces -- as well as a lack of local Iraqi police and functioning governments. McMaster said the regiment is now conducting aggressive offensive operations across the region that have netted more than a dozen insurgents.

A Fateful Decision

On the southern edge of the triangle, Capt. Ryan Seagreaves, of Allentown, Pa., told McMaster that he needed engineers to reinforce and expand his austere base so that there would be room for more Iraqi forces. He said he also needed dirt to fill protective barriers. Iraqi contractors are so terrified to work in the area that a convoy of 10 earth-filled dump trucks recently refused to travel south to McMaster's base. One driver fainted when told the destination, he said.

The local government council has been in disarray since its leader was assassinated this month, and there are no Iraqi police officers in the town, Seagreaves said. His snipers and tank patrols are growing exhausted from spending days at a time on the streets and in observation posts watching for insurgents -- the only way soldiers can keep them at bay.

"These guys have done a good job sucking it up, but they can't suck it up forever," Seagreaves said. McMaster promised to ask for reinforcements.

Our convoy stopped at a spartan U.S. sniper outpost overlooking a bridge spanning the meandering, jade-green Euphrates. Both American forces and insurgents seek to gain advantage by blocking or destroying bridges and roads. Currently, U.S. troops have barred all traffic on three nearby bridges including this one, which is laced with barbed wire. Soldiers recently shot an Iraqi man who ignored warnings and attempted to cross.

 

[Barking_Mad]

This was from the other day, not seen it mentioned elsewhere...

Bomb explodes west of Baghdad, scores of US troops wounded

BAGHDAD, April 20 (KUNA) -- Scores of US troops were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded west of Baghdad early on Wednesday. Eyewitnesses told KUNA over the phone that the bomb went off as a US patrol was passing through the Amriya area west of the capital. A US military vehicle was damaged in the explosion. The area was sealed off for investigation. Yesterday, American forces launched wide-scale raids in Amriya which has witnessed violent confrontations between the joint American-Iraqi forces and militants.

 

[Raisin D'etre]

Afghanistan - woman stoned to death for adultery

Dumbed down BBC report on the stoning of an Afghan woman:

A woman has been stoned to death in Afghanistan, reportedly for committing adultery.

The killing is said to have taken place in the Urgu district of north-eastern Badakhshan province.

A local Afghan government official confirmed the death, and said the government would investigate the case.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission said the woman had been sentenced to death by a decree from the local religious scholar.

Under Afghan law, cases such as this should go through the local courts.

A reporter for the BBC Pashto service in Afghanistan said the woman's husband recently returned from Iran after five years away.

The wife asked for a separation on the grounds that her husband could not support her.

However, he said she was having improper relations with another man.​

BBC

Er... didn't "we" liberate Afghans from execution decreeing Mullahs?

"We've seen the pictures of joy when we liberated city after city in Afghanistan," Bush crowed on Dec. 12. "And none of us will ever forget the laughter and the music and the cheering and the clapping at a stadium that was once used for public execution. Children now fly kites and they play games. Women now come out of their homes from house arrest, able to walk the streets without chaperons."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraqi forces desert posts as insurgent attacks are stepped up

Iraqi army and police units are deserting their posts after the recent escalation in insurgent attacks, according to reports from around the country yesterday. The end of a relative period of calm after the election has posed the first real test for the embryonic security forces since coalition troops started cutting back on their military operations in February. Iraq's new police and army units, instead of taking responsibility for imposing law and order, are abandoning patrols or taking refuge in their guardhouses when challenged.

On the Syrian border, US troops in the Sunni city of Husaybah report mass desertions. An Iraqi unit that had once grown to 400 troops now numbers a few dozen who are "holed up" inside a local phosphate plant. Major John Reed, of the 2nd Marine Regiment, said: "They will claim that they are ready to come back and fight but there are no more than 30 of them on duty on any given day and they are completely ineffective."

In Mosul, which has been a hotspot since insurgents fleeing Fallujah effectively overran it last year, residents have complained to newspapers that police now rarely patrol and only appear in response to attacks. But greatest concern has focused on Madain, the town 14 miles south of Baghdad that in the past few weeks has been at the centre of the biggest crisis amid conflicting claims of ethnic cleansing.

Residents say that since a series of tit-for-tat kidnappings began three months ago police have effectively abandoned the town. Sunni and Shia communities say two to three people have been disappearing each day since, blaming either elements of the Shia Badr Brigade and Sunni Ba'athists for the kidnappings.

When a convoy of police did try to install order, insurgents ambushed them. Those who survived were burnt to death.The failure of the victors of January's election to form a government has resulted in the defence and interior ministries being placed in limbo, and security experts cite this as partly responsible for the subsequent fall in army and police morale.

Ministerial initiatives against insurgents have all but ceased, many senior officials are due for replacement and recruitment has been hampered by confusion over future selection policies.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraqi attacks kill at least 29

Baghdad — Iraqi politicians on Monday again tried to end a deadlock over the formation of the country's new transitional government, and the death toll from two well co-ordinated militant attacks against Iraqi police and civilians rose to 29. Insurgents, meanwhile, launched another attack on Iraq's oil facilities, using explosives to set fire to oil pumps used for domestic supplies near Kirkuk, an official at Northern Oil Co. said on condition of anonymity. No injuries were immediately reported.
On Sunday, an emboldened Iraqi insurgency staged carefully co-ordinated dual bombings in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit and a Shiite neighbourhood in western Baghdad, killing and wounding dozens of Iraqi police and civilians.Also, the U.S. military said it had detained four more suspects in the downing of a civilian Mi-8 helicopter Thursday. All 11 passengers and crew were killed, including a survivor gunned down by insurgents. Ten suspects have been apprehended in all, the military said.

A vehicle packed with explosives was driven into acrowd gathered in front of a popular ice cream shopin Baghdad's western al-Shoulah neighbourhoodSunday, police Major Mousa Abdul Karim said. Minutes later, as police andresidents rushed tohelp the victims, a second suicide car bomberplowed into the crowd. At least 23 people were killed and 41 wounded, officials at two hospitals said Monday in an update of the casualty numbers. Shattered glass, pools of blood, and pieces of flesh littered the scene.

In Saddam's hometown of Tikrit on Sunday, two remotely detonated car bombs exploded in quick succession outside a police academy, killing at least six Iraqis and wounding 33,police and a hospital official said. The blasts occurred as recruits were about to leave the station and travel to Jordan for a training, said police Lieutenant Shalan Allawi. Insurgents also attacked U.S. forces. A roadside bomb hit one convoy in eastern Baghdad, killing one American soldier and wounding two, the U.S. military said. Iraqi police said two civilians also were wounded in the attack.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the country's most feared militant group, claimed responsibility for the Tikrit and eastern Baghdad attacks in statements posted on militant websites. The group also claimed responsibility for a roadside bomb targeting a U.S. patrol near the Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad. The U.S. military said no one was hurt in that attack.

The claims could not be independently verified.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Terrified US soldiers are still killing civilians with impunity, while the dead go uncounted

An American patrol roared past us with the soldiers gesturing furiously with their guns for traffic to keep back on an overpass in central Baghdad. A black car with three young men in it did not stop in time and a soldier fired several shots from his machine gun into its engine.

The driver and his friends were not hit, but many Iraqis do not survive casual encounters with US soldiers. It is very easy to be accidentally killed in Iraq. US soldiers treat everybody as a potential suicide bomber. If they are right they have saved their lives and if they are wrong they face no penalty.

"We should end the immunity of US soldiers here," says Dr Mahmoud Othman, a veteran Kurdish politician who argues that the failure to prosecute American soldiers who have killed civilians is one of the reasons why the occupation became so unpopular so fast. He admits, however, that this is extremely unlikely to happen given the US attitude to any sanctions against its own forces.

Every Iraqi has stories of friends or relatives killed by US troops for no adequate reason. Often they do not know if they were shot by regular soldiers or by members of western security companies whose burly employees, usually ex-soldiers, are everywhere in Iraq. A member of the Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi's party, was passing through an American checkpoint last year when a single shot rang out from a sniper. No US soldier was hit, but the troops at the checkpoint hosed down the area with fire, wounding the INC member and killing his driver.

The rector of Al-Nahrain University in south Baghdad was travelling to a degree ceremony on the other side of the city when white men in a four-wheel drive suddenly opened fire, hitting him in the stomach. Presumably they thought he was on a suicide mission. It was obvious to many American officers from an early stage in the conflict that the Pentagon's claim that it did not count civilian casualties was seen by many Iraqis as proof that the US did not care about how many of them were killed. The failure to take Iraqi civilian dead into account was particularly foolish in a culture where relatives of the slain are obligated by custom to seek revenge.

The secrecy surrounding the numbers of civilians killed reveals another important facet of the war. The White House was always more interested in the impact of events in Iraq on the American voter than it was in the effect on Iraqis. From the beginning of the conflict the US and British armies had difficulty in working out who in Iraq really was a civilian. Marla Ruzicka, the American humanitarian worker who was buried yesterday in California, had established in her last weeks in Iraq that figures were kept based on after-action reports. Officially, she found, 29 civilians were killed in fire fights between US forces and insurgents between 28 February and 5 April. But these figures are likely to be gross underestimates.

US soldiers are notorious in Iraq for departing immediately after a skirmish, taking their own casualties but sometimes leaving damaged vehicles. They would not have time to find out how many Iraqis were killed or injured.

The Health Ministry in Baghdad did produce figures and then stopped doing so, saying they had not been properly collated. Iraqi Body Count, a group monitoring casualties by looking at media sources, puts the total at 17,384. But most Iraqis die obscurely; it is dangerous for reporters, Iraqi or foreign, to try to find out who is being killed. Much of Iraq is a bandit-ridden no-man's land.

Even in Baghdad it is evident from the hundreds of bodies arriving at the mortuary that this has become one of the most violent societies on earth. The Iraqi Body Count figure is probably much too low, because US military tactics ensure high civilian losses * a bizarre aspect of the war is that US commanders often do not understand the damage done by their weapons in Iraq's close-packed cities. US firepower, designed to combat the Soviet army, cannot be used in built up areas without killing or injuring civilians. Nevertheless, a study published in the Lancet saying that 100,000 civilians have died in Iraq appears to be too high. But the lack of definitive figures continues to dehumanise the uncounted Iraqi dead. As Dr Richard Garfield, a professor of nursing at Columbia University and an author of the Lancet report, wrote: "We are still fighting to record the Armenian genocide. Until people have names and are counted they don't exist in a policy sense."

The immunity of US troops means that there is nothing to inhibit them opening fire in what for them is a terrifying situation. For all their modern armament they are vulnerable to suicide bombers and roadside bombs. In the first case the attacker is already dead and in the second the man who detonates the bomb is probably several hundred yards away and in cover. With nobody else to shoot at it is the civilians who pay the price.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Insurgent Violence Escalates In Iraq

BAGHDAD, April 23 -- Violence is escalating sharply in Iraq after a period of relative calm that followed the January elections. Bombings, ambushes and kidnappings targeting Iraqis and foreigners, both troops and civilians, have surged this month while the new Iraqi government is caught up in power struggles over cabinet positions.

Many attacks have gone unchallenged by Iraqi forces in large areas of the country dominated by insurgents, according to the U.S. military, Iraqi officials and civilians and visits by Washington Post correspondents. Hundreds of Iraqis and foreigners have either been killed or wounded in the last week.

"Definitely, violence is getting worse," said a U.S. official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "My strong sense is that a lot of the political momentum that was generated out of the successful election, which was sort of like a punch in the gut to the insurgents, has worn off." The political stalemate "has given the insurgents new hope," the official added, repeating a message Americans say they are increasingly giving Iraqi leaders.

This week, at a checkpoint bunker in Tarmiya where insurgents downed a helicopter, a teenager in sunglasses clutching an AK-47 marked the limits of the Iraqi army's authority. "I wouldn't advise going there," the young Shiite Muslim recruit said, referring to Tarmiya, a Tigris River town a few hundred yards up the road that is dominated by Sunni Muslim landowners who were loyal to Saddam Hussein. "Those are some bad people there."

Up the road, insurgents run relatively free, and last week they appeared to have used a hilltop outside of town to fire what they later said was a shoulder-launched, heat-seeking missile. The missile hit a chartered Russian-made helicopter Thursday, killing six Americans and five other foreigners, including a survivor executed by the guerrillas afterward.

Another U.S. soldier was killed on Saturday when a roadside bomb exploded near a military convoy west of Baghdad, the Reuters news agency reported.

The U.S. official said this week that overall attacks had increased since the end of March. Roadside bombings and attacks on military targets are up by as much as 40 percent in parts of the country over the same period, according to estimates from private security outfits.

..........

The insurgency has found new hideouts, gathering points and recruiting areas in western and central Iraq, and in eastern Iraq along the Tigris River, as well as in other locations.

"The government is useless! I have stopped depending on it," Ali Hali, a 29-year-old Shiite, cried last week. He was among hundreds of wailing residents of the southern city of Najaf who gathered in anger after scores of bodies were found in the Tigris. How the people were killed is not known, but Shiites said they presumed them to be victims of Sunni extremists.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq photos

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq Pipeline Watch

April 17 - attack near Fatha on oil pipeline from Kirkuk to the Bayji refinery.
Iraq Pipeline Watch: #223

April 13 - bomb on oil pipeline near Kirkuk killed an Iraqi oil security chief and eight of his men, who were in the process of defusing another explosive device, and sparked a fire on the pipeline.

Insurgents launch more deadly attacks in Iraq

Iraq - Iraqi politicians, pressured by the United States, tried again Monday to end a nearly three-month deadlock over forming a new transitional government, with insurgents emboldened by the impasse launching well-coordinated weekend attacks that killed 29. Three roadside bombs aimed at U.S. military convoys exploded in the capital Monday, including one in western Baghdad that killed an American soldier, said Army Lt. Col. Clifford Kent.

Another roadside bomb hit a convoy in eastern Baghdad on Sunday, killing one American soldier and wounding two, the U.S. military said. Iraqi police said two civilians also were wounded.

Militants also launched two separate attacks Monday aimed at Iraq's oil industry in the north, setting fire to pumps near Kirkuk and opening fire on police guarding a convoy of tanker trucks, officials said. Two policemen were wounded and three insurgents arrested in a one-hour gunbattle over the convoy, police said.

Elsewhere, Iraqi police discovered the bodies of three people - including one wearing an Iraqi Army uniform - in a river in the center of the country, the Polish military said Monday. The bodies were found late Sunday evening near Tahir, 25 miles east of Diwaniyah, Lt. Col. Zbigniew Staszkow said.

Rebels improve bomb schemes in Iraq

WASHINGTON -- Iraqi insurgents keep finding new ways to conceal and detonate deadly improvised explosive devices, making the Pentagon's countermeasures that much more difficult to develop, confidential military documents say.

"Enemy sophistication continually improves," said a recent U.S. military briefing to commanders. "The enemy is adapting all the time."

The document said that after the U.S. had success with jamming radio signals between the bomber and the improvised explosive devices (IEDs), insurgents quickly reverted to direct-wire ignition that cannot be jammed. The documents, which are distributed to U.S. commanders as updates on Pentagon efforts to defeat IEDs, show, for example, that insurgents last summer began burying the bombs under roads and then paving over the holes. The enemy also has used dead animals as hiding places, and has put smaller ordnance inside white bags placed on the roadside.

The paved-over bomb "can be spotted by the stain that usually remains on the road," said one briefing paper, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times. These crude, remotely detonated bombs have emerged has the insurgency's top weapon against American and coalition troops in Iraq. As intelligence reports indicate, it is getting more difficult for Saddam Hussein's loyalists to recruit Iraqi attackers, so the IEDs are gaining importance as a weapon to kill troops and civilians.

The Pentagon has attempted to stay ahead of the game by creating an Army-led task force that issues confidential reports, such as the ones obtained by The Times. The Pentagon also has rushed to Iraq off-the-shelf technology, such as electronic jammers and spy equipment. Jammers are affixed to vehicle convoys as they move along booby-trapped roads. The Pentagon also has developed a technology, which is classified, for disrupting cell-phone signals.

"Enemy is using door bells and car alarm systems," one confidential briefing stated. "If you stop someone with a bunch of door bells or phones or toy cars, you probably have a bomber." The explosive is typically an artillery shell, thousands of which existed in arms caches throughout the militarized country.

In some cases, the jammers work. But the insurgents have adapted by using the hard-to-jam signals from cordless phones or cell phones, or simply stringing a wire from the remote control to the bomb's battery.

 

[nino_savatte]

Prime Minister Chalabi?

I found this interesting piece while looking for something on Paul Bremer.

The capacity to derail the Shi'ite majority slate's victory was built in to the very structure of Iraq's fledgling "democracy." The Kurds and the non-Shi'ite parties are playing the trump card dealt them by the American occupiers[11]. They have been upping their demands, deliberately prolonging [12] the process of choosing key ministers, because the clock is ticking on the efforts of the Shi'ite fundamentalist-dominated United Iraqi Alliance (UIA[13]) – the overwhelming victor [14]in the Iraqi elections – to put together a government. What the moderates and Iraqi secularists, including the followers of neocon sock puppet Ahmed Chalabi[15], couldn't win at the polls, they may yet steal in a series of murky backroom deals. The outcome of the process set up by American diktat [16]may well end up with Chalabi [17]at the helm, as per the original neocon plan.[18]

The infamous [19] "hero in error,"[20] you'll remember, had a falling out [21]with the U.S. after it was revealed that he passed [22]vital American intelligence to his allies and paymasters in Tehran [23]. After the raid [24]on his Baghdad compound by U.S. agents in plainclothes, Chalabi announced that he and his Iraqi National Congress were joining the Shi'ite coalition, and suddenly anti-American rebel Moqtada Sadr (also a member of the coalition) was his best buddy [25]. If Chalabi manages to sneak into power via the back door, by becoming the "compromise" candidate acceptable to the UIA-Shi'ite parties< i>and the Kurds, it will be a testament to the power of the neocons to stage a comeback – even over and against official U.S. policy.

Chalabi as prime minister would certainly provide an interesting denouement to the Iraqi tragicomedy, but he would have to rule out a state visit to neighboring Jordan – there's still a Jordanian warrant [26]out for his arrest for embezzlement and fraud in the Petra Bank rip-off [27]. Chalabi made off with millions, fleeing the country and eventually worming his way into the affections [28]of our neoconservatives, who put him on the American dole [29]. He fed us a continuous stream of lies [30]glibly portrayed [31] as "erroneous" intelligence [32] about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" and nonexistent [33] links [34]to al-Qaeda, while he fed the Iranians what former Pentagon and CIA official Vince Cannistraro [35]called "very, very sensitive" U.S. secrets. Cannistraro also linked Chalabi's treason to a cabal of dual-loyalists [36]closer to hom

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m11315&l=i&size=1&hd=0

 

[Barking_Mad]

IRAQ: Doctors warn of increasing deformities in newborn babies

BAGHDAD, 27 April (IRIN) - Doctors in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, have reported a significant increase in deformities among newborn babies. Health officials and scientists said this could be due to radiation passed through mothers following years of conflict in the country. The most affected regions are in the south of the country, particularly Basra and Najaf, according to experts. Weaponry used during the Gulf war in 1991 contained depleted uranium, which could be a primary source for the increase, scientists in Baghdad said. "In my experiments we have found some cases where the mother or father were suffering from pollution from weapons used in the south and we believe that it is affecting newborn babies in the country," Dr Ibraheem al-Jabouri, a scientist at Baghdad University, told IRIN.

According to Dr Nawar Ali, at the University of Baghdad, who works in the newborn babies research department, a significant number of cases of deformed babies had been reported since 2003.

"There have been 650 cases in total since August 2003 reported in government hospitals - that is a 20 percent increase from the previous regime. Private hospitals were not included in the study, so the number could be higher," Ali warned. The health expert said polluted water, which could contain radiation from weapons used in previous conflicts, was the main factor behind the increase. The type of deformities found in newborn babies are characterised by multiple fingers, unusually large heads, unilateral lips or no arms or legs. In addition, Dr Lamia'a Amran, a pediatrician at the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) hospital in the capital, told IRIN that inter-marriages were also to blame and that most of cases of deformed babies were from poor families in the southern region.

"Most of the women who have deformed babies in our hospital are married to relatives and have no idea that a common blood factor can also cause such problems," Amran added. The IRCS hospital registers at least four cases of deformities every week. During April this year, 15 cases were reported, according to the hospital spokesman, a number considered high for a short period of time.

However, Amran added that 60 percent of the cases were not related to blood factors, but due to other causes. She explained that after studying family history of couples with deformed babies, they concluded that radiation and pollution were the main causes of the deformity. But most of the cases reported don't survive for more than a week, doctors said. Nearly 90 percent of such cases at the Central Teaching Hospital for Pediatrics in Baghdad do not survive, according to Wathiq Ibrahim, director of the hospital.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Fallujah - This is our Guernica

Robert Zoellick is the archetypal US government insider, a man with a brilliant technical mind but zero experience of any coalface or war front. Sliding effortlessly between ivy league academia, the US treasury and corporate boardrooms (including an advisory post with the scandalous Enron), his latest position is the number-two slot at the state department.

Yet this ultimate "man of the suites" did something earlier this month that put the prime minister and the foreign secretary to shame. On their numerous visits to Iraq, neither has ever dared to go outside the heavily fortified green zones of Baghdad and Basra to see life as Iraqis have to live it. They come home after photo opportunities, briefings and pep talks with British troops and claim to know what is going on in the country they invaded, when in fact they have seen almost nothing. Zoellick, by contrast, on his first trip to Iraq, asked to see Falluja. Remember Falluja? A city of some 300,000, which was alleged to be the stronghold of armed resistance to the occupation.

...........

Meeting hand-picked Iraqis in a US base, Zoellick was bombarded with complaints about the pace of US reconstruction aid and frequent intimidation of citizens by American soldiers. Although a state department factsheet claimed 95% of residents had water in their homes, Falluja's mayor said it was contaminated by sewage and unsafe. Other glimpses of life in Falluja come from Dr Hafid al-Dulaimi, head of the city's compensation commission, who reports that 36,000 homes were destroyed in the US onslaught, along with 8,400 shops. Sixty nurseries and schools were ruined, along with 65 mosques and religious sanctuaries.

Daud Salman, an Iraqi journalist with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, on a visit to Falluja two weeks ago, found that only a quarter of the city's residents had gone back. Thousands remain in tents on the outskirts. The Iraqi Red Crescent finds it hard to go in to help the sick because of the US cordon around the city. Burhan Fasa'a, a cameraman for the Lebanese Broadcasting Company, reported during the siege that dead family members were buried in their gardens because people could not leave their homes. Refugees told one of us that civilians carrying white flags were gunned down by American soldiers. Corpses were tied to US tanks and paraded around like trophies.

Justin Alexander, a volunteer for Christian Peacemaker Teams, recently found hundreds living in tents in the grounds of their homes, or in a single patched-up room. A strict system of identity cards blocks access to anyone whose papers give a birthplace outside Falluja, so long-term residents born elsewhere cannot go home. "Fallujans feel the remnants of their city have been turned into a giant prison," he reports. Many complain that soldiers of the Iraqi national guard, the fledgling new army, loot shops during the night-time curfew and detain people in order to take a bribe for their release. They are suspected of being members of the Badr Brigade, a Shia militia that wants revenge against Sunnis.

.......

In the 1930s the Spanish city of Guernica became a symbol of wanton murder and destruction. In the 1990s Grozny was cruelly flattened by the Russians; it still lies in ruins. This decade's unforgettable monument to brutality and overkill is Falluja, a text-book case of how not to handle an insurgency, and a reminder that unpopular occupations will always degenerate into desperation and atrocity.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Mystery of Iraq's alleged oasis of death

For decades, farmers in Salman Pak, a lush townland by the Tigris river, used canopies of date palms to shelter orange groves from a broiling sun. When insurgents took over the area earlier this year they used the foliage to hide stolen cars, weapons caches and supply routes from American drones buzzing overhead.The insurgents' presence was no secret. They razed the police station, set up checkpoints and turned the surrounding district of Madaen into a stronghold.

But last week it emerged that the palms may have concealed more than just equipment. Police in Suwayrah, a town 24km downriver, reported recovering at least 57 bodies from the Tigris, fuelling claims that Madaen had been turned into an oasis of murder. Some of the corpses were bound and without heads or limbs, some were bloated and badly decomposed. Most were men but there were several women and children.

When The Guardian, embedded with the 7th US Cavalry's 3rd squadron, rolled into Madaen on Saturday with a fleet of Humvees and Bradley fighting vehicles, all was quiet. The insurgents had fled a week earlier, apparently in boats across the Tigris. They left derelict houses which had served as their quarters as well as tonnes of ordnance, a firing range, a car bomb workshop and guerrilla warfare manuals.

One house had pistachio nuts and two glasses of black tea on a floor furnished with rugs. There was an intravenous drip hooked to the wall. A pair of pale blue socks hung on a front door. The only physical evidence of violence was dried blood on the wall of another house.

"There is something going on down here. Folks are scared," said Captain Brett Bair of the 7th US cavalry.

In a Humvee behind him sat a masked informant who claimed 400 bodies had been dumped in the Tigris. He was a new, untried source and the Americans had yet to evaluate his reliability. His fear was not in doubt: left unattended for a moment, he trembled and almost began to cry.

Bolder insurgent tactics unleashed in Iraq

Strategists who keep close tabs on the war in Iraq are scratching their heads over a sudden shift to large-scale attacks on American bases by the insurgents who heretofore have primarily bedeviled U.S. forces with their roadside bombs and hit-and-run attacks.

Just when military commanders in Iraq were beginning to feel optimistic about the marked fall in the number of terrorist incidents and attacks in the wake of the January elections, the insurgents twice so far this month have staged well-planned and coordinated mass attacks on U.S. facilities at Abu Ghraib prison and a Marine base on the Syrian border.

In the case of the remote and isolated Marine base at Husaybah, the insurgents massed a force estimated to number more than 100 men and distracted the defenders with mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attacks as a dump truck loaded with explosives blew apart a roadblock at the entrance to the base.

 

[Barking_Mad]

U.S. buys weapons from indicted company

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Army has approved the purchase of more than $29 million worth of weapons for the new Iraqi army from a Chinese state-owned company that's under indictment in California in connection with the smuggling of 2,000 AK-47 automatic rifles into the United States in 1996.

The haul remains the largest seizure of smuggled automatic weapons in U.S. history.

Army Lt. Col. Joe Yoswa, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Warren, Mich.-based U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command approved the contract for Poly Technologies after a check into the company's background. The company wasn't among those banned from doing business in the United States, he said.

The Beijing-based firm is to deliver 2,369 light and heavy machine guns, 14,653 AK-47 rifles and 72 million rounds of ammunition worth $29.3 million by Saturday, according to a Pentagon statement.

It isn't clear whether the deal, which comes as the Bush administration is pressing the European Union to maintain an embargo on high-tech arms sales to China, was discussed or approved by higher-ranking officials at the State and Defense departments. Hungary, Poland and Romania, all members of the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq, could supply the same weapons. China opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Poly Technologies won the competitively bid $29.3 million contract in February from The International Trading Establishment, a Jordan-based consortium. The U.S. Army selected the consortium to supply Iraq's fledgling security forces with as much as $174.4 million worth of radios, night-vision equipment, weapons and ammunition. The consortium comprises coalition partners of corporations from the Czech Republic, Spain and Jordan.

Iraq is awash in AK-47s and other weapons, but American commanders want new weapons for the new army.

Dynasty Holding of Atlanta, the name under which Poly Technologies did business in the United States, was charged in the smuggling case, along with 14 co-defendants, including Bao Ping "Robert" Ma, a former Chinese army general who was the firm's U.S. representative, according to the May 1996 federal grand jury indictment. Ma and three co-defendants were also charged with smuggling 20,000 AK-47 bipods into the United States from China in December 1994. Ma is a fugitive believed to be in China, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The 30-count indictment stemmed from a sting operation mounted by undercover U.S. Treasury and U.S. Customs Service agents, who posed as organized-crime arms dealers. The agents paid $700,000 for 2,000 fully automatic AK-47s that were shipped into Oakland, Calif., aboard a Chinese-owned vessel from China in March 1996. The shipment, which had an approximate street value of more than $4 million, also included about 4,000 AK-47 drum magazines capable of holding up to 40 rounds each.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Rough estimate for the bare minimum of Iraqis killed from January 1st to April 29th 2,595

Total for April stands at a mimimum of 500

 

[Barking_Mad]

Stadium Victims “Were National Guard”

Local residents refute government claims that nearly 20 men killed by insurgents in Haditha were fishermen visiting from the south. Residents in Haditha claim that the 19 bodies found in a football stadium last week were members of the Iraqi National Guard, ING - disputing government claims that insurgents had executed fishermen.

And one national guardsman, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IWPR, “We have lost two of our patrol groups, including 19 members of the ING.”

He added that the guardsmen were called as backup after security forces clashed with militants, and then were captured and taken to the stadium.

Haditha residents corroborate his story. After the bodies were found on April 20, initial reports said the victims were soldiers who were kidnapped by insurgents. Residents who heard the gunshots went to the stadium, where they discovered the bodies lying against a wall. But a day later, the Iraqi defence ministry said the bodies were those of fishermen who had travelled from the southern provinces of Diwaniya and Najaf.

The government claimed that the men had come to western Anbar province to fish in Tharthar lake, but instead were captured by insurgents and taken to the Haditha stadium, located 140 kilometres northwest of Baghdad. On April 26, a defence ministry official said an investigation into the Haditha execution was ongoing, and declined to elaborate.

Hamad al-Jagfi, who lives near the stadium where the bodies discovered, said he was one of the residents who went to the area after he heard the shootings. He said that some of the victims were wearing tracksuits, while others had ING uniforms.

“We found a number of guardsmen,” he told an IWPR reporter who was in Haditha on April 21 and 22. “Nineteen of their bodies were on the ground and no one else was around.”