*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

Bomber kills US guards in Iraq

Four American security guards travelling in a US diplomatic convoy have been killed in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, US officials say.
They say the men died when a suicide car bomber rammed their three-car convoy on Monday morning.

One of the men is a US diplomatic security guard, and the three others are private security contractors. Arabic media reports say the US consul in Mosul has been holding talks with residents of nearby Talafar. The city has recently been the target of a big American and Iraqi military operation.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Saddam's Revenge

Five men met in an automobile in a Baghdad park a few weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime in April 2003, according to U.S. intelligence sources. One of the five was Saddam. The other four were among his closest advisers. The agenda: how to fight back against the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq. A representative of Saddam's former No. 2, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, was there. But the most intriguing man in the car may have been a retired general named Muhammad Yunis al-Ahmed, who had been a senior member of the Military Bureau, a secret Baath Party spy service. The bureau's job had been to keep an eye on the Iraqi military--and to organize Baathist resistance in the event of a coup. Now a U.S. coup had taken place, and Saddam turned to al-Ahmed and the others and told them to start "rebuilding your networks."

Suicide bombers kill 10 as Shia pilgrimage gets underway

The dead included seven policemen and a soldier, killed when two bombers struck separate road checkpoints halfway between Baghdad and Karbala, a defense ministry official said.

Iraqi soldiers taken captive

Aljazeera learned that unidentified fighters are believed to have taken 15 Iraqi soldiers hostage west of Samara.

Car bombs on road to Kerbala kill 8-Iraqi police

Police said the bombs struck in the towns of Mahmoudiya and Latifiya, killing one civilian and seven police. Two police were also wounded.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Bulgaria Begins Iraq Withdrawal Mid October

Bulgaria's troops will begin their withdrawal from Iraq in the middle of October, the Chief of General Staff of the Bulgarian Army General Nikola Kolev announced.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Four U.S. Soldiers Killed in Action in Ramadi, Western Iraq http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aiUj2nD7LUxA&refer=us

The soldiers were killed yesterday by two separate homemade bombs that exploded while they were conducting combat operations in the city in Iraq's al-Anbar province, the military said in an e- mailed statement. The soldiers had been assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force. U.S. and Iraqi forces have conducted several operations in recent months against insurgents in al-Anbar, a mainly Sunni Muslim province that also includes the city of Fallujah, the scene last year of some of the bloodiest fighting since the 2003 U.S.- led invasion.

Officials say Iraq's health and environment sectors in crisis, need more money http://www.wkrc.com/news/world/story.aspx?content_id=222574F2-4814-4473-8A7D-B78C4710EB77

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - Iraqi officials appealed Monday for more money and better coordination to improve health care and environmental protection, warning that their country faces dire problems.

"There should be a national program to tackle this crisis," Iraqi Deputy Health Minister Amar al-Safer told 230 experts at a U.S.-organized conference in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

Iraqis lack safe drinking water and must cope with diseases such as cholera and pollution from asphalt factories, dust storms and oil pipeline explosions. Iraq's deputy environment minister, Muthanna al-Omar, said his ministry has little money to tackle environmental problems that have been worsened by years of neglect and U.N. during Saddam Hussein's rule. Foreign money is starting to flow into Iraq's environmental and health sector, but officials say they need more aid and better coordination between international bodies, Iraqi authorities and leaders of Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities.

"There is not much communication," said Naeema al-Jasseer, coordinator of all U.N. agencies dealing with health and environment issues in Iraq. "The challenge for us is how can we bring them together," she said at the conference, which was organized by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State University of New York. The U.N. World Health Organization has spent $12.2 million to improve water quality and food safety and another $37.4 million on Iraq's health system. WHO started work three years ago with Iraqi officials to rehabilitate and develop health facilities and control diseases such as cholera, malaria and leishmaniasis, which are endemic in several areas. Leishmaniasis, a skin disease transmitted by bites from sand flies, is known as "Baghdad Boil" to U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and can leave disfiguring lesions on the skin for months.

Three environmental health centers have been opened across Iraq in Baghdad, Basra and Mosul, and other centers are being planned. WHO says Iraq's health standards and infrastructure are among the Middle East's worst. Iraq's health system was damaged over the past 20 years by war, lack of investment and poor management, the report said. It said widespread looting after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 "further weakened the capacity of the health care system."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Fighting with besieged gunmen in Baghdad

Fighting erupted Wednesday between a joint Iraqi-U.S. force and gunmen holed up in a house in western Baghdad. The gunmen barricaded in a house in the Daoudi area exchanged heavy fire with the joint forces which encircled their hideout.

Civilian killed in attack on U.S. patrol in Baghdad

Police said a U.S patrol was struck by a roadside bomb in the A'amil district, southern Baghdad. One civilian was killed and another was wounded by random shootings. There was no immediate comment from the U.S forces.

Child killed in Mosul (unconfirmed)

One child was killed and another injured on Tuesday when insurgents used them as human shields during raids on three guerrilla safehouses in Mosul, said a U.S. military statement. There was no way to independently verify the report.

Three more bodies found in Iskandariya

Three bodies were found bound and blindfolded in the town of Iskandariya, 50 km south west of Baghdad. Police said they were shot dead three days ago.

Two Policemen killed in Baghdad

Two policemen were killed and three wounded when they were attacked by gunmen in the Shula district in northwestern Baghdad, police said.

Three Employees of Blackwater USA Killed in Iraq

The three were guarding a State Department official when a suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden vehicle into their SUV on the outskirts of the city of Mosul.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraqis demonstrate against British troops in Basra

BASRA, Iraq - Hundreds of Iraqis, including policemen in uniform, protested on Wednesday against the presence of British troops in the southern city of Basra after a police station was stormed to free two British soldiers.


Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, meanwhile, was to hold talks in London, where public concern has been on the rise over Britain’s deployment in southern Iraq.

“We condemn the illegal acts of British troops,” read a banner carried by the demonstrators, who numbered around 300, gathered outside Basra’s main police headquarters.

“No, no to the occupier,” they chanted, carrying banners which called for the return of the two soldiers to face Iraqi justice, while British troops who patrol the port city kept out of sight.

US-led coalition troops are not subject to Iraqi law.

The demonstrators handed in a list of demands to the police headquarters, including the resignation of the provincial police chief, accusing him of being “an agent” of the British.

“The British promised us sovereignty. So where is this sovereignty if they destroy a police station?” asked one demonstrator.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Displaced families return to devastated Talafar

BAGHDAD, 21 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Nearly 1,500 displaced Iraqi families have returned to the northern city of Talafar after Coalition forces ended an operation to rout insurgents hiding there, but the returnees said dozens of their homes had been totally destroyed.

The Iraq Red Crescent Society (IRCS) said on Tuesday that despite the returns, thousands of displaced people were still living in camps surviving on aid from various humanitarian organisations.

One of the main IRCS camps near the city, which is located just 60 km from the Syrian border, was half-empty. The camp, with 750 tents, housed 3,000 families at the height of the recent fighting.

"We don't have full information on what returnees are finding there [in Talafar]. Our efforts are now to address the difficulties of those still displaced in camps and villages around Talafar," Ferdous al-Abadi, spokesperson for the IRCS, said.

Some residents complained that some operations were still ongoing – making the city insecure. "My husband was killed inside Talafar a week ago. Today I went to check our house and see if everything was still there. I cannot stay there and [so I] returned to this camp because at least there is security here," said Samira Muhammad, 42, a tearful mother of four.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Gunbattle in Baghdad kills eight

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - At least eight people were killed on Wednesday in a gun battle in Baghdad between troops and insurgents and the U.S. military said a child died in a fire fight in the northern city of Mosul. Troops attacked a house in the Mansur district in western Baghdad after a man who said he had been kidnapped by gunmen living there was released and tipped police to the location.

In the five-hour firefight troops killed five insurgents and detained one, Jalil Kalaf, the area's military commander said. Two policemen and one soldier were killed and eight wounded. The U.S. military said in a statement on Wednesday that in a raid on a suspected insurgent safe house in Mosul on Tuesday, U.S. troops killed a child and wounded another while killing seven suspected insurgents.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US forces launch air strikes on Sunni town in Iraq

'The US army has been conducting operations, including air strikes, since Tuesday in the Al-Jabour district of Dhuluiyah,' 70 km north of Baghdad, the official said, adding that US forces had sealed off the area.

Nineteen bodies discovered north of Baghdad

Iraqi police discovered 19 bodies of Iraqi border guards in an area to the west of Balad on Wednesday, police and medical sources said. "All the 19 bodies were shot dead in the head and were blindfolded and their hands tied to their backs,"

 

[bigfish]

Unborn baby saves mothers life

http://www.iraqirabita.org/english/index.php?do=article&id=390

On August the 10th, 2005, an innocent eight-month pregnant Iraqi woman fell victim to the ever so familiar barbaric indiscriminate shooting by the American forces in Mosul. She was shot several times in the stomach. The American soldiers who had shot this innocent woman did not appear to feel any remorse to what they had done. Instead of rushing to help her as she fell into a pool of her blood on the ground in front of her doorstep, they simply walked away.

It was down to the family of the shot woman to pick up the pieces and rush her to the nearest hospital, the Mosul Republican Hospital, for emergency treatment where a team of doctors immediately performed a caesarean in their attempt to save mother and baby. However, it soon became obvious to the medical team that the baby had died in his mother's womb after a bullet had entered his chest and departed from his back.

As for the poor mother, she miraculously survived this crime. The doctors are of the opinion that the baby had acted as a 'shield' which protected the mother from certain death. The mother has been moved to the Maternity hospital for post-operation care.

The Iraqi League will conduct a full investigation into this crime. The Iraqi League will also launch a campaign in support of this poor woman who lost her baby to the criminal indiscriminate shooting of American soldiers, and other like her.
---
The Iraqi League has launched a campaign to collect messages of condolences from all those who wish to write to this bereaved lady. You may forward your message to


[email protected]

or follow this link

http://www.iraqirabita.org/english/contact.php

These shocking images should be converted to giant billboard posters and put up on every billboard the length and breadth of the United States, Britain and Australia.


Incidences of Snipers killing Civillians in Falluja
http://www.wildfirejo.org.uk/feature/display/114/index.php

 

[Barking_Mad]

*sarcastic applause*

Residents of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, have welcomed an improvement in the supply of power after nearly five months of unpredictable outages.

For a week now, the city has had more controlled outages, with power on and off every three hours. Previously power was available for just two hours daily.

The situation had become so serious that during August summer season, one of the worse since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003, millions of residents sleept outside because there was not enough power to run air conditioners.

"We are very happy with the improvements in the power supply. Our children were becoming sick due to the constant shortages and the hot summer that we had this year," said Hisham Sarluti, 34, a local Baghdad resident.

Rehabilitation work on the power supply system has been going on since October 2003. According to the Ministry of Electricity and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), production had reached 5,389 MW in July -- higher than pre-war levels.

http://www.aina.org/news/20050921101107.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Civilian found dead in Latifiya

Police said they found the body of a civilian man with his head crushed and tyre marks on his face in the town of Latifiya, south of Baghdad.

One killed in clashes in Ramadi

Medical sources said that one civilian was killed and another three wounded during heavy clashes between insurgents and security forces in the town of Ramadi.

Nine dead in latest Iraq violence

The victims included four guards working for the immigration ministry, whose vehicle was fired on by unknown gunmen in the capital Baghdad. A businessman and two of his sons were shot dead in their home in the eastern district of New Baghdad.

Oil Pipeline bombed in Kirkuk

Near the northern city of Kirkuk, a bomb damaged an oil pipeline, sending plumes of black smoke and fire up into the air, officials said. The bomb, which exploded late Wednesday, was placed beneath the aboveground pipeline

Police colonel killed

An Iraqi police colonel and his driver have been killed while driving on a highway near Baquba, north of Baghdad, police sources said

 

[Barking_Mad]

Sistani backs constitution

The country's most powerful Shiite cleric endorsed the draft constitution Thursday, rejecting opposition voiced by two popular leaders of Iraq's majority sect and underlining a rift also on display in anti-British violence in the southern city of Basra. Two officials in the Shiite Muslim hierarchy in Najaf said Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called senior aides together and told them to promote a "yes" vote among the faithful during the Oct. 15 national referendum on the constitution.

The officials refused to be identified because they are not authorized to speak for al-Sistani, who only issues statements through his office and makes no public appearances. Iraq's minority Sunni Arabs, who lost power and privilege with the fall of Saddam Hussein in the U.S.-led invasion, are deeply opposed to the constitution. They form the bulk of the country's violent insurgency and have stepped up attacks on Shiites in advance of the vote.

In Amman, Jordan, about 150 Iraqi Sunni clerics and tribal leaders called for the rejection of the constituion, warning the charter would lead to the fragmentation of Iraq. The local leaders from Iraq's insurgency-torn Anbar province, the country's Sunni heartland, met for a a three-day conference in the Jordanian capital for security reasons.

"We urge all the Iraqi people to go to the polls and say no to the constitution," Sheik Abdul-Latif Himayem, a prominent cleric from the Anbar capital, Ramadi, told The Associated Press.

 

[oi2002]

Iraq war to cost 1-2 trillion dollars of US tax payers money.

Assuming that Bush ‘stays the course’, it’s safe to estimate that the war will cost the US at least $1 trillion by the time all the bills come in, and it could easily be closer to $2 trillion.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraqi civilian killed in roadside bomb explosion

An Iraqi civilian was killed and six others were wounded on Friday in a roadside bomb explosion that targeted a number of workers in the village of Al-Latifiyah in the southern Babylon province.

Policeman killed in Mosul-Six bobies found

One policeman was killed on Thursday by gunmen in Mosul, a police source said. Bodies of six people who were shot dead were found on Thursday and Friday in different areas of Mosul, a medical source said.

Three Turkmen Front officials killed

Three officials in the Turkmen Front were killed and one wounded on Thursday by gunmen in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad. An official in the group said they were attacked while leaving their office.

Baghdad car bomb kills at least two

A suicide bomber in a car blew himself up at a bus station in central Baghdad on Friday, killing at least two people and wounding 17, police said.

Two Iraqi commissioners killed

Gunmen killed two members of the commission charged with ensuring former members of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime were banned from the Iraqi hierarchy, police said. Their deaths raised to 14 the number of commission members who have been killed

Five killed in Baghdad bus bombing

Five Iraqi civilians were killed in a bomb blast on a public bus in Baghdad on Friday, after US President George W. Bush warned rebels would escalate attacks ahead of the constitution referendum next month.

US soldier killed in bomb attack in western Iraq

One US soldier was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb struck a US patrol west of Baghdad, the US military said in a statement on Friday. The attack targeted a combat logistics patrol at about 9:00 p.m.(1700 GMT) on Thursday

 

[Barking_Mad]

Doctors Flee Iraq Violence

One of Iraq’s most precious resources — doctors — are fleeing the country in increasing numbers, scared off by persistent violence and drawn to safer, better paying jobs abroad, officials say.

25% of Services' helicopters are out of action

A quarter of the [British] Armed Forces helicopter fleet is grounded for repairs with many needing lengthy overhauls after flying in Iraq.

6 Iraqi soldiers wounded in ambush, 4 dead bodies found in Baghdad

Six Iraqi soldiers were wounded last night when their patrol was ambushed north of Baghdad, said the Iraqi Army on Sunday. Meanwhile, an Iraqi Police source said that four dead bodies of Iraqi citizens were found in the area of Shu'lah in Baghdad.

Gunmen kill guards and steal Iraqi money in ambush on bank vehicles

Police say gunmen waylaid a convoy of armored cars, killing two guards and escaping with 850-thousand dollars in cash. Two other guards and five bystanders were hurt in the gunbattle.

Suicide car bomb kills 13 elite Iraqi commandos

A suicide car bomber attacked an elite Iraqi police unit in Baghdad, killing 13 commandos in the worst of several outbursts of violence to hit the country on Sunday.

Iraqi women say freedoms are slipping away

Women's rights activists in Iraq say rising extremism is restricting their freedom, even as the country prepares to vote on a constitution that is touted as one of the Arab world's most progressive regarding women.

U-S forces battle al-Sadr fighters

U-S and Iraqi forces clashed with gunmen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in an east Baghdad slum. An Iraqi police major says at least eight Shiite gunmen were killed.

 

[oi2002]

Robert Dreyfuss provides a nice like background piece for the kerfuffle in Basra Badr vs. Sadr:

This time, it’s the simmering battle between two Shiite paramilitary armies: the forces of the Badr Brigade, the 20,000-strong force controlled by the Iranian-supported Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and the Mahdi Army, the thousands-strong force that worships the fanatical Muqtada Al Sadr. The battle, which might flare into a Shiite-Shiite civil war in advance of the October 15 referendum on Iraq’s divisive, rigged constitution, could put the final nail in the coffin of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy.

 

[oi2002]

Bill Lind father of 4G warfare:

If the absence of a loyal opposition and alternative courses of action further delegitimizes the American state in the eye of the public, the forces of the Fourth Generation will have won a victory of far greater proportions than anything that could happen on the ground in Iraq. The Soviet Union's defeat in Afghanistan played a central role in the collapse of the Soviet state. Could the American defeat in Iraq have similar consequences here? The chance is far greater than Washington elites can imagine.

 

[oi2002]

The LA Times descrbes how KBR has botched Iraqi oil industry reconstruction:

They said that rather than tapping Iraqi state oil company officials, the U.S. program was overseen by American officials with little experience in the oil industry. In an interview, one senior U.S. official managing part of the restoration effort jokingly described his knowledge level as "Oil for Dummies."

Iraqi officials also said KBR relied too heavily on foreign contractors, conducted lengthy, unnecessary studies and failed to deliver promised equipment. They acknowledged that Iraq needed to spend more on its oil industry but wondered why the U.S. investment had not had more of an effect.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq Sunnis Urge Charter Block, Mull Civil Disobedience

CAIRO, September 25, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Up to 200 Iraqi Sunni politicians and scholars have pressed for voting down the draft constitution in the October referendum and threatened to declare civil disobedience if the US-led onslaughts on Sunni towns continue.

Wrapping up a two-day meeting in the Jordanian capital Amman on Saturday, September 24, Sunni leaders from Al-Anbar province sought the formation of a committee to collect five million signatures to block the charter, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat reported Sunday, September 25.

"We are mobilizing Sunnis to vote down the draft if our demands were ignored," by the Shiite and Kurdish blocs, Ali Al-Sadoun, a Sunni politician and member of the Iraqi Council for National Dialogue (CND), told the mass-circulation daily.

The final draft of the new constitution has been handed over to the UN for printing and distribution after being endorsed by the Shiites and Kurds, who hold a sweeping majority in the parliament. Sunnis are basically opposed to the inclusion of federalism in the new charter because they believe it will divide Iraq and exclude them from sharing in oil wealth, as reserves are concentrated mainly in the Kurdish north and Shiite south.

"I firmly believe that the draft will be blocked in the referendum and we are working for this," Sadoun said.

Sunnis are a majority in Al-Anbar, Nineveh and Salahudin provinces and Iraq's interim law stipulates that the text fails if two-thirds of any three provinces vote against it during the referendum, scheduled for October 15. The Sunni leaders did not rule out declaring civil disobedience if the US-Iraqi troops launched more "sectarian" attacks on Sunni towns.

"If our patience ran out, we would declare civil disobedience to protest these massacres," said Saleh Al-Mutlaq, the CND spokesman.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US forced to import bullets from Israel as troops use 250,000 for every rebel killed

US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan - an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed - that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand. As a result the US is having to import supplies from Israel.

A government report says that US forces are now using 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition a year. The total has more than doubled in five years, largely as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as changes in military doctrine.

"The Department of Defense's increased requirements for small- and medium-calibre ammunitions have largely been driven by increased weapons training requirements, dictated by the army's transformation to a more self-sustaining and lethal force - which was accelerated after the attacks of 11 September, 2001 - and by the deployment of forces to conduct recent US military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq," said the report by the General Accounting Office (GAO).

Estimating how many bullets US forces have expended for every insurgent killed is not a simple or precisely scientific matter. The former head of US forces in Iraq, General Tommy Franks, famously claimed that his forces "don't do body counts".

But senior officers have recently claimed "great successes" in Iraq, based on counting the bodies of insurgents killed. Maj-Gen Rick Lynch, the top US military spokesman in Iraq, said 1,534 insurgents had been seized or killed in a recent operation in the west of Baghdad. Other estimates from military officials suggest that at least 20,000 insurgents have been killed in President George Bush's "war on terror".

John Pike, director of the Washington military research group GlobalSecurity.org, said that, based on the GAO's figures, US forces had expended around six billion bullets between 2002 and 2005. "How many evil-doers have we sent to their maker using bullets rather than bombs? I don't know," he said.

 

[Pickman's model]

how the fuck can you shoot 250,000 bullets just to kill one person?

 

[Barking_Mad]

Worth noticing that this quote from Blair was widely reported by the media there has been little questioning of him or his judgement. Despite the fact other poeple were saying before the invasion how disastorous it would be. What a dick


Iraq insurgents' ferocity wasn't expected, Blair says

Prime Minister Tony Blair said Sunday that he had not expected the ferocity of the insurgency in Iraq, but he insisted that British troops would stay as long as the Iraqi government needed them. As Blair's governing Labour Party gathered for its annual conference, the prime minister said he had not set a deadline for withdrawing 8,500 British soldiers from Iraq.

.........

"No, I didn't expect quite the same sort of ferocity from every single element in the Middle East that came in and is doing their best to disrupt the political process," he said, referring to insurgents who have flooded into Iraq from neighboring countries like Syria and Iran.

"But I have absolutely no doubt as to what we should do. We should stick with it."

 

[Barking_Mad]

So what were two undercover British soldiers up to in Basra?

The affair has crystallised long-held suspicions that Britain has largely "kept the lid" on southern Iraq by avoiding American-style confrontation, at the price of allowing increasingly sinister forces to gain a foothold. These forces are still a long way from having control, but Britain's problem is that it has responsibility for the region without having real power. As one soldier put it: "There are heightened tensions because of the constitution and perceived lack of progress - various factions have been complaining about that. At the end of the day we are at the end of the line: blame the security forces."

Conspiracy theories, always rife in Iraq, have been fuelled dramatically by last week's events, according to Mazin Younis of the Iraqi League, an alliance of Iraqi exiles based in Britain. He has close contacts with Basra. "Everyone you talk to [thinks the two undercover men] were up to something very bad... to kill somebody or destroy a building, and let us battle against each other," he said.

"Being in civilian clothing, wearing Arab clothes, made them look like spies. In Iraq, when you mention the word spy, people really get agitated. Even under Saddam Hussein, people were patriotic, they didn't like foreign spies in their country. So this image is very much of clandestine and secretive action."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Security incidents in Iraq, Sept 24

Sept 24 (Reuters) - Following are security incidents reported in Iraq on Saturday, Sept. 24, as of 1100 GMT.

U.S. and Iraqi forces are battling a Sunni Arab insurgency against the Shi'ite and Kurdish-led government in Baghdad.

BAGHDAD - Two soldiers were killed and five wounded, including two civilians, when a suicide car bomb exploded near an Iraqi army checkpoint in the Karrada district of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - One U.S soldier was killed when a road side bomb struck his vehicle southeast of Baghdad on Friday, the U.S. military said in a statement.

MUSAYYIB - One child was killed and two policemen and two civilians were wounded on Friday when a car driven by a suicide bomber exploded near a checkpoint in the town of Musayyib, south of Baghdad, police said.

* SINJAR - Two soldiers were killed and two policemen were wounded on Friday when a suicide car bomb exploded near a joint and police Iraqi checkpoint in Sinjar, 170 northeast Mosul, police said.

* KERBALA - Police said U.S. troops opened fire on a passenger car in Kerbala, 110 km (68 miles) south of Baghdad, killing a family of four. (Reporting by Faris al-Mehdawi in Baquba and Maher al-Thanoon in Mosul and Sami al-Jumaili in Kerbala)

 

[Barking_Mad]

Gunmen kill Iraq school teachers

Gunmen in Iraq have killed five school teachers - all Shias - at a school near Iskandariya, south of Baghdad. A police spokesman said the gunmen had arrived at the school in two civilian cars, and led the five teachers and a school driver out before shooting them. Some reports said pupils had witnessed the murder, but police denied this. Sunni Iraqi insurgents have recently intensified their attacks on police and US-led occupation troops, but school teachers have not been targeted.

Earlier, a suicide car bomber killed at least seven people and wounded 30 outside the police academy in the Iraqi capital. Five men queuing to join the police and two police officers were instantly killed in the blast, which took place near several government ministries. It was the second major attack on the police in Baghdad in 24 hours. Suicide bombers have struck many times this month in Baghdad, killing more than 100 in the bloodiest attack. It is estimated that up to 200 members of Iraq's security forces are being killed each month.

US accused of more abuse in Iraq

Human Rights Watch has published a report giving fresh details of alleged torture and abuse of detainees by US forces in Iraq.
The report quotes three US soldiers who described routine, severe beatings of prisoners, including a detainee's leg being broken with a baseball bat. Other allegations included applying burning chemicals to detainees' eyes and skin, making them glow in the dark. A US defence spokesman said the report contained errors and distortions.

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) report is based on interviews with a captain and two sergeants who served in a battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division. They said abuse, at a military base called Mercury near Falluja, was not only overlooked, but was sometimes ordered. The punishments handed out included sleep deprivation, withholding food and water, "human pyramids" like those seen in photos from Abu Ghraib prison, and blows to the face, the report claimed.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Pipeline bombed in Kirkuk

An oil official said a pipeline junction on Iraq's crude oil export line to Turkey was bombed and nine employees of an oil complex were briefly detained by insurgents in the city of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad.

Another official killed in Baqubah

A local official was killed by gunmen who shot him in the Hashimiya district of western Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad. A police source said Ra'ad Hussein was in his shop when he was attacked.

Egyptian engineer kidnapped in Iraq

An Egyptian engineer, who was working on mobile phone services, was kidnapped on Monday in Baghdad, said a representative of Iraqna mobile phone services company.

 

[Barking_Mad]

1920 US troops dead so far.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Baghdad in the dark as power cuts continue to blight the city

Surveying an abandoned, night-time street in Baghdad, Nadum Ali Jawad is one of the many Iraqis who are fed up with being left in the dark.

"I don't believe sabotage is the main reason for the electricity blackout, I think officials just steal the money meant for new power stations," was the student's verdict on yet another power cut. Few failures in Iraq 30 months after the fall of Saddam Hussein infuriate Iraqis more than the continuing shortage of electricity. Baghdad's power now works in maddening shifts - two hours on, four hours off, then two hours on again. The throb of small generators, enough for a television and a few feeble lights, provides a background buzz in every house.

As the Minister of Electricity, Mohsin Shalash, a thick-set mournful-looking man, has the most unpopular job in Iraq. Sitting in his heavily defended office, he toldThe Independent that the supply was getting better until 13 July when saboteurs blew up the pylons bringing power to Baghdad from the north.

"We saw massive destruction, greater than anything we had experienced before," he said. "We lost six power lines which were the backbone of the super-grid." The sabotage was expertly done. Usually explosives were attached to one leg of a pylon or tower so it collapsed when they were detonated. The saboteurs must have consulted an electrical engineer who pointed out how to cause maximum damage.

Lack of electric power dominates life in the capital. It means that fridges and deep-freezes do not work so food cannot be stored. It insures that cooking has to be done by gas or kerosene, which have risen sharply in price.

Machinery is destroyed by variations in the power supply. Every so often I forget to take the stairs in my hotel and get into the lift. It starts encouragingly when I press the button and then comes to a shuddering halt between floors. Soon afterwards sturdy maintenance men raise or lower the lift to the nearest floor so I can squirm out while they hold the door open.

Mr Shalash said the sabotage was just one of the problems he faces. Demand for power in Iraq is about 8,500MW and it is only getting 5,000MW. In the confident days after the fall of Saddam Hussein the Electricity Ministry, influenced by Amercan advisers, ignored contracts agreed under the old regime. New and more expensive contracts for power stations were signed. So far they have produced very little power. "It was a very big mistake," says Mr Shalash.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Ive lost the link for this, ill go and find it but it is the full piece....

Undeclared Civil War

Behind the blood and chaos of the insurgents' bombs, there is an undeclared civil war already underway in Iraq, between the Sunni minority who ruled this country under Saddam and the Shiite majority. CBS News correspondent Lara Logan reports there is a secret, ruthless cleansing of the country's towns and cities. Bodies — blindfolded, bound and executed — just appear, like the rotting corpses of 36 Sunni men that turned up in a dry riverbed south of Baghdad.

CBS News traced 16 of those men to a single street in a Baghdad suburb, where family members showed CBS News how the killers forced their way into their homes in the middle of the night and dragged away their sons and fathers.

"My uncles were tortured, they even poured acid on them," a young boy told CBS News.

Clutching photographs of the murdered men, the women and children left behind came together to grieve. One woman said as her husband was marched away she sent her son after him with his slippers, but his abductor sent the child back with a chilling message: No need for slippers — he will come back dead. They were targeted for one reason alone: all were Sunnis. At a news conference with a U.S. ambassador, a prominent Sunni politician shouted that the mostly Shiite police force was behind many of the killings — a charge the police deny.

And the killing isn't one-sided. An ambush in a western Baghdad suburb last month began with the execution of an entire Shiite family inside their home. CBS News was shown a pamphlet by a young man too afraid to reveal his face. It's an order for all Shiites to leave his neighborhood, or be killed — given to him in broad daylight by masked terrorists. The man said if he did not leave, he will die.

The police did nothing, so within days, a powerful Shiite militia struck back at the terrorists, raiding the same neighborhood. In much of Iraq, armed factions like this one operate beyond the law. These killings have created a climate of fear, fuelled by the fact that no one is being held responsible. What is worse, no one appears to be capable, or more importantly, willing to stop the murders from escalating into an all out civil war.