*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

291 detainees released from MNF supervised prisons

The Iraqi government announced on Sunday that 291 detainees held by the Multi-National Force (MNF) in different areas around Iraq, were set free Sunday according.

Three corpses found in al-Yarmouk neighborhood

The corpses of three civilians who were shot dead were found by the residents of al-Yarmouk neighborhood in northeastern Baghdad. After the police were notified, the corpses were moved to the hospital.

Child dies in the hospital from wounds caused by explosion

In central Basra, 550 kilometers south of Baghdad, a child died in the hospital of critical wounds sustained during an explosion, according to Iraqi police sources.

Police killed in Baquba, Farmer killed in Buhriz

Several gunmen killed a policeman and his cousin as they walked in an area 15 miles north of Baquoba, and a farmer was killed in the nearby town of Buhriz, police said.

Security guard killed

Security guards for the Iraqi finance minister were attacked while driving in western Baghdad before they had picked up the minister. One guard was killed, and a bystander wounded, police said.

10 bodies found in Dora, 2 in Baquba, 1 in Hurriyah

Police also discovered 13 handcuffed and bullet-riddled bodies, victims of execution-style killings. Ten were dumped in south Baghdad's Dora neighborhood, another in the northern district of Hurriyah and two in the city of Baquoba

 

[Barking_Mad]

Mortar rounds slam to earth near radical Shiite cleric's Iraqi home

Two mortar rounds fell within 50 yards of firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's home Sunday in the holy city of Najaf. The popular, anti-American Shiite leader was at home but not hurt, an aide said.

Gunmen killed two policemen in Wajihiya

Gunmen killed two policemen in Wajihiya, a small town east of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police said. Three guards of the mayor of Wajihiya were wounded by a roadside bomb as they headed to the scene of the attack, police added.

Security contractors wounded by bomb in north Baghdad

Three security contractors were seriously wounded in a roadside bomb explosion in north Baghdad, and police Lt. Col. Ahmed Fadhil was being treated for multiple gunshot wounds after being attacked on his way to work, police said.

Woman killed by bomb

In the capital, a bomb exploded in front of a house in the central neighbourhood of Karradah, killing one woman and wounding two of her sisters and a man next door, police said.

Bombing at Basra School Kills Student

A 13-year-old boy was killed by a roadside bomb as he walked to school in the southern city of Basra, one of 20 victims of violence that continued to rattle Iraq Sunday as political leaders remained deadlocked over a new government.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Romanian soldier dies in Iraq

A Romanian soldier in Iraq who tried to commit suicide ten days ago died in a Kuwaiti hospital late Saturday. The soldier, Dobre Lili, fired at his head in his tent on March 14 after finishing petrol around the area.

Iraq attacks leave 13 dead

In Mahmudiya, located in the notorious "triangle of death" just south of the capital, six mortar rounds rained down on three houses, killing four people and wounding 13 on Saturday.

Mortar kills four civilians in Mahmudiya

In Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, mortar bombs hit houses, killing four people and wounding 13, police said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Translator charged with bribe

U.S. authorities have arrested a translator working in Iraq, charging him with offering a bribe to entice a police official to buy armored vests and other equipment for $1 million

Body found floating in Tigris River

Iraqi police found a body in southeastern Baghdad and another floating in the Tigris River, 55 miles south of the capital. Both were shot in the head, their hands and legs tied _ the latest victims of Iraq's increasing sectarian violence.

3 civilians gunned down in Mosul

In Mosul, three people in a car were killed by gunmen and two were wounded, police said.

Roadside bomb kills 2 in Balabroz

In Balabroz, 55 miles northeast of Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded near a police checkpoint, killing two men and wounding three, authorities said.

Teacher and Sunni cleric shot dead in Baghdad

A school teacher and a Sunni mosque preacher were shot dead in Baghdad. The teacher was killed by Iraqi soldiers as she drove past their convoy, police said. The Imam had stopped to have his car repaired in west Baghdad when he was gunned down.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Bound, Blindfolded and Dead: The Face of Revenge in Baghdad

Mohannad al-Azawi had just finished sprinkling food in his bird cages at his pet shop in south Baghdad, when three carloads of gunmen pulled up.

In front of a crowd, he was grabbed by his shirt and driven off.

Mr. Azawi was among the few Sunni Arabs on the block, and, according to witnesses, when a Shiite friend tried to intervene, a gunman stuck a pistol to his head and said, "You want us to blow your brains out, too?"

Mr. Azawi's body was found the next morning at a sewage treatment plant. A slight man who raised nightingales, he had been hogtied, drilled with power tools and shot.

In the last month, hundreds of men have been kidnapped, tortured and executed in Baghdad. As Iraqi and American leaders struggle to avert a civil war, the bodies keep piling up. The city's homicide rate has tripled from 11 to 33 a day, military officials said. The period from March 7 to March 21 was typically brutal: at least 191 corpses, many mutilated, surfaced in garbage bins, drainage ditches, minibuses and pickup trucks.

There were the four Duleimi brothers, Khalid, Tarek, Taleb and Salaam, seized from their home in front of their wives. And Achmed Abdulsalam, last seen at a checkpoint in his freshly painted BMW and found dead under a bridge two days later. And Mushtak al-Nidawi, a law student nicknamed Titanic for his Leonardo DiCaprio good looks, whose body was returned to his family with his skull chopped in half.

What frightens Iraqis most about these gangland-style killings is the impunity. According to reports filed by family members and more than a dozen interviews, many men were taken in daylight, in public, with witnesses all around. Few cases, if any, have been investigated.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraqi police major held for death squad role

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi authorities on Sunday arrested a police major accused of taking part in death squads, Interior Ministry officials said. They said Arkan al-Bawi, who works in Diyala province north-east of Baghdad, was detained after visiting the Interior Ministry.

Sunni Arabs accuse the Shi'ite-led government of sanctioning death squads, a charge the government denies. Bawi, whose brother is the chief of police in Diyala, was accused of operating in death squads in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad.

Death squads are a taboo subject with the Iraqi government despite mounting evidence that they operate with impunity in a "dirty war". Hundreds of bodies have been found since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine last month touched off reprisals and pushed Iraq to the brink of sectarian civil war. Most of the corpses had bullet holes, were gagged and showed signs of torture.

Death squads have become more active as Sunni Arabs press on with a violent campaign of bombings and shootings that has killed thousands of people, mostly Shi'ites.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Interesting Greg Palast piece.

Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools: The Mission Was Indeed Accomplished

And what did the USA want Iraq to do with Iraq's oil? The answer will surprise many of you: and it is uglier, more twisted, devilish and devious than anything imagined by the most conspiracy-addicted blogger. The answer can be found in a 323-page plan for Iraq's oil secretly drafted by the State Department. Our team got a hold of a copy; how, doesn't matter. The key thing is what's inside this thick Bush diktat: a directive to Iraqis to maintain a state oil company that will "enhance its relationship with OPEC...."

Enhance its relationship with OPEC??? How strange: the government of the United States ordering Iraq to support the very OPEC oil cartel which is strangling our nation with outrageously high prices for crude. Specifically, the system ordered up by the Bush cabal would keep a lid on Iraq's oil production -- limiting Iraq's oil pumping to the tight quota set by Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel.

There you have it. Yes, Bush went in for the oil -- not to get more of Iraq's oil, but to prevent Iraq producing too much of it....

[E]very time the "insurgents" blow up a pipeline in Basra, every time Mad Mahmoud in Tehran threatens to cut supply, the price of oil leaps. And Dick and George just love it.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Rest of this article is non-related to the first paragraph, but I thought it was worth mentioning......

No light at end of Iraq tunnel

Standing on a rooftop, a U.S. soldier recently fired a shot at an Iraqi man walking down the street. As the dying Iraqi grabbed at his wound, he cried out: "What did I do?"

That's for every American to answer.

 

[Barking_Mad]

icasualties number of dead from collected news reports suggests a minimum of 914 people have been killed so far this month. (as of 7pm on Sunday evening)

http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

 

[Barking_Mad]

'Many dead' in Baghdad fighting

Clashes in Baghdad between US troops and militants loyal to radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have left many Iraqis dead, Iraqi sources report.
There was no immediate comment from the US military on the reports, which came from Iraqi police, medical sources and the militants themselves.

in the same article.......

Iraqi security forces earlier found 30 bodies - all of them beheaded - near the town of Baquba. Sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni has plagued the area for weeks. It was sparked by the bombing of a Shia shrine in the city of Samarra in February. Security officials said they found the headless bodies at a roadside near Mullah Eid, a village to the south-west of Baquba.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4847638.stm

 

[Barking_Mad]

US troops arrest Iraq forces

US troops today arrested at least 40 Iraqi Interior Ministry forces who were holding 17 foreigners in a secret bunker complex, political sources said. A Reuters reporter who approached the bunker complex today was turned away by Shiite militiamen. US troops last year found 173 mostly Sunni Arab prisoners held in a secret Interior Ministry bunker.

They showed signs of torture and malnourishment.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Writer jailed for defaming Kurdish leader in Iraq

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - A Kurdish writer was sentenced to 1-1/2 years in prison on Sunday for defaming Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, in a case that has raised questions about the freedom of the press in postwar Iraq.

Kamal Karim, an Iraqi-born Kurd with Austrian citizenship, was originally sentenced to 30 years in jail for defaming Barzani but was retried.

"I swear by God I am not guilty. I am not satisfied with this verdict. I am a victim," Karim said after the sentence was announced.

The judge said the court handed down a lenient sentence.

"This sentence is fair and it is proportionate to the charges against him," Faridoun Abdullah told Reuters.

"We helped him. We took into consideration that he is an academic and has served in the education field. So we sentenced him to a year and a half. Otherwise we would have sentenced him to five years."

Karim was convicted by a state security court in Arbil after an hour-long trial on December 19, on charges of defaming Barzani and public institutions. He was arrested in October.

Karim had published articles on a Kurdish website accusing Barzani and his Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of corruption and abuse of power.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Bit more on this story......

Police, religious official report 18 killed in mosque clash in east Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Police and a top aide to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said Sunday that 18 people were killed in a clash involving U.S. and Iraqi army forces at a mosque in eastern Baghdad.

Sgt. 1st Class Keith Robinson, a spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division that has responsibility for Baghdad, said late Sunday his office had no information on the reported violence.

Abdul-Zahra al-Suaidi, head of al-Sadr's office in Baghdad, said U.S. forces and Iraqi soldiers opened fire at the al-Moustafa Shiite mosque in the Ur neighborhood, killing 18 people in what he called an unprovoked attack.

Separately, Iraqi police Lt. Hassan Hmoud said 18 people were killed in the mosque. He said he had no other details.

 

[tangentlama]

30 beheaded: Iraqi Death Squads blamed

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 26 — The bodies of 30 beheaded men were found on a main highway near Baquba this evening, providing more evidence that the death squads in Iraq are becoming out of control.

The widespread suspicion is that Shiite death squads are aiming at Sunni Arab civilians in a wave of sectarian revenge. The death squads are thought to be connected to Shiite militias and Shiite-controlled police forces. They seem to be the response to a bombing campaign that has killed hundreds of Shiite civilians and destroyed a number of Shiite mosques, most notably the revered golden-domed Askariya Shrine in Samarra last month.

But it is not at all clear who killed the 30 men found beheaded this evening. The area where they were discovered is mostly Sunni Arab and controlled by Sunni insurgents. It would be very difficult for Shiite death squads to operate there. Interior Ministry officials said they did not have enough information tonight to identify the victims

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/international/middleeast/27iraqcnd.html

 

[q_w_e_r_t_y]

US Soldiers open fire in a mosque - update

From Novum (dutch news agency)
http://www.nieuws.nl/201578/Soldaten_VS_openen_vuur_in_moskee

US and Iraqi soldiers, without any provocation, opened fire in a Shiite mosque in Baghdad, and killed eighteen people.

This said a close associate of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Sunday.

Iraqi police confirmed that in the mosque eighteen people were killed, but did not provide details.

A spokesperson for the United States armed forces claimed to know nothing on the supposed incident.

In a village north of Baghdad thirty beheaded dead bodies have been found, an Iraqi army commander stated.
According to AFP agency, over twenty people died in the mosque

 

[Barking_Mad]

Another US massacre? The Shi'ite security Minister seems to think so.

Iraq minister says US, Iraqi troops killed 37

Iraq's security minister, a Shi'ite political ally of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, accused U.S. and Iraqi troops on Monday of killing 37 unarmed people in an attack on a mosque complex a day earlier.

"At evening prayers, American soldiers accompanied by Iraqi troops raided the Mustafa mosque and killed 37 people," Abd al-Karim al-Enzi, minister of state for national security, said.

"They were all unarmed. Nobody fired a single shot at them (the troops). They went in, tied up the people and shot them all. They did not leave any wounded behind," he told Reuters.

Shi'ite politicians had earlier said 20 people were killed at the mosque. The U.S. military's account of Sunday evening's incident said Iraqi special forces with U.S. advisers killed 16 "insurgents", arrested 15 people and freed an Iraqi hostage. The military denied entering any mosque.

 

[Barking_Mad]

At least 40 killed, 20 wounded in Iraq army centre attack near Tal Afar

At least 40 people were killed and 20 others wounded today when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the midst of candidates waiting at an army recruitment centre in northwest Iraq, an interior ministry official said. He said the explosion occurred at the Iraq army centre called Tamarat, located near the town of Tal Afar, which is close to the restive city of Mosul. Earlier an official with the Nineveh governorate of which Mosul is the capital also confirmed that the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Car bomb kills one in Sadr City

At least one person was killed and three wounded when a car bomb exploded in Baghdad's Sadr city, a Shi'ite Muslim slum, police said, a day after 20 people were shot dead in a local mosque.

21 bodies reported found on Monday

Of the 21 bodies reported Monday, nine were found in west Baghdad--Two men and a woman who were shot in the head were found late Sunday in east Baghdad--At a farm east of Baghdad, the bodies of nine men kidnapped a day earlier were discovered by relatives

Five police wounded in Mosul grenade attack

Five policemen were wounded when insurgents threw a grenade at their patrol in the city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

Gunmen wound four workers near U.S. base in Tikrit

NEAR TIKRIT - Four people who work in the U.S. military base near Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, were wounded when gunmen attacked them while they were heading to the base, local authorities said.

U.S. soldier dies of heart attack in Anbar Province

A U.S. soldier with the Army's 2/28 Brigade Combat Team died of a heart attack in Anbar Province Saturday, a military statement said. The death was not combat-related. Since the start of the war, 2,322 U.S. troops have died in Iraq.

Bomb in Sadr office in Baqubah wounds three

A bomb exploded inside the Baquba office of al-Sadr late Monday morning, wounding three people, police said. Al-Sadr has offices for his organizations -- both political and militia -- at locations throughout Iraq.

Mortar wounds Three people in central Baghdad

Three people were wounded when a mortar round landed in central Baghdad. The attack took place in the Karrada neighborhood.

Two roadside bombs wound six Iraqis in Baghdad

Two people were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in eastern Baghdad's Zayuna neighborhood Monday morning, police said. In western Baghdad, four people were wounded when a roadside bomb hit an Iraqi police patrol in Khahtan Square.

Bus explosion kills two people in Sadr City

Just before midday Monday, a bomb exploded inside a minibus in the Sadr City section of the Iraqi capital, killing two people in the vehicle, emergency police said. Six others were wounded in the explosion.

18 men killed near Tall al-Sakher

Late Sunday, Iraqi police found 18 bodies along a road near Tall al-Sakher a Baghdad Emergency police official said. Eyewitnesses said gunmen driving in three vehicles attacked a group of young men.

From Sunday -

Gunmen kill three people in western Iraq

"Unidentified armed men gunned down two men as they were travelling in their car in Ameriyat al-Fallujah area at about 8:00 a.m. on Sunday,".... In another attack late Saturday night, gunmen killed a Sunni cleric in Fallujah.

 

[jeff_leigh]

Re US Soldiers open fire in a mosque

given that the new Iraqi army is predominantly Shia who were the Iraqis that fired on the worshippers in the mosque? would this be some militia like the Badr Brigade that doesn't see eye to eye with Muqtada al-Sadr ?

 

[Barking_Mad]

From news reports alone I make it a bare minimum of 124 dead since yesterday (Sunday).

 

[Barking_Mad]

Bush-Blair Iraq war memo revealed

Tony Blair and George Bush met during the build-up to the Iraq war
The New York Times says it has seen a memo which shows that the US president was firmly set on the path to war two months before the 2003 Iraq invasion. From private talks between George Bush and UK PM Tony Blair, the memo makes it clear the US was determined to go to war whether or not he had UN backing.

He is quoted discussing ways to provoke Saddam Hussein into a confrontation. A UK lawyer quoted the note in a book published in January but this is the first time it has been seen in full. The five-page memo, dated 31 January 2003, was written by Mr Blair's then chief foreign adviser, David Manning, the New York Times says.

Summarising the two-hour White House meeting, the memo says: "Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning." Mr Bush is paraphrased as saying: "The start date for the military campaign was now pencilled in for 10 March. This was when the bombing would begin."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Gunmen kidnap 16 Iraqi company employees

Gunmen kidnapped 16 employees of the Baghdad trading company Al Saeed Import Export on Monday, Interior Ministry sources said. The abductions took place in the upscale Mansour district of the capital.

Iraqi army worker killed near Balad

Police said they found the body of a man who works as an Iraqi army supplier in the town of Yathrib, near Balad, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad.

Body found near Dujail

Police found the body of a man with gunshot wounds in an area near Dujail, 90 km (55 miles) north of Baghdad, a police source said.

Seven dead in Baghdad blast

A ROCKET blasted a commercial building in Baghdad, killing at least seven people and wounding 30 others. It was followed by another rocket attack that hit a nearby house, killing one person and wounding two in the Za'afaraniya area of Baghdad.

Iraq ruling Shi'ites demand control over security

Iraq's ruling Shi'ite Islamist Alliance bloc demanded on Monday that U.S. forces return control of security to the Iraqi government after what it called "cold-blooded" killings by troops of unarmed people in a mosque.

 

[Barking_Mad]

News footage suggests US troops were in mosque

News footage taken after the attack seemed to belie US assertions that troops had not entered or damaged any sacred building during the raid. The room where the killing occurred appeared to be a prayer hall. The floors are carpeted and the walls covered with religious posters.

The tape showed a tangle of male bodies and spent 5.56mm bullet casings on the blood-smeared floor - the kind of ammunition used by the US military.

"In our observation of the place and the activities that were going on, it's difficult for us to consider this a place of prayer," said US military spokesman Barry Johnson.

"It was not identified by us as a mosque, though we certainly recognised it as a community gathering centre. I think this is frankly a matter of perception," he added.

The area is a stronghold of the Mehdi Army.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4850108.stm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Curfew imposed in Iraqi city of Beiji

Authorities imposed a curfew Tuesday in the northern city of Beiji to try to combat a rise in violence there, officials at a joint military center said. No vehicles except ambulances and those used by joint U.S.-Iraqi troops were allowed in the streets as soldiers and police started sweeping the city in a search for insurgents and common criminals.

The curfew was announced by American troops on loudspeakers Tuesday morning after prayer. It was not clear how long it would last. Officials say attacks have recently increased in the city, which is 155 miles north of Baghdad.

Last week, a mortar struck a government facility during a visit by Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi. The minister was not harmed. Chalabi, who is also the interim oil minister, was believed to have been visiting the refinery in Beiji, the nation's largest.

Another Baghdad Police Station Attacked

A car bomb exploded Tuesday as police exchanged fire with two attackers outside a police station south of Baghdad, wounding at least a dozen people. The attack follows two days of violence in Iraq that left at least 151 dead

Car bomb wounds four police in Kirkuk

A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol exploded in the northern city of Kirkuk, wounding four policemen and two children walking to school, police said.

Two Iraqi contractors killed in Tikrit, one wounded

gunmen attacked a car carrying Iraqi contractors in Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, killing two and wounding one, police Capt. Hakim al-Azzawi said. The men provided construction and other services to U.S. troops, al-Azzawi said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Shi'ite rivals say Bush wants Iraq PM Jaafari out

A senior Iraqi politician from a rival Shi'ite party to Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said on Tuesday that U.S. President George W. Bush had made clear he did not want Jaafari to lead a new government of national unity. Bush had written to Shi'ite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim urging him to nominate someone else, Rida Jawad al-Takki, an aide to Hakim, said in a statement telephoned to Reuters.

Takki said the letter was transmitted by U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been trying to broker agreement among Shi'ite, Kurdish and Sunni Arab leaders on a unity government.

"George Bush sent a letter via Khalilzad to Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, as head of the Alliance, telling him that George Bush does not wish or want Ibrahim al-Jaafari to be prime minister," Takki, who is from Hakim's SCIRI party, said.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy said she was unaware of such a communication and said it was not U.S. policy to interfere in the process of forming a government: "This is an Iraqi decision," she said. The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) is the biggest party within the United Iraqi Alliance bloc, which includes Jaafari's Dawa party.

The Alliance, which won the most seats in parliament after a December election, has the right to nominate the prime minister. Jaafari won the nomination to a second term by a single vote in an internal ballot of Alliance lawmakers last month, edging out SCIRI candidate Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Afghanistan related - worth keeping an eye on events over there. There's a lot going on that is getting very little, if any coverage on the mainstream news.

http://www.icasualties.org/oef/

 

[Barking_Mad]

Baghdad Morgue - 30 - 40 dead bodies each day in the capital are found

Around 30-40 bodies, many shot in the head and showing signs of torture, are being found on the streets of the capital every day, morgue officials say.

That works out at over 1,000 dead bodies every month in Baghdad.

Gunmen dressed as Iraqi police commandos killed nine people in an attack on an electronics store in Baghdad on Wednesday, the latest in a series of raids targeting lucrative businesses in the capital.

Amid rising sectarian violence, with dozens of mutilated bodies turning up daily at the city morgue, there has also been a spate of attacks and robberies by uniformed raiders on stores, money-changers and other businesses this week. On Monday and Tuesday, a total of 35 people were abducted in four attacks, including two on electronics dealers and one on a money-changer where the attackers also stole $50,000.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Gunmen in seperate attacks kill two Iraqi police, four people wounded

Gunmen also attacked a highway police patrol in west Baghdad Wednesday, killing one policeman and wounding four others, including a civilian, police said. In south Baghdad, a sniper killed a policeman on patrol in the Dora neighborhood, Abdul-Razzaq said.

Gumnen kill three of Sadr staffers in Baghdad

Also Wednesday, gunmen killed three staffers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in a drive-by shooting in west Baghdad, Abdul-Razzaq said.

Halliburton overcharged for Iraq oil work

Halliburton Co., the world's second largest oil services company, repeatedly overcharged taxpayers and provided substandard cost reports under a $1.2 billion contract to restore Iraq's southern oil fields, according to a new report...

Thousands of Iraqis Flee to Avoid Spread Of Violence

Sectarian violence has displaced more than 25,000 Iraqis since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine, a U.N.-affiliated agency said Tuesday, and shelters and tent cities are springing up across central and southern Iraq to house homeless.

U.S. displays photos of weapons seized in Baghdad raid

Defense officials displayed photographs Tuesday of rocket-propelled grenade launchers and bomb-making materials that they said were captured during a bloody raid Sunday that's become a bitter point of contention between the United States...

Recruiting in Ramadi

Beyond the army recruiting center’s maze of blast walls and barbed wire, a roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi Humvee. From a rooftop across the street, a gunman popped up and took aim, drawing a brief hail of return fire.

In the building next door, a mortar round crashed through the roof.

Nobody ever said recruiting for the Iraqi army would be easy. And by the end of the first army recruiting drive in this insurgent-infested city Monday, just 31 young men had stepped through the door to join up.

 

[Barking_Mad]

An interesting read on life inside Tal Afar.

Things not as they seem in Tal Afar

He showed off a letter to prove it. It was from the city's mayor to Gen. George Casey, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, calling American troops "our lion-hearted saviors." In Tall Afar last week, however, things weren't that clear-cut. U.S. troops were able to take a small group of American reporters on a foot patrol through several neighborhoods—rare these days in central and western Iraq, and unheard of in Baghdad. Iraqis along the way were full of praise for their liberators, many of whom they recognized by name. But just in case, two squads of heavily armed troops kept watch, front, rear and flanks, rifles at the ready, and wouldn't let the group linger more than a few minutes in any place; a helicopter gunship shadowed us overhead. In another part of town, police later reported that an insurgent mortar attack wounded six children. A second NEWSWEEK reporter, visiting Tall Afar independently, found other neighborhoods barricaded; Iraqi police warned that he might be killed by insurgents or their supporters if he went any farther.

President Bush extolled Tall Afar as proof of the success of America's new strategy, "Clear, Hold and Build." Tall Afar had been subdued before, in 2004. But after U.S. troops moved on, insurgents moved right back and made over the city in Al Qaeda's image, with Iraqi police barricaded in their station under constant attack. Even the mayor then was an insurgent sympathizer. McMaster brought in a large force, alongside a new Iraqi Army brigade, and after two weeks of fierce fighting in September 2005, retook the town. Al Qaeda even acknowledged the defeat, taking revenge by setting off six suicide car bombs in a day in Baghdad.

McMaster's Third Cav was replaced this year by a brigade of the First Armored Division. The new commander, Col. Sean MacFarland, is the first to admit Tall Afar is still a work in progress. "What's it look like to you—Stalingrad in 1944?" But he ticked off the reconstruction projects in the pipeline and the dramatic drop in insurgent activity—now only a couple of minor incidents every day or two, down from 10 a day only a month ago. "Clean it up, get the infrastructure back, and people will regain their confidence," he said. "It's not Camelot, but it's not Gotham either."

What it is, though, like so many places in Iraq now, is a city increasingly divided along sectarian lines. The neighborhoods we patrolled were largely Shia; those our reporter found barricaded and dangerous were mostly Sunni. "I'd say that zero percent of Bush's talk about Tall Afar is true," said Ahmed Sami, 45, a Sunni laborer. "They turned Shiite neighborhoods into havens, and Sunni neighborhoods into hells." Even in the Shia neighborhoods, people were far from satisfied. "This is all just an outdoor prison for us," said school teacher Abu Muhammed. "We can't even go as far as the market street up there." He gestured to the top of his road, where the Ottoman fortress that dominates the town is located (and which we couldn't visit due to a security scare, even though it holds the mayor's office). "We know the American Army and the Iraqi Army are working and doing their best," said Bakr Muhammed Bakr, a dressmaker whose shop, like most others on the streets, was open for business. "But what are they going to do, put a soldier in front of each Sunni house?"

To Sunnis, that's often what it seems like. "After the battle, resistance became very low, because the city was turned into a military camp," said a Sunni doctor at the Tall Afar General Hospital. In fact, at all times at least 3,000 Iraqi Army, police and U.S. soldiers are on duty inside the city, stationed at a welter of police stations and camps and on checkpoints. Most are Iraqis. They patrol by foot and vehicle constantly. Thousands more are at bases outside the city. Tall Afar's population is only 150,000. (As many as 100,000 people, mostly Sunni, fled during last year's fighting and most have not returned.) That's at least one armed man for every 50 residents, more if reinforcements are used. "That's a pretty high ratio," acknowledged MacFarland, "which is why the enemy is having a hard time. It would be pretty hard to replicate that in a city like Baghdad or Mosul."

 

[Barking_Mad]

More charged sought in fragging that killed Suffern captain

A military court yesterday recommended for court-martial additional charges against a former New York National Guard staff sergeant accused of killing Capt. Phillip Esposito of Suffern and another officer in Iraq. Investigating officer Col. Patrick J. Reinert announced his decision after hearing testimony from four witnesses during a second hearing for Staff Sgt. Alberto B. Martinez, 38, of Troy, N.Y.

Martinez is accused of premeditated murder in the June 7 deaths of Esposito, who was his company commander, and 1st Lt. Louis Allen, the company's operations officer, at Forward Operating Base Danger near Tikrit. This is believed to be the first prosecution of a soldier accused of killing a superior officer — also known as fragging — while in Iraq.

The new charges include wrongful possession of a privately owned firearm, unexploded ordnance and alcohol, and wrongfully giving government printers and copiers to an Iraqi. "What this shows is a disturbing pattern of misconduct by the accused," said the prosecutor, Capt. Adam Siple. Reinert plans to recommend that the murder charges, addressed in an Article 32 hearing in Kuwait, and the new charges be tried together. He was the investigating officer for both Article 32 hearings, the military equivalent of a grand jury proceeding.