Searching for Car Bombs in Baghdad

AFP reporter Mehdi Lebou Ashera follows a military team around Baghdad as they look for car bombs. Once again, dogs! But the pooches tucker out pretty quick in that Arabian sun.

With plastic wands and heavy-duty wire cutters, battering-ram in hand, 300 Iraqi soldiers supported by US special forces enter a back door in a Sunni quarter in downtown Baghdad where there are several automobile garages.

The objective of the mission, conducted as part of Operation Lighting launched on Sunday in which 40,000 troops are participating, is to locate explosives and car bombs which bloody the capital every day. In a largely deserted street in the Sheikh Maarouf quarter of the capital, around the corner from Haifa Street, one of the most dangerous thoroughfares in the city, nervous soldiers progress slowing along the wall of a Muslim cemetery, their rifle ready for any sniper action.

Iraqis conduct patrols every day in this quarter but today is the big offensive, murmurs a US Special Forces sergeant-major as he walks in front of impassive backgammon players seated in the shade of the trees. Further along, in the heart of this poor and overpopulated quarter, where sewer water and garbage collects in the street, winding streets open and narrow. Marksmen are posted on the rooftops ready to shoot anyone who tries to enter the quarter, which has been surrounded.

At the end of a dirt alley, the first “target” is located: a courtyard with dozens of small garages. After the soldiers have positioned themselves around the courtyard, an order in English and Arabic is called out: On your stomachs, now!.

Workers with grease-streaked faces obey immediately. The few women present comfort children who hide their heads in their skirts. One by one, each garage, where dozens of spare parts of all sorts are piled high, is gone over with a fine-toothed comb by Iraqi soldiers and US Special Forces, assisted by three bomb-sniffing dogs. “It’s okay. There’s nothing here.", shouts the US officer in charge, waving at his troops. They head over to the next "target", a courtyard 100 meters away. This place is far bigger with car chassis piled one on top of another. The owners are ordered out of their garages and the dogs start to sniff every car and every cranny. This mission is too dangerous. Anyone could toss a grenade over the wall, says a US soldier, looking up at the sky.

After one hour’s work under a baking sun, the dogs, the only ones able to detect explosives, begin to tire and show their tongues. No car bombs were found. 22 people, suspected of links to the insurgents are arrests. [Haphazard round-up, more likely.--Nur]

We’ve been able to conduct a 2-hour operation in this quarter, one of the most dangerous in Baghdad, without incident. That’s a good thing, congratulates the officer in charge, now safely back at his base.

31 May 2005 Events in Iraq.

Beirut. US Embassy denies visit to polling stations by US Ambassador. Embassy denies that Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman visited any polling stations in Beirut on Sunday. However it said that US Senator Joseph Biden visited a polling station in Achrafieh and that the visit had been approved by Lebanese authorities. Former Premier Sélim Hoss had criticized Ambassador Feltman's tour of voting stations but said the Ambassador phoned him personally to deny the allegiation. Hoss then apologized.

London. War good for mental heath. Being in a war zone is beneficial to the mental state of soldiers, according to a study by British researchers published in the Journal of Psychiatry. Interviews with 421 of the 16th Air Assault Brigade based in Colchester, Essex (southern England), before and after their deployment, showed no decline in their mental health.

London. Lawyer Giovanni di Stefano says deposed president Saddam Hussein cannot be tried until formal charges are duly prepared, reacting to a statement by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani that Saddam Hussein could be tried "within two months."

New York. Still no schedule for withdraw of foreign troops from Iraq. Anne Patterson, current US representative to the United Nations, repeated that no schedule has been set for the withdraw of foreign forces from Iraq. The United Nations had deployed a 7-person expert team to Iraq to estimate Iraqi needs, but Iraq has only just requested UN assisatance.

Ghazaliya. A convoy of Interior Ministry commandos was fired upon briefly, leaving three dead and several wounded in the convoy.

Ramallah. Palestininan Authorities have cancelled new partial elections scheduled for Tuesday in the Gaza Strip in districts where Fatah contested the victory by Hamas. The postponement was decided after Hamas announced it would boycott the vote. We have postphoned the elecitons sine die at the request of the High Commission [on elections] and to avoid problems in the Arab street, said local Elections Committee Chairman Jamal Shobaki. The re-vote was to have been held in Rafah, Beit Lahya and Al-Boureij.

Mosul. A local public television personality, Girgis Mahmoud Mohammed, 45, was shot dead.

Mosul. One policeman killed in rebel attack.

Baghdad. Three people, including an Asian truck driver, were killed and six wounded, including a woman, in separate attacks north of the capital.

Samarra. Three decapitated decomposing corpses were discovered.

22:56 Dubai. A journalist for al-Arabiya TV was struck by several bullets during an armed clash in Mosul.

22:52 Damascus. Syrian Defense Minister Hassan Turkmani denied that his country was facilitating the entry of foreign fighters into Iraq.

22:30 Jerusalem. A well-known Israeli television commentator broke with 37 years of political neutrality to criticize Israeli settlements in Gaza and on the West Bank. Since 1967 we have been brutal conquerors, occupiers, repressing another people who owned that land, said Haim Yavin in his program "Travel Notes" on commercial Israeli TV. Airing images showing long lines of Palestianians at a checkpoint, he said, I can't to anything to end this misery apart from showing it to you so that my viewers cannot say they hadn't heard, seen or known about it. I feel sympathy for the settlers but I think they are wrong and that they endanger us all.

22:30 Baghdad. Premier Ibrahim al-Jaafari said he is determined to give his security forces the means to defeat the rebels.

22:28 Bucharest. Former hostage Marie-Jeanne Ion denied having a friendship with Romano-Syrian businessman Omar Hayssam, who is accused by Romanian justice officials of organizing her kidnapping in Iraq along with two other reporters. I knew Oman Hayssam. We met on several occasions. He even sold me a car. But we were not friends. When he suggested a trip to Baghdad with one of his connections, Mohamed Munaf, as a guide, I thought he might be using our presence there to win credibiity with the Iraqi authorities. But I just wanted to do a story on Iraq. Marie-Jeanne Ion said she had "vague indications" that Omar Hayssam was under surveillance by Romanian intelligence because of his "shady dealings". In Romania, there are plenty of people who are accused of corruption. If he's really guilty, he should be behind bars. As to our guide, Mohamed Munaf, he was frightened by the kidnapping. We tried to hide his passport so our captors would not know he was a US citizen.

21:37 Washington. President George W. Bush says he believes the Iraqi government is strong enough to triumph over the rebels.

21:35 Ramadi. US Marine killed in clashes with rebels.

21:00 New York. Oil climbs to nearly $52 per barrel.

19:30 Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is unhappy with the "insufficient" pressure exerted by President Bush on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The Palestinians have the idea that there is no serious pressure being put on them to combat terrorism and that there is no urgency to act. Sharon was speaking to a delegation of US Congressmen in Jerusalem's Old City.

18:03 Tunis. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with Farouk Kaddoumi, a Fatah leader in exile, for the first time since the death of Yassir Arafat. Farouk Kaddoumi, named to head Fatah after the death of Yassir Arafat, has refused to live in the territories and continues to live in exile in Tunis. In recent statements to the press, Kaddoumi accused Abbas of marginalizing the PLO and preventing Fatah's Central Committee to meet. The two agreed to a plenary session of the Fatah Central Comittee between 18 and 20 June.

17:50 Nassiriyah. An Italian AB-412 military helicopter crashed in Iraq, killing all four soldiers on board on Tuesday in what Rome defence officials said was most likely an accident. A defense ministry statement said the helicopter was returning to its base from Kuwait City. The victims are Giuseppe Lima, 39; Marco Briganti, 33; Massimiliano Biondini, 33; and Marco Cirillo, 29. The helicopter was the third aircraft to go down in Iraq in a week.

17:37 Warsaw. Poland begins withdrawing military equipment from Camp Echo in Diwaniyah, Iraq. Since January, Warsaw has reduced its contingent form 2,400 to 1,700 soldiers.

17:36 Gaza. The former spokesman for Hamas, Imad Falouji, denied any political role or relationship with Israel exercised by his center on the Gaza Strip. Mr. Falouji announced the creation of an inter-religious center for peace between Israeli and Palestinians. The Adam Center, which I supervise, exists for dialog between civilizations. It has nothing to do with any Jewish organization. It is part of an international project headed by Anglican Church, said Falouji.

17:30 New York. In a statement before the UN Security Council, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari called on Damascus to do more to prevent entry into Iraq of foreign fighters. Zebari also praised the Multinational Force, under US command, for its contribution to Iraq's security. The Security Council is debating the extension of the mandate of the Multinational Force.

17:26 Baghdad. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Tuesday that the authorities expected to put Saddam Hussein on trial within the next two months. Talabani said that "the court of Iraq will decide the future of Saddam Hussein" and that there was a strong public desire for him to be executed if convicted. Saddam's lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, expressed surprise at Talabani's comment. I was not informed officially that they are speeding up the trial, but any way I will check tomorrow and then I will have a comment, he told The Associated Press by telephone. Saddam's trial could prove to be a highly divisive issue in already turbulent Iraq and starting the court proceedings in two months could coincide with the process to draft the constitution.

11:30 Ramadi. The governor of al-Anbar Province was found dead west of Baghdad during a US operation which killed or captured 7 Arab combattants, including 2 Saudis, 1 Morroccan, 2 Syrians, 1 Jordanian and 1 Algerian. Provincial Governor Nawaf al-Raja al-Mahalawi was kidnapped by rebels on 11 May demanding the end to US military operations in western Iraq.

07:18 Teheran. Iran tested on Sunday for the first time a missile with a range of 2,000 miles using solid, not liquid, fuel. said Defense Minister Admiral Ali Shamkhani. The payload is identical to that of the Shahab-III missile.

07:22 Baquba. A car bomb exploded near a pick-up truck carrying a group of Iraqi soldiers in the town of Baquba on Tuesday, killing at least two soldiers and wounding six. A cameraman working for Reuters who was at the scene shortly after the blast said it caused widespread destruction. "There are still bodies lying in the street," he said. The explosion occurred in the Kanaan area of Baquba.

May 30 2005 Events in Iraq

Beirut. MP Bassem Sabeh has called on international observers working in Lebanon's legislative election balloting to forbid the entry of US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman into polling places as he did on Sunday. In a firey statement, the MP denounced Mr. Feltman's visits as "diplomatic heavy-handedness" and "a form of interference in the elections."

Cairo. Egyptian women have launched two initiatives, one calling on citizens to dress in black and the other to wear a white ribbon in protest of the beating of several women on May 25th by supporters of the regime.

Demonstrators protesting the referendum and several female journalists covering the event were sexually harassed. Several members of the opposition were beaten by security agents in plainclothes and supporters of the ruling National Democratic Party. Images of women dragged along by their hair, their clothing in shreds, and beaten by their aggressors have been pubished around the world resulting in an international outcry and raising doubts over the political reforms put forward by Hosni Moubarak. The Union of Egyptian Journalists has called for the resignation of the Interior Minister, Habib al-Adli.

A group of women with no political affiliation has launched The White Ribbon Campaign demanding an official apology. We will wear and distribute white ribbons to demand an apology from government officials, the leadership of the NDP and the Interior Ministry. The White Ribbon initiative was launched by Ghada Shahbender, an academic and member of Kefaya, together with two other women, a television presenter and a housewife. Since starting this campaign using email and text messaging, we have had enormous support. At first, it was a personal initiative but now we are putting together an organized program and are gathering momentum. 4,000 white ribbons have already been produced in preparation for a June 1 rally in front of the Union of Journalists in downtown Cairo, where the aggression took place last week.

A reknown feminist, Heba Raouf Ezzat, professor of Political Science at Cairo University urged Egyptians to dress in black on Tuesday as protest against police brutality and sexual harassment.

Meanwhile the Nasserist weekly, al-Arabi, demanded an apology by Mubarek to the Egyptian people. The government continues to minimize the incident, calling press reports "exaggerated" and the aggression "an emotional tiff" between between opponents and supporters of the regime.

Mosul. Eight people wre killed north of Baghdad in separate incidents in northern Iraq, including one soldier, several civilians and a Kurdish tribal chieftain.

Baghdad. Iraq's freshly minted legislators pounded out their first agreement on the 15 basic articles to guide their new constitution, including democracy, federalism, separation of powers and making Islam the state religion.

Haditha. The U.S. military announced the end of a four-day offensive centered on Haditha, 140 miles (225 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, aimed at disrupting insurgent activities. At least 14 insurgents were killed and more than 30 suspects detained in the operation, which also left two U.S. Marines dead.

Baghdad. The Iraqi Waqf condemned violent targeting civilians and governmental institutions and complained of raids on moques.

Grozny. An Chechen Islamist group says it has kidnapped a Maltese who worked as a spy for the United States and carried a suitcase containing information on Jihadists in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In a communiqué, The Badr Islamic Squads said it captured in Europe Hagia Khalil, an American spy of Maltese nationalty in possession of a suitcase containing document concerning the movements of Mujahedeen in Haramaïn (Saudi Arabia) and Rafidaïn (Iraq). Photos were attached to the communiqué showing the hostage surrounded by gunmen.

Cairo. The Egyptian Public Prosecutor Maher Abdel Wahed released 52 student members of the Muslim Brotherhood so that they can take their year-end examinaitons. Yesterday 77 students were released for the same reasons.

23:57 Mosul. US soldier killed.

22:58 Baghdad. Voice attributed to Abu Moussab al-Zarkawi says he is only slightly wounded. Thanks be to God, I am in good health among by brothers and partisans.in Iraq.

22:34 Damascus. Syrian authorities have released 8 members of the only political forum in Syria, the Salon Atassi Salon for National Dialog.

21:55 Washington. Security Advisor Frances Fragos Townsend discussed bilateral cooperation to combat terrorism with the Egyptian Interior Minister Habib al-Adli.

20:31 Teheran. Government news agency IRNA reports that two Iranian women have scaled Mt. Everest.

20:47 Baghdad. An Iraqi military aircraft crashed with four US soldiers aboard in Diyala Province.

18:47 Baghdad. The brief arrest on Monday in unexplained circumstances of a moderate Sunni politician by the US Army has embarrassed the Iraqi authorities as it seeks to involve the Sunni community in the political process with the support of Washington. A cloud envelops the reasons why leader of the Islamic Party, Mohsen Abdel Hamid, was pulled from his bed at dawn together with his sons by US soldiers, who ransacked his home. The Islamic Party, in a communiqué, demanded an explanation for the raid on the Baghdad residence of its leader as well as an official apology. "They must also release two of this three sons, Mokdad and Assayed, who are still beikng held along with several houseguests and bodyguards, said the party without indicating their numbers. President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari condemned the arrest of the Sunni leader with whom they served in the Intermim Governming Council put in place by the Americans after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi government in a communiqué praised his release and condemned "any attempt aiming to sow discord among Iraqi communities and to split its unity". The communiqué said that it was "hoped that the party spreading false information" providing the basis for the arrest of Mr. Abdel Hamid would be arrested. In condemning the arrest, Mr. Talabani underscored that he was not informed prior to the arrest while the Islamic Party denounced a "conspiracy" and demanded an accounting on the matter from the government. In its communique, the government stated that it was "worried that this type of raid conducted against prominent Iraqis participating in the political process and who are working to enlarge participation by Sunnis. The government compared the incident to one of three days ago without naming the individual targeted except to say that he was working towards "the inclusion of Sunnis in the political process." Although critical of the current Shi'a-dominated government, the Islamic Party has not excluded its participation in the drafting of the permanent Constitution. The party boycotted the January 30th general elections after having unsuccessfully demanded delay saying it believed that the elections could not be held in a climate of violence. But recently the party has taken a position against the blind violence targeting the populace and the security forces while criticizing the arrest of Sunni clerics, the warhorses of the powerful Committee of Iraqi Ulema, which refuses to participate in negotiations surrounding the drafting of the Constitution. More recenlty, without rejecting the security measures put in place in and around Baghdad, the Islamic Party has warned against excesses which could lead to "collective punishement and revenge". But it has never joined with Committee of Iraqi Ulema in openly accusing the Badr Organization, the former armed wing of SCIRI, of violence and revenge on Sunnis. Following his release, Mr. Abdeh Hamid underscored the humiliation to which he was subjected by US soldiers, saying that they handcuffed him and interrogated him for hours

18:34 Hilla. Two suicide bombings. 25 are dead and over 100 wounded after two suicide carbombings. The first occured amidst a crowd waiting outside a medical clinic, including civilians, police and soldiers. A second bomb blast went off outside government building where 500 unemployed police commandos had assembled to protest forced leave and to demand back pay. Two police were killed. Both bombers work suicide vests.

18:04 Husabayah. US combat helicopters and warplanes attack village on the border with Syria.

17:50 Samarra. Four Iraqis were killed in separate attacks in Samarra. At midday, a civilian was shot to death by the Rapid Reaction Force which was responding to an attack. A second civilian was shot dead later by armed gunmen. The third was killed by a stray bullet fired by US troops against rebels. The fourth was shot dead in the south of the city.

15:12 US Army says arrest of Islamic Party leader Mohsen Abdel Hamid, his sons and houseguests was a "mistake."

13:08 Hillah. Al Qaede claims credit for bombing in Hillah.

10:36 Hillah. Bombings claim 25, wound 100

07:11 Baghdad. US and Iraqi forces arrest a former Iraqi army intelligence officer suspected of supporting the guerrillas in the Ghazaliyah district of Baghdad.

06:56 Baghdad. The leader of the Islamic Party, Mohsen Abdel Hamid was arrested at down along with his three sons Yasser, Mokdad et Assyad.

02:57 Baghdad. Iraqi police fought pitched battles with insurgents as thousands of security forces backed by American troops swept through Baghdad's streets to flush out militants.

The Brides Wore Black

najaf: collective wedding ceremony (ali abu shishi-AFP) 

This Najaf mass wedding photo from L'Orient-Le Jour, is, well, surprising. Do you think this is organized by Moqtada? No clue!

29 May 2005 Events in Iraq

Beirut. In the first phase of Lebanese legislative elections held in Beirut, voter turnout was between 15 and 27%. The slate headed by Saad Hariri, a millionaire Sunni and son of Rafik Hariri, won in a landslide. Meanwhile, despite the apparent lack of interest among the electorate, fights broke out in Beirut: there was a battle at the campaign headquarters of Greek Orthodox candidate Najah Wakim between Greek Orthodox and Druze involving fisticuffs and pistol shots. A fight also broke out between Hariri supporters and members of the Habashi sect.

Najaf. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani urged Iraqis to conserve electric power and to protect power installations Sayyed Sistani has issued a fatwa calling for energy conservation and to refrain from attacking power stations. According to a UN report, three out of four Iraqi households have irregular power supply. The most affected area is the capital, Baghdad, where 92% of homes experience regular power outages. 29% of Iraq home possess or share a power generator.

Damascus. Saudi Interior Minister Nayef ben Abdel Aziz says Syria turned over 30 Saudi nationals to the Saudi Arabian government who had been captured as they tried to cross into Iraq. The Saudi daily al-Watan, citing informed sources, reported on May 5th that 137 Saudis were held in Syrian prisons after attempting to cross into Iraq. Meanwhile, Iraqi officials praised Syria's arrest of 1,200 foreign fighters attempting to enter Iraq but requested more details.

Baghdad. Insurgents attacked two police stations, an Iraqi army barracks and a checkpoint within 30 minutes in the Abu Ghraib, Amariyah and Khadra neighborhoods, killing three civilians and wounding 15 people, including 10 Iraqi security forces.

Baghdad. Iraqi security forces killed a suspected bomb maker in northeastern Baghdad on Sunday, the U.S. military said. The man was shot after fleeing from his car and running from police.

Baghdad. Two Iraqi civilians and one Iraqi security forces member were killed and 20 injured when a suicide bomb rammed a convoy of police commandos in eastern Baghdad near a government security facility. Rebels open fire on the police after the blast.

Baghdad. A suicide car bomber killed four policemen, including an officer, and wounded four others in the Zayouna quarter of southwest Baghdad.

Madaïen. A car bomb killed three police commandos and injured nine civilians.

Baghdad. An Iraqi male was found shot dead in a western Baghdad street with his hands bound early Sunday morning.

Beni Saad. Iraqi soldiers killed four armed men northeast of Baghdad, and arrested an Egyptian identified as Abu Hamada for possessing weapons.

Al Anbar. US continues Operation New Market.

Baghdad. Armed men ambush a vehicle carrying Iraqi soldiers in south Baghdad, killing six.

Baghdad. US serviceman dies from wounds received on Thursday in a carbombing in southwest Baghdad.

Tuz Khormato. Suicide carbomb rams joint Iraqi-US convoy south of Kirkuk, killing two Iraqis and injuring 9. Eyewitnesses say there are US casualties.

19:39 Ramadi. Sunni cleric shot dead. Ahmed Faraj was killed in front of his home by three armed gunmen.

17:51 Washington. The Pentagon's top general on Sunday defended the treatment of prisoners at the U.S. Navy prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and said the U.S. believes al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is wounded, though it's not known how badly. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. has done a good job of humanely treating detainees. Muslims in several countries have protested in recent weeks about allegations that a Quran was flushed down a toilet at Guantanamo as part of an interrogation of a prisoner. The human rights group Amnesty International released a report last week calling the prison camp "the gulag of our time." Myers said that report was "absolutely irresponsible." He said the U.S. was doing its best to detain fighters who, if released, would turn right around and try to slit our throats, slit our children's throats.This is a different kind of struggle, a different kind of war, Myers said on Fox News Sunday.

17:49 Damascus. Syrian human rights activist and lawyer Habib Issa, jailed in 2001, was arrested today at his home in Damascus, says associate Khalil al-Maatouk.

17:46 Teheran. Iran demanded a clarification from Pakistan following remarks by President Pervez Musharraf concerning Iran's nuclear ambitions. In an interview in Der Spiegel, Musharraf said that Iran definitely wanted to acquire the atomic bomb. Meanwhile, the Pakistanis claim that Musharraf was "misinterpreted."

17:34 Jerusalem. The Israeli Government has decided to release 400 Palestinian prisoners on Wednesday or Thursday. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the release, saying the Palestinian Authority is being "rewarded for doing nothing to stop terrorism". Palestinian chief negotiator Saëb Erekat also blasted the decision, saying. It is important that all prisoners are released. It was agreed at Sharm al Sheikh that a joint committee would agree on an arrangement for prisoner release, but Israel acted unilaterally. Minister for Palestinians Interned in Israel Sufia Abu Zaydam said, Our priority is to obtain the release of young detainees, women, the elderly, the sick and politicial prisoners such as Marwan Barghouthi.

17:28 Luxembourg. EU ministers will meet on Monday to breathe new air into the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and to discuss the crises in the Middle East. The meeting is also the occasion to plan celebrations for the 10th anniversary of the Barcelona Declaration. The partners Algeria, Egypt, Israël, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisian and Turkey. The ministers will also propose a "roadmap" to set up a free trade zone and to end discrimination against girls in schools.

17:02 Baghdad. Foreign journalists report no sign of checkpoints and patrols as promised in the Iraqi capital in Operation Lightning.

15:33 Youssifiyah. Suicide carbombing kills 9 Iraqi soliders and wounds 3 at a checkpoint south of the capital.

15:20 London. The Sunday Times writes that al-Zarqawi is undergoing surgery in Iran. A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry Hamdi Reza Asefi says the rumor is baseless.

13:38 Baghdad. 500 arrests made in Operation Lighting, the 40 thousand-man security initiative in Baghdad.

12:16 Baghdad. Oil Ministry carbombing. A suicide attacker tried to ram a Volkswagen sedan packed with explosives through the gate of the heavily fortified Iraqi Oil Ministry in eastern Baghdad. Guards fired on the car, which exploded about 20 yards from the gate, killing two security guards and wounding a policeman and passer-by.

12:06 Kabul. Video broadcast by Afghanistan's Tolo TV shows kidnapped Italian NGO worker Clementina Cantoni surrounded by gunmen.

11:46 Baghdad. 40,000 men to be deployed in and around Baghdad to seal off all entrances to the city in an effort to halt attacks.

10:55 Basrah. One British soldier killed when convoy sets off roadside bomb.

10:31 Canberra. Austrian hostage unable to be released due to combat. Douglas Wood, 63, was about to be set free when combat broke out, cancelling the arrangement.

10:08 Kahla. British troops attacked. British soldiers were wounded in an attack on their convoy in Kahla, 25 miles south of Amarah.

09:05 Baghdad. Two police sergeants were shot dead as they were driving to work in the Doura quarter of Baghdad.

07:42 Haqlaniyah. Roadside bomb kills US marine in western Iraq.

06:52 Bucharest. General reveals US plans and is removed. General Valeriu Nicut was relieved of duty after revealing in a press conference that the USA wants to take over the Romanian airbase at Kogalniceanu on the Black Sea as well as access to a nearby port.

04:11 Washington. General William Ward has been charged by President Bush to coordinated the Israeli withdrawal form the Gaza Strip.

02:32 Baghdad. Two of Iraq's most influential Shiite and Sunni organizations agreed to try to ease sectarian tensions pushing the country toward civil war as the government prepared to take its battle against the insurgency to Baghdad's streets.

00:11 Baghdad. A group linked to al-Zarqawi claimed credit for a triple carbombing in front of an Iraqi army base in Sinjar which killed six and wounded fifty-eight. The first bomb is said to have opened up a breach in the permiter. A second and third vehicle exploded amidst the crowd which hurried to the scene at the entrance to the base. Sinjar is the last town before Rabia, on the frontier between Iraq and Syria where a suicide bomb wounded 30 on May 16.

00:18 London. A British newspaper published letters on Sunday which it said were written by former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz from inside a U.S.-run high security camp on the outskirts of Baghdad. In the letters, hand-written in English and Arabic and published in The Observer newspaper, Aziz pleads for international help to end his "dire situation".

Lebanon: The Stroll of Democracy

Hariri 

Update 29 May: Voter turnout approximately 27% with abstentions among the Armenian community.

The march of democracy in Lebanon will be more of a stroll because the results of the election, beginning tomorrow and running through June 12th, are already known. The voting districts are confessionally apportioned and the political parties which represent them are aligned with the district. Despite the massive 13 March demonstration of national unity calling for the pullout of Syrian troops, voter turnout for the elections is expected to be below 40%. In certain Christian fiefs, voter turnout may well be below 25%.

The 128 seats in Parliament are divided 50-50 (64-64) between Muslims and Christians, even though Muslims account for 58.7% of the electorate. Maronite Christians, representing less than one-quarter of the population, are gathered around the "pole" of Cardinal Sfeir and are alloted 34 seats while other Christian communities, of which there are a-plenty--Greek Orthodox/Catholic, Armenian Orthodox/Catholic, Syrian Orthodox/Catholic, Chaldean Orthodox, Nestorians, Latin Catholics and Protestants--account for the rest. The Sunnis are guaranteed 27 seats, with the remaining 37 seats divided between the Shi'a and the Druze.

The political landscape is very much one of oligarchs, clans and clerics. Billionaire Saad Hariri is the undisputed leader of Lebanon's Sunni community. The Jumblatt family heads up the left-leaning Druze while the clan of Yazbaki Druze is led by the Arslan family. The Shi'a are split into two movements: the moderate Amal headed by Nabih Berri and the hardline Hezbollah, led by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

Opposition parties, i.e. those who prefer drastically weaked links to Syria, will end up with control of 2/3 of the seats in Parliament. Meanwhile the pro-Syrian Shi'a will maintain their dominance in Southern Lebanon where they are expected to win 23 seats. The only real contest is a rather fearful one: General Michel Aoun will challenge mainstream opposition candidates in heavily Maronite districts in the mountains. This contest is scheduled for 12 June.

Incidentally, pro-Syrian does not translate as Sunni Muslim or even anti-democratic. Emil Lahoud, a Lebanese Maronite Christian patriot through and through, is the current President and considered by some to be Syria's man. His brother, by the way, is Supreme Court chief justice. Shi'ite leader Nabih Berri, born in Sierra Leone, aligned his militia, Amal, with Syria during the civil war. Sunni Premier Nagib Miqati, a telecommunications CEO, is a personal friend of Bashir Assad but a respected reformer and modernizer. Meanwhile pro-Syrian Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah, born in a shantytown, is a graduate of the Shi'a seminary in Najaf. He is charismatic, politically astute and has forgone any idea of an Islamic state. His spiritual mentor, Abbas Al-Mussawi, was assassinated by the Israelis. It can be assumed that he remains rather unforgiving.

The opposition includes Christians, Druze and Sunni Muslims. Maronite Michel Aoun is a character Lebanese should run away screaming from. He was supported by none other than Saddam Hussein in his personal bloody war to end the Syrian occupation. He was quickly defeated and dispatched to exile in France. Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, once a playboy and a ladies' man, defended his people from the Maronite right wing and was a friend of Yassir Arafat. Jumblatt is outspoken, pragmatic and a defender of secularism yet unwilling to pursue an immediate challange the Shi'a militias. He is one of the point men of the opposition. Saad Hariri is a wealthy, handsome, 35 year-old Sunni whose list is going to vacuum up every Sunni vote in the country. But he is a novice and has inherited, besides his father's billions, his father's political advisors.

As to who killed Rafik Hariri? Cui bono? In my opinion, it must have been some people who knew that popular ire would focus on the Syrians and hasten their withdrawal. The French? No, they had pretty much clinched a deal with Assad for a spring pullout. The Syrians? Unlikely to shoot themselves in the foot. Hezbollah? No one was seriously challenging them. In my book, prime suspects are 1) the Aounistes and 2) the United States. But what do I know?

28 May 2005 Events in Iraq.

Baghdad. A body of truck driver killed in an ambush north of Baghdad was recovered.

Baghdad. A female Lebanese interpreter working for the US military was kidnapped and an Iraqi civilian was shot dead during the night by unknown gunmen.

Latifiyah. Three Iraqis, including two soldiers, were killed when their convoy came under fire.

Kirkuk. An Iraqi woman was kidnapped to force her husband to quit his job with the Northern Oil Company.

Baquba. Three men were killed by a roadside bomb which they were laying near Baquba.

23:29 London. Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had fled the country after being seriously injured in a U.S. missile attack, a British newspaper reported on Sunday, quoting a senior commander of the Iraqi insurgency. Al-Zarqawi has shrapnel lodged in his chest and may have been moved to Iran, The Sunday Times newspaper reported. Meanwhile, observers speculate as to potential successors: Abu Maisara Al-Iraqi and Abu Al-Dardaa Al-Iraqi, responsible for military operations for greater Baghdad, both former colonels in the Iraq Army; Abu Azzam Al-Iraqi and Abu Saad Al-Duleïmi, in charge of Al-Anbar Province; Syrian Khaled Darwish, aka Abu Al-Ghadia.

23:14 Riyadh. Six Gulf Arab states expressed support Saturday for Palestinian efforts to return to peace negotiations with Israel and for the Jewish state to return land it occupied in the 1967 war. The countries also urged governments to keep fighting terrorism. The Gulf Cooperation Council «urged the international community to effectively cooperate to finish off this destructive plague,» said GCC secretary-general, Abdulrahman al-Attiyah, after the council's one-day consultations. GCC leaders backed efforts of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to resume peace talks that lead to establishing an independent Palestinian state, al-Attiya said. Delegates also stressed the importance of returning all occupied Arab lands to achieve just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East, he added. Participants said they supported Iraq's political process, which aims to preserve the country's unity and sovereignty, he said. The six-member GCC comprises Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman.

23:07 Ramallah. The Palestinian Authority is moving ahead on securing the coastal Gaza Strip area that Israel is to evacuate this summer, putting out a call for 5,000 new security forces, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Saturday. But although there are fears Palestinian militants will fire on Israeli targets during and after the pullout, the new recruits won't be armed, because of Israeli restrictions on the number of guns Palestinian security forces can carry, spokesman Tawfiq Abu Khousa said. Abu Khousa urged Israel to let other countries supply the Palestinian Authority with additional weapons, as they have offered to do, if it wants maximum security in Gaza. U.S. President George W. Bush wants his security envoy to the Mideast, Army Lt.-Gen. William Ward, to work with Israel and the Palestinians on coordinating the withdrawal.

22:51 Baghdad. Al-Qaida in Iraq, the militant group led by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, on Saturday launched a tirade against Shiite Muslims, accusing them of targeting Islam and especially Sunni Muslims. The declaration, which appeared on the Internet, appears to be an attempt to stoke hatreds and perhaps sectarian violence between hardline followers of both sects inside Iraq. There's no mosque or honor that has been violated or Muslim who has been insulted in Iraq without the help of the (Shiites), the statement, posted on an Islamic Web site, said. It accused Iraq's majority Shiites of aiding «the Jews,» apparently referring to U.S. troops and officials in Iraq. The mocking statement was allegedly posted by Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, a spokesman for the group.

22:24 Damascus. The Arab League is ready to send experts to help the Iraqis draft a new constitution, the league's secretary general said Saturday. Amr Moussa told reporters on his arrival in Damascus that the Arab League was "ready to send advisers to help and offer assistance" in writing Iraq's new constitution, in the same manner that the United Nations is aiding Iraq.

22:03 Bucharest. Released Romanian hostages send message of support to the parents of kidnapped French reporter Florence Aubenas.

21:58 Baiji. An Iraqi soldier was killed and four civilians wounded in the suicide carbombing of a joint US-Iraqi patrol.

20:36 Mosul. Carbomb kills three civilians, including a child. The target of the bomb was a US patrol.

18:00 Al Qaim. Corpses of 10 Shi'ite pilgrims discovered. 10 young Iraqi Shi'ites between the ages of 16 and 20 aboard a bus returning from the Shi'ite shrine of the Mausoleum of Lady Zainab in Damascus were shot in the head by guerrillas.

17:00 Haditha. A second US sollider was killed in an US offensive on the town of Haditha. Ten guerrillas were also reported killed.

16:23 Hillah. Three Iraqi soldiers were killed in a drive-by shooting.

14:51 Vienna. Austria may send a 100-man contingent to Afghanistan to provide security during the September elections according to a report in the daily newspaper, Die Presse.

11:49 New York: Iran denounces the United States and Israel as "nuclear menaces." The Iraninan ambassador to the United Nations, Javad Zarif, is reported as saying: There is the widespread conviction that the real threat is not only the Israeli nuclear arsenal but their policies of agression. The accusations directed at us are a smokescreen intended to mask violations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty since 1970 by Washington and its willingness to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear powers.

09:29 Mosul. Dual carbombings kill 5, including a child, and wound 40.

07:50 Tikrit. Seven persons killed, including three police, and 24 wounded in a suicide carbomb which targeted a police patrol in Tikrit. Meanwhile, a motorcycle bomb detonated at the passage of as oilfield security patrol, wounded two.

07:26 Haditha. US soldier killed.

07:10 Kirkuk. Sunni leader assassinated. Sheik Sabhan Khalaf al-Jiburi, a moderate Sunni tribal chieftain friendly to Kurds, was shot dead outside his home.

06:50 Tokyo. The Japanese Foreign Ministry confirms hostage Akihito Saito died of wounds received during an ambush on May 8th. Ansar al-Sunna made the announcement.

27 May 2005 Events in Iraq

najaf 


koran 


malaysia 


alexandria 

Muslims across Asia and Africa protest the profanation of the Koran in Guantanamo.

Kashmir. A 24-hour general strike was called by Syed Ali Geelani of the separatist movement Hurriyat as protesters burned US flags and a copy of the US Constitution.

Pakistan. Tens of thousands of Pakistanis demonstrated in Pakistan's major cities answering the call of the Islamist alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), the major opposition party in parliament. The demonstators demanded a public apology as they burned US flags and portraits of President Bush.

Egypt. In Alexandria, tens of thousands of protesters answered the call of the Committee for the Defense of Sacred Values to assemble in front of the Alexandria Lawyer's Associaiton. In Cairo, a thousand protesters gathered after prayers in the courtyard of the al-Azhar mosque condemning the profaners and ripping up a portrait of President Hosni Mubarek. Another thousand protesters assembled in front of the Cairo Lawyers' Association.

Jerusalem. During his sermon in al-Aqsa mosque, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Ikrema Sabri demanded a direct apology from those responsible in Guantanamo for the profanation of the Koran. At the end of prayers thousands of people shouted anti-US and anti-Israel slogans.

Jordan. 1500 people protested in downtown Amman after weekly prayers: All agression towards the Koran is an agression against all religions. America is the enemy of religion. Protesters also shouted slogans hostlie to George W. Bush and demanded the withdrawal of US troops form Iraq and Afghanistan.

Malaysia. Several hundred people protested outside the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

Lebanon. Sit-in protests were held across the country with people chanting America is the biggest Satan.

20:30 Dubai. Al-Zarqawi is reported as doing well after being wounded.

18:58 New York. Price of oil begins new rise. Oil reaches $52 per barrel.

18:15 Haditha. US troops paint "The New Testament" on tank's cannon barrel. Members of the 1st Tank Batalllion, 4th Tank Company have baptized their tank, The New Testament and have painted the name on the gun barrel. Corporal Ken Melton then had the inspiration to upload an image of the tank to the Marine Corps website at us.mc.mil for the world to see.

new testament 


14:51 Baghdad. The Parliamentary commission charged with drafting the new Constitution will begin its work tomorrow.

14:22 Bucharest. Kidnapping of Romanian reporters was a set up. The kidnapping of three Romanian reporters was organized and financed by their guide, Mohammad Munaf, and Syrian-Romanian millionaire businessman Omar Hayssam as a publicity stunt to draw public attention away from charges of racketeering and income tax evasion laid to Mr. Hayssam. However Mr. Hayssam said the plan was to acquire credibility in Iraq to win a sugar contract and to raise the sales of the Romanian daily, Romanian Libera. Hayssam said that he had nothing to do with the kidnapping. The Romanian government wants to charge Hayssam and Munaf with terrorism. Meanwhile in Baghdad, Mr. Munaf is being held by the US military and 9 persons connected to the kidnapping have been arrested.

14:20 Baghdad. The decapitated corpses of two Iraqi shopkeepers were found at dawn in the Baia district of the capital. Their offense is assumed to have been the playing of Shi'ite music and songs in their stores during the month of Muharam.

10:45 Washington. Bush names career diplomat Neumann as ambassador to Kabul.

09:00 Washington. Former anti-terrorism advisor Richard Clarke says some of the 40,000 Iraqi insurgents may transfer their activity to the United States.

05:02 Baquba. The two pilots of a US Army helicopter shot down near Baquba were found dead.

01:41 New York. There is no proof that the Koran was thrown in a toilet, says General Jay Hood, who admitted to 13 cases of profanation of the sacred Muslim book.

Kyrgyzstan Forcibly Repatriating Uzbek Refugees

Natalie Nougayrède reports from Osh for Le Monde:

The elderly women curled up in a chair looks haggard. She lost her husband and her eldest son in the Andijan massacre of Friday, May 13th, when the Uzbek Army opened fire on a crowd of protesters, killing hundreds. They left in the morning from our kishliak (village) to participate in the demonstration and they never returned, she sobs. Agents of the USB (Uzbek Security Bureau) went house-to-house in her village, harrassing the families of the dead and the missing. They threatened me. They said that if my husband and my son didn’t come back, they’d throw me in prison.

Terrified, she sent her remaining three children to live with friends and relatives and fled to Kyrgyzstan on May 20th. She walked all night then crossed the frontier at a place well known to local smugglers, where the barbed wire has been cut with a chainsaw. Like all clandestine refugees from Andijan in the area of Osh, an ancient city of bazaars in southern Kyrgyzstan, this traumatized woman did not wish to give her name or the name of her village. The fear of police reprisals against the families who remain in Uzbekistan is shared by all the refugees, who are afraid of being forcibly repatriated by the Kyrgyz authorities.

Officially some 500 people, crowded into a camp of a few dozen military tents in a muddy glen near the village of Kara Daria and watched by a detachment of Kyrgyz special forces, arrived from Andijian into southern Kyrgyzstan. All the attention of the foreign media and international organizations, the Red Cross, the UN High Commission on Refugees has been focused on this group.

In reality, refugees from Andijan present in Kyrgyzstan are far more numerous. Several thousand people have left Uzbekistan since May 13th. These displaced persons, fleeing a new wave of arrests across the region of Andijian, are hidden with families, in apartments and in squats throughout the region of Osh and Jalalabad. They live in fear of manhunt by Uzbek secret agents and the predilection of Kyrgyz border guards to send them back to Uzbekistan against their will.

As "democratic" as they are claimed to be, the new authorities in Kyrgyzstan, the result of the 24 March revolution which toppled President Akaev, seem to have set as their priority in this regional crisis to appease its imposing Uzbek neighbor. Little Kyrgyzstan (a population of 5 million) lives in dread of Islam Karimov, the Uzbek satrap who, with a population of 25 million, commands the largest army in central Asia.

The crisis is all the more dramatic given the artificial boundaries imposed by Stalin in the 1920s. The region of southern Kyrgyzstan has a large Uzbek minority (500,000 people). The memory of the violent interethnic violence of June 1990 in Osh between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz involving the distribution of plots of land and housing make the Kyrgyz authorites unwilling to welcome refugees from Andijan.

Dozens of cases of forced repatriation have been reported. Our information indicates that 85 people have been forcibly expelled across the Uzbek frontier, says Edil Baïssalov, a young Kyrgyz democracy activist who directs an NGO called Coalition. Our leaders claim that no one has been repatriated against their will, but it is a lie. I personally rescued 4 people by hiding them in my apartment in Osh when Kyrgyz soldiers deployed to the Kara Daria camp began to round them up to transfer them to Uzbek “security”. Every day Uzbek refugees arriving in small groups have identified themselves in to Kyrgyz authorities at the Kara Daria encampment thinking they would receive assisstance. Those poor people are completely unaware of the risk they are running…of being betrayed and sent back to Uzbekistan!, laments Baïssalov.

The fate reserved to Uzbek prisoners is well known: torture and often death await them. The number of 85 forced repatriations since 14 may was confirmed to an AP reporter in the Kara Daria encampment by Colonel Abdurakhmonov. If we let them all come here, they won’t be 500, they’ll be 5,000, he explains.

In his office in Osh, the new “democratic” regional governor Anvar Artikov reacts with unease when asked about forced repatriations. He is of Uzbek origin and denies forcible expulsions but adds: If we identify any “bandits” among the refugees, we expel them. We work in close cooperation with Uzbek intelligence because it is crucial for us that the troubles in Uzbekistan don’t lead to destabilization in Kyrgyzstan as we prepare for the presidential elections scheduled for July.

Western nations have asked Kyrgyzstan to guarantee the protection of refugees from Andijan. Interviewed in Osh where he has been hiding for two days, a miller from Ferghana Valley with a bullet wound to his thigh says he is full of mistrust and fears being handed over to Karimov’s henchmen. Over there, the USB is sieving through village after village and has arrested dozens of people. On the night of 13 May, I lay for 2 hours among the dead before daring to get up and flee. If I go back, they will kill me as they have killed dozens of others.

26 May 2005 Events in Iraq

Cairo. Referendun ratified by the populace with 86.86% "Yes" and 53.46 voter turnout. Voter turnout was very light in Cairo where one-quarter of all Egyptians live. The newspaper Al-Wafd (center right), sent two of its editors out to vote, which they did: one in seven polling stations and the other in six with the same voting card. In the polling stations visited by AFP reporters, lines of voters were non-existent and unused ballots were piled high on tables. The referendum took place in an tense atmosphere in Cairo as police prevented a Kefaya demonstration with billyclubs. NPD thugs intervened to beat up activists urging a "No" vote and to trample their signs and banners. Meanwhile, the opposition estimates that there were widespread voting irregularities--voter lists included the deceased and expatriate Egyptians, who are not permitted to vote in abstentia. President Bush issued a mild condemnation, saying only that events in Egypt do not correspond to the USA's notion of democracy. The Egyptian government praised the referendum as a "celebration of democracy".

Beirut. Lebanese Foreign Minister Mahmoud Hammoud met with Iranian FM Kamal Kharazi to discuss Security Council Resolution Iranian 1559 and Iranian support for Hezbollah. Iran says it lends moral but not material aid to the group.

Baghdad. Four police were wounded when gunmen opened fire on the residence of an Undersecretary of State for Security, Hikmat Moussa Salman, in the Ghazaliyah quarter of west Baghdad. Salman was not at home. This was the second assassination attempt on Salman this month.

Tuz Khormatu. A US soldier dies in a road accident.

Baghdad. A the body of amember of Premier al-Jafaari's al-Dawa party, Fakhri Abd Amiri, was found with his throat slit in the Qadissiah quarter of south Baghdad.

Baghdad. University professor Mussa Sallum Abbas and three persons accompanying him were slain in the al-Aalam quarter of south Baghdad.

Tel Afar. Four persons, including two children, were killed in pre-dawn clashes between rebels and US forces.

Baghdad. Al-Jaafari places conditions on visit to Damascus. President Ibrahim al-Jaafari declines invitation to Damascus unless certain issues are resolved first: border security and Iraqi funds frozen by Syrian authorities which Baghdad claims amounts to several hundred million dollars. However, al-Jaafari says he has spoken with Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Naji Otri and Foreign Minister Farouk el-Shareh by phone.

Baghdad. Zebari plays down handshake with Israeli minister. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari played down the significance of his recent handshake with Israeli minister Ben Eliezer at the World Economic Forum in Jordan after the Jordanian Minister for Water Resources Raëd Abou Séoud introduced him.

23:37 Tikrit. US combat helicopter shot down between Tikrit and Baquba. Two persons known aboard.

18:49 Rome. Results of ballistics test in Calipari incident to be announced on June 9. Sources say more than one weapon was used.

16:16 Damascus. 1,200 people arrested at border with Iraq by Syrian forces.

15:26 Washington. A U.S. Marine Corps general dismissed all charges Thursday against a lieutenant accused of murdering two suspected insurgents in Iraq, the military announced. The decision by Maj. Gen. Richard Huck, commander of the 2nd Marine Division, ends the prosecution 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano, who was accused of premeditated murder for what prosecutors maintained was the unjustified killing of the two Iraqis in 2004, near Mahmudiyah. Prosecutors alleged Pantano intended to make an example of the two detainees by shooting them 60 times and hanging a sign over their bodies _ «No better friend, no worse enemy,» a Marine slogan. An investigating officer concluded in a report to Huck that murder charges should be dropped against Pantano, a former Wall Street trader who rejoined the Marines after the Sept. 11 attacks. Prosecutors allege Pantano killed the Iraqis because he believed they were launching mortars at his troops. [IOKIYAIB: It's ok if you are an investment banker--Nur]

15:10 Baghdad. Three Abu Ghraib inmates escape through a hole in the penitentiary fence.

15:03 Bratislava. Slovakia is committed to keeping its troops in Iraq, the country's foreign minister said Thursday. Foreign Minister Eduard Kukan reiterated Slovakia's position to keep its 107 soldiers in Iraq, most of whom are there for de-mining operations.

14:59 Baghdad. A nephew of Vice President Ghazi al-Yawar, Ali Abou Dima, was detained and questioned about his alleged connection to rebels.

14:58 Baghdad. An Industry MInistry official is shot dead. Chief administrator Thamer Nemat Ghaidan was shot dead as he shopped in a public market in downtown Baghdad.

14:56 Teheran. Supporters of reformist candidate Mostapha Moïn met in Teheran to decide if Moïn will enter the upcoming presidential race.

14:53 Dakuk. Dog bomb. A dog with an explosive charged tied to it was hurled at a military convoy and exploded, decapitating the creature. No injuries reported but 8 suspects were arrested.

13:31 Baghdad. Interim government announces deployment of 40,000 men around Baghdad. Regular and police forces will be deployed around the capital to seek out and destroy rebels and arms caches. This measure, dubbed "Operation Lightning", will divide the capital into 22 sectors and erect 675 checkpoints.

12:50 Baghdad. Iraq Interior Minister Bayan Baqer confirms wounding of al-Zarqawi.

11:16 Tel Afar. Child killed in clashes. An Iraqi child was killed in clashes between US soldiers and rebels. The US military claims the insurgents were using Iraqi children as "human shields".

11:04 Baghdad. Group linked to al-Zarqawi denies naming replacement for wounded leader.

08:05 Baghdad. Four dead in attack. Four Iraqis, inlcuding a translator who worked for the US Army were machine gunned by a gang of armed men in the Risala district of south Baghdad.

07:15 Baghdad. A convoy of all-terrain vehicles escorted by US Army Humvees was struck by a powerful roadside bomb near Shaab stadium in southeast Baghdad. US soldier isolated the area to evacuate the dead and wounded. When US personnel left the scene, they abandoned a completely destroyed all-terrain vehicle.

07:02 Baghdad. Five dead in car bombing. Three police and two civilians were killed and 17 bystanders injured when a carbomb targeted a convoy of passing police in the Sholaa quarter of northwest Baghdad.

Holy Epcot!

How did I miss this one? Read James Walcott--According to a May 23 story in the Financial Times by correspondent Caroline Daniels, AIPAC is running an interactive Disneyesque diorama in the basement of the Washington Convention Center: a walk through Iran's nuclear enrichment program.

Disappointment awaits Mahmood Abbas chez Bush

Yesterday's Le Monde published an interview with Yasser Abed Rabbo, former PA minister and the initiator together withh Yossi Beilin of the Geneva Pact. Rabbo doesn't expect much from today's meeting between Mahmood Abbas and Bush, besides the President's usual request--and possibly even threat--to dismantle Hamas. In an interview given to West Bank correspondent Gilles Paris, we find out that Israel is trying to renegotiate what it already negotiated in Sharm al-Sheik.

Ramallah

What is the report card for Mahmoud Abbas?
Some might say one of his character traits is the state in which he is today--weak. But in fact he is not weak. Let’s take two examples: the cease-fire and the forced retirement of security officials. He is decisive and he knows how to be definitive. But his report card is strictly dependent upon the room for maneuver afforded him by the Israelis, who up until now haven’t enforced even the most marginal provisions of the Sharm al Sheik Summit of 8 February. The Israelis are trying to renegotiate what they’ve already negotiated.

Do you think that despite what he’s been saying, Mr. Sharon wants Mr. Abbas to fail?
Sharon is not fond of Abu Mazen (the nom de guerre of Mahmoud Abbas) because he’s embarrassing. With him, it’s hard to justify the construction of the security wall and expanded settlement. But until now, the USA hasn’t supported Abu Mazen with anything but pretty-sounding words. Bush’s statement against colonization did not change one thing. Summed up, neither the Israelis nor the Americans have supported him, while asking him to do the impossible: start a civil war by attacking Hamas. Impossible because Abbas doesn’t want it nor could he do it. Every Palestinian would be against it. I’m a moderate myself and I couldn’t support him in this. If he’s able to get Hamas to join to political process and to observe the cease-fire, what more could one ask for? Abu Mazen is a courageous man. We both belong to the old guard. Sharon is back to resorting to the policy of pre-conditions…Do this and that first, then we’ll see.

We know the game by heart: Israel gets to be both judge and plaintiff. Take the Gaza Strip for example. Do the Israelis really want a successful pullout? Or do they want Gaza to be the subject of endless negotiations over borders, the seaport, the airport and links between Gaza and the West Bank. Each of these issues is absolutely crucial to the development of the Gaza Strip but we have had no replies. We don’t want to live on charity. The European Union supports more us financially than any other power in the world.

What are you expecting from the United States?
Abu Mazen is going to say to the Americans, You believed that Arafat was incapable of keeping his promises and of stopping the violence but look what I’ve done. He has kept his promises and stopped the violence with next to no available means. We shall see how the Americans react but they are aware that their pretty words, promises and “visions” for the Palestinian state are worthless.

Mr. Abbas’ party, Fatah, seems weakened. Is Abbas hampered by this?
Abu Mazen hoped to find broad-based support ranging beyond a single party which produced some teeth-gnashing within Fatah. The forced retirements within the security establishment mainly affected Fatah cadres. But it’s against his interests to have a weak Fatah. Palestinian society is divided into three camps: the moderates—which one might describe to a certain degree as being secular—, the conservatives and the extremists. Despite everything, Fatah is the chief pillar of the moderate camp—it’s the cornerstone of my camp, which is seeking a political understanding with Israel and not eternal war.

25 May 2005 Events in Iraq

Baghdad. The Grand Mufti of Australia, Sheik Taj Eldin Al Hilali, announced that he would be willing to take the place of Australian hostage Douglas Wood.

23:57 Rome. Corriere della Sera offices searched by police. A Corriere article reported that US intelligence claimed that rebels were in possession of a thousands of Series 92 9-mm Beretta pistols with no serial numbers of recent manufacture. Editorial staff protested infringement of freedom of the press as police attempted to seize a draft of the article .

23:56 Washington. Donald Rumsfeld says that despite "successes" the US cannot defeat terrorism unassisted. [Duh...so this is news?--Nur]

23:55 Washington. The Washington Post suggest that wounded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi will be replaced by a lieutenant named Abu Karrar.

23:54 Haditha. Violent combat during "Operation Newmarket" along the banks of the Euphrates.

23:53 Washington. US officials admit that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi may have been wounded but are unable to confirm.

23:52 Baghdad. Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini invites Premier Ibrahim Jafaari to Rome.

23:46 Washington. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says he is in Washington to "convince" George W. Bush to end the Israeli occupation.

23:37 Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during his first visit to Washington following his election in January pleaded for the Palestinian cause before Congress. Abbas also met with Senate majority leader Bill Frist and Chairman Henry Hyde of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Meanwhile [uber-hawk and Israeli tool--Nur] Congressman Tom Lantos criticized Abbas for his "reticence" on disarming all radical groups.

22:46 Ramallah. Hamas agress to negotiate directly with Fatah to reduce tensions among Palestinian factions. Hamas officials met with Egyptian mediators dispatched by the intelligence service. It is our aim to end the crisis, says Hamas official Saïd Seyam.

22:26 Riyadh. King Fahd reportedly on deathbed. Saudi stock market crashes.

23:49 Guantanamo: FBI confirms desecration of the Koran. A 2002 FBI report confirms profanation of Koran by US guards in Guantanamo.

21:40 Washington. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) complains of improper behavior of US guards in Guantanmo towards the Koran.

21:15 Baghdad. Eleven Iraqis were killed in a series of attacks, including five bombings in Bahgdad which also wounded 20 persons, including 11 police. Three police were killed in a suicide bombing in the Dura quarter of Baghdad.

21:13 Washington. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tells Agence France Press the the US will oppose any compromise on Iran's nuclear program. Nothing less than a permanent end to activities is acceptable to Washington.

21:01 Cairo. Egyptian Foreign Ministry will host a on June 2 coordination meeting in Cairo ahead of the EU-sponsored 22 June international conference on Iraq.

18:35 Geneva. EU to propose new agreement on Iranian nuclar activities. Iranian negotiator Hassan Rowhani says he expects an accord within a short period of time.

18:13 Tel Aviv. Protesters opposed to Gaza Strip pullout block traffic resulting in huge traffic jams.

18:10 Beirut: Hezbollah, "We have 12,000 missiles." Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary-General of Lebanese Hezbollah, claims to possess 12,000 missiles able to strike northern Israel. All of occupied North Palestine, with its settler colonies, airports, fields and farms is within the range of fire of the Islamic Resistance....We do not want to drag the region into war; we want to defend our country and we shall keep our weapons.

18:00 London. UK to deploy additional 400 troops to Iraq as trainers.

17:15 Ramadi. US anti-rebel operation kills 10 rebels.

15:37 Washington: Rumsfeld says he ordered Cessna shot down as it entered forbidden airspace of US capital on 11 May.

15:18 Teheran. President Khatami intervenes with Iranian judiciary to seek the release Akbar Ganji, a dissident journalist who has been in jail for the last five years.

14:29 Najaf. Thousands of Shi'a demonstrate against Sheik Harith al Dhari of the Committee of Iraqi Ulema. Al Dhari accused the Badr Brigades of the murder of several Sunni clerics.

14:22 Kabul. Negotiations for release of Italian hostage in hands of tribal leaders.

13:08 Baghdad. Al Zarqawi wounded in lung and taken to neighboring country. The Jihadist website Al Tajdeed says al-Zarqawi has undergone surgery outside Iraq after a bullet passed through his lung.

11:14 Paris. Prime Minister Raffarin says there is new information on kidnapped reporter Florence Aubenas but refused to provide the details.

09:35 Cairo. Referendum on electoral reform. 32.5 million Egyptian voters called to polls to approve electoral reform. The Mubarek government must win 51 percent of the vote to ratify the new elections law.

09:07 Baghdad: Fini to inaugurate memorial to Nicola Calipari. [Does he think we're dumb enough to be content with this sop? Yes, I guess he does.--Nur] Fini will also meet with Premier Ibrahim al Jafaari and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

07:06 Baghdad. Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini makes surprise visit to Iraq.

06:53 New York. ABC's Nightline will broadcast the names of US soldiers killed in Iraq and in Afghanistan. A photographic portrait of each fallen GI will be broadcast nationally.

06:39 Haditha. New US offensive. Three guerrillas killed and two US marines wounded.

06:16 Washington. The President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas has arrived in Washington for talks with President Bush.

04:14 Washington. Charles Duelfer says Saddam Hussein probably lied about his unconventional weapons arsenal to prevent Iranian aggression.

02:06 New York. The Iraqi government has asked the UN to authorize an extension to the mandate of the "multinational force". According to the provisions of Resolution 1546 of June 8, 2004, the Security Council would reexamine an extension within 12 months. The Security Council will meet on May 31 to consider the extension.

24 May 2005 Events in Iraq

London. Foreign Minister Jack Straw officially condemns the publication of prison photos of Saddam Hussein by The Sun.

Najaf. In his first interview on Iraqi TV, Moqtada Sadr held out an olive branch to the government of Ibrahim al-Jaafari but demanded that his supporters be released from prison.

New York. Amnesty International harshly criticized the dangerous "new world order" in its annual report released this morning, singling out Washington for its "duplicity" in seeking to legalize torture.

Cairo. Opponents of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak rejected U.S. First Lady Laura Bush's interpretation of Egyptian politics, saying they could not even see the progress she was praising. There are no reform steps at all. The regime is still following the dictatorial and repressive method towards the Egyptian people and opposition, said Mohamed Habib, deputy leader of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood.

Tal Afar. Militants sprayed Baktash's house with machine-gun fire, killing two civilians and trading fire with security forces, said Col. Saleh Jamil Sultan. Now terrorists have deployed throughout Tal Afar and I consider that Tal Afar is a city that is under the terrorist control, Sultan said. A Turkmen lawmaker told parliament that ''street wars'' were raging in Tal Afar, but Iraqi and U.S. forces had not intervened.

Baghdad. The National Assembly convened Tuesday, during which a conservative Shiite lawmaker said he was appointed to head a 55-member committee charged with drafting Iraq's new constitution, which must be drawn up by mid-August and put to a referendum by October. Cleric Hammoudi, an aide to the leader of Iraq's largest Shiite Arab party, told the AP he was appointed head of the committee and two Sunni Arabs and a Kurd were appointed his deputies: Bahaa al-Araji and Mariem al-Rayess of the UIA and Hussein Mohammed Taha of the Kurdish coalition.

Baghdad. Residents called police about a suspicious-looking car parked opposite the Dijlah Junior High School for Girls in Alwiyah, near eastern Baghdad's well-known Withaq Square, a Christian neighborhood. As bomb disposal experts approached the vehicle, it exploded and killed six bystanders, said police Capt. Husham Ismael.

Baghdad. A US soldier sitting in the back of a Bradley fighting vehicle at an observation post was shot to death by gunmen in a passing car.

23:29 Managua. Two al-Qaeda members, Kenyan Ahmed Salim Swedan and a man named Altuwiti from Yemen sought for their involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, are said to be in the area of Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador. The frontiers are being watched. [I would like to howl at this lie. Excuse me. Waaaaaaaaoaooooooooooooaaaaaaaaah! Thank you for your indulgence.--Nur]

16:46 Damascus. Syrian secret police arrested 8 members of Syria's only political forum, Salon Atassi, accusing them of propaganda in favor of the banned Muslim Brotherhood. Arrested at dawn were: Forum President Souheir al-Atassi, writer Hussein al-Aoudat, moderator, Nahed Badawiyah, Hazem al-Nahar, Jihad Massouti, Mohammad Mahfouz, Abdelnasser Kalhous and Youssef Jahmani.

16:18 Najaf. Shiite lawmaker al-Khafaji was driving from Baghdad to the Shiite holy city of Najaf, south of the capital, when an assassination attempt took place, her spokesman Bahaa Hassan Hamida said. Al-Khafaji survived assassination attempts in January 2005 and May 2004, which killed her 17-year-old son. She was one of three women on the 25-member U.S.-appointed Governing Council until the transitional government took over. The Shiite delegation included secular Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi and two other legislators. Al-Khafaji returned to Baghdad after the botched ambush.

16:00 Rochester, NY. Sister Grace Miller, Director of the House of Mercy, and Philosophy Professor Harry Murray of Nazareth College were charged with disorderly conduct, obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest as they exercised their ~assumed~ right to free speech by protesting Bush's visit to my home town.

15:47 Cairo. The Secretary General of the Arab League Amr Moussa says Sharon's racist statements about Arabs are "nothing new".

15:34 Baghdad. The Iraqi government seeks to re-arrest former Ba'athist Ghazi Hammoud Al Ubeidi who was just released from detention for reasons of bad health.

15:21 Baghdad. A former Iraqi minister will appear in court on Wednesday in the first government corruption case to be brought since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Layla Abdul Latif, labour minister in Iyad Allawi's interim government, faces a preliminary hearing into allegations that she misused public money. She denies any wrongdoing. Besides Latif's case, a judge is also expected to hear allegations of corruption at the Transport Ministry. Latif said she would attend the hearing. Transparency International, a global corruption watchdog, said in a report earlier this year that Iraq was in danger of becoming "the biggest corruption scandal in history", with incidents ranging from petty bribery to massive embezzlement, expropriation and profiteering.

15:11 Ramallah. Abu Mazen will not oppose a delay in the legislative elections.

13:22 Ankara. A 48 year-old Turkish businessman has been kidnapped and held hostage until his firm quits its activities in Iraq.

13:18 Baghdad. Carbomb kills three US soldiers. Three U.S. soldiers were killed Tuesday in central Baghdad when a car bomb exploded next to their convoy at about 13:30, said military spokesman Sgt. David Abram.

13:11 Kabul. Suicide bomb alert until 29 May. There are threats of suicide bombings in the Afghan capital.

12:27 Kabul. The Afgani government suggests that patience will be necessary before Italian hostage Clementina Cantoni is released.

12:23 Brussels. NATO announces revised relationship with Tashkent. NATO officially condemned the use of violence on the part of the Karimov government. NATO is profoundly taken aback by the recent violence in Uzbekistan; we condemn the excessive and disproportionate use of force by Uzbek security. We support the request by the United Nations for an international independent investigation of these events and we urgently ask that the Uzbek authorities consent to this investigation.

11:13 Baghdad. Former Saddam collaborator Ghazi Hammoud al-Obeidi was released from prison due to his poor state of health. However, Premier Ibrahim al Jafaari wants him rearrested. Al-Obeidi was the ex-Governor of Wasit Province and suffers from cancer.

11:07 Teheran. The Iranian daily Etemad reports that 4 police and a drug trafficker were killed along the Caspian Sea on a highway linking Shaboksar and Ramsar. A automobile was stopped at a checkpoint when shooting broke out as the car was being searched, killing two police. The car took off, pursued by Islamic militiamen (Basiji) on motorcycle. One militia man was killed along with a trafficker in a second gunbattle.

10:13 New York. Sharon makes racist remarks about Arabs. Their agreements, declaraction and speeches are not worth the paper they are written on.

10:09 Beirut. Former Maronite warlord Michel Aoun will run in legislative elections.

09:30 Baghdad. Six dead in carbombing.

09:08 Baghda. Car bombing in capital.

09:00 Baghdad. Dragnet snares 403 alleged insurgents during operation "Squeeze Play" conducted by US and Iraq troops.

08:00 Tall Afar. Death toll in car bombings rises to 34. Yesterday's dual car bombing claims more lives. However, the PKK says 35 are dead and 25 wounded.

07:36 Damascus: Syria suspends cooperation with the USA. Syrian Ambassador to the United States Imad Moustapha says Damascus will end all cooperation with the USA, including military and intelligence links.

07:24 Kabul. Two Uzbeks working for the USA were killed along the highway between Kabul and Kandahar.

07:06 Tashkent. Dissident arrested. The Uzbek authorities arrested human rights activist Saidiahon Zaynabitdinov.

02:18 Washington. Hayden Schaeffer, the Cessna 150 pilot who violated the airspace over Washington DC on May 11, had his pilot's licence suspended by the FAA.

01:31 Washington. Senate alarm. A Cessna aircraft violated airspace over Washington DC around midnight. The Senate suspended its business as the aircraft was forced to land in Gaithernsburg, MD.

Civilian Massacre by Uzbek Forces in Andijan

Yesterday's Le Monde has a sourced report by Jacques Follorou and Natalie Nougayrède of the massacre of innocent and unarmed civlians in Andijan by Karimov's troops following the street demonstrations there. Karimov claimed only armed demonstrators were killed but it is an outrageous and murderous lie.

LE MONDE | 23.05.05 | 15h46

On the morning of Friday 13 May in Andijan, a city of 300,000 in the Ferghana Valley, a vast oasis of rice paddies, cotton fields and fruit orchards along Central Asia’s ancient Silk Road, a crowd assembled, seized with fear and excitement. The night before, at midnight, armed insurgents took control of an armory and broke down the gates of the prison, freeing hundreds of prisoners, including 23 local businessmen.

They next entered city hall. In Babour Square, thousands of residents, venting their exasperation with the regime of Uzbek President Karimov, in power since 1989, began to assemble.

The fate of the 23 businessmen is the key element which set off the revolt. The trial of these men, accused of religious extremism, had be going on in Andijan since February. A crowd of supporters and relatives watched the proceedings; the verdict was to be read on 12 May. The day before, however, the authorities announced the suspension of the trial and a change of venue to a faraway province on the Aral Sea. The decision sent a wave of anger through the populace.

Among the accused were two brothers of Khassan Sharikov, a frail young man of 27 in exile in Kyrgyzstan in an encampment of military-issue tents along the Kara Daria river, which demarks the Uzbek frontier. Next to some 500 other refugees demanding political asylum in Kyrgyzstan, Khassan narrates the events of the days which led to the massacre of hundreds of men, women and children by the Uzbek army on the afternoon of 13 May.

My brothers Shakir and Shavkiat ran a garment shop which employed forty or so workers. Starting in June of 2004 the SNB –the Uzbek secret police- began a shakedown operation targeting them and other entrepreneurs in the city, threatening tax audits and closures. My brothers were part of a group of entrepreneurs, furniture manufacturers, toolmakers and tradesmen providing mutual assistance. They became very popular among the populace because they gave people jobs. Their employees received health care and free meals. In the mahallas (traditional Uzbek neighborhoods) they organized celebrations, prepared lamb and distributed gifts. My brothers contributed to the orphanage. Everything was founded on a certain ethic.

In Babour Square that 13th of May, people spoke up, one by one, using a loudspeaker taken from city hall, including the city prosecutor. Men complained of economic hardship. Women protested the wave of arrests sweeping the region over the last few months. The crowd grew. Khassan Sharikov says there were 30,000 demonstrators. The OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) in Tashkent says there were between 5000 and 10,000 people. No Islamist slogans were used, only calls for justice and freedom.

Around 10 a.m., an armored military vehicle belonging to the forces which had concentrated themselves in the side streets, entered Babour Square and opened fire on the demonstrators. Combat helicopters appeared overhead. The crowd, which had heard on the radio that President Karimov was heading for Andijan, believed for a moment that he had arrived and that there would be negotiations.

Around noon, other shots where heard, coming from a second armored vehicle racing down Navoï Avenue, equipped with a machine gun and following by trucks filled with soldiers. The wounded and the dead (between ten and twenty corpses) were carried towards city hall. Inside the building, young Khassan began to send e-mails on a city computer to journalists and press agencies who knew us, because they had been covering the trial of the Twenty-Three.

According to information gathered by Western diplomats in Tashkent, negotiations by telephone took place between the insurgents and Uzbek Interior Minister Zakir Almatov. The demands of the protesters were the release from prison of the twenty-three defendants; this was judged unacceptable by President Karimov.

Around 5 pm, the shooting from the military grew more intense and a portion of the crowd left the square heading down Shoulpon Avenue, the only remaining exit after the military had encircled the square. Soldiers, hidden behind the trees lining the boulevard, opened fire. People fell dead. Armed insurgents deployed themselves between the military and the departing crowd in order to protect them against the soldiers, relates Khassan Sharikov. Women and children to the middle!, shouted the insurgents, who had placed local officials taken hostage in front of them as human shields.

When they got to the Shoulpon Cinema they discovered that the avenue was blocked by armored vehicles and surrounded by army snipers on the rooftops. This is where the largest number of killings took place. The troops took aim at the crowd with heavy machine guns. There were many, many dead, says Khassan Sharikov. We were flat on the ground. It lasted 15 minutes. I lifted my head to see women and children covered in blood, exploded limbs due to the impact of the bullets and fractured skulls. The ground was covered with pools of blood and rain. The men protecting us were all dead.

A group of residents managed to escape down an alley and began the long, all-night trek towards the Kyrgyz frontier where other soldiers opened fire on them as they walked along a narrow path, killing eight of them. My wife fell, stricken by a hail of bullets which pierced her kidneys, recounts Akram Zahidov, under a tent in Kara Daria.

According to the Red Cross Committee in Uzbekistan, its was possible to ascertain from bullet wounds fired at point blank range at forty corpses that the Army had finished off the wounded following the Andijan fusillade. Other dead were carried away by trucks. Access to hospitals, morgues and School No. 15, where bodies were collected, remains forbidden to NGOs and the Red Cross.

OCSE and the Red Cross officials say hundreds of people (between 300 and 500) –but not thousands as other sources reported- were killed during the disturbances. OCSE underscores that no warning was issued to the crowd, which was peaceful and unarmed and that insurgents did not fire on the military before the assault on the crowd. This refutes President Karimov’s version of events, according to which no unarmed civilian was shot.

10,000 Kites

leila abu saba 

In San Francisco, Leila Abu-Saba, aka Beduina, joins in a gesture of solidarity together with much larger kite-flying events held last Friday in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. [From the San Francisco Chronicle.]

23 May 2005 Events in Iraq

Haswa. Four US soldiers were killed Monday after they were attacked in Haswa, 30 miles south of Baghdad. The soldiers were assigned to the 155th Brigade Combat Team, II Marine Expeditionary Force

Canberra. Australian soldiers to be withdrawn from Iraq in eight months. Australian troops deployed to southern Iraq may be withdrawn in 8 months as they are replaced by Iraqi forces, says General Peter Cosgrove of the Australian General Staff. General Cosgrove also announced that his son Philip had been wounded in Iraq in a roadside bombing in January 2005.

Amman. Daughter of Saddam Hussein "outraged" by photos of her father. Raghad Hussein is outraged by the prison photos of her father. Raghad, and her sister Rana and their 9 children went into exile in Jordan on 31 July 2003. Their mother, Sajida and the third sister, Hala, live in Qatar.

Baghdad. Former Premier Iyad Allawi claims that al-Qaeda Number 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri visited Iraq in 1999. Allawi adds that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi entered Iraq at about the same time to establish links with Ansar al-Sunna. Allawi says al-Zawahiri entered the country under a false name to attend the 9th Popular Islamic Conference held in September. Allawi claims that Farouk Hijazi, former Iraqi ambassador to Turkey, was named by Saddam to liaise with Islamist organizations. [Is this the truth? Are King Abdullah and tag teaming in setting up the Saddam-al Qaeda link?--Nur]

Paris. French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier will hold talks with the UN Special Representative to Iraq Achraf Qazi on preparations for the 22 June conference on Iraq.

Samarra. Three suicide carbombs target a US base in Samarra, wounding four GIs.

Kirkuk. Two Kurds were killed and five others wounded by mortar fire.

22:37 Baghdad. Mass arrests; 366 rounded up in the western quarters of the capital. American combat helicopters and warplanes shadowed the operation as US and Iraqi troops conducted house-to-house searches.

21:50 Jerusalem. Israeli troops use Palestinian adolescent as human shield. Israeli TV broadcasts the incident, filmed last week on the West Bank. The Israeli Supreme Court has declared the use of human shields as illegal.

20:55 Tal Afar. Carbomb kills 20. At least 20 people are dead and 25 are wounded in a dual carbombing in Tel Afar. The target was local Shi'a politician Hassan Baktash, a Shiite Muslim with close ties to the Kurdistan Democratic Party,

19:27 An Iraqi-American, who an Internet statement claimed has been killed for being a U.S. military pilot, is a businessman who returned to Iraq 18 months ago and disappeared last week, his brother said Monday. Neenus Youssef Khoshaba has been missing since Tuesday when he left his Baghdad family home to attend a business meeting, said his elder brother, Boulus. "I heard in the news that he was killed," the brother said. On Sunday, a statement purportedly released by the al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist group claimed it had killed Khoshaba for being an American pilot who had bombed mosques and civilians. The group claimed to have kidnapped Khoshaba and posted photos of an Illinois driver's license of a 56-year-old man from Skokie, Illinois, and hotel and airline privilege cards. "After interrogating him, it was revealed it was he who bombed a number of mosques (and) the hotel Ishtar Sheraton in Baghdad during the invasion, as well as bombing a number of civilian homes," said the statement. "After finishing the interrogation, God's ruling was executed," it added. "He has nothing to do with the military. He works in business," said the brother, adding he was too old to be a military pilot. Boulus Khoshaba said his family had received a call from a man claiming to be Egyptian asking about his brother. After finishing high school in 1969, the missing man left Iraq to the United States where he lived in Illinois and studied computer science before moving to Saudi Arabia, where he worked for more than two decades. Khoshaba, who was still using his Iraqi passport, returned to Iraq to live with his mother and brother in Baghdad about 1 1/2 years ago after his wife died of cancer.

19:26 Washington. President George W. Bush will insist that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas dismantle all terrorist networks in Palestinian areas when they meet at the White House on Thursday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. In a rousing pro-Israel speech at a policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Rice said Monday "the president will be clear that there are commitments to be met, that there are goals to be met." She said Israel had obligations as well, and that Bush, having shunned Yasser Arafat, will build with Abbas "a relationship that is based on the good faith that only democratic leaders can bring." As Rice spoke, Sharon was in New York, rallying American Jews to support his plan to withdraw all Israeli Jews and troops from Gaza and to turn over the area to the Palestinians _ a move endorsed by the Bush administration. Protesters accused Sharon of giving in to violence and said more Israeli territorial withdrawals would follow.

19:16 Baghdad. Iraq's Islamic Party, the main Sunni political movement, warned against politicizing the security forces. We, the Islamic Party, condemn all forms of terrorism, whether it targets individuals, groups or governments. At the conclusion of their meeting, Sunni notables reaffirmed their opposition foreign occupation and maintained that resistance is legitimate.

19:16 Mahmoudiya. A car bomb exploded outside Hussaynia Fadlallah al-Abbasa, a Shi'ite mosque south of Baghdad, killing five people and wounding 19, most of them children, hospital officials said. Witnesses said the blast caused the building to collapse, killing five inside. Doctors at nearby hospitals said 11 of those wounded were children. Several other aging structures also tumbled.

19:15 Ottawa. Amnesty International plans to "adopt" US deserter Jeremy Hinzman, who has saught refuge in Canada after he refused deployment to Iraq.

19:14 Baghdad. The new Constitution will restore stability to Iraq only if the rebels and other groups not represented in the government acquire a genuine political role, said Hadjim al Hassani, National Assembly Speaker, in an interview with Reuters.

19:10 Baghdad. Death toll rises to 13 in restaurant bombing. 126 are wounded.

18:55 Jerusalem. Less than 100 settler families out of 1,700 on the Gaza Strip have registered for an indemnity. Settlers who refuse to leave their residences voluntarily before 20 July will see their indemnity reduced by one-third. The total cost of the pullout is projected to be $1.5 billion.

18:51 Teheran. Fearing a boycott after all reformist candidates were disqualified from Iran's upcoming elections, the country's supreme leader ordered Monday the applications of some candidates be reviewed, state-run television reported. The Guardian Council, the hardline constitutional watchdog which vets the election candidates, rejected on Sunday all the reformists who'd registered to run in next month's presidential elections. Only six out of more than 1,000 hopeful candidates were approved, and those six were not from the reformist camp. "It's appropriate that all individuals in the country be given the choice from various political tendencies," said Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in his decree addressed to Guardian Council chief Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati. "Therefore, it seems that (the) qualification of Mr. Moin and Mr. Mehralizadeh be reconsidered," the television quoted Khamenei's decree as saying, referring to the two most prominent reformists disqualified, Mostafa Moin and Vice President Mohsen Mehralizadeh. Khamenei's call is unlikely to appease the reformists, who have slammed the council's vetting policies as illegal.

18:39 New York. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice offered her unwavering support to the Israeli plan for a pullout from the Gaza Strip and called upon Israelis and Palestinians to "fulfill their obligations". Rice spoke before the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

18:17 Dubai. Ansar al-Sunna announced the execution of two Iraqi and a Jordanian truck drivers who worked for the US military in Iraq. Jordanian Hammad Ismaël Al-Sanee was ambushed while transporting supplies from the port of Aqaba to US bases in Iraq. Iraqis Khaïri Abdel Majid Ftouh and Faran Faëq Fadhel were ambushed as the left the US base at Al-Assad, the largest in Iraq, where they had delivered electrical equipment. A video of the executions was uploaded to the Internet.

17:21 Mosul. Three US soldiers were killed in separate incidents in Mosul on Sunday. A fourth was killed by an explosive device near Tikrit.

16:33 Baghdad. Ali "Ford", an auto mechanic specialized in repairing Ford automobiles, wounders how he is going to the family of this apprentice that the fellow was killed in the bombing of the Habayebna Restaurant on Monday. Government sources say 113 were wounded and 4 killed in a bombing in the Shi'ite Jamila quarter of Baghdad. The blast left a crator where the restaurant formerly stood. Usually Sadr City police eat here every day but today not one of them showed up, said an eye witness. The restaurant had received threats because police were frequent customers.

16:03 Jerusalem. Palestinian Interior and Security Minister Nasr Yussef is to meet on Monday evening with Israeli Defense Minister Shaoul Mofaz for talks on the handover of security responsibilities on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.

16:02 Brussels. European express concern over preparation for Iranian elections. Of 1,008 candidates only six have been approved to run [This track record is superior to that of Egypt--Nur]. Europe believes reform candidat Mostapha Moïn should be permitted to run. In addition to the candidature Mr. Rafsanjani, former president, the Council of Guardians has approved four conservatives and a reformer, Mehdi Karoubi, a distant relative of outgoing President Mohammad Khatami.

15:30 Baghdad. Death toll is four in restaurant bombing.

15:18 Brussels. Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino reiterates that in the medium-term, Afghanistan is in worse shape than Iraq.[Whew--that must be bad!--Nur]

14:50 Ft. Hood: Court martial of Shane Werst, 32, accused of murdering Iraqi prisoner Naser Ismail after a sweep through a neighborhood.

14:19 Bucharest. Kidnapped reporters return home. A Romanian military aircraft repatriated three reporters to a military base near the capital, Bucharest. The base was sealed off to the public. Their guide and interpreter, Mohammed Minaf, is in custody in Baghdad where he is being questioned by coalition forces. Romanian President Traian Basescu says no ransom or political concession was made to the kidnappers.

13:39 Baghdad. Carbombing in Shi'ite neighborhood has killed or injured at least 52 people. The detonation took place in the Jamila district near a crowded restaurant. The blast set parked cars ablaze.

12:28 Baghdad. Carbombing in Shi'ite neighborhood. A car stuffed with explosives blew up near a restaurant in a busy Baghdad neighborhood.

11:22 Brussels. EU foreign ministers condemn Uzbekistan for its refusal to accept an investigation into the bloody repression during a recent popular uprising.

10:45 Baghdad. Anti-terrorism chief assassinated. General Wael Rubaye was assassinated in the Mansur district of the capital by unarmed gunmen as he was being driven to work.

08:29 Kirkuk. Truck bomb kills 4 civilians. A truck bomb targeted the residence of a municipal administrator this morning in Tuz Khurmatu, south of Kirkuk, killing four and wounding four others. The official was unharmed.

07:08 Samarra. Iraqi insurgents fired 10 mortar rounds at an Iraqi police and army base. Two soldiers were killed and a third wounded.

01:10 London. Colonel Jorge Mendonca faces court martial for prisoner abuse in Basrah in an operation known as Ali Baba. If Col. Mondonca is found guilty, he will be the first British commanding officer sentenced for criminal misconduct since 1950.

01:01 Baghdad. Sunni leaders reopened the debate on the murders of Sunni clerics, blaming Interior Minister Bayan Baqer Sulagh, a Shi'a, for mosque raids and arrests of imams and worshipers alike during a conference assembling 1,000 Sunni notables. Sulagh had previously declared that he would make a "deal with the devil" to defeat terrorism. Sunnis demanded an independent commission of inquiry into the murders.

22 May 2005 Events in Iraq

Riyadh. 18 Saudi Ulema, for the most part Salafist, and intellectuals have demanded trial before an Islamic tribunal of those responsible for the profanation of the Koran in Guantanamo in a communiqué by AFP.

Baghdad. Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi announced the execution of US national Neenus Y. Khoshaba.

Baghdad. Moqtada Sadr's movement has announced the start of mediation between Iraqi Shi'a and Sunnis in an effort to resolve the crisis around the murder of clerics from both sides. Meanwhile, governmental spokesman Leith Koubba has asked Sunni leaders to withdraw their opposition to "foreign occupation" and legitimization of the insurgents. .

Baghdad. US forces are to regroup in four new huge bases as they hand over their current bases to Iraqi forces. Permanent structures were be built as well as landing strips. US troops are now scattered over 106 bases in Iraq. The US Defense Department says this "consolidation" does not represent a "permanent military presence."

Baghdad. Iraqi Justice Minister Abdel Hussein Shandal has condemned The Sun's publication of prison photos of Saddam Hussein.

Baghdad. Two Syrians sentenced to life in prison for thier links to guerrillas. Two Syrians arrested during combat in Fallujah last autumn have been sentenced to life in prison Moayyed Mohammed Ali Sabani was convicted by a criminal court for illegal entry into the country and weapons possession. Anas Mohammed Khaled was sentenced for taking part in "terrorist actions" and for weapons possession.

London. British colonel may be prosecuted for war crimes. A regimental colonel may be court martialed for a war crime committed against an Iraq prisoner in 2003. Col Jorge Mendonca, 41, a DSO (Distinguished Service Order) recipient and commander of the Royal Lancashire Regiment, is being investigated by military judicial authorities for his role in the death of Iraqi hotel worker Baha Moussa, who was beaten to death during his detention by British soldiers.

23:51 Tikrit. Two US soldiers are killed in separate incidents in Tikrit and Kirkuk. The first was killed by a carbomb targeting his convoy; the second died in a road accident outside Kirkuk.

21:51 Baghdad. US and Iraqi troops carried out an anti-terrorism operation in the Abu Ghraib district of west Baghdad. Several arrests were made and those detained are undergoing interrogation.

17:45 Damascus. Representative of the principal Palestinian factions including Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad met in Damascus to find a common position regarding the truce with Israel. Hamas has threatened to reconsider its acceptance of the truce after the assassination of two of its members by the Israeli military.

15:22 Kabul. UN condemns United States. The United Nations has issued a harsh condemnation of prisoner abuse and torture inside the US military base in Baagram. The United Nations Special Envoy to Afghanistan, Jean Arnault, has called the methods used "unacceptable" and supported President Karzai in his call for punishment of those involved.

16:38 Baghdad. Nth al Zarqawi lieutenant arrested. Ismail Budair Ibrahim al Obeidi, a suspected terrorist with links to Abu Musab al Zarqawi, was arrested by Iraqi security forces in Baquba on Tuesday.

16:06 Al Kut. 187 suspected rebels have been arrested in Wasit Province near the Iranian border.

16:03 Jerusalem. Laura Bush heckled. First Lady Laura Bush was heckled twice today during a visit to Jerusalem. At the Wailing Wall, a group of Israeli extremists demonstrated for the release of spy Jonathan Pollard, sentenced to life in prison in 1987. Later, the First Lady was heckled by Arab demonstrators shoutng "Death to America."

15:43 Al Kut. Three Ansar al-Sunna militants, 25, 30 and 44, received death sentence from an Iraqi tribunal for murder, rape and kidnapping. This is the first time the death sentence has been handed down under the government of Premier Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who is in favor of the death penalty. The penalty had been frozen by the Americans. The method of execution was not announced.

14:56 Bucharest. Three Romanian hostages and their Iraqi-American guide have been released, says a presidential spokesperson Adriana Saftoiu. Marie Jeanne Ion, reporter for Prima TV, her cameraman Sorin Miscoci and Eduard Ohanesian, correspondant for the newspaper Romania Libera were kidnapped on March 28 in a Baghdad suburb along with their guide Mohamed Munaf, a US-Iraqi businessman. Meanwhile, there is no news concerning the fate of kidnapped French reporter Florence Aubenas and her Iraqi guide, Hussein Hanoun.

14:34 Osh (Kyrgyzstan). Kyrgyzstan denies asylum to more than 500 Uzbek refugees, says presidential representative Almambet Matubraimov. The refugees are living in tents in the border town of Kara Dary.

12:51 Baghdad. Ex-lieutenant of Saddam Hussein released. Iraqi authorities have released Ghazi Hammud al Obeidi.

09:31 Baghdad. Trade Ministry official assassinated. Ali Moussa Salman and his driver were killed by unknown gunmen.

09:15 Geneva. The foreign ministers of France, Britain and Germany have organized a 25 May summit at the Iranian Embassy in Geneva on the nuclear issue.

08:56 Kirkuk. A bomb blast in Oyoun, a village 55 km from Kirkuk, killed one civilian and wounded another.

07:25 Baghdad. Bomb blast in Gzalia quarter kills one and wounds 10. The bomb targeted a joint US-Iraqi convoy. The victims are civilians.

06:41 Kabul. Afghani President Karzai will meet with George W. Bush in Washington tomorrow.

21 May 2005 Events in Iraq

00:23 Baku. Dozens of arrests in Azerbaijan. Members of opposition rounded up to prevent an unauthorized demonstration by Musawat, the Popular Front and the Democratic party in the center of Baku to protest the inauguration of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. 45 were arrested and more than 300 beaten by police.

20:33 Mosul. 12 Interior Ministry elite troops killed in a series of rebel attacks across northern Iraq.

18:03 Ankara. Al Jaafari says multinational forces will stay in Iraq an idefinite amount of time.

15:42 Beiji. Guerrillas attack a 20-vehicle government convoy at dawn, kiling 8 Iraqi troops.

14:00 Kabul. Italian hostage Clementina Cantoni is said to have an eye infection.

13:47 Kabul. President Hamid Karzai has demanded that the United States release all Afghani prisoners held in Guantanamo following the revelation of the death of two prisoner in US custody at Bagram Air Force Base.

12:44 Rome. MP Franco Ionta, chief of the Rome Public Prosecutor's antiterrorism pool, says the situation in Afghanistan is worse than that in Iraq.

12:00 Kara Suu. 200 Uzbeks fleeing the country have been stopped at the frontier with Kyrgyzstan

09:56 London. The Sun ran a second series of photos of Saddam Hussein

07:44 Baghdad. Two Iraqis who attempted to avoid a checkpoint south of Baghdad were pursued and killed between Latifiyah and Mahmoudiyah. Meanwhile the bodies of three Iraqi shot to death near Latifiyah were found in a rural area.

20 May 2005 Events in Iraq

Investigations, investigations, investigations!

Baghdad. Suicide carbomb. A suicide carbomb targeted an Iraqi convoy, killing two soliders. US helicopters intervened and a raging battle occurred between rebels and Iraqi troops

Washington. The US Army announced the death of four of its soldiers since Wednesday in multiple attacks and that a fifth soldier was killed in a road accident caused by a roadside bomb.

Baghdad. Rebels directed fire on Abu Ghraib prison wounding five prisoners.

Ankara. Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, making his first official visit to a foreign country, announced that the Iraqi government would soon begin negotiations with Syria on stemming the infiltration of foreign fighters into Iraq, saying that Iraq would not tolerate risks posed by its neighbors. Al Jaafari also tried to calm Turkish fears concerning the presence in nothern Iraq of 5,000 PKK fighters and their infiltration into Turkey. [Hmm, maybe al-Jaafari shouldn't threaten Syria, then--Nur]. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan praised the determination of the Iraqi government to preserve Iraq's territorial integrity. Turkey believes Iraqi Kurds want to declare independence, a move which would encourage the separatist aspirations of Turkish Kurds.

Baghdad. Iran demanded war reparations from Iraq for the 1980-1988 Iran Iraq war. The Iranians presented a bill for $100 billion although some experts claim it should be $1 trillion. The UN declared Iraq responsible for the war in 1991 which Saddam always rejected. Officially 200,000 Iranian troops died in the war. The $100 billion amount does not include damages due civilians.

Cairo. Clashes between pro- and anti-Mubarek demonstrators. A hundred Mubarek supporters fought with opponents in the al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, following Friday prayers. The opponents, mostly Islamists, began shouting No allegiance to Mubarak-our loyalty is to God. Mubarek supporters then tore up their signs and banners. Shoes were thrown in the fracas.

23:59 Kara Darya: 500 Uzbek refugees request asylum in Kyrghizstan. The refugees drafted a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, asking for the protection of the United Nations.

23:54 London. The Sun printed yet another photo of Saddam Hussein as well as other prominent figures in the former regime. The paper also published a photos of a cousin of Saddam Hussein, Ali Hassan al-Majid, dubbed "Chemical Ali", and Dr Houda Saleh Mehdi Amache (Mrs.Anthrax).

23:58. Washington. Iranian exile claims Iran is importing graphite components for nuclear activities. Alireza Jafarzadeh claims that Iran has used a number of front companies abroad to circumvent international controls on the export of graphite components to Teheran needed for nuclear and conventional weapons. One of the companies is said to be in Dubai which purchased a quantity of components from China. However, UN arms control expert David Albright said that Jafarzadeh has little if any credibility and that the claim was timed to coincided with meetings between Iran and the European Union and of the IAE Board of Governors.

23:56 Washington. Army recruiters are coming under increasing criticism for their aggressive practices and improper conduct. Seven cases of impropriety are now under investigation.

23:54 Baghdad. A previously unknown group, Jamaat Jound al Sahaba (Soldier-Companions of the Prophet), claimed credit for a bombing outside a Shi'ite mosque which killed two and wounded five.

23:35 Washington. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Damascus that Syria was not "insulated" from ongoing change in the Middle East. Yesterday Mrs. Rice used the same words when referring to Iran. Mrs. Rice repeated the charge that Syria was supporting Iraqi insurgents and accused Syria of supporting Palestinian militants.

23:28 Washington. US traverses worst recruiting crises in decades. Major-Genereal Michael Rochelle, in charge of recruiting for the US Army, is quoted as saying in a press conference today that Today's conditions represent the most challenging conditions we have seen in recruiting in my 33 years in this uniform. We are faced with very low unemployment (and) the first time that the all-volunteer force has been challenged in sustained land combat. The numbers are worrisome: recruiting goals have not be met in three consecutive months.

22:28 New York. The UN confirms that Karimov will not permit an investigation of riot deaths in Uzbekistan. The US is "disappointed" by Mr. Karimov's decision, says State Dept. Spokesman Richard Boucher.

22:17 Washington. A White House spokesman said the US would investigate the death in detention of two young Afghani men at the US base in Bagram, Afghanistan. The New York Times published a story saying the pair was torturned to death in 2002. Taxi-driver Dilawar had been accused of participating in a rocket attack on the US base at Khost (Southeast) and received more than 100 blows to his legs, after which he expired. An autopsy reported that his legs had ben literally pulverized. Witness Lieutenant-Colonel Elizabeth Rouse said the sight was worse than that of someone who had been run over by a bus. Habibullah, the second prisoner, died of a heart attack due to blood clots caused by beatings.

21:49 Baghdad. Saddam Hussein to be put on trial within the next few months, said Iraqi Planning Minister Bahram Saleh in Washington, following a meeting with Condoleezza Rice.

21:47 Paris. French hostage Florence Aubenas and her guide Hussein Hanoun, soon to mark 150 days in captivity. 150 boats will sail from Marseille on June 5th in symbolic protest.

21:40 London. Emmanuel Ludot, a member of Saddam Hussein's legal team, says the team will sue The Sun for $1 million in damages for the publication of photos of Saddam Hussein in his underwear.

21:29 Washington. Fourteen year-olds recruited for the US Army thanks to loophole. A loophole in the 'No Child Left Behind' legislation permits the United States to recruit 14 year-old students. CBS reported that recruiters urged the adolescents to lie to their parents, cheat on drug tests and forge documents. CBS filmed a recruiter as he threatened to jail a student if he did not keep his appointment at the recruiting office.

18:14 Washington. The USA announced Friday that Syria continues to interfere in Lebanese affairs despite the pullout in April. Scott Carpenter, Deputy Undersecretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs, condemned "manipulation" by Syrian intelligence. Carpenter also demanded the disarming of Hezbollah and claimed that the group receives "several million dollars a year" from Iran.

18:13 Washington. President George W. Bush said he did not think the the publication of photos of Saddam Hussein would spur further violence in Iraq. Meanwhile, Abdel Bari Atwan, Editor-in-Chief of the Arab daily, al-Quds al-Arabi, in London believes that the photos will feed the resistance and provoke bombings.

18:12 London. A spokesman for the tabloid, The Sun, defended the publication of photos of Saddam Hussein in prison, saying that the photos were "fantastic" and "emblematic". Editor-in-Chief Graham Dudman challanged any publication to say they would not have published the photos had they had the opportunity. He's the Hitler of modern times, and, if you please, don't ask me to feel sorry for him, continued Dudman.

17:45 Baghdad. A group linked to Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi claimed credit for a carbombing in the northern part of the capital which killed two Iraqi soldiers and wounded three others in Abdel Mohsen Al-Kazimi Square in the Kazimya district. The convoy was destroyed.

17:38. Amman. King Abdallah II of Jordan opened the World Economic Forum in Shouneh on the west bank of the Dead Sea, welcoming 1,200 politicians, businessmen and advocates for civil society. Positive winds of change are blowing through the region, said the King, who also called for "a just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. During a workshop, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari deplored the violence rocking Iraq despite reforms and democratic elections. Meanwhile, the son of Libyan leader Moammar Qadhafi, Seif al-Islam, said that his country would soon welcome foreign investment in telecommunications. Al Islam also said that pubically-owned banks would be privatized and that foreigners could hold a minority share in Libyan banks. Laura Bush will address the Forum tomorrow.

17:27 Baghdad. Tensions have cooled between Shi'ites and Sunnis in Iraq. While Shi'ite appealed for national unity, Sunnis held a prayer strike to protest the murder of clerics from their community. Abdel Aziz Hakim of SCIRI urged Iraqis to resist discord and to ignore rumors. Aziz also had concilatory words for Iraqi Defense Minister Saadoun al-Doulaïmi. The Committe of Iraq Ulema called for a three-day prayer strike during which prayer would be suspended at Sunni mosques in a sign of peaceful protest, said Sheikh Ahmed Abdel Ghafour as-Samarraï, after weekly midday prayers at the Oum al-Qoura mosque. The Ulema also condemned the assassination of a cleric close to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

17:10 Washington. George Bush supports a vigorous and far-reaching investiation of the leak of photos of Saddam Hussein in white briefs to the British tabloid The Sun, owned by Rupert Murdoch. The New York Post, also owned by Murdoch, published the photos as well. The Sun said it received the photos from US soldiers who wanted to deliver a "body-blow" to the insurgency. The Pentagon says the photo is more than a year old. Meanwhile an attorney for Saddam Hussein, Ziad Khassawneh, told al-Jazeera that the legal team would take action for violation of Saddam's rights as a prisoner.

16:33 Kabul. The kidnapper of Italian hostage Clementina Cantoni has informed Reuters that the woman has been executed.

14:30 Ramallah. Meeting on tomorrow between Abu Mazen and Hosni Mubarak. The Palestinian and Egyptian presidents will be in Sharm al Sheikh on the progress of the Middle East peace process ahead of Mahmood Abbas' visit to Washington. Abbas said that the situation is very delicate and that he feels "worried" about the growing "climate of confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians".

12:30 Brussels. The EU-organized international conference on Iraq will be held on 22 June in Brussels during a visit by President George W. Bush [A fateful day in modern history--Nur] The conference will serve to demonstrate the political support of the international community for the new Iraq, says a spokesman for the EU Commissioners office.

11:49 Nassiriya. Shooting breaks out between supporters of radical Shi'ite leader Moqtada al Sadr and the local governor's police. Disorders broke out during a march organized by the Mahdi Army to protest the profanation of the Koran in Guantanamo. The police opened fire on the marchers as they approached the governor's offices and they returned fire. Four civilians and four police were wounded by gunfire and hospitalized.

11:07 Baghdad. New allegations of torture in Abu Ghraib prison. US soldiers simulated firing squads as psychological pressure on detainees, says the ACLU in a just-released 2,500-page report. Moreover, the report finds that US troops regularly terrorized civilians for amusement.

10:40 Baghdad. Saddam to be tried for his invasion of Iran. A joint Iraq-Iran commission has announced that Sadaam will be judged by a special tribunal for his culpability in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) and well as for his invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Also included is his role in the murder of his political opponents during his 30 in power, the gassing of the Kurds, and the extermination of Kurds and Shi'ites in 1991.

09:31 New York. Uzbekistan rejects UN investigation. Islam Karimov rejected the idea of an international investigation on the anti-government revolt in Uzbekistan which killed 700 in Andijan, 200 in Pahkta and 100 on the frontier with Kyrgyzstan. The inquiry was to have conducted fact-finding and to have determined the exact number of victims.

07:07 Baghdad. Two children killed by bomb. Two brothers, 5 and 9, were killed and their mother wounded by a bomb placed outside a Shi'ite mosque in the Saadiya quarter of the capital.

06:59 Baghdad. US soldier killed in Taji. A roadside bomb struck the 4x4 vehicle in which the soldier was travelling near Taji, north of Baghdad.

04:50 Washington. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says Iran must keep up with changes in the Middle East after a meeting with the Kuwaiti Foreign Minister. Rice said that the US would be against economic concessions to Iran in exchange for Iran's renunciation of its nuclear aims.

Peer Review: French Military Looks at US Performance in Iraq

Le Monde's military correspondent Laurent Zecchini reports on a French study of the performance of the US military in Iraq. Not only were US forces were completely unprepared for insurgent war but applied the tactics of "massive reconnoitering" borrowed from Sherman's March to the Sea. Unlike the British, US forces don't make the slightest attempt to respect the locals. The French analysts think that prevailing Protestant beliefs in predestination may have only increased the mayhem and bloodletting.

The French military authors a critical assessment of thirty months of US operation in Iraq.

Just because France did not participate in the invasion of Iraq it did not mean its military experts ignored methods with which the US military conducted its “stabilization operations” between May 2003 and December 2004. A study was carried out by the Centre de Doctrine d'Emploi des Forces (Force Deployment Doctrinal Center) headed by General Gérard Bezacier and is published in a special edition of the journal Doctrine. The study shows that the tactics employed by the US military evolved in the light of experience but that the errors committed in the first months resulted in hefty consequences.

The first mistake made by US high command was doubtlessly the failure to modify its methods between the end of the conflict and the beginning of the stabilization phase. The monitoring of terrain from large protected bases, rather like forts in the middle of “Injun” territory, was counter-productive. The inflexible attitude of its patrols, the systematic toying with passers-by, the conversing without removing sunglasses and the language barrier made acceptance by the population extremely artificial.

Coupled with ignorance of the cultural milieu and weakness in the intelligence system--which has not yet been able to break the counterinsurgency--stabilization operations were often disastrous. They’d often resort to massive encirclement of neighborhoods where, with loudspeakers blaring hard rock, their soldiers would forcibly enter homes and round all the men. They scoffed at complex traditions of hospitality, at personal honor by humiliating men in front of their families and at the sanctity of holy places, which they would enter with weapons, etc., according to the journal article.

The British, however, ensured the establishment of good relations with the populace from the outset. They behaved courteously and alway kept their weapons pointed towards the ground,-- which doesn’t hinder their being used in case of aggression--and observed the catchphrase: Smile, shoot, smile. In contrast to the Americans, the British always thought that their accessibility and consequently, their apparent vulnerability, indirectly offered them a greater security thanks to a better image among the populace.

Little by little the US high command realized that the “terrorists” were better organized and more numerous than they believed. When dealing with the insurgent threat, say the French experts, their only possible avenue was total extermination. So they reverted to body counts. Not only did they refuse to negotiate with the “evildoers”, but following Protestant logic, Iraqis did not become “bad guys”, they were born that way. It was therefore only a question of deploying sufficient means to eradicate them.

The Americans quickly understood that their troop levels were insufficient. To achieve the same ratio of coverage in Iraq as in Bosnia, they would have needed 364,000 troops; for that in Kosovo, 480,000 troops. But Coalition troops numbered only approximately 160,000. Moreover, the tactics they used were often contradictory. While one division would practice the British approach, another would behave like Israelis: demolishing homes, arresting entire families, replying to mortar attacks with artillery, etc.

With an average rate of two killed in action per day, the situation of US troops in Iraq is far from resembling that in Viet Nam (20 KIA per day from 1965 to 1972) or that of the French in Algeria (9.6 KIA per day for seven years).

In its strategy of “city siege”, the US Army would use what some officers call infernal columns, harking back to the methods employed by General William T. Sherman during the US Civil War, which are heavily-armored inter-service phalanxes supported by artillery. Furthermore, all US units are upping their numbers of elite marksmen and increasingly rely on armed drones.

The pronounced American preference for technological solutions was demonstrated in Fallujah: the Marine division which since its arrival on Iraqi soil has vaunted its blending with the populace and its velvet glove approach, transformed itself into just the opposite when it built Citizen Processing Centers in the city where the DNA of every man in town was sampled, their voice registered, their iris scanned, and their fingerprinted taken. Their databanks of this information are shared with the FBI and the CIA. The male residents are required to permanently display a special identity badge and are forbidden to drive their cars—the preferred weapon of suicide bombers.

For the French military, another tremendous US failing was the problem of counterinsurgency intelligence. Their first obstacle is one of military culture: the specialization in weaponry within the US Army casts aside the use of the soldier as a gatherer of intelligence. The intelligence community has always shown a pronounced preference for technical intelligence gathering to the detriment of human intelligence.

Military Intelligence personnel had very little training in looking for indicators or in dealing with civilian prisoners. When they realized this deficiency, they had FBI teams brought to Iraq to advise their forces in the field.

Article appears in the April 30th edition and is available in the on-line archives [subscription required].

19 May 2005 Events in Iraq

Washington. High-ranking US military officials in Washington and Baghdad have a less enthusiatic outlook this week than last, when some officials claimed that a positive turn of events would permit a large-scale pullout at the end of 2006. General John Abizaid, Chief of CENTCOM, said one of the problems was the negligible progress made in training Iraqi police capable of challenging the rebels and replacing US troops. A senior officer revealed that there had been 21 carbombs since the beginning of the year vs. 25 for all of 2004.

Baghdad. Chaldean Patriarch Monsignor Emmanuel Delly says the future Iraqi Constitution should not be based "solely on Islam." Delly discussed the subject with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. The Constituion must guarantee religious freedom to all Iraqis as well as their personal freedom. When asked about US missionaries in Iraq, Monsignor Delly said they were not missionaries, only people after a buck.

Moscow. The ex-Russian Number 3 rejected charges of his implication in the Oil for Food scandal. Former Chief of Staff Alexandre Volochin rejected charges levelled by the US Senate that he received coupons for 5 million barrels of oil from Saddam Hussein. He also denied knowing Sergei Issakov, alleged by Senators to be his confidant and collaborator.

Washington. A senior member of the US administration claimed that Syria is permitting members of al-Qaeda to enter Iraq.

New York. Human Rights Watch counsel Reed Brody says the religious humiliation of prisoners is in Guantanamo and elsewhere is widespread.

Baghdad. Radical cleric Moqtada Sadr has called upon Muslims to paint US and Israeli flags on the ground outside mosques so that they would be walked on by the faithful on their way to prayer as a sign of protest over the profanation of the Koran. US flags are already painted on the ground outside mosques in Baghdad and Najaf.

Washington. A US Muslim organization claims Amazon.com delivered a Koran purchased on-line which had been desecrated. When the recipients opened the book, they discovered that someone had written "Death ot all Muslims" on the inside.

Baghdad. A Shi'ite cleric close to Ayatollah Ali Sistani was gunned down this evening

Damascus. Syrian security forces arrested more than 40 persons belong to the Wahhabi religious current in the Province of Latakia, 350 km northwest of Damascus over the last few months, reports the Arab Human Rights Organization. The organization says they have been tortured and held without appearing before a magistrate. Meanwhile, the paternal uncle of Syrian President Bashir al-Assad intends to return to Syria, where "the situtation is grave" to take on "a political and national role in building a just, free and peaceful society", according to his spokesman al-Hareth al-Kheir.

Baghdad. A US soldier was killed by a mine.

Baghdad. A US soldier and 2 Iraqi soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb targeting their convoy.

Baghdad. A University of Baghdad faculty member was shot dead. Kassem Mohammed al-Azzaowi, a professor at Baghdad University's Nursing School, was killed by three armed gunmen.

Tikrit. The bodies of four Iraqis, executed by gunshot, were found south of the city.

Samarra. Five Iraqis were killed and the body of a slain Iraqi contractor was found.

Samarra. Security forces were place on alert as al-Zarqawi tracts were circulated threatening them with death.

Amman. King Abdallah II of Jordan says his government has requested Saddam Hussein's regime to extradite al-Zarqawi before the 2003 invasion. Abdallah II said in an interview with the Arab newspaper al-Hayat that Saddam Hussein spurned several requests to extradite Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, whose real name is Fadel Nazzal al-Khalayleh. Al-Zarqawi is wanted for the October 2002 murder of Laurence Foley, a USAid official in Amman. Al-Zarqawi was also found guilty in abstentia in December 2004 for planning a chemical weapons attack in Jordan.

Najaf. After a meeting with Ayatollah Sistani, visiting Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi affirmed there was no evidence of support by Iran of terrorist activities inside Iraq.

Baghdad. An Iraqi solider was killed in a suicide bombing and four others were kilnapped.

Baquba. Two police killed by landmine placed under a highway.

Baiji. Four Iraqi soldiers kidnapped at dawn.

Baghdad. Shi'ite and Kurdish MPs agreed to grant a role to Sunnis in the drafting of the new Constitution, although the total number of Sunni MPs is 17 out of 275.

Damascus. Syria denies US accusations of weapons trafficking and easy passage to Jihadi fighters. These are baseless accusations. Syria is doing all it can. The accusations are part of a political pressure campaign. We hope that during our next contacts and meetings with Iraqi officials further progress will be made on a security protocol with Iraq. Syria is ready to cooperate with the Iraqis, said a government spokesman.

Mosul. A 12 year-old girl and an adult were wounded in a bomb blast

23:45 Ramadi. US solider killed in shoot-out. The incident occurred outside a US military base. Meanwhile three other US soldiers died in separate actions in Baghdad. KIA now reaches 1,620.

18:54 Ramallah. In a reverse for Hamas, Palestinian judicial authorities cancelled the results of several election districts in the Gaza Strip. The victory of Islamic Resistance Movement were cancelled in 13 wards within Beït Lahiya. In Boureïdj, the victory of all Hamas candidates in 12 or 13 council seat races was annulled. In Rafah in the south Gaza Strip where Hamas won over Fatah in a landslide, results were also cancelled. 2,817 voters in Beït Lahiya will be called back to the polls in 10 days. Hamas accepted the decision but accused the judges of caving into pressure. Hamas victories on the West Bank were unchallenged.

18:38 Cairo. Egyptian authorities arrested 14 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, bringing the number of total arrests of Brotherhood members to 730.

18:31 Bucharest. The families and colleagues of three Romanian journalists held hostage in Iraq assembled in Bucharest's main square carrying banners saying, Silence Will Not Bring Them Home. Romanian President Trajan Basescu has been criticized for inaction.

18:47 Baghdad. The Badr oganization denied the accusations levelled by Sunni clerics that it is responsible in the deaths of Sunnis in the capital and announced that it would sue. Hareth Dari, spokesman for the Committee of Iraqi Ulema, directly accused the Badr organization in the murder of Sunni sheiks and imams.

18:37 Baghdad. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick appealed to Iraqi officials to speak out against sectarian violence in the country.

18:07 Washington. The US insists on a "very high bar" be raised for Iran concerning the suspension of its nuclear activities, according to Nicholas Burns, Number 3 at the US State Department.

17:56 Baghdad. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick met with Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari four days after a visit by Condoleezza Rice.

17:42 Tashkent. Uzbek forces killed up to 1,000 insurgents over the last week, sasy the International Helsinki Foundation for Human Right (IHF). 700 were killed in Andijan, 200 at Pahkta and 100 along the border with Krygyzstan.

17:26 Baghdad. The United States intensifies pressure on Syria, which it alleges is the main route of transit to Iraq by foreign fighters.

17:22 Damascus. State-owned Syrian Arab Airlines plans the purchase of seven Airbus passenger airliners.

17:07 London. Oil prices on the rise. The price of oil began rising after a statement by OPEC's Sheikh Ahmad that the cartel would cut back production if US reserves continue to rise. North Sea Brent closed at $48.7; Light Crude at $47.95.

16:01 Warsaw. Two Polish soldiers injured in bomb blast. Two Polish soldiers were injured by a roadside bomb as they were returning to their base in Hillah from Baghdad, according the the Polish military. Their vehicle was damaged and the two have been hospitalized.

16:00 Mosul. An Iraqi MP said he was the target of an assassination attempt today in which seven Iraqis were killed and three wounded. Insurgents attacked my home in northeast Mosul and there was an exchange of fire between them and my bodyguards and family, said Fawaz Mohammed Dhiab al-Jarba, who ran on the UIA list in the January elections. Seven persons, a driver, body guards and family members were killed. The insurgents were heavily armed and I phoned the Americans to relieve us. A US helicopter fired on the attackers. Al-Jarba split with the UIA one month ago.

15:12 Mosul. Clash between rebels and US troops. A US patrol was struck by a weapons fire in Mosul. Earlier a carbomb detonated in the al-Shurtah district, wounding three adults and a child, who was taken to a hospital.

11:27 Samarra. A police officer and his father were shot dead in Samarra by unknown gunmen as they were travelling in their car.

10:01 Basrah. Remains of 500 Gulf War soldiers found. The bodies of 600 Iraqi soldiers who died during the Iran-Iraq war were discovered in the desert. The Human Rights ministry says it is in possession of a new list of missing Iraqi soldiers.

08:01 Baghdad. Oil Ministry official assassinated. Ali Hamid, an ex-Oil Ministry official was assassinated in an ambush as he left his home.

Banksy Strikes at the British Museum

shopping 
Heh. Bansky: The Meat Department at Lascaux's.

Sandhurst in Baghdad

Update: Vistors are urged to read the observations of MarkFromIreland in the comments to this post.

Sandhurst used a model for new Iraqi army cadets [from Mehdi LEBOUACHERA (AFP) in L'Orient-Le Jour.]

In January the Iraqi military academy began training young officers based on instruction at the prestigeous British military academy at Sandhurst. This is "back to the source" after a Soviet-style interval which lasted 30 years.

Entry into the academy, located in Al Rustamiyah 10 km south of Baghdad and which will eventually welcome 900 cadets, is reserved to young recruits in excellent physical condition and in possession of a university diploma. It is here where NATO will open its own military academy this autumn. (The project had been delayed due to lack of funds).

In the suffocating heat, 20 recruits, addressed by the number on their uniforms, are running a dusty obstacle course and clearing beams and concrete walls. Even if discipline is not strict, recruits say they have come to serve their country and to measure up to the test. Lance Mohammed, 25, his face dripping with sweat, says he doesn't fear insurgent threats or attacks. This young man tried to enlist under Saddam Hussein but was rejected because his mother was Kurdish. But inshallah, in the new Iraqi army there will be no difference between Arabs and Kurds. British Colonel Neil Hutton, in charge of the training program, says religious or ethnic criteria will not be used to determine eligibility.

Further away, on a huge blacktopped surface, you hear the shouts of 90 cadets in impeccable uniforms learning to march in cadence under the severe gaze of Her Majesty's Instructor. The training we give here is the same as at Sandhurst, emphasized Capt. John Langton. We teach them the values of the British Army: courage, loyalty, discipline, respect for others, personal commitment and integrity.

Iraqi and British military ties go way back. The academy, where fading photos of former cadets who achieved high rank still hang on the walls, was created by the British in 1924 when they administered a mandate over the country.

The instruction methods used at Sandhurst, where many an Arab leader has trained, were in use in Iraq until 1970 when the Ba'ath regime turned towards the Soviet Union for military assistance. Colonel Hutton says the return was inspired not only by the historical ties between the two countries but because the period of instruction is 12 months. Officers can be rapidly turned out to fight the insurgents.

The goal of instruction is to develop their ability of command so that they will become professional soldiers and believers in republicanism, as well as to break the tradition of launching military coups.

The academy is willing to incorporate Saddam-era military men but on certain conditions. It depends on their role in the Ba'ath Party and their past, says Colonel Hutton. This reporter met an ex-officer of Saddam's military who decided to come back. After the fall of Saddam, I tried to work as a civilian but I had no luck. I like the tough life of the military. The 30-something officer was almost apologetic for having served in the ex-dictator's military: I was a soldier and I was not concerned with who was in power.

18 May 2005 Events in Iraq

Baghdad. Two separate car bombings killed four people

Baghdad. An Interior Ministry official was assassinated in south Baghdad.

Mosul. A civilian was killed in clashes between guerrillas and police.

Baquba. Car bomb wounds 18, including 14 police

Fallujah. The bodies of seven Turkmen security guards were found south of Fallujah. They had been executed by a bullet to the head.

Baghdad. The Committee of Iraqi Ulema directly accused the Badr Brigades of the murder of two Sunni clerics in the capital. The committee also accused the national security services of the murder of 14 Sunnis, including three imams, despite official denials.

Baghdad. The Iraqi Interior Ministry and the Defense Ministry will be investigated by the Commission on Public Integrity for allegations of corruption under the administraiton of Iyad Allawi.

Baghdad. The Iraqi Central Tribunal sentenced the driver of a garbage truck to life in prison for hiding 700 rockets and 7 launchers inside his vehicle. The tribunal, created by the US-imposed Coalition Provisional Authority, has tried 450 persons for crimes against the state. 300 were found guilty and the rest were acquitted. Some received life sentences.

Kabul. Update RE: kidnapping of Italian aid worker. Kabul police were being disingenuous yesterday when it blamed a criminal gang run by Tela Mohammed for the deed. Today Taimur Shah used Cantoni's satellite phone to call into the US-financed Radio Liberty to announce his demands: a ban on alcohol sales, an end to a televised music show, and increased support for schools of Islamic religious instruction in the country. Meanwhile, Shaima Rezayee, 24, the hostess of an Afghani music video program was shot dead.

23:56 London. The British Defence Minister said today that the military is conducting an independent investigation into allegations of torture made by nine Iraqis against British troops. The abuses are said to have occurred at Camp Breadbasket, where British soldiers were engaged in Operation Ali Baba, meant to protect humanitarian food supplies from pilferage.

23:55 Baghdad. General John Abizaid of CENTCOM accused Syria of not doing enough to stop the use of its territory by Iraqi insurgents planning attacks in Iraq.

23:53 New York. The UN expressed its concern at the rash of violent incidents between Palestinians and Israelis. However, violence remains below the level of that prior to the February Sharm al Sheik accords, says UN chargé d'affaires, Kieran Prendergast.

23:44 Tbilisi: FBI says the grenade found in the Georgian capital during the visit of George W. Bush was live but did not explode due to a defect.

23:38 Ramallah. Palestininian minister Nabil Shaas demanded the suspension of a radical Muslim cleric calling Jews "a virus close to AIDS" in a televised sermon.

22:02 Washington. White House denies a New York Times report saying the Bush administration intends to initiate plans to militarize space.

19:04 Baghdad. Zarqawi justifies killing other Muslims in suicide attacks. The killing of infidels by any means, including through martyrdom, has been sanctified by many scholars even if innocent Muslims are killed.

18:34 Baghdad. A high-ranking US military official says that Abu Mussab Zarkawi decided to augment the number of attacks in Iraq during a recent meeting in Syria. The official said that Zarqawi ordered his men to increase suicide carbombs in daily operations. The official said that the meeting had taken place one month ago without asserting that al-Zarqawi was physically present. The US military says the meeting included former members of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party and ex-intelligence men. Meanwhile, the United States continued to warn Damascus about the transit of weapons and foreign fighters through its territory.

18:14 Teheran. Iran says its decision to resume its nuclear activities is irreversible but that it could be delayed by several weeks if discussions with the "Troika" go well, said Hassan Rohani, Chief Negotiator.

17:54 Cairo. Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif says that George W. Bush urged him to make progress on reforms after a meeting at the White House. Mr. Bush had called for the presence of observers during the upcoming elections but this suggestion was rejected by Gamal Mubarak and by the Chairman of the High Commission on Policy of the ruling National Democratic Party. I heard the President's recommendation on what should be done. We should concentrate on Gaza and there we are in agreeement. We believe that we have a real chance for peace and that we should aid the Israelis and the Palestinians in taking the necessary steps to achieve the first phase of the process to return the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians.

17:54 Paris. A close associate of Charles Pasqua told an investigating judge that the regime of Saddam Hussein approached the ex-minister to offer him a recompense for his support of the regime. Bernard Guille was questioned by Judge Philippe Courroye who is investigating illegal commissions. The sums were meant to favor the interests of big French companies such as Total. Tarek Aziz told me that Iraq wished to show its thanks to Mr. Pasqua for his role of support in 1993 when Pasqua organized the first official visit and contact of a high-ranking French official.

17 May 2005 Events in Iraq

Baghdad. British Defence Minister John Reid visited Iraqi Defense Minister Saadoun al-Doulaïmi in Baghdad.

Baghdad. Group linked to al-Zarqawi threatens Sunnis who participate in the drafting of the Constitution. They will be considered "infidels".

Baghdad. Shi'tes and Kurds in Parliament contested the chairmanship of the committee charged with drafting the Constitution.

Washington. George Galloway testifies before Congressional committee on his alleged role in the Oil for Food scandal. The British MP was quoted as saying to Senators Coleman and Levin, This investigation is the mother of all smokescreens.

Ft. Hood. Sabrina Harman was found guilty of prisoner mistreatment at Abu Ghraib prison.

23:38 Washington. The US says it will cooperate with Italy to release Clementina Cantoni from her Afghani captors [What! They are not going to put a bullet in her head if they set her free? Sweet! What nice guys!]

22:40 Washington. The Pentagon denies accusations over Koran flushing. Pentagon denies the accusations by Abdul Ramin, a 40 year-old ex-Camp X-Ray detainee, that US prison guards and interrogators regularly desecrated the Koran.

21:15 Rome. Voice recording of kidnapped aid worker. Kidnappers release a voice recording of Clementina Cantoni.

19:58 Baghdad. Deputy Premier Ahmed Chalabi was named chairman of the newly-created Energy Council, which will have responsibity for the management and protection of Iraqi energy resources. The nomination of Chelabi will give him a great deal of influence over the approval of foreign investment.

18:21. Bangor. An Alitalia flight is forced to land in Bangor due to the presence of a "suspect" passenger. The crew was notified as the plane was in Canadian airspace. Canadian jets scrambled to escort the jet into US airspace, where the flight was escorted by US military jets to Bangor. An Algerian national was pulled off the flight. [Of course, an Algerian national would have been in possession of a visa, so it would be nice if the US Embassy in Algiers had a copy of the so-called no-fly list so it wouldn't grant visas (cost: $100) to these people in the first place. But it's fun and games for the HS boys, who get their jollies this way.--Nur]

18:18 Baghdad. Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi asserted that his country does not intend to settle its differences with the United States in Iraq. Our cooperation with Iraq is not linked to our relations with the United States and we would like to reaffirm the historic ties between our two countries. The assistance which we are able to give serves the regional interests of the Islamic Rebpubic. We are currently making the maximum effort to control our common borders and we have arrested several people attempting to smuggle weapons into Iraq.

17:44 Paris. The porousness of the Syrian frontier should be discussed between Baghdad and Damascus, says French Foreign Ministry Spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattéi. The ministry indirectly chastized Condoleezza Rice for going beyond her role in publicly blaming Damascus for instabilty in Iraq. If concern is to be expressed, it should be transmitted directly to the authorities concerned. It will then be up to the Syrians to take appropriate measures.

17:34 Washington. The suprise visit of Condoleezza Rice to Iraq over the weekend was meant to demonstrate US determination to stabilize Iraq in spite of daily insurrectional violence. In less than 12 hours the US Secretary of State held a half-dozen meetings. Her meeting with Prime Minister Jafaari was to shore him up after criticism in the US press for not acting aggressively enough against the insurgents. Rice also insisted on meeting the August 15 deadline for completion of the draft of the Constitution despite delays. The ultra-secrecy surrounding her arrival was indicative of the long road ahead facing the United States in Iraq.

16:36 Ankara. Six Turkish troops and two Kurdish rebels die in clashes. Four Turkish soldiers were killed by an anti-personnel mine on Mt. Gabar in southeast Turkey laid by PKK guerrillas. Two other Turkish soldiers and two Kurdish fighers wre killed in an exchange of fire on Mt. Gabar.

13:18 Baghdad. Shi'te and Sunni clerics assassinated. A Shi'ite cleric was assassinated today in the capital while the bodies of two Sunni clerics kidnapped on Sunday were recovered.

12:08 Tikrit. US soldier dies. A US soldier was killed and another wounded by a roadside bomb.

11:51 Doha. Al Jazeerah reports that two bombs went off in a Baghdad market killing 14.

11:00 Baghdad. Anti-Corruption Commission member assassinated. Alaa Eddine Wazir al-Obeidi was assassinated in south Baghdad. Unknown gunmen opened fire on his car.

10:02 Moussayib. Four Iraqi soldiers killed in shootout with rebels who had taken control of a power station south of the capital.

09:25 Uzbekistan: Izvestia reports that 745 civilians were killed by government troops.

08:47 Kabul. Responsibility claimed in kidnapping of Italian aid worker. The kidnappers of Clementina Cantoni have demanded the release of prisoners in exchange for the hostage. A criminal gang led by Tela Mohammed who was recently arrested by the police, has contacted us to claim credit for the kidnapping of the Italian woman, says Abdul Jamil of the Kabul police investigation squad. The group has proposed an exchange of the hostage for its leaders Tela Mohammed and Omara Khan and other gang members in jail.

Revolution in Uzbekistan (Continued)

Marie Jégo at Le Monde continues her competent reporting and analyses of the situation in Uzbekistan

Three questions to Boris Petric, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

As a anthropological researcher looking into social institutions and organizations, you know the Ferghana Valley pretty well. Do you believe that the revolt in Andijan will spread to the rest of the country?
The events of Andijan reveal two different things: increasingly violent action by Islamists groups, fed up with repression and thousands of incarcerations, and popular exasperation at a régime which is becoming more and more unjust. Rising unemployment, lack of freedom and widespread corruption have exasperated the populace, who see no glimmer of relief on the horizon. Recent events there mark a turning point because they have caused two movements, which previously existed separately from one another, to join ranks. But it is doubtful that we will see a general uprising across the country given the terror to which the populace is subjected. There is no space in Uzbekistan right now to create an organized, nationwide protest movement

The Ferghana Valley has been a restive area since the end of the 1980s. A large number of religious figures have been imprisoned or forced into exile. The focus on Islam obscures a highly regionalized political system. For many, the power retained by President Karimov represents the influence of the Samarkand faction backing the President to the detriment of Ferghana. The Ferghani are doubtlessly going to feel even more marginalized.

Does the Islamist Factor trumpeted by the Uzbek authorities, who endlessly point to past terrorist acts (1999, 2000), really exist?
Islam Karimov gambled that economic success would to justify his authoritarian régime but the economic miracle did not take place. His repression of any form of protest focused on the political establishment does not offer the possibility for the emergence of an Uzbek opposition. The option of repression chosen by the government has only increased the audience for Islamist movements, which, however, remain limited. If the authorities continue to bar other forms of more moderate political expression then Islamist movements will continue to prosper given the disastrous economic climate.

Do there remain foreign influences in Central Asia which are financing the construction of mosques and religious schools as may have been the case during the 1990s?
Central Asia is undeniably a theatre for rivalry among different foreign influences, Islamist or otherwise. It is difficult to measure the extent of influence of Islamist movements in Uzbekistan but it is certain that, like Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a certain number of protagonists have links to transnational organizations active in other parts of the world with the aim of installing an Islamist régime.

Background on Hizb-ut-Tahrir

Who are the fanantical Islamists which the régime of Islam Karimov has set about to suppress throughout Uzbekistan? One thing is certain: between 7,000 and 10,000 people are in prison for their links to Hizb-ut-Tahrir (Liberation Party).

The reach of the organization, which appeared in the 1990s, is uncertain. It is difficult to asssess the number of sympathizers because the Uzbek judicial system throws people in jail whose only crime was to have been in primary school with one of the movement’s future militants.

Founded in Jordan in1953 as a radical alternative to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which is active in Great Britain and on the Internet, is spreading across all of central Asia through a network of small underground cells. The cells distribute tracts flaying The Jew Karimov who they say has adopted Israeli methods through its collaboration with infidel nations such as the United States. Their goal is the creation of a caliphate through peaceful means. Until now, no act of violence has been successfully attributed to them.

The Uzbek authorities claim that Hizb-ut-Tahrir was responsbile for bombings in Tashkent in 1996 (15 dead) and in 2004 (47 dead). According to NGOs Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, most of the Islamists put on trial were brought up on fabricated evidence. For this reason men in the Ferghana Valley, a bastion of traditional Islam, sew their pockets closed to prevent police from slipping something into them, like drugs. Contact, even at a distance, with a presumed fanatic is a crime. Entire families have been jailed.

Recently President Karimov has called into the spotlight the existence of a new Islamic movement, Akramia, said to be linked to Hizb-ut-Tahrir in the Ferghana. But its spiritual leader, Akram Yudachev, sentenced to 17 years in prison in 1999 for his presumed ties to the Tashkent bombings, is better known for his writings than for armed resistance. However, it was in his name that the May 12-13 attack on the Andijan military garrison was carried out and the prison gates flung open.

16 May 2005 Events in Iraq

Baghdad. Ali Sistani and Moqtada Sadr called for a soothing of tensions with Sunnis despite persistent violence. Moqtada Sadr, in his first press conference in more than a year, called for restraint.

Rabia. A suicide carbomb exploded on Iraq's northern frontier with Syria, wounding 30.

Baghdad. Two Iraqis working for a foreign security firm were killed and two others wounded by a bomb.

Baghdad. The Iraqi Army announced the arrest of nine men suspected of killing two Iraqi journalists yesterday.

Mosul. Iraqi security forces say they have arrested a carbomb manufacturer.

Baghdad. Iraqi Defense Minister Saadoun al-Doulaïmi has ordered an end to police raids on university campuses and places of worship.

Moscow. Russia declared that there is no proof that Russian personalities enriched themselves in the Oil-for-Food scandal. Furthermore, Yuri Fedotov, the Russian Foreign Ministry's Number 2, said the accusations launched by the US Senate were an attempt to discredit the United Nations.

Paris. Former Interior Minister Charles Pasqua says his name was used on Iraqi documents relating to the Oil for Food scandal without his knowledge.

London. British MP George Galloway flew to Washington this morning where he will testify before US Congress.

22:54 Rome. Statement by familiy of kidnapped Italian NGO worker in Kabul. The family of Clementina Cantoni, a worker for CARE International in Kabul hopes affair will end soon with no unpleasant surprises.

23:23 Ottawa. CARE International confirms kidnapping of Italian aid worker. Onlus Care Canada confirms kidnapping of Clementina Cantoni.

20:25 Paris. Jacques Chirac adds his support to the Chaldean community of Iraq during visit of Monsignor Emmanuel Delly.

20:07 Najaf. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has called for fraternity between the Shi'a and Sunni communities of Iraq, according to a statement by PM Ibrahim al-Jaafari after a meeting with Sistani on Monday. Meanwhile, the Committee of Iraqi Ulema blamed the militias of Badr organization within SCIRI for the murder of Sunni peasants near Sadr City. When asked about the death penalty, Jaafari said it was in force. The death penalty may be applied where it can be applied and no one can stop us.

19:59 Kabul. An Italian NGO worker kidnapped in Afghanistan. Clementina Cantoni was kidnapped by four men as she drove through the Qala-e-Mosa quarter.

19:33 Baghdad. Two civilians were killed and 25 wounded in a double carbombing targeting an Army convoy in the Abu Dchir district of south Baghdad.

19:25 Jerusalem. Ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers cause traffic jams throughout Israel protesting the Gaza pullout.

19:10 Dublin. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reiterated accusations against Syria which she claims allows foreign fighters to pass through its territory. RIce also accused the Syrians of supporting anti-Israeli radicals and seeking to influence the upcoming elections in Lebanon.

18:24 Baghdad. Carbomb kills nine Iraqi soldiers. Five others were wounded.

17:19 Baghdad. US troops profaned a mosque in Ramadi 100 km west of Baghdad. Spokesman Muzana Harez al-Dari of the Committee of Iraqi Ulema has given a press conference saying that last Saturday US troops entered a mosque in Ramadi and spraypainted crosses on the walls and carved a cross into a copy of the mosque's Koran.

17:50 Kuwait City. The Kuwaiti Parliament has adopted a law granting female suffrage and permitting women to run for office, despite Islamist opposition.

16:30 Baghdad. Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi to make official visit to Baghdad tomorrow. Kharrazi will meet Iraqi FM Hoshyar Zebari for talks aiming to turn the page on the Iran-Iraq war.

13:10 Baghdad. Five persons were killed when rocket fire was directed at Baghdad University.

09:00 Baquba. Eight Iraqis, including four soldiers, were killed in clashes.

07:20 Baghdad. 12 bodies found in northeast Baghdad.

Lebanon's Revolution Meets Its Inevitable Fate

Back in February, the masssive street demonstrations in Martyrs' Square seemed indicate that the old post Civil War order carved in the stone of the Taef agreements was crumbling. Yet three months later, the apirations of the Maronite to rise to dominate Lebanese politics seem moot.

Lebanese kingmakers Walid Jumblatt (Druze), Saad Hariri (Sunni), Nabih Berry (Amal) and Hezbollah will continue to control two-thirds of the seats in Parliament. L'Orient Le-Jour announces two major deals in which the inheritors of the Christian Phalange and Lebanese Forces have been absorbed into the Hariri bloc and the Druze bloc, respectively. Solange al-Jumayyil has joined the electoral slate of Saad Hariri (son of Rafik) and Sethrida Geagea has joined forces with Walid Jumblatt on a common Shoof district slate. The odd man out is Michael ‘Awn, back from exile in France. Jumblatt is going to be working on him next.

So there will be no peace treaty with Israel, no disarming of Hezbollah militias, no forcing exiled Palestinians into desperate action and no rabidly anti-Syrian leadership. In fact, the current interim prime minister is Syrian President's Bashir Assad's good friend, Najeeb Miqati.

And here's one little kernel of info, between us: Jacques Chirac negotiated Prime Minister Miqati's appointment with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah behind Bush's back. This, of course, suggests that Bush's meeting with the Crown Prince was a last gasp attempt to drum up support for war on Syria which got blown off by the Prince.

The upshot is that Condi's ravings today deserve a wide toothy horselaugh!

So the Syrians have managed to get themselves in the situation of standing in the way of progress of people in the Middle East, and I would think that wouldn't be a very comfortable place for a Syrian regime to be.

Horselaugh 

The Lying Liars of Washington and Tashkent

The most recent update on Uzbekistan from Le Monde's Marie Jégo exposes once again the hypocrisy of Washington's War on Terror. Anti-democrats of every stripe--authoritarians, autocrats, torturers, despots, potentates, frauds, and oligarchs--are welcome company in Washington so long as it suits it stragetic aims. Allow me attach a caveat to that--not exactly aims since we don't know what actions Bush plans against 60 countries in the next 20 years nor what the goal really is.

The situation remains confused in east Uzbekistan on Monday 16 May as thousands of people escaping Friday’s bloody repression in Andijan cross the border into Kyrgyzstan. On Sunday, the Kyrgyz and Uzbek authorities decided to open the frontier in both directions for five days in a measure meant to reassure the populace.

On the Kyrgyz side of the frontier, a refugee camp opened on Sunday not far from Jalalabad under the supervision of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. 900 people are in the camp, including dozens of wounded. The same day, the residents of Andijan (a city 30 km from the frontier) buried their relatives killed when the Uzbek Army machine-gunned the central square.

Although no official death toll has issued by the authorities, President Islam Karimov announced the death of ten police. He has remained silent on the number of civilian dead. A doctor in Andjian told AP under cover of anonymity that 500 bodies were stacked up in School No. 15, transformed into a temporary morgue. According to accounts by eyewitnesses given to the few remaining media correspondents, hundreds died in the repression. The city has been surrounded and reporters have been ordered to leave.

Despite the violent charge by police into the crowd of 4,000 people assembled in the central square of Andijan on Friday, numerous protesters were able to reach the frontier with Kyrgyzstan. Only the most determined were able to cross the river separating the two countries, however. The others headed for the local administration in the village of Ilitchevsk. After collaring the local top official, the demonstrators burned down government buildings and shouted anti-government slogans.

In Kara Su, a little farther along, people built a passage over the river and began to cross. A few months ago a bridge spanning the river was demolished by order of the authorities following a border agreement between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The measure angered the locals because a large number of Uzbek traders used the bridge to reach the large Kyrgyz market on the other side. The closing caused them to be deprived of their income and only source of revenue. Later on Saturday in Kara Su, furious demonstrators burned down the tax office, the police station and the customs house.

Denying the evidence to the contrary, President Karimov blamed "Islamist groupings" for the bloody unrest in the country, even going so far as to deny that he gave the order to fire on the demonstrators. This is not terrorism. This is the people speaking out against poverty and repression, says Holly Cartner, Human Rights Watch’s expert on central Asia.

The UK through the voice of its Foreign Minister Jack Straw condemned the violation of human rights in Uzbekistan. But the United States, linked to the current regime in a military partnership, abstained from making the slightest comment critical of the Uzbek government. The people of Uzbekistan want to see a more representative and democratic government, but that should come through peaceful means, not through violence said White House spokesman Scott McClellan on Friday.

Uzbekistan: The Potentates of Central Asia

Le Monde's Marie Jégo continues her analysis of the revolts roiling the ex-Soviet central Asian republics.

Does the revolt rumbling through east Uzbekistan, a Turkish-speaking republic in ex-Soviet Central Asia, mean an end to the régime of terror built by President Islam Karimov over his 16 year in power? Does it share anything in common with the Tulip Revolution, which recently rocked neighboring Kyrgyzstan? Is it true that criminal Taliban-like groups are behind the revolt, as the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, recently asserted based on information given him by the Uzbek authorities?

In reality, an unthinkable event occurred in Andijan, Uzbekistan’s third largest city, between Thursday 12 May and Friday 13 May. For the first time, the populace (4000 persons assembled in the city’s central square) supported the actions of an armed group which took over government buildings and a high-security prison, freeing the inmates inside. Aims have now fused together: those of an armed group, impatient to free its spiritual leader, Akram Yudachev, an Islamist ideologue arrested in 1999 after a series of bombing targeting the seat of power in Tashkent, and those of 4,000 ordinary citizens, demanding a better life and greater freedoms.

At the end of March, these same demands--chanted by the crowds across the border in Kyrgyzstan--led to the overthrow of President Askar Akaev, accused of fraud in the legislative elections. But the comparison ends there. Uzbekistan is not Kyrgyzstan. Under the cudgel of Islam Karimov opposition parties have been banned, an independent press is non-existent and the activities of NGOs are closely monitored. Living in the fear of revolutionary contamination across the country, the authorities in Tashkent have tightened the screws these last few months. Judiciary proceedings have started against the one of the few NGOs in the country, Internews Network, a Californian organization which fosters development of independent media. State television has been placed under the total control of the country’s secret police.

The security measures imposed are ridiculous, from forbidding motor bicycles in town to the banning the projection of a documentary, The Turkish Project. The film is an historical fresco of the 19th century Russo-Turkish War produced by a Russian film company which has won acclaim throughout the ex-Soviet region. The director, Janik Fayziew, is an Uzbek from Tashkent and the son of a local film star. And nothing can be done about it.

Simultaneously, popular discontent continues to grow, fed by ukaz (edicts) issued by the central government. While is the bazaar is the last remaining economic leg on which the country stands--the only possible place to find a job for millions of Uzbeks trying to make a living (the average monthly salary is between $10 and $20)--the government imposed a series of new regulations on small businesses last month which include a permit requirement and increased import taxes. The regulations have further alienated the population and increased demands for “social justice” intoned by the various Islamist groupings.

Meanwhile, the peasants of the Djizzahk region have initiated a embryonic war against the governor, Obaidullah Yamankulov, who is hunting down anyone attempting to join the underground Ozod dekhkonlar (Free Farmworker Movement). Their principal demand is privatization of the land.

This predominately agricultural country, the world’s Number 2 exporter of cotton, is still collectivized into kolkhozy. Uzbekistan remains soviet and any kind of economic autonomy is impossible. Nothing has been privatized and all political activity is entirely within the control of the government, says Boris Petric, a researcher at France’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and a Ferghana Valley area expert.

Fourteen years after their exit from the USSR, the four "-stans" east of the Caspian Sea (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan), except for Kyrgyzstan, are run by leaders elected for life or repeatedly returned to office by public referendum. Three of the four republics (Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan) are run by regional ex-Soviet Communist Party Secretaries, who have literally become local potentates.

In absence of any legal political opposition, the underground Islamist organizations, Hizb-ut-Tahrir or Akramya (named after Akram Yuldachev), continue to win influence throughout the region, despite the repression rained down upon their militants.

15 May 2005 Events in Iraq

Moscow. Former Russian official named in Oil for Food scandal by US Senate. Alexandre Voloshin, who resigned from the government in October 2003, was accused by US senators of receiving coupons for 5 million barrels of oil from Saddam Hussein. His advisor, Sergeï Issakov, is said to have received coupons for 80 million barrels while the Russian Executive Council received coupons for 5 million barrels. Russian ultranationalist Vladimir Jirinovski is accused of receiving coupons for 75.8 million barrels beginning in 1997. It is believed the oil was subsequently delivered to the United States.

Baghdad. The Mufti of Australia announces that the ultimatum on the fate of Douglas Wood is indefinitely postponed by the kidnappers.

Baghdad. AFP photographer Farès Nawf al-Issaoui was freed after 14 days in the custody of the US Army. Meanwhile, his colleague Ammar Daham Naef Khalaf, arrested 11 April is still in Abu Ghraib prison.

Riyahd. Saudi reformers Ali al-Demaini, Abdullah al-Hamed and Matruk al-Faleh were sentenced to between 6 and 9 years in prison for "sedition and disobeying the ruler". [So much for the "march of freedom"--Nur]

Chorgat. Civilian killed when a convoy of supply trucks was ambushed.

Dhoulouiyah. Iraqi soldier killed by mortar round which struck an Iraqi army encampment.

23:09 Condoleezza Rice pleaded for an alternative to violence and the inclusion of the Sunnis in the political process in talks with Iraqi leaders today.

22:14 Baghdad. Twenty-five corpses found in Baghdad: 8 in the Shaab district in north Baghdad, 4 in Sadr City, and 14 in a garbage dump in the eastern suburbs.

22:48 Washington. Newsweek claims Guantanamo Koran desecration story may be false. The story has caused outrage in Arab capitals. Sheik Mohammed Sayed Tantawi of Cairo's Al-Azhar mosque in Cairo condemns "tremendous crime".

22:18 Mahmudiyah. Two reporters for the Kuwaiti television network al-Rai were ambushed and murdered along with their driver as they were driving to Karbala.

21:28 Loud explosion was heard in central Baghdad late Sunday.

18:04 Jerusalem. Knesset committee extends law forbidding marriage beteen Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. The 2003 law was renewed by a vote of 16 to 2.

16:06 Teheran. Iranian Foreign Minister Hamid Reza Assefi says the US interrogators in Guantanamo who are alleged to have thrown sheets of the Koran down the toilet should be punished.

15:53 Tikrit. Iraqi security forces say suicide bomber killed. A convoy challenged an Iraqi driver, who sped away. His car then detonated.

13:43 Al Qaim. Kidnapped al-Anbar Provincial Governor Raja Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi has been freed and is in Obaidi, say family members.

13:11 Baghdad. Four Palestinians and one Iraqi confess to 12 May market bombing. Palestinian brothers Amer, Adnan, and Faraj Abdallah, Massud Nureddin Mohammed and Iraqi Ibrahim Idi confess to bombing on Iraqi TV. However, there are doubts about the legitimacy of their capture and their guilt. The Committee of Iraqi Ulema has delivered a note of protest saying the Palestinians were merely refugees and were coerced into a false confession.

12:03 Iskandariyah. Eleven bodies found near a farm. They had been shot to death and were wearing police uniforms.

11:37 Erbil. Rice confirms the US will attend an international conference on the reconstruction of Iraq proposed by the European Union.

10:45 Ramadi. The bodies of 10 executed Iraqi solders were recovered in Ramadi. Their death is estimated as having occurred 48-hours ago.

10:01 Erbil: Rice praises progress of government.

09:34 Baghdad. Al-Sistani representative assassinated. Sheik Kassem al-Gharawi and his nephew, Hazim Rubai, were assassinated in the capital by unknown gunmen.

08:39 Erbil. Condoleezza Rice makes surprise visit to Kurdistan.

07:47 Baghdad. Industry Ministry official and his driver are assassinated. Colonel Jassam Mohammed Jomaa, Number 2 for oilfield security, and his driver were shot dead by armed gunmen.

07:31 Baquba. 4 dead and 17 wounded in bombing. Two suicide bombers wearing explosive vests detonated their charges nearly simultaneously 500 meters apart. The first bomb detonated amidst the crowd near the city courthouse killing four and wounding at least fifteen. The second blast targeted Diyala Governor Raed Rashid Hamid al-Mullah Jawad, wounding two bodyguards.

07:23 Baquba. Bomb targets convoy of Diyala Provincial Governor. Raed Rashid Hamid al-Mullah Jawad escaped injury. Five minutes prior, a bomb exploded infront of a courthouse and tax collection office.

14 May 2005 Events in Iraq.

Djourf al Sakhar. Three decapitated bodies found showing signs of torture.

Samarra. Two police were killed and two civilians wounded in clashes.

Baghdad. Rebels fire grenades at a police convoy west of the capital, killing a member of Iraq's security forces.

23:57 London. Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi briefly entered a hospital in Ramadi last week seeking medical attention for a head wound. He left shortly after receiving treatment with his men, writes the Sunday Times.

22:24 Tokyo. Japanese hostage likely dead. Akihito Saito was likely killed in an ambush and is dead, says another Japanese security guard, who was caught in the same abush outside a US base in Hit.

21:54 Ramadi. More than 25 dead in aftermath of Operation Matador. Red Crescent sends sanitary assistance and food to the terrified populace of western Iraq at the border with Syria following US airstrikes.

21:23 Rome. Former hostage Giuliana Sgrena says President George Bush is happy to tolerate monstrous dictators such as Karimov as long as they are useful to him.

20:54 Baghdad. US military announces end to Operation Matador, claiming it killed 125 rebels and wounded 45. Combat in Karabilah, Ramana and Obaïdi has ceased. The US military claims it found numerous arms caches, six booby-trapped cars and bombmaking materials.

20:14 Camp Bucca. Another inmate dies in US custody. A 30 year-old Iraqi died of heart failure. He had been held in Camp Bucca since 2004. Un détenu, âgé de 30 ans, est mort apparemment d'une crise cardiaque samedi vers 18H

19:55 Baghdad. Jassim Mohammed Ghani, Chief of Staff of the Foreign Ministry, was assassinated in the Kharijiyah district of West Baghdad in front of his home.

13:23 Nassiriya. Italian Defense Minister says Italy in not in Iraq for the oil.

13:04 Basrah. Sunni chieftain kidnapped. Sheik Hamid Etrak Hamid al Dusari a leader of the Sunni revolt was kidnapped says the Iraqi Committee of Ulema.

12:32 Mosul. 10 year-old girl killed by roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi military convoy. Two soliders and a policeman were wounded.

11:51 Baghdad. Carbomb detonates near the Ministry of Industry.

10:52 Baghdad. Four US marines killed in western Iraq.

09:14 Obeidi. US military assaults the hamlet of Obeidi in al-Anbar Province.

08:02 Baghdad. Bomb kills three civilians and wounds four south of capital.

The Empire of Terror

Despite Washington's boasted War on Terror, what it is implementing is a worldwide empire of terror, an ultra law-and-order world with perfect information on its enemies enabled by technology. Washington's ally, Uzbekestan, under a new-age Tamurlane, pulls the Islamist card to justify the tyranny, corruption and brutality of his own regime. And so we have come to this...a return to the worst of Latin America of the 1970s but on the other side of the globe, hi-fived by Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld.

The following article by Marie Jégo in today's Le Monde portrays Uzbekistan as a dark and cruel place behind the mask of entrepreneurism, emprisoning 25 million people.

When Uzbekistan declared its independence in 1991, Islam Karimov, First Secretary of the Communist Party and elected President of the Supreme Soviet, decided to give his country a new identify and new symbols. The old statues of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin were pried off their pedestals and replaced with Tamurlane, the Mongol chieftain who in a bloody series of expeditions carved an empire out for himself, placing Baghdad, Delhi, Damascus, Ankara and Isphahan under his yoke. In museums, statues, and postacard, Tamurlane is everywhere. That face has melded with that of the President.

The old apparatchik hasn’t raised any minarets of human skulls as was Tamurlane’s custom following battle to terrify the populace. But the methods of torture used in his police interrogation rooms and in the prisons, where NGOs have counted more than 10,000 political prisoners, raise the hair on your head: slow suffocation enveloped inside a plastic bag, fingernails torn out, electric shock, cigarette burns, rape, suspension in the air by the feet, and for the last few years, submersion in boiling water.

That’s how the son of Fatima Mukhadirova died. A Uzbeki merchant who spent six years in a prison camp dared to demand a prisoner accounting from the authorities. Freed from prison on the eve of a visit by Donald Rumsfeld after the personal intervention of Craig Murray, the British ambassador in Tashkent, Ms. Mukhadirova was able to have an autopsy performed on the corpse of a young prisoner--her son--by the University of Glascow. It was confirmed that he was boiled to death. Declared persona non grata by the Uzbek authorities, the ambassador was recalled. If you oppose the Tamerlane of Modern Times, there is a price to pay.

A hardened and taut face with inexpressive eyes, the Uzbek tyrant does not hide his penchant for merciless punishment. Those people, he said once, speaking of Islamist militants, must be shot down with a bullet to the brain. If I have to, I will kill them with my own hands. Personally, I am prepared to cut off 200 heads to preserve peace in the republic, he declared after having baptized the year 2004 as The Year of Peace and Compassion.

He has only one weakness: his daughters. His eldest, 40 year-old Gulnara, is the most conspicuous businesswomen in the country. She reigns over a vast financial empire including manufacturing plants, mobile phones, nightclubs, travel agencies…The elite and its courtesans prosper while the rest of the country is plunged into misery. Your name must be Gulnara or you must be one of the personalities in the good graces of the regime in order to make money in a country where all the command levers are pulled by the “boss”. Despite its natural gas, its gold, its cotton and to a lesser extent, its petroleum, Uzbekistan is poor and its population lives in poverty, ground down by a corrupt administration and an even more oppressive security apparatus.

After sixteen years of rule, Islam Karimov has honed his power structure, a hybrid of sovietism and clanism. Through fraudulent referendums and elections, Karimov was able to extend his mandate until 2007. Born in Samarkand, the old oasis-city along the Silk Road south of Tashkent, he is able to play off one clan against another, distributing spoils or blame on personal whimsy. At is base, the Karimov system reposes on a patchwork of fiefs run by “greybeards”, honorable elders responsible for the mahalle (neighborhoods) constituting the relay switches of power and a formidable hive of informers.

This sorry state of affairs has earned Islam Karimov, especially since 11 September 2001, the unconditional support of the United States, the grand provider of military aid to the country. While Washington never loses an opportunity to flay Alexander Lukachenko, the last dictator in Europe, according to Condoleezza Rice, it loses its zeal when it comes to the Uzbek President. The aptly-named despot has no shortage of allies in Washington. In 2004, while the US Department of State refused to release $12 million in aid due to human rights violations, the Pentagon doubled its aid for the War on Terror.

13 May Events in Iraq

Baghdad. Casualty count of Americans increases. One American soldier was killed and four wounded in a bombing north of the capital.

Baghdad. Protests spread over Koran desecration. Two thousand Muslims demonstrated in the Gaza strip in protest of the profanation of the Koran. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood expressed their indignation and demanded a public apology by Washington. In Hebron, the US flag was burned after Friday prayers. In Iraq, imams across the country condemned the US.

Washington. In an attempt to mollify the rebellion, the US is applying pressure on the new Iraqi administration to admit more Sunnis into the new government.

Baghdad. The Red Crescent says it is distributing aid to families in western Iraq along the Syrian border where US forces are fighting the insurgency. The organization says hundreds of families have fled the fighting.

Doha. Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura pleads on al-Jazeera for the life of Japanese Hostage.

Baghdad. Government launches anti-corruption campaign. Judge Radhi Hamzah al-Radhi asked that officials being investigated remain within the country. Several members of Iyad Allawi's adminstration have fled the country.

23:58 Baghdad. Saddam Hussein has decided to write his memoires in the US prison where he is awaiting trial for 20 years of crimes, says attorney Giovanni di Stefano.

23:57. New York. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is concerned by the escalation of tensions along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

23:56 Washington. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will visit the George Bush at his ranch in Crawford on May 26.

23:55 Washington. Presidential Press Secretary Scott Mc Clellan says an investigation has been opened into the desecration of the Koran during interrogations in Guantanamo.

23:54 Mosul. US troops open fire on alleged "terrorists" and kill five civilians by mistage. A US military convoy came under light arms fire and US troops returned fire, killing three terrorists and destroying the car they were travelling in. As other motorists happened upon the scene, US troops opened fire on them, killing five innocent people and destroying two passenger cars.

22:44 Baghdad. Al Iraqiya TV reports that five men were arrested in connection with yesterday's marketplace bombing in Baghdad whick killed 17 people.

21:23 New York. Price of petroleum climbs. Oil closed at $48.65, up 11 cents.

21:2 Rabat. Forty-six Moroccan radical Islamists appeared in the Rabat Criminal Court in advance of their trial scheduled of r17 June.

17:58 Beirut. The Christian oppositon objects to the the legislatives elections scheduled for 29 May because the elections districts were drawn under "Syrian tutelage". The Christians claim the districts marginalize them.

17:40 Washington. US objects to Italian pullout. The US has requested its ally, Italy, to keep its troops in Iraq. Undersecretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns says that Washington has "no better ally on the European continent than Italy." [Too little, too late, dumb-ass.--Nur]

16:26 Baghdad. State of Emergency declared for 30 days. The northern Kurdish provinces are excluded.

13:11 Basrah. An Iraqi border guard has been kidnapped near Basrah.

13:08 Hilla. Three soliders killed. Three Iraqi soldiers were killed by mortar fire directed at a checkpoint in Hilla, 95 km north of Baghdad. Three others were wounded.

12:14 Baghdad. Police officer killed in Baghdad. A police officer was killed and five others, including three police and two civilians, were wounded. Meanwhile, two mortar rounds hit the Ministry of Technology in Jadria district in the center of the capital.

08h00 Baquba. Three Iraqis, two soldiers and a civilian, were killed and six wounded in a carbombing of an troop transport truck in Baquba. The truck was carring 47 soldiers.

06:14 Washington The former commander of the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq blamed a ranking officer for introducing the use of human pyramids and dog leashes in the abuse of detainees and said in an interview on Thursday that abuse may be continuing there. Col. Janis Karpinski, a former one-star Army Reserve general who was punished in the scandal, blamed Gen. Geoffrey Miller for the methods that were used to humiliate detainees. Miller headed the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and was sent to Iraq to recommend improvements in intelligence gathering and detention operations there. "I believe that Gen. Miller gave them the ideas, gave them the instruction on what techniques to use," she said in an interview on the ABC News "Nightline" program. Asked if she was referring to the positioning of prisoners in human pyramids and putting dog leashes on detainees, Karpinski said, "I can tell you with certainty that the MPs (military police) certainly did not design those techniques, they certainly did not come to Abu Ghraib or to Iraq with dog collars and dog leashes." Karpinski, who has made similar allegations in the past, was the the first high-level military officer to be punished in the abuse scandal. She was demoted from brigadier general to colonel on May 5. Army Col. Thomas Pappas, the former U.S. military intelligence chief at Abu Ghraib prison, was reprimanded and removed from his command as part of a punishment over the physical abuse and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners, the Army said on Wednesday. The publication a year ago of photographs depicting U.S. forces abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib triggered international criticism of the United States. Numerous additional cases of detainee abuse have since surfaced. In the ABC interview, Karpinski suggested that abuse might still be occurring at the prison. "For several months after I first became aware of the pictures, I said, 'well at least the photographs will stop this.' I'm not convinced," she said. The Army said Karpinski was demoted due to dereliction of duty and concealing a past shoplifting arrest. But she said she was being punished for what happened at Abu Ghraib after the prison was no longer under her command. She said her lawyers believed there were grounds for legal action over the way she had been treated. "I think there's definitely grounds for discrimination," she said. "Why was I the only general officer that was singled out to be suspended from command when all the of the information clearly shows that other people had knowledge and were involved?".

07:19 Reports of an extension in the 72-hour deadline for an Australian being held hostage in Iraq was the result of misplaced optimism and a communication mix-up, a spokesman for Australia's top Muslim cleric said Friday. Douglas Wood, a 63-year-old engineer who lives in California, was abducted more than a week ago by Iraqi militants who set the 72-hour deadline calling for Australia to withdraw its troops from Iraq. There has been no news of Wood's fate since his captors released footage of him a week ago, his head shaved, one eye blackened possibly from a beating, and automatic weapons pointing at him. The militants did not specify what would happen if their demands were not met. Australia has refused to withdraw its forces. Earlier this week, Australia's senior Muslim cleric, Sheik Taj El Din Al Hilaly, traveled to Baghdad to lobby for Wood's release. In interviews Thursday, Hilaly suggested he had learned through various channels that Wood's captors had agreed to extend their deadline. A spokesman for Hilaly, Keysar Trad, said the sheik made the optimistic forecast after speaking to local officials who said it was not unusual for kidnappers in Iraq to extend their deadlines. «The confusion was because a lot of people wanted to transform that speculation into a firm belief,» Trad told The Associated Press. «We are all clutching on hope.» The Sydney Morning Herald reported Friday that Hilaly had met with an unidentified colonel in the United Arab Emirates Army during a brief stopover in Dubai. An informal discussion with the colonel had given Hilaly hope that Wood's captors had extended the deadline, the newspaper said. After his arrival in Iraq, Trad said Hilaly had also met with a number of local officials who painted a positive portrait of Wood's predicament. «They all seemed so optimistic,» Trad said. «Which led him to strongly endorse speculation that the deadline would be extended.» Meanwhile, Hilaly held talks with Sunni Muslim scholars in Baghdad to try and secure Wood's freedom, Trad said, and was also planning to make appeals to the kidnappers through local media. «That's what he was hoping to do: To make appeals through television, radio, newspapers, media conferences that sort of thing,» Trad said. He said Hilaly had also offered to go blindfolded to meet the kidnappers directly, but had not made direct contact with them.

04:37 A federal judge presiding over a lawsuit by two whistleblowers must decide whether the Coalition Provisional Authority that ruled over postwar Iraq was an extension of the U.S. government or independent of it. The whistleblowers are suing their former employer, Fairfax-based contractor Custer Battles LLC, accusing them of defrauding the U.S. government of about $50 million (ñ39.2 million) while doing security work in postwar Iraq. During a pretrial hearing Thursday, Custer Battles' lawyer John Boese argued that even if the allegations are true, it was the CPA that was defrauded and not the U.S. government because his client was paid from funds seized from Saddam Hussein's regime and not from taxpayers. «If the government didn't have any gain from the seized funds, it couldn't have suffered a loss by losing the funds,» Boese argued. But Alan Grayson, a lawyer for the two whistleblowers, Robert Isakson and William Baldwin, argued that under the laws of war and international conventions, an occupying force automatically gains title to any funds seized from the deposed government. Furthermore, Grayson argued that the CPA was clearly an instrument of the U.S. government, especially since its administrator, Paul Bremer, was appointed by the Bush administration. Grayson also said the allegedly fraudulent invoices submitted by Custer Battles were sent to Army contracting officers and that numerous federal statutes refer to the CPA as a U.S. entity. «If the CPA was a government entity, it means that the U.S. government directly provided the money involved here to the contractor,» Grayson said. Boese countered that the deputy administrator of the CPA is a British official. «Does this become a U.K. entity when he takes over in Bremer's absence?» Boese asked. The Justice Department, which initially declined an invitation from U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III to weigh in on the CPA's status, agreed Thursday with the whistleblowers. Justice Department attorney Michael Hertz argued that Congress would clearly have been concerned about actions like those allegedly taken by Custer Battles when it created the whistleblower law. The False Claims Act, as it is called, allows individuals to sue on behalf of the government when they have knowledge that the government is being defrauded. The law allows the government to collect triple the amount of the alleged fraud, and the whistleblowers are allowed to receive up to 30 percent of the money. Baldwin and Isakson allege they were threatened and fired when they objected to Custer Battles' business practices. Specifically, Isakson says that when he was fired, Custer Battles employees held him at gun point, took his weapon and security pass and left him to fend for himself outside the secure Green Zone in Baghdad. Isakson said he drove 120 mph (193 kph) across northern Iraq to Jordan to get out of danger as soon as possible. The lawsuit says Custer Battles billed the CPA for work that was never done, employees who were never hired and equipment that never arrived. Custer Battles has denied any wrongdoing and denied Isakson's account of his firing. Ellis said after Thursday's ruling that he would issue a ruling soon.

Islamic Revolution in Uzbekistan

courthouse vigil 


rally 

Update: Saddam II? Karimov shoots down mostly unarmed demonstrators like dogs. 30 to 50 bodies of young men and adolescents were lying in the street Andizhan. Troops are said to have filled a bus with bodies. I wonder if they are being transported to mass graves?

There's a chance that Karimov is on the skids in Uzbekistan. After five years of crackdown and persecution, the people have taken matters into their own hands. Three dispatches follow from El Mundo (Madrid), Il Corriere della Sera (Milan) and Le Monde (Paris).

Background (from El Mundo): The most populous nation of Turkestan region of central Asia with 26 million inhabitants, Uzbekistan has been under the iron first of President Islam Karimov, 67, since 1989. Karimov has been engaged in a crackdown on Islamists which since 11 September 2001 has earned him the friendship of Washington. The Islamic Party Hizb i Tahir and Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, thought responsible for bombings between 1999 and 2001, are alleged to be determined impose a caliphate over central Asia. [The Bin-Laden rap, eh? But I wonder if that is true?--Nur]

Human Rights Watch has harshly criticized the Karimov régime, which has accused the the various NGOs operating within the country of engaging in “subversive activities” in violation of “Uzbek laws with the aim of spreading subversive ideas." There are thousands of political prisoners says HRW, which also denounces the widespread use of torture. Tashkent is believed to be cooperating with the CIA in receiving prisoners for interrogation. It also receives millions of dollars from Washington for its security forces. Since 9-11, the US installed a military base in Janabad to support its military operations in Afghanistan.

The Karimov régime, also involved in border disputes with Tajikistan and Kirgyzstan, has placed land mines along its frontiers to prevent armed incursion by Hizb i Tahrir as happened in 1999 and 2001. It strictly controls the media to shut off dissent. With the opposition in prison or in exile, radical Islamist movements are gaining influence among the population as an alternative to the corrupt régime.

Today's dispatch (El Mundo). Groups and supporters of the Islamic movement, which has a strong presence in Uzbekistan, provoked several incidents of violence in the city of Andizhan. Last night armed gangs attacked a prison and freed hundreds of prisoners. At least 20 protestors are dead according to leaders of popular demonstrations, which have occupied several government buildings. Official Uzbek press agencies report that nine people are dead and 34 wounded in clashes.

The thousands of demonstrators who have taken over the streets of Andizhan and occupied several government buildings admitted to reporters that they are linked to the banned Islamic movement, Akramiya, founded by Akram Yuldashev, who is serving a 15-year sentence for acts of extremism and terrorism according to the Russian news agency RIA--Novosti. Other members of the group were to be put on trial this week. In Uzbekistan, Islamic movements and political parties opposed to the government have become increasingly active among the population.

The people have risen up, says Validzhon Atajondzhoyev, brother of one of the accused, in the online version of the Russian newspaper grani.ru. This morning, more than 10,000 protesters were gathered outside the Andijan regional administration building in eastern Uzbekistan according to the website ferghana.ru. Protestors also occupied secret police headquarters and the city jail, says the Director of the Russian Cultural Center in Andijian, Piotr Volkov, who also reports that the protesters have placed armored vehicles outside the jail. 23 incarcerated Islamic businessmen awaiting trial on charges of Islamic extremism have been freed. Meanwhile, the Russian press agency Interfax reports that state security forces have launched an assault on a school occupied by armed rebels.

The government of Kirgyzstan has closed its border with Uzbekistan due to the unrest. On the Uzbek side of the border, there is a media blackout and foreign camera crews from BBC, CNN and Russian televison have been prohibited from broadcasting images from the disturbances. The president of the country, Islam Karimov, is on the scene.

Russian on-line paper gazeta.ru is reporting that police and snipers had opened fire on the crowds but have since been “neutralized” and taken hostage. Near the site of demonstrations, the local theatre is ablaze and fire crews have stayed away. A local resident told RIA-Novosti by telephone that there are thousands of protesters in the main square of the city. The demonstrators have asked Russia's Vladimir Putin to personally to mediate the crisis to prevent more bloodshed.

Banners reading, They shoot down unarmed citizens demanding their rights! are displayed as well as other signs demanding democracy and justice.

A year ago, a wave of suicide bombings by Islamist sympathizers killed 47 people. 33 presumed terrorist, four civilians and 10 police died in attacks on police barracks and building housing security forces in Tashkent, the capital, and in the region of Bujara. 45 Islamists were formally charged with planning the bombings.

Corriere della Sera: Two thousand prisoners have been sprung from a high-security prison as a movie theatre and a playhouse were set ablaze. According to local journalists, insurgents have taken over an army garrison. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry says that the authorities are evaluating the situation.

The city had been rocked by protests over several days demanding the release of 23 persons accused of membership in extremist Islamist organizations and of conducting "anti-constitutional activities" The 23 are also suspected of having founded an Akramiya cell linked to Hizb i Tahir, the banned Islamic party. Andizhan is one of the largest cities in the Fergana Valley, where Islamist groups have a large presence.

Le Monde: Uzbek sources say rebels overrran a military garrison in Andizhan and a police barracks, where they took possession of dozens of weapons. They then attacked a detention center and freed hundreds of detainees. Meanwhile in Tashkent, Israeli embassy guards have shot dead a presumed suicide bomber.

12 May 2005 Events in Iraq (Mostly)

Baghdad. Security forces announced the arrest of Zarqawi's financier in Mosul, Ammar Farid Abel Qader Ashour, alias Abu Fateh. The arrest took place in April.

Baghdad. Final casualty toll in marketplace bombing of a Shi'ite quarter of Baghdad is 15 dead and 84 wounded. The blast occurred 50 meters from a mosque surrounded by vendor stalls. At least eight vehicles, including a bus, were completely demolished and an apartment house nearly destroyed. The roof caved in and the injured were trapped inside. Storefront windows were blasted out. Bodies were taken away by donkey cart and the wounded were driven in private cars to the hospital.

Samarra. Seven decomposing corpses were recovered near Lake Tharthar

Washington. Col Thomas Pappas will be reprimanded and fined for his authorization of the use of dogs in interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison. It is not know if he will be discharged.

London. George Galloway, a British MP accused by the US Congress of taking bribes in the Oil for Food Scandal, will travel to Washington on 17 May to answer charges before the body.

Ankara. Turkey authorizes the UK and South Korea to use its airbase at Incirlik for their activities in Iraq.

23:50 Washington. A Lebanese and a Libyan national were arrested in Worcester Massachusetts on charges of financing "jihad" and of income tax evasion. [Why does this seem, um, untrue?--Nur]

23:42 Orange. Japanese hostage Akihito Saito, 44, was a former member of the French Foreign Legion. However, the Legion cannot do anything to obtain his release, says Commandant Christian Rascle.

23:28 Riyadh. Armed gunmen carried out a drive-by shooting of a police patrol in the northwest region of Al-Qassim in Saudi Arabia.

22:43 Beirut. Explosion reported on Israeli border. Yesterday a Katuschka rocket launched from Lebanon damaged a bakery near the Israeli town of Shlomi, 5 km from the Lebanese border along the Mediterranean.

22:13 Washington. Condoleeza Rice says the US will not tolerate profanation of the Koran. An investigation into charges that desecration took place in the Guantanamo detention center will be opened.

22:03 Teheran. Iran delays uranium enrichment program, says the Chairman of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Gholamreza Aghazadeh. Today France, Britain and Germany delivered a letter to Iran outlining the consequences if Iran resumes its uranium enrichment program.

20:11 Rio de Janiero. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani says US troops will stay in Iraq for at least two more years.

19:51 Samarra. Fourth US soldier is killed, this time by a roadside bomb.

19:05 Baghdad. Bomb kills two US soldiers. Two US soldiers were killed and a third wounded by a roadside bomb near Musayyib, west of Baghdad.

17:33 Kabul. A candidate for Parliament, Aktar Mohammad Tolwak, was ambushed and shot dead by guerrillas in the southern province of Ghazni. His driver was also killed, along with two of the attackers.

15:41 Paris. French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier urges Iran not to commit an "act for which the consequences are unknown" and to renounce its uranium enrichment activities.

15:38 Paris. France said it would respond to any request from the US government to investigate French persons or firms involved in the Oil for Food scandal. In the meantime, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Cécile Pozzo di Borgo says that France is unprepared at the moment to respond to charges levelled by the US Congress at ex-Interior Minister Charles Pasqua. France objects to the way in which the charges were formulated denying the defendants their right to answer them.

15:37 Kirkuk. Two civilians and a policeman were killed and 5 civilians wounded. A carbomb exploded 20 meters from a police station in Azadi north of Kirkuk, killing one civilian and wounding two others, one fatally. A second carbomb explosed near a checkpoint on the highway to Suleimaniyah, fatally injuring a policeman. Two kilometers to the south, a homemade bomb exploded close to a bridge, wounding two civilians.

15:19 London. Tony Blair says Iraq is the theater of "battle between democrats and terrorists".

15:09 Kfar Darom. Israeli settlers in the Gaza Strip inaugurated a new synagogue on during independence day celebrations. Tens of thousands of right-wing West Bank and Golan Heights settlers travelled to Kfar Darom to demonstrate against the mid-August Israeli pullout.

15:08 Iraqi authorities announced the nth arrest of a Zarqawi lieutenant. Saïfeddine Moustafa Naïmi, alias Abu Hareth was arrested in a security operation. Iraqi forces also arrested his father.

14:58 The UN published a report today in Baghdad which describes in alarming detail the daily conditions of Iraqi life, plagued by unemployment on the grand scale, lack of housing, healthcare, electricity and potable water. The report contrasts Iraqi potential in a country with plentiful natural and human resources with the current conditions of life in 2004. The 370-page report was the result of a survey of 22,000 homes representing 150,000 people across Iraq’s 18 provinces.

14:15 Baghdad. 17 dead and 65 wounded in carbombing of a marketplace in the Shi'ite-dominated neighborhood of New Baghdad.

13:27 Baghdad. Iraqi has become a transit point for the shipment of heroin produced in Afghanistan. Jordanian authorities have observed a big increase in drug confiscations on their border with Iraq. Meanwhile 325 kg of hashish was confiscated in Basrah.

10:03 Baghdad. Ten killed in carbombing. A carbomb detonated near a mosque and a market square in the Jadida district of east Baghdad.

09:39 Al Qaim. Two US soldiers killed. A mine detonated under a US armored vehicle, killed two soldiers and wounding another 14.

09:30 Baghdad. Carbombing in the Jadida district of east Baghdad. Several deaths are reported.

09:07 Kirkuk. Two dead. At least two persons are dead and four wounded in two carbombings, one of which targeted a Shi'ite mosque.

08:16 Samarra. Four dead. Two Iraqi soldiers and two civilians were killed last night in Samarra. The soldiers were killed by a homemade bomb at a checkpoint; the two civilians, both bakery workers, were shot dead.

07:19 Baghdad. Two high-ranking officers killed. General Iyad Imad Mehdi was attacked as he left his home and died later in the hospital. Police Colonel Fadel Mohammad Mubarak was shot down as he left his residence.

06:17 Baghdad. Ultimatum extended for Australian hostage. Meanwhile Australian mufti' Taj El Din Al Hilaly, we attempt to negotiate the release of Douglas Wood.

04:19 New York. Sailor found guilty. A 23 year-old member of the US Navy refused to join his ship deployed to the Perian Gulf to protest the war on Iraq. He faces one year in prison, withholding of his pay, demotion and dishonorable discharge.

00:56 Washington. US Army Col Thomas Pappas will not be court-martialed for his role in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.

Anti-American Riots continue in Afghanistan

Please read Juan Cole today on the anti-American riots which swept Afghanistan yesterday following news of the desecration of the Koran by US jailers in Guantanamo. The riots continue today.

Update: 20:30

10 of Aghanistan’s 34 provinces have been the scene of street demonstrations hostile to the USA, following the spread of protests to 5 more provinces today. After yesterday’s toll of four dead and 71 wounded in Jalalabad, three people were killed-- two in the Khiogyani district near Jalalabad and one in Wardak Province southwest of Kabul.

Today in Wardak Province, a protest was called in the Shaq district where the offices of the police and the provincial government were set on fire. Protesters also set fire to a munitions dump and one person was killed in the resulting explosion. In the Jalalabad’s Khogyani district, demonstrators are said to have opened fire on police and two protesters were killed. In Kabul, 300 university students marched shouting slogans against the USA while in Ghazni Province Aktar Mohammad Tolwak, a candidate running for Parliamentin September’s legislative race, was killed.

From AFP: Disturbances continued in several Afghani cities against the United States. Three people were killed and 76 wounded in clashes with Afghani police today. The protests, set off by the news that Americans desecrated the Koran during prisoner interrogations in Guantanamo by flushing sheets of the sacred book down the toilet, began three days ago in Jalalabad but spread to Kabul and other cities in the country. Yesterday four people died in disturbances.

From Le Monde: Allegations that the Koran was profaned in the US prison camp on Guantanamo inflamed passions in Afghanistan, setting off protests in several cities on 11 May. The largest demonstration turned into a riot in Jalalabad, where security forces opened fire on the crowd, killing at least four protesters. Kabul, the capital, was rocked by anti-American protests on Thursday.

A story in the US weekly Newsweek picked up by the Afghanistan media, lit up a powderkeg. The magazine revealed that according to an investigation of abuse of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo, Americans placed Korans on the toilet. In at least one instance, the sacred text was thrown into the toilet bowl and flushed down.

Thousands of angry protesters, mostly students, marched on Wednesday in four provinces in the east and southeast of the country (the provinces of Nangarhar, Khost, Laghman, Wardak) which are close to Kabul and the Pakistani frontier. The protests end calmly in three provinces, but violence broke out in Nangarhar, where enemies of peace and stability joined the demonstration., said a spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry.

The most violent anti-American protests since the fall of the Taleban on 13 November 2001 took place in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar Province. Tens of thousands of Afghanis poured into the streets on Tuesday and Wednesday shouting Death to the United States! Death to George Bush, Long Live Islam, Long Live the Koran! Effigies of President Bush were burned. According to witnesses, the protestors attacked buildings symbolizing the US presence. The United Nations headquarters, the headquarters of several NGOs and the Pakistani Consulate were partially burned to the ground. Police and Afghan Army forces, supported by US troops, fired on the rioters, killing four young men and wounding 70 demonstrators, including six police.

Inside Pakistan, the reported descrecration of the Koran produced charged emotions. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry summoned the Afghan Ambassador in Islamabad to inform him of serious concern on the part of the Pakistani authorities after the attack on their consulate. Wednesday afternoon, the UN announced a temporary reduction of its staff in Jalalabad and NGOs are taking steps to ensure the security of their personnel.

The anger of the Afghanis was not appeased on Thursday as several hundred people marched in the street of Kabul shouting Death to America.

Bleak Present Beckons the Entrepreneural Future

Blogger Baheyya describes the desecration of the public sphere in Egypt prompted by Washington's "radical Anglo-Saxon economic liberalization," to quote Jacques Chirac. The public schools, hospitals, the market square, publishing houses and even the streetcorner have been stolen from the public space and handed over to free enterprise. The shells that remain are being ground into the ground by neglect and abused by a citizenry from whom notions of mutual respect, sociability and tolerance have been yanked out. Beheyya's lament is heart-wrenching:

If there are no public institutions, if there are no public services, if there are no public places, then where will Egyptians convene to find out who they are and what they want? Where will we go to interact with one another and uncover our syncretic, tolerant roots? By public places I mean actual spaces where citizens can people-watch, truck and barter, and tell time by the public square’s clock.

As autocrats throughout the Arab world curry favor from Washington, their societies literally pay the price. Recently in Morocco, the Time-Warner lobby deployed US trade representatives to inform the government that public radio broadcasts in Berber by the Moroccan Ministry of Culture must be eliminated--because they are free and non-commercial.

Which brings me to the bleak present inside US-occupied Iraq and today's UN report:

The UN published a report today in Baghdad which describes in alarming detail the daily conditions of Iraqi life, plagued by unemployment on the grand scale, lack of housing, healthcare, electricity and potable water. The report contrasts Iraqi potential in a country with plentiful natural and human resources with the current conditions of life in 2004. The 370-page report was the result of a survey of 22,000 homes representing 150,000 people across Iraq’s 18 provinces.

The rate of unemployment is 18.4%, with youth and the educated bearing the brunt--unemployment is at 33.4% and 37.2%, respectively; the principal cause of child mortality is diarrhea. Only 55% of school-age children are able to attend classes. Meantime the level of education among females is declining.

The principal problems in the heath sector are a lack of personally hygiene, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and dozens of destroyed hospitals and health clinics. 85% of Iraqi households face frequent power cuts, while only 54% have access to potable water (vs. 75% twenty years ago). Nearly a quarter of all Iraqi children suffer from chronic malnutrition.

The United States is not going to permit public mobilization to rebuild the country and get things back on track. The increasing divisions in Iraqi society are celebrated in Washington, where the public sector (save the military) is hated more than Arab terrorism.

11 May 2005 Events in Iraq

23:59 Washington. President Bush signs into law the $81 billion supplemental to finance military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The budget included $92 million in aid to Sudan. Congress also unblocked $200 in aid to the Palestinian Authority.

23:46 Washington. US Congress divulged the name of former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua and British MP George Galloway as having taken bribes from the regime of Saddam Hussein in the Oil for Food scandal. Iraqi ex-Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told Senate investigators in April that Galloway received the coupons because of his anti-war stance and his desire to remove international sanctions on the country.

23:29 Ft. Hood. Sabrina Harman pleads "not guilty" in Abu Ghraib torture trial.

23:02 Moscow. Russia will deliver nuclear fuel to Iran for the Bouchehr nuclear power plant before the end of 2005.

21:40 Brasilia. Israeli Ambassador to Brazil expresses disappintment at the omission of any mention of Israeli peace efforts in the Brasilia Declaration issued at the end of the first Arab-South America Summit. Tzipora Rimon tells AFP that the omission will encourage terrorism.

17:31 Jerusalem. Israeli Defense Minister Shaoul Mofaz says he is doubtful that France, Germany and Great Britian will resolve the Iran nuclear crisis.

17:14 Kuwait City. Kuwait announced that it has completed its judicial dossier against Saddam Hussein and former members of his regime. They are accused of crimes against humanity for the use of force in the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990

17:05 Basrah. Forty-five persons wounded in a blast inside a chemical fertilizer plant. The installation was near a pipeline transporting heavy diesel fuel. 60% of the plant is destroyed.

16:58 Damascus. Syrian opposition leaders are in disagreement on the majority of reforms proposed by the government but insist that reforms must be inspired from within the country. Politician Hassan Abdul-Azim, representing radical and leftist political movements, says change cannot be imposed by a foreign power. Nevertheless, it is hoped that the national state of emergency, which has lasted 42 years, will be lifted.

16:40 Baghdad. Four persons were killed and 25 wounded in three car bomb blasts. A mortar shell hit the Oil Ministry. One of the blasts injured a number of persons, all members of a US military patrol. Four persons are dead and 14 are wounded. Meanwhile, two Iraqi soldiers were killed in Baghdad. North of the capital, a policeman and a rebel were killed.

16:35 Hawija. Army recruits targeted by suicide bomber. A bomber wearing a suicide vest blew himself up at a police recruiting center and his accomplice escaped in a car. 32 recruits were killed. Local resident Hassan Khalaf al-Obaïdi, 60, complained of unnecessary military patrols day and night as he sought family members at a local hospital.

16:13 Baghdad. Oil ministry denies mortar hit.

16:12 Jalalabab. Four people were killed and 71 wounded in anti-American riots in Afghanistan.

15:22 Baghdad. Three carbombs and one mortar attack.

15:18 Tikrit. More than 38 people perished in the explosion of a carbomb at the bus station in downtown Tikrit. "A German-make automobile manufactured in Brazil was the cause of the explosion", say police. A curfew was imposed on the city and traffic was limited to passenger cars. Cellphone seller Zeid Hamad, whose shop was destroyed in the explosion, remarked that, The majority of victims were day laborers looking for work to put food on the table.

14:48 Rome. Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino said in a report to the Italian Senate that depleted uranium is harmless.

14:06 Baghdad. Mortar round hits Oil Ministry

12:29 Baghdad. 77 persons are dead and more than 150 wounded in a series of attacks across Iraq.

11:04 Rome. Pope Benedict XVI issues a stern warning to nations. Within History there is the sign of God; humanity is not in the grasp of obscure forces nor a victim of fate. Nations must learn to read God's message in history.

09:39 Baghdad. Third carbomb wounds 2 in attack in the New Baghdad quarter in the eastern part of the capital.

09:21 Tblisi. FBI and local authorities investigate grenade found near the site of Bush's address to the nation. The explosive device did not go off.

07:40 Hawija. Death toll rises to 30 in a blast at a police recruiting center.

07:34 Tikrit. Death toll climbs to 27 in carbombing. 60 are wounded.

07:12 Baghdad. Blast targets police station.

07:09 Hawija. 19 reported dead in car bombing.

06:46 Tikrit. Explosion near police station; 63 are wounded.

06:17 Tikrit. Carbomb kills 24 and wounds 70.

03:38 Washington. Congress passes $82 billion supplemental war budget.

02:07 Tblisi. Security cordon compromised as genade is found near the site of President Bush's address.

Operation Matador (Slayer)

Operation Matador (Slayer) 

"Foreign fighters" the aim, the locals the target. I think the Pentagon has no clue about the insurgency, but they sure do like to blow shit up. From this report in today's Le Monde, we learn that locals are putting up determined resistance as US Marines conduct search-and-destroy missions targeting hamlet after hamlet along the Eurphates River.


Unexpected resistance along Euphrates River

Clashes which opposed the US forces and Sunni guerrillas in the Jazeera Desert in west Iraq close to the Syrian border surprised observers by their violence. Operation Matador, the largest US operation since Phantom Fury against Fallujah in November 2004, includes more than 1,000 troops and was launched after US forces met with determined initial resistance from rebels.

The Jazeera Desert remained for a time terra incognita. Following dispatches received from the front over the last four days, US High Command in Baghdad has re-baptized the area The Wild West. They suspect that guerrilla forces have logistical bases in the area, which they believe is also an entry point for foreign Jihad fighters from Syria. They were also apparently surprised by level of training among the insurgents in this arid and desolate province. Although US forces believed in the beginning that they were up against men linked to Jordanian radical Islamist Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, they have now expanded their offensive.

Combat reporting is barely able to trickle in from the Wild West through filters. US High Command has only authorized two reporters from the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune to be embedded with Marine units in the area. Col. Stephen Davis, commander of the Second Marine Combat Regiment and cited by the two newspapers, says, The insurgents are not boys who get $50 to place roadside bombs. They are professional combatants who are trained and well-armed.

Marines began to notice that there were rebel positions on the southern bank of the Euphrates, despite intelligence reports saying they were only on the northern bank. Then they observed that from these positions guerrillas were able to hit them with precise mortar fire day or night which is not commonplace among the insurgency. We originally planned to conduct a hit-and-run commando operation. Instead, we are giving battle, says one US military officer by phone. We had the impression that the rebels were waiting for us.

Operation Matador began Saturday 7 May in al-Qaïm but US forces were obliged to postpone crossing the Euphrates by one day due to rebel attacks. Their base at Camp Gannon near al-Qaïm and one of their convoys sustained a direct mortar hit from guerrillas. During patrols sent out to destroy mortar launchers in the villages of Obeidi and Karabilah, Marines had to fight house-to-house combat. One of them was killed when a rebel fired through the floor from the basement. Two other Marines were wounded by a rebel who tossed a grenade at them out a window. US Command reports that three more Marines were killed and the Los Angeles Times says 20 others were wounded. On Sunday, US forces--which claim to have killed a hundred insurgents--deployed warplanes, combat helicopters, artillery, tanks and a thousand troops and were able to cross the Euphrates only on Monday at dawn. The operation continues.

Matador aims to “eliminate insurgents and foreign fighters” from a border area which the US military claims is a route for infiltration and a sanctuary for “Jihadists.” After taking control of Fallujah, the headquarters for Sunni Islamists rebels from April to November 2004, guerrilla leaders vanished. But now there are increasing signs of high-intensity operations in three locations, says US intelligence: The capital, Baghdad, the northern city of Mosul and along the Syrian frontier, once viewed as a transit zone and now considered a bastion of foreign Jihad fighters.

In al-Anbar Province, which extends from the outskirts of Baghdad to the Syrian border, 15 US soldiers have been killed since Monday. The newly-appointed provincial governor, Nawaf Al-Raja Al-Mahalwi, was kidnapped Tuesday 10 May. His captors demand the end to the US operation. It is suspected that the kidnapping was in response to an announced bounty by Baghdad on the head of Imam Abdallah Al-Janabi, a Sunni Islamist leader from Fallujah on the run since November.

The recrudescence of rebel military operations and bombings has been more than evident over the last few weeks, following the installation by Washington and Baghdad of the first elected Iraqi government in its history after three months of haggling.

Rémy Ourdan.

10 May 2005 Events in Iraq

Iraqi Police Brutality (from L'Orient-Le Jour) 

Ramadi. For the last 48 hours, the area bordering on Syria of al-Anbar has been the theatre of US offensive named Operation Matador* to "eliminate insurgents and foreign fighters" and to "cut of their lines of weapons and explosive supply." A total of 15 US troops were killed between Saturday and Monday; another three died between yesterday and today. The US military says that it killed between "75 and 100" nationalist rebels and that 10 surrendered to American forces. The operation, supported by airstrikes, took place in an area reknown as a haven for smuggling and a sanctuary for foreign fighters. Meanwhile, al-Zarqawi denied that any of his men were killed in the operation.

*Of course, we know what "Matador" means in a bullfight but in this context the US his diguising Operation Slayer in Spanish.

Baghdad. The Iraqi government has offered a bounty of $50,000 for the head of Abdallah Janabi, a Sunni chieftain who lead Islamist rebels in Fallujah.

Canberra. Australian government sources say it has lost contact with the kidnappers of Douglas Wood.

Bucharest. Romanian President Traian Basescu says his country will not negotiate with the kidnappers of three Romanian reporters and their guide.

Paris. Florence Aubenas and her guide mark 125 days as hostages.

Amman. Jordan to name new ambassador to Baghdad.

New York. Oil for Food scandal. The United Nations wins a round in the courtroom. In a lawsuit against Robert Parton by the UN for divulging confidential information as Volcker Commission investigator, a US federal tribunal in Washington has enjoined Patton for 10 days from handing over further commission documents to two Congressional subcommittees conducting their own investigation of the Oil-for-Food scandal. However, the Congressional committees are in possession of several of the documents.

Baghdad. Iraqi authorities have released 200 detainees held by the Americans. Another 200 will be released next week. The release is the result of the decision of a joint committee of US military officials and Iraqi ministers which meets to review detentions. The US admits to holding 10 708 Iraqi prisoners as of 4 April 2004.

Paris. Chaldean patriarch Mgr Emmanuel Delly, 77, met with Jacques Chirac in his first visit to France.

Baghdad. A Japanese security guard was taken prisoner when nationalist rebels attacked a convoy of foreigners in Western Iraq. The Japanese government i stiving to gather "independent information" on the fate of of Akihito Saito, a 44 year-old former soldier employed by a British security firm. Ansar al-Sunna say Saito was "severely injured" during the attack. The convoy that he was escorting was attacked in a nighttime raid.

Baghdad. On Monday the bodies of eight Shi'ite civilians were found, four days after fourteen Sunnis were killed near Sadr City. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has demanded an investigation into the deaths of the Sunnis.

Canberra. The mufti of Australia, Sheik Taj Eldine al-Hilali, has flown to the Iraqi capital to assist in negotations for the release Douglas Wood, 63. Australia has 550 soldiers deployed to Iraq and intends to augment this number by 350 soon.

19:40 Ramallah. Palestinian Foreign Minister Nasser Al-Kidwa, attending an Arab-Southern Hemisphere summit in Brasilia, has warned of a deterioration "on the ground" if Israel does not respect its commitments promised in February's summit at Sharm al Sheik. Al-Kidwa also says Palestinian President Mahmood Abbas would soon travel to the United States for talks with President Bush.

19:25 Teheran. Ex-President Akbar Hashemi Rafsandjani announces he will again run for President. In a communique delivered to AFP, Mr. Rafsandjani says he is running out of concern for rising tension and debilitating confrontation standing in the way of a serious program for developing the country. Rafsandjani criticized the emergence of "extremist tendancies" and a climate of apathy driving the populace into a worrisome state of weakened values, which undermines personal dignity and threaten the means of existence.

19:18 New York. The UAE demanded that its claims against Iran over three strategic Gulf islands be brought before the UN Security Council in a letter from UAE UN Ambassador Abdel Aziz Ben Nasser Al-Shamsi to Kofi Annan. In December 2004, Iran reaffirmed its sovereignty over the islands and spurned a mediation offer from Abu Dhabi. According to Abu Dhabi, the islands of the Great Tomb, the Lesser Tomb and Abu Mussa at the entrance to the Straits of Hormuz have been "occupied" by Iran. Iran is building a military base and an airport on Abu Mussa and bringing in "settlers."

19:02 London. Twenty-five British ex-soldiers deployed to Iraq are suffering from mental and psychological disorders. Most are members of the Territorial Army, a part-time national force. The numbers are only the tip of the iceberg, according to Leigh Skelton of the organization, Combat Stress.

19:01 Beirut. Lebanese authorities say they destroyed poppy and marijuana fields in Wadi Halabta in the Békaa Valley of eastern Lebanon. The poppies would have been ready for opium extraction in about ten days, according to official sources. Lebanon began a drug eradication program at the request of the United States in 1994 but is considered to have failed by lack of success in growing alternative crops. During the '80s, drug trafficking produced $4 billion a year or the Lebanese economy.

18:50 Kuwait City. Kuwaiti authorites have permitted al-Jazeera to reopen its offices in Kuwait. Al-Jazeera is banned in Saudi Arabia and in Iraq.

18:10 Jerusalem. Israeli police close down Palestinian voter registration centers. Two Palestinian voter registration offices in Jerusalem were shut down by Israeli police, who claimed to have no knowledge of an official agreement permitting registration ahead of the 17 July elections.

17:06 Ramadi. The Governor of al-Anbar province, Nawaf al-Raja al-Mahalwi, was kidnapped by insurgents demanding an end to the US offensive. The governor's brother told Reuters, however, that the kidnappers demand that the governor's tribe end its clashes with groups linked to al-Zarqawi. The governor originates from al-Qaïm. Al-Mahalwi was kidnapped while travelling from al-Qaïm to Ramadi, the provincial seat, along with four of his bodyguards.

15:56 Rome. Italian contingent to pull out by January or February 2006 at the latest, says Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini. UN Security Council Resolution 1546 provides that general elections must take place of by 31 December 2005. Afterwards, Italian forces are scheduled to pull out.

14:42 Paris. French Foreign Ministry Spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei says France hopes Iran will renounce its uranium enrichment program.

14:12 Baghdad. The Iraqi Foreign Ministry says it will do "everything possible" to release Japanese hostage Akihiko Saito.

14:08 Baghdad. The Iraqi Parliament names a committee to draft the permanent Constitution. The committee is composed of 55 members, 28 of whom are members of the Shi'ite UIA and 17 are Kurd. Deputy Speaker Hussein Shahristani says the committee has three days to meet and chose a chairman and a secretary. The committee includes several notable political figures: Judge Dara Nureddin, former Assembly Speaker Fuad Maassum, former Minister of State for Security Affairs Qassem Daoud, former Oil Minister Thamer Ghadbane, al-Dawa party Number 2 Jawad Maliqi, SCIRI's Humam Hammudi, Communist Party leader Hamid Majid, Christian leader Yonnadam Kanna and Kamiran Beik of the Yazidis.

14:07 Najaf. A homemade bomb was discovered and defused 200 meters from the offices of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. The explosive device consisted of 10 lbs. of TNT, hand grenades and gasoline. A year ago on 17 May, the Grand Ayatollah's offices were sprayed with gunfire.

12:30 Karmah. US Marine killed by a mortar round.

11:03 Tokyo. Japanese Defense Minister Yoshinori Ono says Japan's 600-man contingent in Samawa will not be impacted by hostage negotiations and that Japanese troops would not be withdrawn.

10:48 Fallujah. A US Marine was killed this morning in Nasser Wa Sallam in central Iraq.

09:43 Baghdad. Suicide carbomb targets river police. A second carbomb targeting a Tigris River police station detonated in the nearby Abu Nawwas district in south-central Baghdad, wounding three police. In this bombing, a suicide carbomber rammed the entrance gates to the facility and destroyed three police cars.

09:29 Baghdad. Second blast.

09:00 Baghdad. Casualty toll rises to 7 dead and 16 wounded. Seven persons were killed and 23 wounded in a fresh carbombing targeting a US convoy in Saadoun Street in downtown Baghdad, destroying shops and cars. Police securing the area fired warning shots in the air to drive back the crowd of onlookers, as firefighters tried to put out at least seven burning vehicles.

08:54 Baghdad. Carbombing in downtown area.

Al Qaim: Shooting up poultry farms, etc.

Please see this post by Tom Spencer over at corrente.

Bush: Umbrella Games in Moscow

Doofus 
Bush can't stop clowning around.

8 May 2005 Events in Iraq (and Elsewhere)

This is not going to be a good week.

Off topic but too big to ignore. Baradei affirms that North Korea has at least six atomic weapons. The Director of the IAEA, Mohammed el-Baradei, tells CNN that North Korea has at least six atomic weapons. We know that they have the plutonium for five or six nuclear weapons. We know that they have the industrial infrastructure to convert this plutonium. We know that they have a delivery capability....The sooner we intervene to pursue talks with the the North Koreans and the sooner we try to find an overall solution, the better off we all will be.

Tunis. 2.8 million Tunisians voted in municipal elections. With Islamist parties banned and leftist parties off the ticket, the ruling Constitutional Democratic Party won a crushing victory in 264 municipalities. Municipal elections occur every five years.

Jerusalem. Shaken by a scandal, the Greek Orthodox community in the Holy Land is in a uproar. Patriarch Ireneos the First was destituted of his functions by the synod after a secret sale to a Jewish businessman of church property in Jerusalem's Old City: two hotels near the Jaffa Gate. Jerusalem's old city was conquered and annexed by Israel after the 1967 War. Supporters of Ireneos are protesting the decision.

Jerusalem. Despite the engagements of Sharm el Sheik, Israeli PM Ariel Sharon announced that he would freeze the release of 400 Palestinian prisioners claiming lack of resolve on the part of Mahmoud Abbas in dealing with the security situation. The postponement is likely to undermine the current de facto truce. Moreover, access has been restricted to the Esplanade atop the Temple Mount to Muslims over the age of 45 and this has irritated the Palestinian Authority. Israel claims the decision was taken to avoid clashes with the Jewish extremist group, Revava. Later the Palestinian Authority claimed via communiqué that Israeli threats seem to be coupled with threats by Revava to invade the al Aqsa Mosque on Monday. The Palestinian Authority plans to set up surveillance cameras to snare Revava infiltrators. The PA warned Israel against any official support of the planned invasion of the Esplanade, saying that the situation could become "explosive".

Gaza Strip. Fatah members operating outside the control of Mahmood Abbas shut down several voter registration centers set up in advance of the July legislative elections. They were protesting the success of Hamas at the polls last week during municipal elections.

Gaza Strip. Eight Israeli trucks and bulldozers vandalized in the Gaza Strip. Foam was introduced into the exhaust pipes and doorlocks were damaged by glue. Slogans used by settlers against the mid-August pullout were painted on the windshields. The incident took place in an equipment parking lot near an Israeli military position. The Israeli Army did not observe the perpetrators.

Jerusalem. Pollard wants to be recognized as a « prisoner of Zion» Jonathan Pollard, an American Jew sentenced to life in prison in 1987 on charges of spying for Israel has filed a petition with the Supreme Court to be recognized as a "prisoner of Zion." If the status is granted, Jonathan Pollard will compel the State of Israel to demand his release from prison. The Jews of the USSR, insisting on their right to emigrate, were declared "prisoners of Zion" by Israel and thus received the full support and backing of the state. Mr. Pollard was granted Israeli citizenship in 1998.

Cairo. Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, urged the Egyptian Parliament to reject a constitutional amendement allowing the head of government to be elected by direct universal suffrage because of the "prohibitive restrictions" imposed on candidates wishing to run for office. The written endorsement of at least 300 parliamentarians is to be required for all candidates, which is impossible to obtain because most MPs are members of the majority ruling party. Mr.Akef also called for the immediate release of Brotherhood members who were arrested for demonstrating for reforms. Of the 2,000 protesters arrested, 600 were placed in preventative detention for two weeks.

Cairo. One hundred Islamist lawyers protested outside the Ismaïliya courthouse against the detention of three of their colleagues. Lawyers Mohammed Nafee, Achraf Mohammed Ali and Eid Ebeid were among 29 people arrested during protests on Friday. The accused were locked in police vans under high security while the demonstration took place.

Tripoli. Libya extradites brother of suicide bomber. Mohammed Yousri Yassin, brother of Nagat and Ihab Yousri Yassin, may be linked to a terrorist cell which has carried out several attacks targeting tourists in Cairo and was extradited to Egypt.

Baghdad. Iraqi Parliament ratifies the nomination of the last five ministers in the Jafaari cabinet. However, Sunni nominee Hachem Abderrahmane al-Chibli rejected his nomination as Minister for Human Rights. He was not consulted before the appointment.

Baghdad. The US Army announced the capture of six suspect members of a group led by Abu Moussab al-Zarqawi

Baghdad. Seven US soldiers were killed in and around Baghdad in the last 48 hours. Meanwhile, al-Jafaari threatened to invoke a state of emergency.

Amman. Jordan and Iraq will step up their efforts to combat terrorism, says Iraqi FM Hoshyar Zebari who accompanied President Jalal Talabani on his first trip outside the country. Mr. Zebari also indicated that talks would resolve the delicate matter of Ahmad Chelabi legal troubles in Jordan. During his talks with Talabani, King Abdallah II assured him that Jordan would not recognize any legal action agains the Iraqi people or members of its government. Mr. Chalabi was sentenced to 22 years in prison by the Jordian judiciary in 1986 for corruption and enbezzlement of $228 million while he served as CEO of the Petra Bank.

Washington. Senate to divulge names in Oil for Food scandal. The US Senate will release the names of foreign personalities being investigated for their involvement in the Oil for Food scandal. Bush asked that the names of Russians involved in the scandal be withheld until after his return from Russia. The Senate will provide the details of corruption focusing on French ex-Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, a British MP, a Russian politician and an advisor to President Putin.

Baghdad. New ministry appointments. Defense: Dr Saadoun al-Dulaimi (Sunni); Oil: Dr Ibrahim Bahr al-Uloum (Shia); Deputy prime minister: Abid Mutlak al-Jubouri (Sunni); Electricity: Dr Mohsen Shlash (Shia); Industry: Usama al-Najafi (Sunni); Human Rights: Hashim al-Shible (Sunni). Mr. al-Jaafari indicated that he was seeking a woman to fill a final deputy prime minister's position.

22:12 Haditha. Guerrillas conduct raid on hospital killing four US troops.

20:12 Khaldiyah. Two US soliders killed in clashes northwest of capital

19:29 Samarra. Marine killed by bomb.

18:34 Baghdad. Group linked to al-Zarqawi threatens Vatican and the Whitehouse.

18:00 Baghdad. Nth al Zarqawi arrest. Al Zarqawi lieutenant Amar Adnan Muhammad Hamzah al-Zubaydi, alias Abu Abbas, was arrested on May 5 in a raid on a Baghdad neighborhood. He is accused of directing an attack on Abu Ghraib prison on April 2 and of a series of suicide attacks. Abu Abbas confessed to stealing and hiding 400 mortar round and 720 cases of explosives at his farm in Youssoufiah, south of Baghdad.

17:44 Beiji. Iraqi civilians wounded in a shootout following a carbombing which targeted a US convoy.

17:36 Baghdad. Two Americans killed yesterday in downtown Baghdad were employees of a North Carolina security company. CTU Consulting of North Carolina, identified the two American security contractors who were killed as Brandon Thomas and Todd Venette. Five other CTU employees were also wounded, and four were treated and released, the company said.

17:00 Kuwait City. Twenty suspected Islamist activists received a sentence of three years in prison without appeal. Abdallah Matar ach-Chimmari will serve an extra five years for attempting to enter Iraqi without a passport. A group of three other received fines of ranging from $3,400 and $10,000.

14:51 Baghdad. Two Iraqi soldiers killed in a suicide carbombing along the Mosul-Beiji highway targeting a US-Iraqi military convoy. Four civilians were wounded, including a child. The attack destroyed two private cars.

12:15 Baghdad. The director-general of the Ministry of Transport, Zoubaa Yassin Khodeïr al-Maïni, was shot dead together with his chauffeur by unknown gunmen.

Bush and the Risks of Idealism

Big Three @ Yalta 
Italian newspaper columnist Vittorio Zucconi reminds us that on occasion cruel cynicism and cold manipulation have saved the world from nuclear conflict. One of this instances was the Conference of Yalta which, while dividing Europe in recognition of harsh realities on the ground (the western advance of Soviet forces), both prevented nuclear war and left the space for the West to regain its democratic footing.

The impetuous George Bush is an idealistic and dangerous risk-taker. For Bush, America's power is his moral compass and where he takes us, we know not. [But most of us have a bad feeling].

"With the coherence which is both his hallmark and his bane and with the certainty of a providential messiah of the New Age, Bush has consigned to the dustbin of history one-half century of grim, harsh reality which the world knew as the Peace of Yalta. The agreement, which tacitly divided Europe, corresponded to the advance of Soviet and Anglo-American forces and which was accepted in Stalin’s Crimea by Churchill and Roosevelt was, according to Bush, not only a mistake but an extension of the secret agreement between Berlin and Moscow initialed by Molotov and Ribbentrop.

Bush imagines Yalta to be the offspring of one of the most abominable acts of political and military violence carried out by the worst tyrannies of the 20th century. The fact that the Peace of Yalta immobilized a looming conflict into a frosty equilibrium of mutual nuclear blackmail does not seem to trouble this President, who, in the cultural tradition of the United States, possesses the deepest and most optimistic of convictions—that history only started yesterday and that the past is ballast to be jettisoned overboard in order to guarantee smooth sailing.

The underlying cause of Bush's recent exploit in hyper-historical revisionism is the ever more difficult and embarrassing visit to Moscow to see his ex-friend Vladimir, to whom the tragic dilettantes of policy and strategy had promised entry into Europe and NATO, and who now openly reveals his true nature as Once a Chekist, always a Chekist in his public yearning for the Soviet Empire and the methods employed in running the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

For the tripartite understanding between the USSR, the USA and Great Britain reached in February 1945 was the keystone upon which the inviolable temple of the Soviet Empire resided until 1991. The demolition of its historical and moral underpinnings is a unmistakable and brutal way of telling the ex-Major of the Secret Police to forget about his ambition to resurrect and reconstitute of the Soviet sphere of influence.

But in Bush’s thrust there is much more than a justifiable challenge to the revanchiste illusions of Vladimir, whom the President misread as he looked the man in the eye and understood that he could trust him. In the President’s jab, there was necessarily the relentless continuation of the doctrine of “exporting democracy” as the only real and lasting antidote to war which informs the vision and the actions of a President whose charge is to guarantee the primacy of the United States around the world and global peace. In a moment in which democracy woefully tries to plant its roots into the daily bloodshed of Iraq and when North Korea brazenly puts on display the “weapons of mass destruction” which Saddam never possessed, Russia and the nations freed from the grasp of Russian domination have become the prime focus of a feasibility test of neoconservative interventionism.

The dreadful price at which Iraq is being democratized, coupled with bombs and missiles procured by a miserable Asian dictator and the decline of the largest nation on earth, Russia, into imperialism and authoritarianism, have combined to produce a classic Pyrrhic victory for the Bush doctrine. Any notion of invading Russia to impose regime change in Moscow is entirely moot after the terrible lesson of Iraq.

Against this backdrop of debacle, President has chosen to engage in verbal personal challenge extending all the way back to the Yalta Pact, which represented the exact opposite of Bush’s vision for the world and of role played by America--a role which is in fact neo-revolutionary. If US remains the sole superpower, absent any nation which possesses the military might to balance its war-fighting potential (Washington spends more on its defense that of the 25 of the world’s most developed nations combined), the temptation of identifying America’s strength with moral purpose will remain irresistible to this president as well as to future presidents. By tossing Yalta into the dustbin along with its pitiless logic and cynical but practical abandon of bordering states like East Germany, the Baltic Republics, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania to the “fraternal” domination of Stalin and Brezhnev, Bush overlooks the state to which Europe was reduced and the strategic realities of 1945.

Bush's “idealism”, which is a sanitized and politically correct version of the White Man’s Burden, can stretch itself across the global horizon because Stalin’s armored divisions around Berlin and a million Red Army soldiers one step away from the borders of Western Europe have vanished. Bush overlooks the terrible yet practical necessity of finding an accommodation with an enemy who not only possessed a devastating nuclear arsenal but who had the will to use it. Bush, who has consumed and internalized Neocon formulas, detests prudence and pragmatism. Bush prefers the risk of idealism. For him, the concession of a Soviet protectorate over Eastern Europe was a mistake which “we shall not repeat”

But what of other errors? What will be the consequences if the world refuses to democratize itself according to the formulas of Pax Americana? The mistake of Yalta—if indeed it was —contained conflict in a pitiless and Machiavellian fashion to internal repression within East Germany, Hungary, in Czechoslovakia while permitting western European nations to mature towards consensual democracy. This fact does not give President Bush pause to reflect, nor could he, being the man of ideals and of action that he is.

The cynicism which guided Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, that held back the hand of Kennedy, tempted by an invasion of Cuba, and that suggested to Johnson and to Nixon not to pursue the conflict of Vietnam beyond its borders does not mark to this obstinate and impetuous Texan, who considers all that took place before his time an error and who is leading his nation, and along with it the world, on a course through uncharted waters, with no compass other than the conviction that he is the most powerful, and therefore, the most moral."

When the world loved America

Victory in Europe May 8, 1945

7 May 2005 Events in Iraq

19:20 Sharm al Sheik. Sultan Qabous of Oman and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak met for talks on the Middle East, Iran and Lebanon. Mubarak briefed Sultan Qabous on the results of his talks with Saudi Crown Prince Abdallah ben Abdel Aziz held the day before.

18:34 Baghdad. Iraqi MP Michaane al-Juburi was stopped from leaving the country in possession of a large amount of cash in US dollars at Baghdad International Aiport. Al Juburi was about to go Syria with $400,000 when he was informed that he could not leave the country with more than $10,000 because of a new rule, says his son Yazan al-Juburi. Al Juburi made a fortune under the regime of Saddam Hussein and was the individual responsible for delivering the city of Mosul to the US Army. He recently offered to represent the insurgency in the new national assembly.

18:38 Amman. Saudi Crown Prince Abdallah ben Abdel Aziz met with King Abdallah II of Jordan to discuss the situation in the Middle East. Also, Jordan hopes to renew a petroleum supply agreement with Saudi Arabia which expired in April. The Crown Prince also met with Bashir al-Assad Friday in Damascus.

17:57 Baghdad. Two AFP reporters held in US prisons. Two AFP reporters considered "threats to the security of the population and Coalition forces" are being held in US-run prisions in Iraq. Reporter Ammar Daham Naef Khalaf was arrested on 11 April in Ramadi and is held in Abu Ghraib prison. Photographer Fares Nawaf al-Issaywi was arrested May 1 in Fallujah.

17:20 Baghdad. Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi claims credit for this morning's bombing in Baghdad which killed at least 15 people.

16:50 Baghdad. US Embassy confirms the death of two US security contractors among the 15 dead in this morning's bombing in crowded Tahrir Square which also wounded 50, including children.

16:48 Rome. Italian intelligence agency SISMI acted according to government directives, says the Berlusconi government after a request for clarification by ex-President Francesco Cossiga. Meantime, the Toyota Corolla in which agent Nicola Calipari was travelling is undergoing forensic analysis in Italy.

16:01 Beirut. General Aoun returns to Lebanon after a 15-year exile in France.

15:49 Baghdad. Nth al-Zarqawi lieutenant arrested. Ghassan Mohammed Amin Hussein al Rawi was arrested.

12:18 Rome. The Toyota Corolla in which agent Nicola Calipari was travelling is undergoing forensic analysis in the police forensic center in via Tuscolana, Rome.

11:44 Baghdad. Four Americans die in bombing. Thirteen civilians and 4 US security guards perished in a blast targeting their SUVs in downtown Baghdad. The explosion completely destroyed two SUVs, leaving the corpes of the four Americans in cinders. Another 33 civilians were injured, including women and children. Weapons fire was heard in the square which leads to the Jumhuriya Bridge and the Green Zone.

11:16 Baghdad. Defense and Oil Ministers appointed. The UIA and the Kurdish parties agreed on the nomination of Sunni Arab Saadoun al-Dulaimi as Defense Minister and Shi'ite Ibrahim al-Uloum as Oil Minister.

11:12 Baghdad. Death toll in bombing rises to 17, including four Americans.

10:12 Baghdad. Carbomb kills 4 and wounds 22.

09:43 Baghdad. US convoy hit by bomb in downtown Baghdad.

09:40 Suwayra. Final death toll in the marketplace bombing in Suwayra is at 31, with 34 wounded.

09:11 Teheran. Relationship with EU threated by the nuclear question. Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi says a decision will be taken shortly regarding uranium enrichment. This could end negotiations with the European Union.

07:21 Canberra. The family of Australian hostage Douglas Wood begs kidnappers to free him.

06:07 Washington. 1700 rape cases reported among US forces.

05:01 New York. Kofi Annan names vice-representative in Baghdad. The UN Secretary General named German diplomat Michael von der Schulenberg as his personal representative to the UN mission in Baghdad.

02:49 Sydney. Australian goverment rejects ultimatum regarding kidnapped engineer Douglas Wood.

Thousands of Dutch Protest Bush in Amsterdam

ANTI-BUSH PROTESTS IN HOLLAND - After his meeting with the heads of the Baltic Republics in Riga, Bush flew to Holland to visit the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten where 8,203 US soldiers are buried (US 9th Army). In Amsterdam thousands of Dutch protested the first official visit of Bush to their country with signs and slogans reading Bush, International Terrorist, Bush, Enemy No. 1 of the Environment and Stop Bush! Most of the banners carried anti-war statements.

BUSH'S STATEMENTS IN RIGA. I don't know where Bush gets the gall to make statement like this: The Soviet domination of eastern Europe one of the greatest wrongs of history. No, the attempted genocide by the Nazis of all Slavs in a war of aggression which killed 20 million of them was one of the greatest wrongs of history. This man needs a history lesson in a therapeutic setting. The division of Europe was agreed at Yalta and there wasn't one damn thing anyone could have done about it. It was the fallout of a global, all-out conflict.

These Baltic lands were under the Teutonic Order, or Sweden, or Poland or Russia or Germany since 1500. They had a very short-lived existence between WWI and WW2 as a result of the dismantling the German Empire in 1918 when they lost no time in installing their own home-grown fascist dictators: Estonia: Constantin Päts (1934); Latvia: K. Ulmanis (1934); Lithuania: Smetona/Voldemaras (1928)[and as to Voldemaras--it is likely that Rowling riffs on this for her character Voldemort]). And now they want billions in reparations from the Russians.

Former Estonian Foreign Minister Toomas Hendrik Ilves, now a European Parliament MP, gets it right: The Baltic republics "discredit" themselves in demanding terroritorial and financial reparations which "no one in Europe would support." Now that they are part of the European Union, they should chill out and enjoy their new-found status. Their attitude, high-fived by Bush, is "unrealistic and plays into the hands of Moscow."

Oh yes, and we have a historically-challenged goofball for a President.

Update: I now regret that my close to null capacity for cursing, blasphemy and colorful expletives 'cause I'd roll them all out after reading this from our nincompoop of a president...

The agreement among the great victors of WWII [Yalta], says Bush, can be compared to the injustice of the Munich Agreement and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

What a piece of horseshit.

The Raid on the al Qaim Poultry Farm

How much do you want to bet that this escapade between 2 and 3 May was a FUBAR operation?

Twelve suspected rebels were killed and 8 wounded, including a 9 year-old girl and six US troops, in clashes near the Syrian border. US troops followed a suspect truck [What's a suspect truck--one with plates in Arabic?] to a small encampment outside al-Qaim where suspect bundles were loaded. [Suspect bundles--didn't anyone bother to find out? I mean, alot of things are transported in bundles: dates, poultry, dirty laundry, camel dung, cellphones, cats...] Also, US aircraft launched a raid on a tent and a storage shed, killing three suspected rebels. Two Marine F-18 Hornet aircraft went down, but CENTCOM refused to say where.

Doesn't this just stink? Doesn't this just ooze the stench of FUBAR from the A to the Z? I wouldn't even rule out a friendly fire episode--that the Marines on the ground were wounded by their own aircraft and maybe even had to shoot down their own F18s to avoid massacre? Doesn't suggest that a) the place was a chicken ranch or b)a warehouse for smuggled electronics but definitely not a rebel encampment? And that the target, the stakeout, and the action was wrong wrong wrong?

6 May 2005 Events in Iraq

Djibouti. US denies Somali terror landing. Fishermen and officials said that two boats carrying 20 marines had landed and handed out photographs before sailing back into the Red Sea. Gen Samuel Helland suggested the reports may have been confused with a training exercise in Djibouti in April. Somaliland's declaration of independence from the rest of Somalia has not been internationally recognised but it has enjoyed relative peace. Meanwhile, Somaliland officials say they have complained about US helicopters entering its territory without permission.

23:40 Paris. Exiled Lebanese General Michel Aoun returns Saturday from exile after 15 years. Aoun has called on Lebanese to "free their minds". There are plenty of pathological symptoms in our society which we must cure. There is political feudalism, which causes stagnation, and we have to eliminate it. [That's fascist talk--Nur]

23:38 New York. Peruvian diplomat Alvaro de Soto was named UN Special Representative for the Israel-Palestin peace process, replacing Norwegian Terje Roed-Larsen.

23:42 Beirut. Bombing in Jounieh district. A bomb killed two and wounded sixteen, the fifth in Lebanon targeting Lebanese Chritians since the assassinatin of Rafik Hariri on February 14th.

23:20 New York. UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will travel to Moscow for the 9 May meeting of the Quartet on the Road Map. Outgoing World Bank President James Wolfensohn and on-site Quartet representative will be present as well as General William Ward, the US coordinator for security.

23:17 Beirut. Lebanese Prime Minister Nagib Miqati says he is ready to cooperate with the international community but that the disarming of Lebanese Hezbollah is an internal matter.

22:51 Suwayrah. Casualty toll adjusted downwards in marketplace bombing. Adjusted total is 26 dead and 45 wounded.

17:53 Suwayrah. Marketplace carbombing. 58 are dead following a suicide bombing in the Mokharad district of Suwayrah, 50 km south of Baghdad. The entire marketplace was devastated.

17:44 Rome. Prodi congratulates Blair but with two reservations: Blair's policy on Iraq and Great Britain's European policy.

17:03 Baghdad. US troops kill insurgent who is said to have attacked a US patrol.

16:15 Baghdad. Three-quarters of Iraqis surveyed want Islam cited as the source of all legislation in the new Iraqi Constitution. The survey of 2,705 Iraqi adults was carried out by the International Republican Institute between 11 and 20 April.

16:16 New York. Manhattan Bridge closed due to bomb scare.

16:15 Amman. Iraqi ambassador returns to Jordanian capital. Iraqi ambassador Ata Abdel Wahab resumed his functions in Amman following the March crisis over the Hilla carbombing.

15:41 Suwayrah: Marketplace carbombing kills 22

15:05 Copenhagen. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Liberal Partyl) congratulated Tony Blair for his election victory and for his defense of his postions (re: Iraq).

14:36 London. Opposition to Blair's Iraq policy did not succeed in preventing his return to power in yesterday's Parliamentary elections.

11:08 Baghdad. Fourteen bodies discovered. The corpses of 14 executed Iraqis was found in north Baghdad.

08:05 Tikrit. Eight dead and seven wounded. A bomb hidden in a minibus transporting Iraqi security forces detonated at a checkpoint.

07:38 Baghdad. Australian hostage, engineer Douglas Wood, is still alive, says Australian FM Alexander Downer.

Blair: Signs of Strain

Tired Blair 

Tony Blair's Labour Party won, but lost 57 seats in the process. He has a safe majority in the House of Commons. But looks as though something is causing him to age rapidly...could it be the burden of war and the stress of working with the agents of the devil, er the Bush Administration?

5 May 2005 Events in Iraq

Baghdad. French reporter Florence Aubenas, correspondent for the leftist newspaper Libération and her guide Hussein Hannoun al-Saadi reach a milestone 4 months as hostages in Iraq. Editor-in-Chief Serge July underscores several strange aspects of the affair: the hostage takers have used the media rarely and they are in no hurry. This is strikingly different from other abductions, says July.

Baghdad. Nine Iraqi journalists working for the international press are held by US forces without charge. The nine are "suspected of aiding the insurgency." The group includes two AFP reporters but US officials admit to holding only one AFP employee, Ammar Daham Naef Khalaf. CBS reporter Abdel Amir Hussein, wounded in Mosul, is also being held. A cameraman for British Reuters and his father have been detained for 11 days without charge.

Kuwait City. Centcom commander Gen. John Abizaid accuses Damascus of refusal to cooperate to stop infiltration of foreign fighters into Iraq, as reported by the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai al-Aam. We gave the Syrians precise information and asked them to assist us in securing the Iraqi-Syrian frontier against infiltration by foreign fighters...Unfortunately the Syrians turned a deaf ear to all these requests and have not given us a response for any of them. In contrast, the Saudi newspaper al-Watan says that Syria is holding 37 Saudis in their prisons for having attempted to cross the border into Iraq and published the names of 17 of them. Furthermore the Syrian Foreign Minister affirmed in Istanbul affirmed last week that he country was prepared to support the new Iraqi government and to cooperate with it in the war on terror.

23:38 Washington. US President George Bush extended economic sanctions placed on Syria, which he accused supporting terrorism, obstructing the stabilization of Iraq and continuing its occupation of Lebanon. Bush added that Syria was a permanent, uncommon and extraordinary threat against the United States and intends develop weapons of mass destruction.

23:25 Washington. General Karpinsky demoted to Colonel.

23:23 New York. Paul Volcker, chairman of a commission charged by the UN to investigate wrongdoing in the Oil for Food scandal, challenged the integrity of one of his ex-employees, accusing him of passing the commission's document to US Congress. Mr. Volcker stated that investigator Robert Parton had no right to release the documents in his possession. Parton resigned last month. Earlier today, Henry Hyde, Chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, said Parton had been handed an injuction to turn over any documents in his possession. Mr. Volcker has publically complained before of attempts by certain Representatives to acquire the commission's documents. Volcker will submit his findings at the end of the summer.

23:02 Ramallah. With 60% of the vote count tallied, Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement won 60% of the vote in municipal elections; Hamas came in second.

22:52 Beirut. Lebanese President Emile Lahoud signed into law a decree calling national legislative elections starting 29 May. However, the opposition led by MP Nayla Moawwad of the Qornet Shehwan Alliance, a party close to Maronite Patriach Sfeir, claims that the 2000 elections law, "drafted under Syrian tutelage" must be modified because several districts are gerrymandered to stymie the chances of success for the Free Patriotic Movement led by Michel Aoun, the Lebanese Forces led by Samir Geagea and other independent Christian movements.

22:48 Baghdad. Thirty-two peoople die in attacks targeting the army and police. Thirteen people died and 15 were wounded in a suicide bombing at recruiting center located at Mouthanna airfield in downtown Baghdad. Earlier two police convoys were attacked, killing 8 police and wounding another two. Another policeman was killed and six wounded by a carbomb near the residence of the Undersecretary of State for Police Affairs, General Hikmat Moussa Salman, who was not at home. Four Interior Ministry commandos were killed by a carbomb in Mosul. Six other Iraqis, including 2 soldiers were killed in separate incidents across the country

20:21 Baghdad. Blast in downtown area.

17:51 Mosul. Carbomb kills four police and wounds five. The blast targeted a police patrol.

15:05 Rome. Jordanian lawyer Ziad Al-Khasawneh representing Saddam Hussein says his client was captured in the spring of 2003. He was in Tikrit at the home of a friend who spied for the Americans. The legal team was meeting in Italy.

13:23 Mosul. Abdel Hadi Joubouri, an ex-Ba'ath Party official was captured in Mosul.

12:44 Sofia. Bulgaria to withdrawal troops. Bulgarian parliament ratifies the president's request for pullout for end 2005. However, the new Parliament following the 25 June elections could reverse the decision.

10:23 Rome. Opposition leader Piero Fassino says Italy must insist on the truth concering the Calipari shooting.

10:02 Rome. Berlusconi briefed parliament on the Calipari affair, saying a pullout of Italian forces from Iraq would be irresponsible and that the friendship and loyal of Italy to the USA could not be questioned.

09:14 Tokyo. Japan to pull out contingent. The Japanese contingent will pull out in December 2005 according to confidential government sources.

07:07 Baghdad. Suicide bombing targets recruiting center near Mouthanna airfield.

06:37 Baghdad. Attacks target police. Two carbombs target a rendezvous point for a police patrol in the al Amil district, killing 8 and wounding 2, and a police convoy in the al Gazaliya district wouning 6 and destroying 4 of the vehicles.

03:47 Baghdad: Charges dropped against Marine who mortally wounded a wounded insurgent in Fallujah. A military judge declared there will be no court-martial and that the shooting was "permissible by the rules of engagement." The scene was caught on camera by a US newsman.

Interview with Marwan Barghouti

Corriere della Sera ran an interview by Davide Frattini with emprisoned Palestinian activist Marwan Barghouti in its Friday 29 April edition. It's translated below:

You’re are finishing up Mario Puzo’s novel, Omertà. (It is one of eight books which the Red Cross is allowed to send every six months to the most celebrated Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails. Marwan Barghouti devours every book they bring him, including this story of a Mafia godfather who decides to retire).

If I can, I try to pick international detective stories. I also try to follow what is going on in the world, the spread of democracy, and women’s rights. While I’ve been in jail I’ve read Noam Chomsky, a study on elites by the Palestinian sociologist Jamil Hilal, and poetry by Mahmood Darwish.

(Barghouti still has a beard and wears a maroon prisoners’ uniform. He lives in a cell 6ft x 4 ½ feet for the next few months he will be denied visits by his family. He was sent to prison in May 2004 to serve five life sentences plus forty years for his involvement in the slaying of five Israelis. As to what to do with him in the future, Israeli intelligences agencies are divided: for Shin Bet, he is the architect of terror of the Second Intifada and meets the criteria of a prisoner who has blood on his hands—never to be released. Army Intelligence see the head of Fatah in the West Bank as possible negotiator, a pragmatic man who could control the extremists. For the Palestinians, he’s the leader of the next generation (he is 46 years old), committed to combating corruption.)

President Mahmood Abbas says he needs ten months to order Palestinian affairs.
It will take him a year. If he implements his plans for reform, I will be at his side, like most Palestinians. But he must make no compromises-- and there must be no exceptions. Whoever loses their job because of mismanagement and corruption must not be rewarded with a ministerial appointment. These types of deals surprise me. They only produce more bureaucracy, which then doesn’t function.

Are you sorry you did not run for President?
My decision not to participate in the race was right—I took it in the name of national reconciliation. There’s no doubt that the Palestinian Authority and Fatah must be reformed. I hope the next Fatah congress will represent a concrete step forward to consolidate democracy and to punish corrupt officials. It will also be an opportunity for young men and women to take the reins of the organization.

Over the last few weeks the Palestinian authority had to fend off an internal revolt. Members of the Al Aqsa Brigades, linked to Fatah, fired their weapons in the streets. How should the Ramallah government react?
In past years, the Authority failed. It wasn’t able to create the nucleus of a democratic Palestinian state. Now it must rebuild its institutions—political, social and security. We need legislative elections based on an elections law which has widespread support and which guarantees participation by women. It wouldn’t be a democracy without a role for women. The problem of violence is the most salient example of the failure of the Palestinian state. We have to put an end to personal fiefs within the security forces and some of its former officers should be punished.

Should the militants be absorbed into the security forces?
They shouldn’t expect a prize for their struggle and sacrifice. They didn’t fight for their personal interests but for independence. They have the right to live in dignity. Hamas is ready to participate in July’s legislative elections. We could not imagine the future of the Palestinian people without the participation of the Islamic movement. It is a victory for democracy and national unity and an important political stride for Hamas which we should encourage.

Doesn’t your organization, Fatah, risk losing at the polls?
The success of Hamas in the municipal elections in Gaza is a result of its struggle, the honesty of its leader and its sacrifice. But its success is also a result of mistakes and mismanagement by Fatah. I’m confident that if the party implements some reforms, Fatah will regain its role as the leading party among Palestinians.

What do you suggest? Primaries to reenergize the faction?
Primaries are fundamental. The members and supporters of Fatah have the right to choose their candidates. The creation of artificial lists can only lead to electoral defeat.

You read The Missing Peace by the US negotiator Dennis Ross. Have opportunities for peace been squandered in the last few months?
I read Ross’s book and Clinton’s autobiography. I’m convinced that any agreement which does not put an end to the Israeli occupation, establish a free and democratic Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem and guarantee the right of return doesn’t stand a chance.

This summer the Israelis will pull out of Gaza. Is this an opportunity for Abbas to demonstrate his ability to govern in the Gaza Strip?
The pullout from Gaza was obtained by the armed struggle of the Intifada and not through clever negotiations. But it’s partial and if it remains that way, it will never lead to peace and stability.

Since he became President, Mahmood Abbas has called for an end to armed struggle. Right now the truce seems to be vacillating and in Gaza rocket attacks on Israel proper have resumed.
It is impossible to give up the resistance option unless the occupation ends. Three weeks ago Palestinian groups decided to grant a period of calm to permit international negotiators to make progress in their talks. What did we get in return? New settlements, a siege, more checkpoints and thousands more thrown in prison. There are elements within Israeli society which do seek a genuine peace and who regret the occupation. These are our future negotiation partners.

4 May 2005 Events in Iraq.

London. British FM Jack Straw denounces Erbil bombing and violence against Kurds.

Baghdad. Two Iraqi civilians were killed when a bomb targeting a US military convoy detonated. An Iraqi soldier was shot dead by armed gunmen.

Brussels. The NATO-run military academy to open outside the capital scheduled to open in September will be guarded by private security contractors. [???]

Moscow. Washington created coalition to legitimize its presence in Iraq. Russian Security Council Chairman Igor Ivanov writes in the journal Russian Strategy that the US forged a coalition to legitimize its presence in Iraq and to create an impression of international consensus. While in Cairo in late April, Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded a schedule for US pullout from Iraq.

Rome. Bush phones Berlusconi a second time to dicuss Calipari affair. Bush repeated his regrets for the incident which killed SISMI Major-General Calipari.

Ankara. Turkish President Ahmed Necdet Sezer signed a decree authorizing the United States to use the Incirlik (South Turkey) air base for logsitic purposes for troops deployeed Iraq and Afghanistan. Incirlik was used during the Cold War as a base for U2 spyplanes.

Baghdad. Nine soldiers were killed and 17 people injured, including six soldiers, by a booby-trapped car. The bomb detonated as an Iraqi army convoy passed nearby in the Dura district.

Tikrit. US troops and Iraqi forces arrest a nephew of Saddam Hussein, Ayman Sabawi, accused of financing the rebellion. His brother, Ibrahim, was arrested in April.

Baghdad. Bruska Shawis, Number 2 at Iraq's Defense Ministry, says the presence of the multinational force will continue past December 2006.

23:56 Bucharest. Romania said it never bargained the pullout of its 800 troops in Iraq as demanded by the kidnappers of three Romanian journalists, says Foreign Minister Mihai-Razvan Ungureanu. President Traian Basescu asked the kidnappers to extend their April 27 ultimatum last week. 70% of Romanians believe that Bucharest should pull out its contingent to save the reporters while the government insists its presence is "legal and moral".

23:54 Ft. Hood. Judge declares mistrial in Lynndie England court martial.

23:49 Washington. A high-ranking Pentagon expert was arrested by the FBI for passing top secret information on potential attacks on US troops in Iraq to members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee during a lunch on 26 June 2003. 83 documents were found in his home in West Virginia: 38 were top secret and 8 confidential. The Pentagon refuses to discuss Lawrence Franklin' arrest.

22:42 Baghdad. Body of second Marine Corps pilot found after F18 fighter is downed.

22:04 Rome. Information technology expert says order to kill Calipari originated in Italy. The Rome Public Prosecutor's Office is checking and analyzing a computer experts' report which says the attack on Calipari's car was ordered from Italy. Gianluca Preite, computer expert and electrical engineer, says he intercepted a phone call between Italy and a foreign country. During the conversation, an Italian is heard to order the "hit" on the car with Giuliana Sgrena. The orgin of the phone call seems to be tracable and may identify the voices as well as reveal the conversation.

20:18 Tikrit. Nine people were killed, including 2 Iraqi soldiers in the explosion of a booby-trappped car in Tikrit.

18:35 Rome. Italy must decide between legitimate use of force by US troops or homicide in Calipari affair. MPs Franco Ionta, Pietro Saviotti and Erminio Amelio, members of a parliamentary team investigation the Calipari affair must choose between closing its investigation or requesting extradition of the US soldiers involved. However, as long as the Rome Public Prosecutor is investigating the case, the affair may not be archived.

16:05 Rome. Prodi says opposition should be begin to accerate its discussion and planning to withdraw Italian troops from Iraq.

15:28 Washington. Only 41% of Americans believe that the war on Iraq was worth fighting.

14:39 Washington. Bush phones Berluconi to discuss Calipari affair and calls the SISMI Major-General a hero.

13:13 Rome. Reform Minister Roberto Calderoli denies calling for an immediate pullout of Italian troops from Iraq. Says he only meant that it was time to start thinking about it "in coordination with our allies".

15:40 Erbil. 46 people were killed and 94 wounded in a suicide attack. 27 received minor injuries while 67 are hospitalized.

15:30 Erbil. Ansar al-Sounna claims credit for bombing. This bombing is revenge for our brothers, who are tortured in your prisons and a consequence to the infidel Peshmerga who have made themselves available to the Crusaders and thus are a thorn in the side of Islam.

15:30 Damascus. The general command of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a pro-Syrian movement, says it refuses to dismantle its military bases in Lebanon. However, it is ready to admit UN inspectors to visit the bases. The organization does not view itself as a "militia" as defined by UN resolution 1559. Our bases are in Lebanon ince 1970, six years before the entry of Syrian forces into Lebanon and are maintained independently of Syria. Their existence is linked to the Arab-Israel conflict and the right of return of Palestinian refugees, says Abu Anwar, the movement's Lebanese head. Lebanese residents of Qoussaya et de Naami claim that the movement has artillery, tanks and multi-tube missile launchers inside the bases. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon feel insecure, don't have the right to work, can't own property and live in inhuman conditons, like rats, continues Abu Anwar, while denouncing the existence of a plan to force them either into exile in Canada or Australia or into despair.

15:14 Baghdad. Flights between Amman and Baghdad resume.

14:55 Beirut. The Lebanese Judiciary has quashed three charges against Michel Aoun, former anti-Syrian Prime Minister exiled to France four days before his scheduled return from a 15-year exile in France.

14:48 Ramallah. Palestinian Authority says it will not disarm militias, as demanded by Israel. General Rashid Abu Shbak made the announcement during a press conference in Gaza, saying that that Palestinian security forces would guarantee calm.

14:41 Teheran. President Mohammed Khatami says it would continue to enrich uranium but pursue negotiations with the EU at the same time.

09:50 Erbil. Sixty die in suicide bombing in front of the headquarters of the PDK, which was serving as a police recruiting station.

08:56 Baghdad. Two US soliders killed by separate bombing incidenets in the capital. Booby-trapped trashcans and animal carcasses are often used to dissimulate the devices.

08:48 Erbil. Suicide bombing reported.

Sgrena/Calipari Report: A Juvenile Accounting by the Italians

A hard-hitting opinion piece in yesterday's La Repubblica by Giuseppe D'Avanzo informs us the Italian report, while claiming to refute the findings of the US investigators, is nothing but a whitewash. The “infantile” and “capricious” report was “a cross between a traffic cop’s diary and billed time for a ministerial bureaucrat's input.”

In fact, Italy’s investigating team should not have gone Baghdad to listen to horseshit about highway cones. The team’s brief should have focused on what the US military knew and when did they know it concerning the hostage release and the operations of Italian intelligence on the scene. Whether by redaction or collusion, the report enables a sleight of hand by Berlusconi.

p.s. As a footnote, I glanced over the US version of the report and noted that minutes after the shooting, an individual named Silberstein, qualified to make official death reports, emerged out of nowhere to examine the deceased Calipari.

LET’S BEGIN with the tail end of this report which purports to be – and which was announced to be – a refutation and a report of counter-findings. An analysis and a verification which would not only demonstrate but assign responsibility to the US patrol, that on the night of March 4th, killed Nicola Calipari. The last 67 lines of the report contain four clear, concise conclusions.

1. The assertions by Mrs. Sgrena and by the driver of the Toyota Corolla are to be considered as in corresponding to the reality of the facts.-->So, Giuliana Sgrena and Major Carpani, behind the wheel of the Toyota, are not lying. “Their reconstruction is coherent and plausible.”
2. The Italian members of the Commission (Ambassador Ragaglini and General Campregher) did not find any elements to suggest that the actions and events leading up to the tragedy were deliberate.-->The Americans, in other words, did not do it on purpose.
3. It is likely that tension was heightened due to the duration, assignment and the location- and probably even to inexperience and stress--and may well have contributed to the instinctive and undisciplined reactions on the part of the soldiers.-->Here we have a likelihood. It is neither true nor false, but may be somewhat likely or even remotely possible, that some of the soldiers, through fatigue or through immaturity, lost control of themselves that night.
4. There are no established rules for a blocking position, that is, a rolling checkpoint, and therefore it is “problematic to come to an accurate identification, attribution or assignment of responsibility in the death of Nicola Calipari.”

If you start byreading the report from the bottom, you’ll understand that the Italian government has not a shred of proof, nor even the will or the opportunity, to accuse anyone. The Italian government agrees that it was a tragic accident. Homicide. No one gets tossed into the dock. It is a conclusion which, if you exclude the statements of Major Carpani and Mrs. Sgrena, is based on the findings of the US investigation team and so close to a carbon copy that we wonder why Palazzo Chigi was determined not to sign off on the Commission’s work.

The reason for the refusal to sign can be traced back--not to Iraq nor to the kidnapping of Giuliana Sgrena nor to the night of her release nor to shifts in our policy towards Washington--but to the political debate in Italy on the suitability of Berlusconi to govern. The government must save face. It gambled by hoisting the banner of “national dignity” and “patriotic pride” and aroused the unexpected support of the radical left. At the same time, the head of government cannot really break with the Americans. He is over a barrel. Does he accept the conclusions of the Americans and distribute a reticent report crammed with word games? Does he stick to the fact-woven plot or adhere to the will-o’-the-wisps of propaganda? And the facts do not offer him a real possibility of forcing a foul on Uncle Sam. If you are compelled to write words down on paper in black and white, then you cannot resort to the poison and the toxic quaff distributed to public opinion these days as information.

It’s appropriate here to briefly mention what was not bundled into the revelations by “intelligence sources” or “sources close to the government” over the last few weeks. There’s no baloney about Nicola Calipari being tailed during his mission in Baghdad. Dissolving back into the venomous fog from which it came is the rumor that a car followed the Toyota Corolla for an hour through the streets of Baghdad. There is no mention of the aircraft said to have shadowed the Italians along the airport highway. There is no trace of the communication in which SISMI informed the CIA station chief of the mission to bring home our reporter. (This would have been a key piece of evidence). Rome, SISMI, the government, the Defense Ministry- we don’t know who - informed US Command that Nicola Calipari would be landing in Baghdad to free our reporter. The leaks suggested a “yes” or an ambiguous “yes, maybe”. The CIA knew. For sure, the newspaper accounts told us, Captain Green, Aide-de-Camp to General Marioli, knew 20 to 25 minutes before the shooting. Unfortunately it has come out that General Marioli told Capt. Green that Calipari and Sgrena would be arriving at the airport but not to pass that information on to anyone.

Neither do we see the theory that the man who pulled the trigger was not a member of the 69th Infantry Regiment of the New York National Guard, but a mercenary working for Blackwater Security as security escort to Ambassador Negroponte. All the manufactured bagatelle larded with the usual deliberate disinformation which has governed the war on terrorism sagged like an empty airbag when challenged by entry into official documentation. What remains, written down in black and white--if I may be so bold as to suggest--is a cross between a traffic cop’s diary and billed time for a ministerial bureaucrat's input.

What is a blocking position (BP), anyway? The bureaucrat insists that a BP is not “codified”: it is not covered by military manuals or available in Field Standard Operating Procedures. There is no information on how a BP is composed, organized or managed. Obviously, the bureaucrat must acknowledge that the “blocking position” is a term commonly used in US military jargon to mean one of many duties which may be assigned to a Traffic Control Point. Having established that rolling checkpoints do exist in the US Army, the bureaucrat hands his hat to the traffic cop. How is a blocking position organized? The Italians claim that they can explain it—forget about what happened in Nassiriya. You are required “to provide signs in the local language and in English indicating the presence of checkpoint and the requirement to stop. The signs must be posted at a distance of at least 200 to 400 meters before the checkpoint…steel hedgehogs are needed…reflective cones for canalizing traffic, chemical light sticks illuminating obstacles placed in the road, night vision equipment, concertina wire and caution tape, traffic wands to direct oncoming cars….” Taking a look at what is in the counter-report, “police traffic control” takes top billing.

“The scene of the incident was not preserved after the shooting, despite the fact that the company commander and the soldier in charge of the blocking vehicle were both policemen in civilian life—a police sergeant and a patrol officer.” What follows is extremely embarrassing because it seems that the report author or authors wish to treat Calipari’s death as if it were a road accident fatality along the Rome-Naples superhighway. It is beyond doubt that the gathering of forensic evidence along an Italian highway is possible day or night, but the Italian team (or whoever redacted their work) seems to think that the same is true on a highway “of death” where every mile there are on average twelve attacks a day. Together with the absence of any information given to the Americans on Calipari’s mission, the report proposes a scenario reassembled by a bad mechanic.

“Indubitably, it is certain and corroborated that US command was informed of the arrival of Calipari". Well, we should hope so. They gave him a badge, a pistol and walked him to the car rental counter. But did they know about his mission? No and this is underscored in the infantile and capricious report, “possible knowledge of the SISMI mission would not have had any bearing on the unfolding of events. Short and sweet. Even if the US soldiers manning the roadblock knew of the purpose of Nicola Calipari’ mission, nothing would have changed. They still would have bumped off Nicola. These are answers so embarrassing and contrived and so little reassuring that we wonder if it were worth the trouble of writing a counter-report of in the first place. Does Berlusconi really think that using these arguments he can pass himself off as the champion of “national dignity”?

3 May 2005 Events in Iraq.

Damascus. Syria will restore diplomatic ties with Baghdad. Relations were broken off when Iraq invated Iran in 1980.

Al-Qaim. Twelve suspected rebels were killed and 8 wounded, including a 9 year-old girl and six US troops in clashes near the Syrian border. US troops followed a suspect truck to a small encampment outside the town where suspect packages were loaded. [Is it date harvest season?] . Also, US aircraft launched a raid on a tent and a storage shed, killing three suspected rebels.

Baghdad. A booby-trapped automobile in the Gazaliya district of west Baghdad exploded as a police convoy passed by. A policemen and an civilian were wounded.

Baghdad. Three bombs detonated in separate incidents targeting police, wounding three.

23:56 Brussels. EU Foreign Minister Iran says that Teheran would feel the "consequences" of restarting its nuclear program.

23:43 Baghdad. Australian hostage has health problems. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says Douglas Wood, a 63 year-old Australian businessman and California resident has serious heart problems. Wood was working as a contractor to the US Army when he was kidnapped

23:42 Washington. The US State Dept. warns US citizens in Egypt to exercise maximum caution.

23:42 Basrah. Four police were killed by a roadside bomb.

23:31 Washington. The US Army has had difficulty in reaching recruiting quotas for the third consecutive month. Recruiters have fulfilled only 84% of the recruitment quotas in the 12-month period beginning April 2004.

23:20 New York. Iran tells the US that it will not abandon its uranium enrichment activities, which it says are meant for nuclear power. Meanwhile German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer says the decision would mean the end of EU-led negotiations. However, Iran found support elsewhere. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak says negotiations would continue. The head of the Chinese delegation, Zhang Yan, says his country prefers to solve the Iranian problem through the IAEA rather than the Security Council.

23:15 Nouakchott. Israeli Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom visits Mauritania. Shalom says that diplomatic relations between the two countries would play a key role in the Middle East. Israeli is building a cancer hospital in the country.

23:13 Ft. Hood. Lynndie England risks 11 years in prison for her role in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. Her attorneys argue that England suffers from mental handicaps due to being temporarily deprived of oxygen at birth.

23:02 Baghdad. Premier Ibrahim al-Jaafari was sworn in today as Prime Minister at the head of an incomplete government. The Defense and Oil portfolios have not yet been attributed. In the meantime, al-Jafaari will handle the Defense portfolio and Ahmed Chalabi will take charge of Oil. Vice President Ghazi Al-Yawar boycotted the ceremony in protest.

16:13 Jerusalem. Sharon and Abu Mazen trade accusations. Sharon accused Abu Mazen of not disarming armed Palestinian factions while Abu Mazen accused Sharon of cancelling the transfer of control to the PA in some West Bank cities.

14:30 Ramadi. Fifteen persons, including 12 rebels were arrested Tuesday in clashes at a joint US-Iraqi checkpoint. The US military says 12 rebels were killed and 4 wounded. Four US soldiers were also wounded.

16:27 Washington. Majority Senate leader Bill Frist praised Mahmoud Abbas' "formidable leadership".

16:16 Baghdad. Passenger airline flights suspended. Royal Jordanian and Iraqi Airways cancelled all flights between Amman and Baghdad "until further notice" citing security issues.

15:44 Baghdad. Abu Moussab al-Zarqawi denies that 12 of his supporters were killed in clashes near Al-Qaïm on the Syrian border. The US Army claims 12 rebels were killed yesterday in operations near d'Al-Qaïm. Nine were killed when the US Army stopped a suspect truck.

15:43 Paris. Raffarin, contacts restored with kidnappers of French reporter Florence Aubenas, says French PM Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

15:38 Teheran. Iran, Russia and Azerbaïdjan have announced that they would be linking up their national railroads. The project will cost $600 million to be spent over 7 years. A rail line will be laid between Astara in Azerbaijan and Qazvin in Iran.

15:19 Rome. Reform Minister Roberto Calderoli says the time has come to begin pullout of Italian troops from Iraq.

14:30 Ramadi. Fifteen dead in clashes. Clashes between rebels and the Iraqi National Guard backed by the US Army kill 12. However the local hospital director,Moneim Aaaftan, says the dead were all civilians, including a group of laborers, who were caught in the crossfire at a checkpoint.

14:19 Baghdad. Letter to Al Zarqawi intercepted. The letter was found in a raid on 28 April.

13:42 Samarra. Three police killed.

13:11 Baghdad. Ministry official assassinated. Water Resources Ministry official Ahmed Subeih Weiss was shot to death on his way to work in the Dura district.

13:06 Ramadi. Fourteen civilians killed in furious fighting. Battle near checkpoint outside the city.

12:47 Beirut. Walid Jumblatt demands release his former enemy Samir Geagea, ex-leader of the Maronite group, Lebanese Forces, against whom he fought one of the bloodiest battles of the Lebanese Civil War in 1983. Geagea is serving several life sentences for a series of political murders, including Premier Rashid Karami, a Muslim.

10:09 Baghdad. Remains of pilot found. The remains of one pilot of two missing Marine F/A-18 Hornet fighterjets, which disappeared over Iraq.

09:30 Baghdad. Al-Jafaari to be sworn in today.

Calipari/Sgrena Report: Reconstruction of the incident

Corriere della Sera has a graphic with a reconstruction of the incident.

Anonymous, in the comment in the Mayday! thread below, reminds us that the blocking checkpoint is an interdiction checkpoint.

I just read the full U.S. report and was struck by the fact that this road block had no signs or barricades in the street. It was a BLOCKING roadblock meaning NO ONE was allowed to pass and cars were not to be searched. You were just supposed to turn around based on a spotlight pointed at you and later a green laser light swirling at the driver indicating "turn around" and go back. No one was to approach the vechicle and talk to you. Also, it was only supposed to last for 15 minutes in time for VIP Negropointe to pass. The report stated longer than 15 minutes would put the soldiers at risk of being targeted by insurgents. Yet they were actually there for over an hour!

They made 2 or more radio contacts with outside commanders to request to leave the road block since Negropointe group NEVER EVEN SHOWED UP and they were nervous they would become targets themselves. Yet they were never told Negropinte had actually gone by helicopter, not the more dangerous road, since the weather improved. Each contact they made they were told just to stay there. Later radio contact was out and they could not even make contact! Oh, this was there first day at this type of assignment and they were not trained in BLOCKING only road checking.The report ends with suggestions such as in future signs should be put up ahead of the block saying "road closed, do not enter."Also it suggests advertising this road block policy at signs, for example, near the airport for all to see.

And we thought the iraq general public knew the procedure to follow since at first the news reported these road blocks are all over Iraq and the Italians simply violated the "rules." What are they mind readers??? A comedy of errors! Still haven't read that the car was allowed to be examined by the Italians. U.S> claims 11 shots hit the car. From the "alert line" to the cars stopping point was only 265 feet - life and death in 4 seconds.

Meanwhile, Michael O’Hanlon, Senior Fellow della Brookings Institution, mades an handwringing apology, light on the facts and claiming that the patrol was "well-trained" in today's Corriere.

2 May 2005 Events in Iraq (and nearby)

Ramallah. Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised the Palestian Authority the assistance it needs to rebuild, fight terrorism and shore up its economy. Putin promised helicopters to the PA as he called for the release of all Palestinian political prisoners. Mr. Putin also reissued an invitation to an international Mideast peace conference in Moscow.

Nablus. Six Israeli settlers from Har Brakha in the northern Occupied Territories were arrested for throwing stones at passing Palestinian vehicles.

Jerusalem. Emprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti says the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza is the consequence of the intifadah, and not due to negotiators in an interview in the Corriere della Sera. Barghouti says he supports Mahmood Abbas.

Baghdad. An aide to the governor of the Southern city of Kut was killed by a gunman in Sadr City while visiting relatives.

Madaen. Six more bodies were found in this town south of Baghdad, where Shiite hostages were said to have been killed last month, an Interior Ministry official said.

Baghdad. A 6-year-old child was killed by a roadside bomb in the Dura district.

Bucharest. Romanian President Traian Basescu says he has proof that the Romanian hostages are still alive.

Tarmiya. Bomb aimed at national guard patrol wounded one policeman and two civilians north of the capital.

Basrah. A British soldier was killed in combat in southern Iraq.

Baghdad. Insurgent gunmen killed five Iraqi police officers at the Nahrawan checkpoint in southeast Baghdad.

Khalis. Police officer shot dead by armed gunmen.

23:50 Washington. President George W. Bush unexpectedly invited French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier to a meeting in the Oval Office to discuss Lebanon, Iran and the Middle East Peace Process. Bush said the visit was cordial.

21:02 Kuwait City. The Kuwaiti Parliament was unable to pass a law granting women the right to vote and to run for office due to abstentions by conservatives. Another vote will be attempted Tuesday, says Deputy Speaker Mishari al Andjari. Out of 60 MPs, 29 voted yes and 29 abstained.

20:13 Washington. Condoleezza Rice reaffirms the US commitment to the EU in its efforts to convince Iran to renounce its nuclear ambitions after a meeting with Michel Barnier, French Ambassador to the US.

20:07 Rome. Vice Premier Gianfranco Fini and Presidential Undersecretary Gianni Letta have presented the report on the fatal Calipari shooting by the Italian investigation team to US Ambassador Mel Sembler.

20:06 Baghdad. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani will participate in the meeting between the Arab League and the countries of South America on May 10 and 11 in Brasilia. The conference was organized by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to promote South-to-South trade and banking.

18:18 Baghdad. 38 dead in two days in bombings. Three carbombs detonated today in Baghdad. The first occurred in the Huriya district of north Baghdad as the convoy of Gen Felehih Rashid passeby by. The general and his bodyguards were wounded. The second was in the Karrada quarter, a business district in south Baghdad. Six pedestrians and 12 others were wounded. The blast caused a fire in a 5-story condominium. The third exploded in the Zayuna district of east Baghdad, killing two police and wounding 10 others.

14:51 London. Ex-BBC director says Blair weakens democracy. Ex-BBC General Director Greg Dyke, forced to resign by Downing Street, says he is joining the Liberal Democrats. Dyke says Blair has weakend Britain's democracy.

14:38 Rome. Italy and the USA attempt to mend differences over the death of SISMI Major-General Nicola Calipari as the Italian investigation team delivered its report to the Italian goverment. Former President Cossiga says the intelligence service, SISMI, will likely be blamed in the affair.

14:09 Damascus. Syrian President Bashir al-Assad signed into law two pieces of legislation which provide for banking secrecy and controls on money-laundering. Washington had accused the BCS (Syrian Commercial Bank) of money-laundering funds for the purposes of terrorism.

13:46 Baghdad. Wave of arrests: 84 detained. US troops and Iraqi forces arrested 84 persons connection with the recent wave of carbombings. They claim at least 40 Islamic extremists are now held in custody.

12:02 Baghdad. Third carbomb kills 8 and wounds 30. Among the wounded is General Felehih Rashid, commander of a special-ops team of the Ministry of Interior.

11:05 Baghdad. Australia deploys emergency team. Australia will deploy a hostage negotiation team composed of federal police, Defence Ministry officials and diplomats to work towards the release of Douglas Wood, kidnapped by the 'Shura dei Mujaheddin'. Woods, however, is a resident of the State of California.

Sgrena-Calipari: Italian Judiciary Investigates NY National Guardsman

The Rome Public Prosecutor has started an investigation of Mario Lozano of the New York Army National Guard who opened fire, killing Major-General Nicola Calipari on March 4th.

Sgrena-Calipari: More tampering

Update: If you're ever nabbed for a shooting up a car full of Italians, try these excuses.

1. I thought the car might kill me so I did it for my kids.
2. My buddy was killed last week by someone else.
3. The people in the car didn't look American.
4. I thought they were going over the speed limit.
5. They were driving while talking on the cellphone.
6. They drove past the warning line that I made with my pocket laser pointer.
7. I meant to shoot at the engine block just to scare 'em.
8. They scared me while I happened to be holding a machine gun.

The Italian version of events has just come out with even more censorship than the US version. But this really stinks.

The US "duty logs" relating to the patrols on the airport road were destroyed. The Pentagon claims that destroying duty logs is standard operating procedure.

Other outrages.

• The Italian version was held back from reporters for 5 hours as Italian officials negotiated with the Pentagon for a few tweaks.
• The Italian report says is was absolutely certain and undeniable that the US chain of command was informed that the car was heading to the airport.
• The scene of the crime was washed of evidence and the blocking and overlook vehicles removed before Italian officials from Baghdad could investigate. A request for permission to view the scene by General Mario Marioli, Vice-Commander of the Multinational Force, was given then immediately revoked.
• No signage indicating the presence of a checkpoint.
• The famous 90-degree curve was taken at 24 MPH, not the 60 MPH alleged by the Pentagon.
• No satellite imagery was ever mentioned or shown to Italian investigators
• The patrol was "green", unsupervised and without formal orders.
• No one in the internationational community in Baghdad--NGOs, diplomats, military, contractors--all of whom use "Route Irish" and "Route Vernon" regularly--were aware of any rules in force stating that an escort, prior permission, or notification was required.

And of course the Catch 22: There are no rules of engagement for a Blocking Checkpoint.

Mayday! Calipari/Sgrena Report: The Italians Strike Back

Read this report from Fiorenza Sarzanini La Corriere della Sera.

The decision on the part of the US to publish its final report on the death of Nicola Calipari without awaiting the conclusions of the Italian members of the Joint US-Italian commission is the latest slap in the face to Italy from the United States. This example, as if another were needed, confirms that the Italian members were permitted no input--not even into the timing of the release. Italy will respond tomorrow afternoon with its own report which will be handed to the government and forwarded to magistrates investigating the shooting. While Premier Silvio Berlusconi is back to claiming that no ransom was paid and repeating "our unquestionable friendship with the United States", the Italian team is rushing to complete a report contesting point by point the US findings to which video files and photographs of the behavior of US troops while manning checkpoints will be attached. Among the video attachments is a file showing what is considered to be a typical "dirty trick"--a patrol laughing and joking about the corpse of an Iraqi motorist whom they shot in cold blood behind the wheel of his van.

ACCUSATIONS LEVELED AT THE USA. In its conclusions, signed by Ambassador Cesare Ragaglini and General Pierluigi Campregher, the Italian team faults the Americans for refusing a dynamic reconstruction of events. The Italians specifically mention "tampering at the scene of the incident" and of the Toyota Corolla, a key piece evidence, in which the Italian intelligence officers and Guiliana were traveling. At the end of its investigation, the Italians even proposed concluding the report by saying it was impossible to attribute responsibility. The US military rejected this compromise, saying it would completely exonerate the patrol to close any loophole permiting further legal action on the part of the Italian judiciary.

THE "BLOCKING" POSITION. This arrangement differentiates the type of checkpoint. This type of arrangement, underscores the Italian findings, is not subject to any rules because it is generally employed "on the battlefield" and in fact does not incorporate signposting and barbed wire. The Italians particularly fault the US decision of placing "it at the end of an elbow curve." The report then concentrates on the crime scene investigation carried out together with US officials. "The scene of the incident"--they write--"was altered and the soldiers were unable to indicate their positions at the time of the shooting. They add that the alteration prevented the investigating team from determining the source of weapons fire. Not only that: but according to the Italian team, "between the illumination of the spotlight and the warning shots far more than the three seconds alloted by the patrol would have been required for the driver to come to a complete stop".

THE HIDDEN NAMES. In the US version of the report, 12 names were blacked out in the interests of military secrecy. Italy believes in confidentiality, but in the report the Americans wrote that it was not possible to determine which servicemen were part of the patrol on 4 March. "The soldier who fired", says the USA, "was Hispanic." But the Italian delegation suspected that "at least three soldiers opened fire." "Testimony," says the Italian team, "was contradictory and in some cases totally unreliable."

COMMUNICATIONS. In the report to be handed to the Italian government tomorrow, the CIA station chief was informed of the operation and in the early afternoon he was given the details of the rental car. Also, "US Command was informed 25 minutes before the shooting that the hostage [Mrs. Sgrena] was released." In any case, the Italians underscore that confidentiality is absolutely routine, even between allies, in such a mission. The statements of the SISMI station chief in Baghdad affirm that he was on the phone with Calipari when the shooting occurred. "It was the [SISMI Station Chief] who asked that all [US-manned] checkpoints be informed and was told that "there were not any checkpoints". Shortly later, on the request of the [SISMI Station Chief], a US military officer contacted the patrol and this demonstrates that it would have been possible to warn the soldiers that the automobile with the released hostage on board was on the road leading to the airport.


PS. Any talk of satellite imagery is BOGUS because there was cloud cover.

Calipari/Sgrena Report: The Digital Trap

If you go downthread, you will see a .pdf file of the US version of the investigation into the shooting of Major-General Nicola Calipari. There's something about a pdf file, which the Pentagon has learned to its surprise. If you use black background to obscure or censor text, it's undo-able.

Here's the cast of characters:

• Mario Lozano of the New York Army National Guard assigned to the blocking vehicle opened fire on Major-General Calipari's car.
  
• The Carabinieri Major on loan to SISMI at the wheel of the Toyota Corolla was Andrea Carpani.
  
• Captain Michael Drew, New York Army National Guard (and police sergeant, NYPD). Commanding officer, Company A, in charge of managing all patrols and checkpoints along Route Irish.
• Lt. Robert Daniels, New York Army National Guard, officer in charge, Company A.
• Backup was Lt. Nicolas Acosta, Louisiana National Guard, platoon leader at blocking checkpoing 541.
• Sgt. Sean O’Hara, Louisiana National Guard, was in charge of the overlook vehicle.
• Sgt. Luis Domangue, Louisiana National Guard, inside overlook vehicle.
• Specialist Kenneth Mejia, Louisiana National Guard, driver of overlook vehicle and medic.
• Sgt. Michael Brown, New York Army National Guard and member NYPD, in charge of the blocking vehicle.
• Specialist Brian Peck, New York Army National Guard, driver of blocking vehicle.
• Sgt. 1st Class Edwin Feliciano, New York Army National Guard, inside the vehicle with Capt. Drew.

You can download the uncensored document at the Meanwhile blog here.

Repeat after me: The most incompetent administristration ever.