These are the archives for the week ending 13th April 2007
Bomb in Iraq parliament
An explosion has hit a cafeteria at the Iraqi parliament, killing at least eight people, at least two of them MPs, the US military has said. The cafe, in Baghdad's highly fortified Green Zone, is for MPs and their staff, some of whom were having lunch there. Earlier, a bomb on a bridge in Baghdad killed at least eight people and sent several cars into the River Tigris.
The two attacks are major blows to the much-trumpeted Baghdad security surge now in its third month, the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says.
The convention centre where parliament meets is one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the country, he says. There are sniffer dogs, and all the other usual precautions are taken. Sometimes several searches are made within the space of just a few metres.
BBC News, 12/4/07
Afghanistan will be 'years long process'
NATO wants about 3,400 more trainers for the Afghanistan army and police, and the United States might fill some of those jobs despite difficulties finding available troops, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said today.
Gates was returning from a meeting in Quebec with defense ministers from allies also serving in the southern sector of Afghanistan. The NATO-led coalition there still needs aircraft, medical equipment and military trainers to bolster its planned spring assault against the Taliban, according to the U.S. military.
Gates said the group - which included defense ministers from Canada, Britain, Australia, the Netherlands, Denmark and Romania - talked mostly about how to better coordinate their military and civilian activities, including the reconstruction efforts.
He also said it appears that the NATO allies are prepared to make a long-term commitment to the struggling nation. "I think all of us anticipate that this is a years long process," he said.
Houston Chronicle, 12/4/07
US army extends tours of duty
Stretched thin by four years of war, the Army is adding three months to the standard yearlong tour for all active-duty soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, an extraordinary step aimed at maintaining the troop buildup in Baghdad.
The change, announced Wednesday by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, is the latest blow to an all-volunteer Army that has been given ever-shorter periods of rest and retraining at home between overseas deployments.
In recent days, the Pentagon has notified National Guard brigades from four states that they are in line to deploy to Iraq for a second time, eliciting complaints from governors.
Also, the Pentagon poured more than $1 billion into bonuses last year to keep soldiers and Marines in the military in the face of an unpopular war.
Washington Post, 11/4/07
Iraqis face immense suffering
The International Committee of the Red Cross says the situation for ordinary Iraqis is getting steadily worse. Four years after the US-led invasion, the ICRC says the conflict is inflicting immense suffering, and calls for greater protection of civilians.
Red Cross workers asked Iraqi women about their lives. "If there's anything that anybody could do that would really help us today would be to help us collect the bodies that line the streets in front of our homes every morning and that we find nobody dares to touch or remove after security reasons," one woman said.
The report also highlights the following problems:
* Iraq's healthcare facilities face critical shortages of staff and supplies. Many doctors, nurses and patients no longer dare to go to hospitals and clinics because they are targeted or threatened
* much of Iraq's vital water, sewage and electricity infrastructure is in a critical condition
* food shortages have been reported in some areas and malnutrition is said to have increased
BBC News, 11/4/07
US used 'excessive force' in killing civilians
A US military commander has determined that Marines accused of killing civilians after a suicide bombing in Afghanistan last month used excessive force, and he has referred the case for possible criminal inquiry.
The initial investigation of the March 4 incident, in which up to a dozen Afghan civilians are reported to have died, concluded that the Marines' response was "out of proportion to the threat that was immediately there," a senior defense official said Wednesday.
Associated Press, 12/4/07
US accused of secret war
Washington is waging a covert war against Hizbullah, according to the militant group, which accuses the US administration of arming anti-Hizbullah militias and seeing to undermine the Lebanese army in moves which could plunge the country back into civil war.
The accusation follows reports in the US and British media that the CIA has been authorised to take covert action against the militant Shia group, which receives substantial military backing from Iran, as part of wider strategy by the Bush administration to prevent the spread of Iranian influence in the region.
According to the reports, US intelligence agencies are authorised to provide 'non-lethal' funding to anti-Hizbullah groups in Lebanon and to activists who support the western-backed government of Fouad Siniora.
But Hizbullah accused the Lebanese government of arming groups across the country.
The Bush administration recently set aside $60m (£30m) to fund the interior ministry's internal security force, which has almost doubled in size to 24,000 troops.
Cabinet minister Ahmed Fatfat said late last year that the increase in interior ministry personnel was to counter the growing influence of Iran and its Shia ally in Lebanon.
Guardian 11/4/07
British face post-Iraq loss of influence
Intervention in Iraq has led to a loss of British diplomatic influence abroad, but it has not undermined support at home for military intervention to prevent war crimes or genocide, a report by Oxfam on 10 years of Blairite foreign policy has found.
Military interventions in Sierra Leone and Kosovo remain popular, according to a survey conducted by YouGov for Oxfam.
Oxfam is one of many aid agencies concerned that the unpopularity of the Iraq war will lead to a return to the more isolationist policies of the 1990s.
Kosovo is seen as Labour's most ethical intervention, with 48% of respondents agreeing it was. There was 37% agreement for intervention in Sierra Leone, and 35% for Afghanistan. Iraq is seen as Labour's least ethical intervention, with 59% of respondents considering it unethical.
However, despite Iraq, 67% of people would support Britain sending troops as a last resort to stop genocide.
The Guardian 11/4/07
US opts for divide and rule
Faced with an ever-more ruthless insurgency in Baghdad - despite President George Bush's "surge" in troops - US forces in the city are now planning a massive and highly controversial counter-insurgency operation that will seal off vast areas of the city, enclosing whole neighbourhoods with barricades and allowing only Iraqis with newly issued ID cards to enter.
The campaign of "gated communities" - whose genesis was in the Vietnam War - will involve up to 30 of the city's 89 official districts and will be the most ambitious counter-insurgency programme yet mounted by the US in Iraq.
But the campaign has far wider military ambitions than the pacification of Baghdad. It now appears that the US military intends to place as many as five mechanised brigades - comprising about 40,000 men - south and east of Baghdad, at least three of them positioned between the capital and the Iranian border.
This would present Iran with a powerful - and potentially aggressive - American military force close to its border in the event of a US or Israeli military strike against its nuclear facilities later this year.
Independent, 11/4/07
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis protest occupation
Hundreds of thousands of Shiites burned and trampled on US flags on Monday as they gathered in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf for an anti-American rally called by firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on the fourth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Large crowds of men, women and children holding Iraqi flags and anti-US banners massed in Najaf and the nearby twin city of Kufa to protest against what they said was an American occupation of Iraq.
Many in the crowds were seen burning US flags and some were trampling on and striking US and Israeli flags painted on the ground with their shoes, an act considered one of the worst insults in Arab culture.
Some Sunni religious groups were also seen participating in the rally.
Middle East Online, 9/4/07
US air strike kills six
U.S. forces launched an air strike in Diwaniya on Saturday as U.S. and Iraqi troops fought for a second day to wrest control of the city from Shi'ite militias.
A local hospital source and a resident said six people, including two children and a woman, were killed in the missile strike on a home in the centre of the city, 110 miles south of Baghdad.
U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Scott Bleichwehl said one person had been killed when a warplane fired on gunmen carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
Reuters, 7/4/07
US offered 'aggressive patrols' over Iran
The US offered to take military action on behalf of the 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran, including buzzing Iranian Revolutionary Guard positions with warplanes, the Guardian has learned.
In the first few days after the captives were seized and British diplomats were getting no news from Tehran on their whereabouts, Pentagon officials asked their British counterparts: what do you want us to do? They offered a series of military options, a list which remains top secret given the mounting risk of war between the US and Iran.
But one of the options was for US combat aircraft to mount aggressive patrols over Iranian Revolutionary Guard bases in Iran, to underline the seriousness of the situation. The British declined the offer and said the US could calm the situation by staying out of it.
Guardian, 7/4/07
US agents interrogating secret prisoners in Ethiopia
American intelligence agents are interrogating hundreds of al-Qa'eda suspects secretly imprisoned in Ethiopia, human rights organisations said yesterday.
The detainees, from 19 different countries, have allegedly been "illegally" deported to Ethiopia where they are being held in horrific conditions in crowded jails, notorious for torture and abuse. They include women and children as young as seven months and were arrested in Somalia and Kenya as they fled December's rout of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) around Mogadishu.
"We fear that many of the detainees will face mistreatment and possibly torture or execution in Ethiopian custody," said Peter Takirambudde, the executive director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch.
The New York-based organisation said that the governments of Kenya, Ethiopia and the US had "played a shameful role in mistreating people fleeing a war zone".
Georgette Gagnon, HRW's deputy Africa director, said "Kenya has secretly expelled people, the Ethiopians have caused dozens to 'disappear' and US security agents have routinely interrogated people held incommunicado."
Daily Telegraph, 6/4/07
Marines were gathering intelligence on Iran
The captain in charge of the 15 marines detained in Iran has said they were gathering intelligence on the Iranians.
Sky News went on patrol with Captain Chris Air and his team in Iraqi waters close to the area where they were arrested - just five days before the crisis began. We withheld the interview until now so it would not jeopardise their safety.
And today, former Iranian diplomat Dr Mehrdad Khonsari said if the Iranians had known about it, they would have used it to "justify taking the marines captive and put them on trial".
The UK Defence Secretary Des Browne told Sky News it was important to gather intelligence to "keep our people safe".
Sky News, 5/4/07