These are the archives for the week ending 20th April 2007
Bombs mark security handover
Nearly 200 people have been killed in a string of attacks in Iraq's capital, Baghdad - the worst day of violence since a US security operation began.
As Baghdad was rocked by explosions, security in Maysan province to the south was transferred from British to Iraqi control. Maysan is the fourth of the country's 18 provinces to be handed over to Iraqi security control.
But foreign troops are likely to remain in Iraq for some time. Analysts say that even if Iraqi forces take the lead in providing security across the country, they will need support from US and other coalition troops.
BBC News, 18/4/07
Iraqi children traumatised
About 70% of primary school students in a Baghdad neighborhood suffer symptoms of trauma-related stress such as bed-wetting or stuttering, according to a survey by the Iraqi Ministry of Health.
The survey of about 2,500 youngsters is the most comprehensive look at how the war is affecting Iraqi children, said Iraq's national mental health adviser and author of the study, Mohammed Al-Aboudi.
Many Iraqi children have to pass dead bodies on the street as they walk to school in the morning, according to a separate report last week by the International Red Cross. Others have seen relatives killed or have been injured in mortar or bomb attacks.
"Some of these children are suffering one trauma after another, and it's severely damaging their development," said Said Al-Hashimi, a psychiatrist who teaches at Mustansiriya Medical School and runs a private clinic in west Baghdad. "We're not certain what will become of the next generation, even if there is peace one day," Al-Hashimi said.
USA Today, 17/4/07
A new threat in Iraq
While the Bush administration struggles to stabilize Baghdad, a major new threat is emerging in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq. If it isn't defused, this crisis could further erode U.S. goals in Iraq -- drawing foreign military intervention, splintering the country further and undermining U.S. hopes for long-term military bases in Kurdistan.
The core issue is Kurdish nationalism, which worries Iraq's powerful northern neighbor, Turkey, which has a substantial Kurdish minority. The Bush administration has tried to finesse the problem, hoping to keep two friends happy: The Kurds have been America's most reliable partner in Iraq, while the Turks are a crucial ally in the region. But in recent weeks, this strategy has been breaking down.
The administration, realizing that it was drifting toward a confrontation over the Kurdish issue, last year appointed retired Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston as a special emissary. His mission is to urge the Iraqis to crack down on the militant Kurdish political party known as the PKK, which uses Iraqi Kurdistan as a staging point. The Turks denounce the PKK as a terrorist group and threaten that if the United States doesn't take decisive action to suppress it, the Turkish army will.
Ralston is said to have warned top administration officials in December that the Turks might invade by the end of April unless the United States contained the PKK. Other knowledgeable officials are similarly worried, and one analyst has predicted that the Turks may seize a border strip about eight miles deep into Iraq.
Washington Post, 18/4/07
al-Sadr boycott widens Shiite splits...
Monday's departure of six government cabinet ministers from the Iraqi government will indeed erode support for American-backed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The ministers represented radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, on whom Mr. Maliki relied to take the top government post in Iraq.
But the withdrawal of the Sadrists - who left in protest over the prime minister's refusal to set a date for the departure of US troops - highlights more troubling developments: widening fissures within the country's ruling coalition and a brewing Shiite fight for supremacy that threatens to unravel the leading political coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA).
"The fragmentation of the Shiites, and the fights that are taking place, are much more serious than what gets talked about publicly," says Hosham Dawod, a Paris-based Iraqi academic and author.
To win these fights - that have on occasion taken the form of armed confrontation and threaten to do so again - leading Shiite political figures are rallying popular support by clutching on big emotional causes.
In the case of Mr. Sadr, it's taking on the US military presence. For the rival Fadhila Islamic party, it's confronting Iranian influence and meddling. And for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) led by the influential Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, it's purging all remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime.
Christian Science Monitor, 18/4/07
...as tensions widen in Basra
In the latest sign of worsening tensions among Shiite factions, several hundred people demonstrated Tuesday to force the governor of Basra to step down, a move that could throw that already unsettled southern city into turmoil.
The protesters gathered in 13 tents at the edge of the Ashar River in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, for the start of a three-day demonstration in front of the governor's office. They were drawn from several groups, but among them were people who appeared to have links to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
The protesters on Tuesday complained primarily about the lack services in the city, including electricity, potable water and jobs. Several protesters described Mr. Waeli as a corrupt politician who gave jobs only to people from his own party.
"We want to live like human beings, and our city lacks a lot of services," said one of the protesters, Assad Nusaef, who was wearing the black clothes favored by Sadr loyalists. "We don't have pure water, and we have to buy water from official factories."
Government officials in Baghdad said that the governor was under pressure to resign but that there was no sign yet that he would give up power. His resignation could dangerously heighten competition for power among the Shiite political parties in Basra - all of which are struggling to control the oil-rich area that is close to the Persian Gulf.
New York Times, 17/4/07
"We are talking here about torture."
Mr Mousa, a 26-year-old hotel worker, was detained in 2003, along with a number of other Iraqis, by members of the Queens Lancashire Regiment. He received 93 injuries and died of his injuries.
Yesterday, Phil Shiner, a lawyer representing his family, claimed that not only had he been hooded, bound and held in a stress position but he had been starved for two days by his captors.
After listening to the evidence, the judge, Mr Justice McKinnon, felt there had been a cover-up. He said: "None of those soldiers has been charged with any offence, simply because there is no evidence against them as a result of a more or less obvious closing of ranks." All of the soldiers insisted that they could not remember what happened.
Mr Shiner said: "Everyone who pleaded not guilty has been found not guilty. No one in command has been called to account. The video played in the court martial makes it very clear that unless you were stone deaf, if you were on that base you knew what was going on. We are talking here about torture. Not some nuanced degrading of treatment. We are talking about techniques that were banned by the Heath government in 1972: hooding, sleep deprivation, stressing, food deprivation and white noise."
The House of Lords will today hear six test cases - one of them being Mr Mousa's - to find whether the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act apply to forces operating in Iraq.
Campaigners hope that if successful, the case will lead to an independent inquiry into the behaviour of British troops in Iraq. The high court and court of appeal have already ruled that the Human Rights Act applies in situations where an individual is detained by a British authority.
Guardian 17/4/07
Iraq increasingly dangerous for Americans
Over the past six months, American troops have died in Iraq at the highest rate since the war began, an indication that the conflict is becoming increasingly dangerous for U.S. forces even after more than four years of fighting.
From October 2006 through last month, 532 American soldiers were killed, the most during any six-month period of the war. March also marked the first time that the U.S. military suffered four straight months of 80 or more fatalities.
April, with at least 58 service members killed through Monday, is on pace to be one of the deadliest months for American forces. The total number of American military fatalities in Iraq is now 3,305.
The Buffalo News 17/4/07
Bush in deep disfavour
A bare majority of Americans for the first time believe the United States will lose the war in Iraq, and a new high - two-thirds - say the war was not worth fighting. Yet the public divides on setting a deadline for withdrawal.
That mix of sentiments - unhappy with the war, unclear what to do about it - is keeping George W. Bush in deep disfavor.
Just 35 percent approve of his job performance overall, a scant two points above his career low. And just 29 percent like how he's dealing with the situation in Iraq.
ABC news 17/4/07
Iraqi parliament irrelevant
Many analysts say that Thursday's attack will only serve to further isolate the 275-member parliament from the people who elected it in December 2005.
Already, the government is seen by many here to be too mired in sectarian bickering and personal animosities to operate as a functioning government.
"A lot of Iraqis now are biting their fingers in regret because they voted these people in. Most [parliamentarians] have no real base of support and command little respect," says an Iraqi analyst who has been following the workings of parliament since its inception.
He says the institution has rendered itself irrelevant largely due to the "incompetence and inexperience" of its members.
In January, when Mr. Bush announced the new plan in Iraq, he said that the US would hold the government "to the benchmarks that it has announced." Those include: passing legislation to share oil revenues, spending $10 billion on reconstruction, planning for provincial elections, and reforming de-Baathification laws.
The government has made little visible progress on any of those benchmarks. It did, however, meet earlier this month in a session closed to the media to discuss a bill that would grant the speaker of parliament a salary equivalent to that of Iraq's president.
News of such meetings only adds to the common Iraqi sentiment that its parliament is completely disconnected from reality outside the Green Zone.
Christian Science Monitor, 16/4/07
al-Sadr quits government
The nationalist Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his ministers to leave the Iraqi government because of its refusal to set a timetable for US troop withdrawal from Iraq.
A violent confrontation between America and the Sadrist movement, popular among the Shia majority, would mark a new stage in the four-year war in which the US has hitherto been fighting the minority Sunni community.
Menacingly for the US, Mr Sadr called on Iraqi police and soldiers, many of them his supporters, to oppose the occupation. His new anti-American campaign is in keeping with Iraqi opinion going by a recent poll by ABC, the BBC, ARD and USA Today. It showed that 78 per cent of Iraqis oppose the presence of US forces in Iraq. More than 7 out of 10 Shia - and almost all Sunni - say the US military presence makes security worse.
Independent, 17/4/07
Iraq a 'university of terrorism'
The leader of an al Qaeda-led group in Iraq said on Tuesday he agreed with those who say the country has become a "university of terrorism" in a growing insurgency since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
"From the military point of view, one of the (enemy) devils was right in saying that if Afghanistan was a school of terror, then Iraq is a university of terrorism," the leader of the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq said in a Web audio recording.
"The largest batch of soldiers for jihad in the path of God in the history of Iraq are graduating and they have the highest level of competence in the world," said the speaker, identified as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the group set up last year by al Qaeda's Iraq wing and some other Sunni groups.
Reuters, 17/4/07
Humanitarian crisis in Middle East
A new humanitarian crisis looms in the Middle East unless Western powers take urgent measures to assist four million Iraqis uprooted by conflict, Amnesty International warned on Monday.
The London-based human rights group called on the United States, the European Union and others to help Jordan and Syria, whose governments are struggling to care for some two million Iraqi refugees who have fled their homeland.
Another 1.9 million are displaced within Iraq, many in the past year marked by suicide bombings and sectarian violence. From 40,000 to 50,000 Iraqis flee their homes each month in an exodus linked to pervasive violence, poor basic services, a loss of jobs, and an uncertain future, according to the UNHCR.
Reuters, 15/4/07
US has 18,000 detainees in Iraq
In the past month, as a new security crackdown in Baghdad began, U.S. forces arrested another 1,000 Iraqis, bringing to 18,000 the number of detainees jailed in two U.S.-run facilities in that country.
The average stay in these detention centers is about a year, but about 8,000 of the detainees have been jailed longer, including 1,300 who have been in custody for two years, said a statement provided by Capt. Phillip J. Valenti, spokesman for Task Force 134, the U.S. Military Police group handling detainee operations.
Washington Post, 15/4/07
Security plan is moving attacks, not stopping them
Bombers killed at least 46 people in two attacks Saturday that made increasingly clear the weaknesses of a U.S.-Iraqi security plan, including 34 who died in the holy city of Karbala when an explosion tore through a bus station near a Shiite shrine.
U.S. military officials acknowledge that the security focus in Baghdad has driven insurgents to areas outside the capital, where large-scale attacks have increased.
In Karbala, frustration with the government's inability to protect its citizens boiled over into violence Saturday. After the bombing young men began hurling rocks to protest the failure of security forces to protect them. Some then marched to the provincial government headquarters to continue their protest. They dispersed after police fired in the air, a government spokesman said.
The Karbala governor, Akeel Mahmoud Qazali, accused the prime minister and the Defense Ministry of failing to respond to requests for more security in the city.
Los Angeles Times, 15/4/07
US to keep Iranian hostages
In a move likely to irritate Tehran, the government has decided not to release five Iranians captured in Iraq, a newspaper reported on Friday.
The Washington Post said that after intense internal debate, the Bush administration had decided to keep the Iranians in custody and make them go through a periodic six-month review process used for the other 250 foreign detainees held in Iraq. The next review is not expected until July.
Washington says the five, seized in a January 11 raid by US forces in the Kurdish city of Arbil, are linked with Iranian Revolutionary Guard networks involved in providing explosive devices used to attack US troops in Iraq. Iran says they are diplomats and has demanded their release.
Hindustan Times, 14/4/07
The most secure place in Iraq?
Baghdad's Green Zone - officially the International Zone - is a heavily fortified area of closed-off streets in central Baghdad where most Iraqi government offices and the US embassy are located.
This area of about 10 square kilometres is supposed to be the most secure place in the country. Its land-based perimeter is surrounded by concrete blast walls - designed to stop suicide bombers penetrating the nerve centres of official power. The River Tigris acts as a natural defensive barrier along its remaining circumference.
Iraq's parliament - in the old Islamic Conference centre built by Saddam Hussein - is an island of its own within the Green Zone, and to reach it visitors must negotiate concentric rings of armed checkpoints that start from the zone's outer borders.
The numerous armed posts - with their coils of razor wire and chain link fencing - have led to the area often being referred to as the "ultimate gated community". But the suicide attack on the parliament building has shattered this image.
BBC News, 13/4/07
53rd British soldier killed in Afghanistan
A British soldier has been killed during a routine patrol in the Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence has said. The soldier, from the 1st Battalion, Royal Anglian Regiment was seriously injured by small arms fire during fighting with Taliban forces.
The unnamed soldier is the 53rd to have been killed since the start of operations in November 2001.
Evening Standard, 14/4/07