|
Iran turns up the Heat
Mike Whitney
…While the militias do not take their orders directly from Tehran, it’s clear that there’s a tacit agreement between the two and their objectives are nearly identical. Both are determined to defeat the Sunni-led resistance so that the Ba’ath Party can never return to power. The mass abductions show that they are moving as quickly as possible to execute their strategy. The US military has fallen into a trap and is (unwittingly) helping Iran expand its influence. In fact, Bush’s plan to increase troop-strength by 20,000 in Baghdad just makes it easier for the militias to operate. The heavy American presence on the streets and checkpoints forces the Sunni resistance to remain underground while the Shiite militias conduct their round-ups and raids with complete impunity. It’s no wonder they’ve stepped up operations in recent weeks. The talk of an American withdrawal following the midterms has only increased their determination to crush the resistance while American troops still provide cover…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28352
Brainswashing campaign?
Gilles Munier (AFI-Flash n°66)
On October 26, the London based-daily, Al Quds al Arabi, announced the creation of a 25 members Unified Political Command of the Iraqi Resistance. 15 members belong to the external resistance and 10 from inside Iraq. The news seem to have been issued by Abdul Jabbar Al Kubaissi, a long-time Saddam Hussein opponent and spokesman from supposedly “Command”. Al Kubaissi has been granted political status refugee in France and leads a small political grouping called the Iraqi Patriotic Alliance (IPA). Among the Resistance organizations which are rhetorically included in the “Command” is: The 1920 Revolution Brigades which soon denied the news and declared that it was an attempt at making theirs the success of the Resistance. It was later known that personalities on the Command list discovered theirs names on reading the newspaper…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28325
Restaging the End of Another War
Les Blough, Axis of Logic Editor
…The U.S. military has been roundly defeated in Iraq. U.S. forces are being pounded by a well-organized resistance army who are defending their country. The corporate media has played the clever game of dripping small numbers of U.S. soldiers killed from week to week over the last 3 ? years. The media did their best for the government. They were able to slow the cumulative effect of those numbers on the U.S. psyche, but could not do so indefinitely. In recent days they have changed tactics, blaming the failure on their latest inventions: the so-called “sectarian war” and foreign-puppet government installed by the U.S (…) The only success story in the US-Iraq night-terras belongs to Israel. Their perceived enemy and people they hate have been destroyed; Zionist paranoia temporarily relieved…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28344
US army ‘seized Iraqi homes’
Ahmed Janabi, Aljazeera.net
A leading Iraqi lawyer has accused the US army of throwing 211 families, including his, out of their homes. Rabah al-Alwan, 36, head of the Union of Lawyers in al-Anbar governorate in western Iraq, said that the US army has occupied his family’s house and those of with dozens of other families in al-Ramadi, the capital of al-Anbar governorate. Al-Alwan has accused the US army of seizing the whole neighbourhood of al-Soufiya in the centre of al-Ramadi and using the houses for military purposes. The press desk of the US army command in Iraq did not respond to repeated requests to comment on the claim made by al-Alwan. Al-Alwan said: “Ten months ago, the US army seized my house and dozens of houses in the neighbourhood where I live. Residents were not allowed take any of their savings, jewellery, furniture or clothes.” Al-Alwan said the US army had installed snipers on the roofs of the houses to prevent anyone approaching the area they have taken over. He said: “They killed a lot of people, such as Ayad Mutar and Muhamad Ayad, for approaching their houses to try to get some of their families’ clothes and belongings.” (…)
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28345
More sundry documentaries
Imad Khadduri, Free Iraq
Iraqi Resistance Television (videos, many in Arabic) ??????? ???????? ????????
PS: We had posted on Juba the Sniper ???? ????? before, as he was mentioned on this site about two years ago, (actually, we had heard of him and his news since about a year earlier than that): * “The Sniper of Baghdad has shot and killed yet another American soldier at a petrol station South of Baghdad. After the shooting, US troops closed the fuel station and completely surrounded the area. They searched tall buildings in the area and found one empty bullet casing and retrieved his signatory hand-written piece of paper on which was written, “What has been taken by blood, cannot be regained except by blood. Baghdad sniper.”Baghdad sniper kills US soldier February 7, 2005 * Yet another one bullet near Baghdad, January 2006, from the Iraqi Resistance Sniper – Juba. * It is claimed that Juba has killed 154 GIs, wounded 54 GIs, killed 6 Officers, and killed 4 Snipers. See the first full video clip on Juba – Al-Jaish Al-Islami in Iraq…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28353
Farmers in Dire Straights
Inter Press Service, Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily
Despite the Iraqi prime minister’s optimism for the agricultural sector, the farmers who are struggling to survive tell another story. In an address to Iraqi politicians this week, Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki praised his government’s performance in agriculture. Maliki highlighted the new state-supported crop prices, through which farmers would receive subsidies and encouragement to continue growing their crops — but he did not mention how much the price supports would be. “The prime minister seems not to be aware of the real problems we are facing here,” Haji Jassim, a farmer from the rural Al-Jazeera area near Ramadi, told IPS. Speaking from a relative’s home in Baghdad, he added, “What he is talking about would have been good if prices were the only problem, but someone should explain to him the other obstacles we are facing.”…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28351
Locals Accuse U.S. of Massacre in Ramadi
Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily, Inter Press Service
U.S. military tank fire killed scores of civilians in Ramadi, capital of Al-Anbar province, late Monday night, according to witnesses and doctors. Anger and frustration were evident at the hospitals and during the funerals in the following days. Iraqi doctors and witnesses at the scene of the attack said U.S. tanks killed 35 civilians when they shelled several homes in the Al-Dhubat area of the city. Ramadi, located 110 km west of Baghdad, has been beset with sporadic but intense violence between occupation forces and insurgents for several months. On Tuesday, hundreds of people carried the 35 coffins of the dead to a graveyard in a funeral procession which closely resembled an angry demonstration…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28350
DAILY WAR NEWS FOR FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2006
Today in Iraq
Unidentified gunmen stormed as mall coffee shop in central Baghdad late Thursday, kidnapping 15 to 20 customers, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua. The abduction occurred at about 9:10 p.m. (1810 GMT) when gunmen in several cars attacked the coffee shop in Wattawin, a mixed neighborhood in central Baghdad, the anonymous source said. Police found 14 bodies bearing signs of torture and bullet wounds in different parts of Baghdad, police said. The police said in a statement police forces found 20 bodies of unidentified people in different areas in the capital, Baghdad. Six bodies were found in Dora, five in Kadhemiya and the rest in areas of Ubaidi, Al-Sadr city and Bob Al-Sham. Gunmen shot dead two brothers in the Hurriya district in northwest Baghdad, police said…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28349
Fateh’s Unholy Alliance
Pinochet in Palestine
JOSEPH MASSAD
…The Fateh plan is simple: where Israel and its Lebanese allies failed to crush Hizbullah in the Sixth war, Fateh and its Israeli allies will succeed in crushing Hamas, even if the ongoing Israeli war against Hamas and the Palestinian people becomes an all-out Seventh war. The flurry of visits by Condoleezza Rice to the area in the last few weeks hoped to put the final touches on this plan. If Hamas, like Hizbullah, could be provoked into a military response, the coup planners believe, then Fateh’s and Israel’s wrath (backed by the US, Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia) would be unleashed to finish Hamas off. The Fateh leadership and its thugs are sharpening their knives for the showdown. Hamas has remained calm despite the pressure…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28346
Iraq: Rape without a morning-after pill
Ben Tanosborn, Online Journal Contributing Writer
For at least two years I’ve been of one mind: there is no such thing as a middle ground in how the US may approach its exit from Iraq. And that, in a nutshell, is my answer to James A. Baker III and his bipartisan, or “we’re all in this together,” Iraq Study Group. Mr. Baker’s adherence to the doctrine of the best path being the middle of the road probably started when he switched alliance, turning from Democrat to Republican, trying to get Bush Senior elected to the Senate back in 1970 — unsuccessfully, one might add. For all his political acumen and impressive résumé, Baker is more a forceful intimidator (a la Dick Cheney) than a diplomat, or a capable facilitator in crisis management…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28343
Killing Hope in Beit Hanoun
Ramzy Baroud
“God is greater than Israel and America,” was the echoing cry of tens of thousands of Palestinians, who descended into the graveyard in grief stricken Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip. They congregated in yet another familiar scene to bury their loved ones, killed by Israel’s brutal war against the Palestinians. This time, the loss was too great to bear, even by the standards of the people of Gaza: eighteen ambulances lined up, carrying the mutilated bodies of eighteen members of the same extended family, the majority of whom were women and children; all civilians. “I will avenge; I will avenge,” screamed a relative of one of those who died in the Israeli artillery attack on Beit Hanoun, on November 8…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28340
Ministry merges warehouses to thwart attacks
Khayoun Saleh, Azzaman
The Ministry of Trade has decided to cancel several major food warehouses in the country, citing security as a major reason. A food rationing system introduce by former leader Saddam Hussein to offset the impact of U.N. trade sanctions is still in place. But despite the removal of the sanctions, Iraqis now get less food from the government than under Saddam Hussein…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28342
Top Sunni Muslim group calls on Sunnis to quit Iraqi government
Associated Press
Iraq’s precarious political situation is deteriorating. The influential Association of Muslim Scholars is urging Sunni politicians to quit Iraq’s government and Parliament. The call comes a day after the Shiite interior minister issued an arrest warrant for the association’s leader on charges of inciting terrorism and violence among the Iraqi people. A spokesman for the association says the central government has proved that it is not a national government…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28339
AP Gets Shocking New Report on Gitmo
Editor and Publisher
The U.S. military called no witnesses, withheld evidence from detainees and usually reached a decision within a day as it determined that hundreds of men detained at Guantanamo Bay were “enemy combatants,” according to a new report. The analysis of transcripts and records by two lawyers for Guantanamo detainees, aided by more than two dozen law students, found that hearings that determined whether a prisoner should remain in custody gave the accused little opportunity to contest allegations against him. “These were not hearings. These were shams,” said Mark Denbeaux, an attorney and Seton Hall University law professor who along with his son, Joshua, is the author of the report. They provided an advance copy of the report to The Associated Press late Thursday and planned to release it Friday on the Internet…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28359
The Army ‘approved abuse of prisoners’
Michael Evans, Times
THE Army’s high command was accused last night of officially sanctioning the hooding and mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention. The claims were made by a witness in the court martial of seven soldiers charged in relation to the abuse and ill-treatment of nine Iraqis in Basra in 2003. Major Antony Royce, called as a witness by the judge in the case, told the court that he was instructed by those higher up the chain of command in Basra to use “conditioning techniques”, including putting prisoners in stress positions and hooding them, to prepare detainees for tactical questioning. He said that the advice had come from a senior army legal adviser. Such techniques are against both the Geneva Convention and the Army’s own rules of engagement…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28338
Latest disastrous plan: More GIs to Iraq
ANDREW GREELEY, Chicago Sun-Times
Many of the wise people in this country who supported the Iraq war at the beginning now contend that the answer to the problem is to send more troops to Iraq. Sen. John McCain says that 20,000 more should be enough. Some of the military “experts” on television are hinting that 100,000 more will do the job. Rumors are being leaked from the Iraq Study Group established to shape “new strategy” that they will recommend more troops, too. The New York Times editorial page recommends more troops temporarily in Baghdad. One begins to wonder who won the election and whether McCain plans to seek the presidency two years hence with the blood of more American men and women, to say nothing of Iraqi women and children, on his hands (…) The war is lost. It was lost before it began. The majority of the American electorate knows that…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28341
Americans seized in Iraq convoy hijack
Aref Mohammed
British forces mounted raids in southern Iraq on Friday, a day after four Americans and an Austrian were abducted when the civilian convoy they were guarding was hijacked, Iraqi security sources said. Amid confusion over how far various incidents were linked, police in one town said they killed an American in civilian clothes and wounded another after the Americans shot dead two policemen who pulled over their unmarked vehicle near Zubayr on Friday…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28336
Dhari’s reaction
Roads to Iraq
AL-Dahri speaks from Amman-Jordan was interviewed today by Al-Jazeera said: The decision issued by the Iraqi Interior Ministry is neither legitimate nor legal, it indicates the desperation of the government, and their failure. The timing of the decision came at a time when the government is very embarrassed after the failure to perform security and the fear of the unknown after the changes that have taken place in the United States, who sponsored them. In response to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani charges against Al-Dahri he said: Jalal is always accusing us and I am not considering him the president of Iraq or represent us…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28337
Flash NEWS !
Layla Anwar
– A relative , mother of three gave up her job in Baghdad . She lives in a mixed area re -baptized “The Death Neighborhood. The reason ? Her name is Ayesha * – Another 22 years old relative , fresh bright graduate is not allowed to leave home . His parents lock him up in his room and guard the key . He is their only child . The reason ? His name is Bakr * – Yet another relative’s home stormed in at 3 am . They kidnapped the eldest son . He is 18 years old . We are all expecting a funeral soon . The reason ? His name is Omar * The fresh news of fresh new victims in Baghdad is over for the day. Have a good one . *** For those of you who don’t know Arabic names, the above are typical sunni names…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28332
The hidden agenda behind Beit Hanun
The Truth Will Set You Free
Notwithstanding their preposterous excuses, everyone knows that israel committed a war crime when it killed 18 Palestinians as they slept in their homes in Beit Hanun, last week. But, virtually unreported in the mainstream media was the historical, religious, and military significance of the other war crime israel committed that day . . . An-Nasr Mosque in Beit Hanoun, destroyed In a statement to the U.N. Observer website, the imam of the An-Nasr Mosque in Beit Hanun, Sheikh Sihda Abu Zreyk said that the mosque, which was established in 1240, was completely destroyed during the Israeli operation. The mosque was built after the Um An-Nasr war with the Crusaders between Gaza and Askelon [now, Ashkelon], the imam explained…
The targeting of places of worship during military operations is considered to be a war crime according to the 16th article of the Geneva Convention.
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28335
Newspaper: Dutch Troops Abused Iraq Prisoners
Associated Press
Dutch military interrogators abused dozens of Iraqi prisoners in 2003, dousing them with water to keep them awake and exposing them to high-pitched noises and strong lights, a Dutch newspaper reported Friday. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende told the national broadcaster NOS that “if this is true, it is shocking” and said the allegations must be investigated. The report by the left-leaning national daily De Volkskrant was published five days before national elections, which Balkenende’s center-right Christian Democratic Appeal is favored to win…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=28357 |