Older News Stories

Rebuilding pledges unpaid; Turkmen worried in Kirkuk; New contractor rules

Nearly five years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, allied countries have paid only 16% of what they pledged to help rebuild the war-torn country, according to a report released on Thursday. Foreign countries have spent about $2.5 billion of the more than $15.8 billion they pledged during and after an October 2003 conference in Madrid, according to a new report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. The United States, so far, has spent $29 billion to help rebuild Iraq, the inspector general's report says. Congress has approved an additional $16.5 billion.

Rockets slammed into the British base near the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Thursday, slightly wounding three British soldiers. Multiple rockets were apparently launched from the city, which is about 12 miles east of the airport. Three bodies were recovered in Baghdad, two in Mosul and a severed head was found in the town of Sulaiman Pek. Two earthquakes jolted the southeastern Iraqi city of Kut, causing no injuries or damage but panicking residents. The U.S. military reported two more G.I. deaths.

In Kirkuk, the Iraqi Turkmen Front said yesterday that it was calling for “establishing a Turkmen force to be part of the Iraqi army that would undertake protection of the Turkmen areas.” Residents of Kirkuk and the surrounding area have periodically been plagued by attacks in addition to continuing tensions among the Kurdish, Turkmen and Sunni Arab populations.

Under pressure to exercise greater control over private security contractors in Iraq, Bush administration officials outlined stricter rules for these armed guards during a three-hour meeting Wednesday at the Pentagon with 20 companies including senior representatives from Blackwater, DynCorp, Triple Canopy and Aegis Defence. Security contractors are now covered by the same code of justice that applies to American military personnel. In related news, a federal appeals panel, meeting behind closed doors Wednesday, heard arguments over whether three cases involving KBR contractors injured or killed in Iraq should be revived and go before juries. posted 31 January 2008

Wednesday violence empties parts of Baghdad; Eyes on Mosul

Many parts of Baghdad resembled a ghost town on Wednesday after a series of bombings shook the capital and mostly appeared to target Iraq's security forces.

A car bomb near Mustansariyah University targeting a police patrol killed one policeman and wounded two others, and also wounded two civilian bystanders. Three policemen and two civilians, meanwhile, were wounded in a roadside bomb that struck a police patrol in Gadir neighborhood. A policeman was killed and five wounded by a roadside bomb targeting their patrol near al-Mustanssiriya Square.

Two bystanders were hurt in a car bombing near an army checkpoint on al- Nidhal Street. A mortar attack in a residential sector of western Yarmuk neighborhood wounded three more civilians.

The U.S. military plans to boost the number of neighborhood outposts across the capital by more than 30 percent this year, the new commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad said Tuesday.

Elsewhere: the beheaded bodies of two brothers were found in the town of Tuz Khurmat. A cameraman working for al-Furat, a satellite television channel, and his driver were killed by a roadside bomb near the town of Balad on Tuesday. Two others were injured.

Iraqi commanders boast that they will "cleanse" Mosul of insurgents as U.S. and Iraqi forces plan a major push in that city. "The goal is not only to cleanse the city but the goal after the cleansing is how to maintain all its districts and streets as secured areas clean for all citizens," said Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Mohammed al-Askari. The push in Mosul was announced after a huge blast last week in a building the U.S. military said had been used by al Qaeda to store weapons and explosives killed up to 50 people. In other operations, the U.S. military said it had killed four suspected militants and detained 18 others in raids against al Qaeda networks in the central Iraqi province of Diyala. posted 30 January 2008

Bush: Occupation to continue; Soldiers: President is clueless; Power outages continue; Australia leaving

President Bush used his final State of the Union address to urge Americans to support his decision to continue the occupation and war in Iraq, saying things are "improving". He will ask Congress next week for another $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an amount to help cover operational costs only until early next year, when the next administration takes over. President Bush asked for more than twice that amount — $196.4 billion — for combat operations this fiscal year. He did not mention the more than 4.5 million displaced Iraqis, the daily casualty toll and Iraq's economic meltdown.

Nor did he hear the words of soldiers at FOB Marez on the outskirts of Mosul who formed an honor line as 5 dead Americans bodies' were loaded into a gray C-130 transport plane. "President Bush should be out here watching this ramp ceremony to see what it is really like," said one soldier. "The people who created this war need to be thinking about the families of these 18-year-olds who are dying," said another.

Meanwhile the violence, brought on by that same war, contined throughout Iraq with at least 100 casualties on Tuesday.

A suicide car bomb killed one civilian and wounded 15 others in the city of Mosul in an attack on a U.S. convoy while gunmen killed two policemen and wounded two others in an attack on a car carrying off-duty policemen. Nine bodies and 10 severed heads were found in an abandoned field near Muqdadiya. Police said some of the nine complete bodies were partially decomposed while others had been killed more recently. The bodies were all handcuffed and blindfolded and had bullet wounds.

In the capital, four soldiers and six civilians were wounded by a roadside bomb which targeted an Iraqi army patrol in central Baghdad's Bab al-Sharji district and three policemen and five civilians were wounded by a roadside bomb aimed at a police patrol near Baghdad's Technology University. More than 500 people demonstrated in Abu Ghraib district on Baghdad's western outskirts on Tuesday against wholesale detentions by the Iraqi army.

Kerbala remains without electricity due to power cuts. Iraq's national power outage has prompted the head of Babil province to send Baghdad an ultimatum: Give us electricity or we'll take it. Iraq's Electricity and Oil ministries each rely on the other to keep electricity and fuels coming to Iraqis. And each blames the other -- power outages stopped oil production and refineries, and power plants need fuels to operate. The Electricity Ministry says Turkey has stopped delivering electricity and Kuwait has cut supplies of power plant fuel.

Aziz Sultan, spokesman for the Electricity Ministry, said some areas of Baghdad were receiving only an hour of electricity per day.Sultan said Iraq's 27 million people need 9,500 megawatts of power daily to meet their minimum requirements, while the current production is about 4,000 megawatts. He added that Iraq is importing 150 megawatts from Iran to cover some of Diyala province's needs.

Australia announced its decision to withdraw its military troops from the country. Australia pledged to withdraw its 550 combat troops from Iraq by June this year while reassuring Washington that it remains committed to continue aid and help for the reconstruction work.

Iraq has stopped crude oil exports of 90,000 barrels per day to South Korea in protest at an exploration deal involving Korean firms in Iraqi Kurdistan, officials said Tuesday. A consortium of South Korean firms including SK Energy signed a deal in November with the Kurdish government to explore the Bazian field, which is estimated to hold 500 million barrels of crude oil. The Iraq government says that such deals, with Kurdish officials, are illegal. posted 29 January 2008

5 U.S. soldiers killed in Mosul fighting; Central bank burned; Mehdi Army may rejoin fighting; CBS, other media continue lies

Five U.S. soldiers were killed Monday in a complex attack in the northern city of Mosul. The soldiers first came under small arms fire and were hit by a roadside bomb. Three civilians were wounded when helicopters bombarded buildings in the southeastern Sumar neighborhood. Iraqi army and police also reported that fighting had broken out in the Haysuma neighbourhood, in the east of the city.

A huge fire whipped through the Central Bank of Iraq in Baghdad on Monday, causing serious damage to three floors of the 10-story building. The civil defence directorate, which falls under the interior ministry, will conduct an investigation to determine the cause of the fire which began sometime after midnight. US and Iraqi forces Monday set up security controls around the bank which is located in the Bab al-Muadham neighbourhood of northern Baghdad.

Three family members were killed and ten other people were injured when a roadside bomb missed a police patrol and hit their minivan instead. The bomb hit as they were carrying a coffin on their way to a funeral in Baghdad's New Baghdad district.

U.S. forces detained 18 suspected al Qaeda fighters during operations in central Iraq on Sunday and Monday, the U.S. military said. Four bodies were found in different districts of Baghdad on Sunday. The leader of a U.S.-backed neighbourhood police patrol was killed when a roadside bomb exploded near his car in northern Baghdad on Saturday, the U.S. military said.

Influential members of Muqtada al-Sadr's movement have urged the anti-U.S. Shiite cleric not to extend a cease-fire when it expires next month, officials said Monday, a move that could jeopardize recent security gains. Al-Sadr's August order for his feared Mehdi Army militia to freeze activities for six months was seen by U.S. commanders as a major factor in a nationwide reduction of violence. The maverick cleric has threatened not to renew the cease-fire unless the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki purges "criminal gangs" operating within security forces he claims are targeting his followers.

CBS’s 60 Minutes, and other major U.S. media continue to extend the Whitehouse lies that Saddam started the war because he refused to let in U.N. inspectors, defying the U.N. on sanctions and misled the world into thinking he had WMDs. The facts of the matter are that the United States began an unprovoked invasion even after Iraq had repeatedly announced that its WMDs had been destroyed in the 1990s. Iraq even sent the U.N. a 12,000-page declaration explaining specifically how its WMD stockpiles had been eliminated. In fall 2002, Hussein’s government also allowed teams of U.N. inspectors into Iraq and gave them free rein to examine any site of their choosing. The United Nations maintained operations in Iraq untile after the invasion in late 2003. It was George Bush, not Saddan Hussein, who "chose war" something the U.S. media pundits continue to miss. posted 28 January 2008

2 U.S. soldiers killed; Mehdi Army deemed "outlaws"; Reinforcements reach Mosul

Two American soldiers were killed in separate bombings, the military said Sunday. One American soldier was killed Sunday in a roadside bombing in northeastern Baghdad and another was killed the day before while on foot patrol in the city's north, the U.S. military said.

Also in Baghdad, aformer city official was stabbed to death along with his wife and daughter in their home.The knife-wielding attackers stormed the two-story house in the Talibiya district late Saturday, killing Ahmed Jwad Hashim, his wife and their daughter and a servant, and leaving a visiting nephew seriously wounded.

Gunmen ambushed a minibus carrying five female university employees on their way to the College of Arts Sunday in the New Baghdad district. The driver was seized but the women unharmed after several minutes. A roadside bomb wounded six people including three Iraqi soldiers when it hit their patrol in the Qahira district. Gunmen killed a man in a drive-by shooting late Saturday outside his house in central Kirkuk.

An Iraqi government minister said the Mehdi army was deemed an outlaw movement and its leaders would face arrest. Another spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry said more than 350 members of the Yamami militia, or Soldiers of Heaven, were arrested. Officials also announced the arrest of 14 gunmen posing as policemen in central Baghdad.

Iraqi soldiers reached the northern city of Mosul on Sunday for an operation against al-Qaida in Iraq. The United States has said Iraqi security forces will take the lead in Mosul as a major test of Washington's long-range plans, which seek to keep a smaller American force in Iraq as backup for local soldiers and police. "The operations against al-Qaida in Mosul will start soon," Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said, adding that the operation would include armored vehicles, tanks and helicopters. Mosul is Iraq's third largest city with an estimated population of 1.7 million - or slighty larger than San Antonio, Texas. posted 27 January 2008

Explosions, shootings in Baghdad; GI dead; Flag controversy

A series of explosions thundered through the Iraqi capital Saturday morning, including one from a mortar round that hit the Green Zone. One of the explosions was a roadside bomb that targeted a U.S. patrol in eastern Baghdad. The blast site was sealed by American forces.

Also in Baghdad, one person was killed and three injured when gunmen opened up on an Iraqi army patrol on Mua'skar al-Rasheed street. A roadside bomb detonated near the al-Shaab Football Stadium in eastern Baghdad, wounding five bystanders. An armed group opened fire on the al-Jumhuriya secondary school in Baghdad's central district of Karrada, wounding two female students and smashing the windows of several classrooms. Two bodies were found in different areas of Baghdad on Friday.

An American soldier died in a non-combat related incident in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Saturday. In northern Kirkuk, joint US-Iraqi forces detained five al-Qaeda suspects during a military operation in the early hours of Saturday. U.S. soldiers killed three suspected al Qaeda fighters near Samarra on Friday, the U.S. military also said. Gunmen killed Yasir Khadim al-Mudhafer, a sheikh loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, outside his house on Friday in Najaf. One person was killed by an IED in Baqouba.

Officials in Anbar province are refusing to raise Iraq's new national flag, which the parliament approved earlier this week. "The new flag is done for a foreign agenda and we won't raise it," said a leading member of the U.S.-backed Anbar Awakening Council , "If they want to force us to raise it, we will leave the yard for them to fight al Qaida." Although parliament speaker Mahmoud al Mashhadani said the new flag would be raised immediately across Iraq after the parliament approved it, it's nowhere to be seen. In a rushed parliamentary vote on Tuesday, only 165 of the Iraqi parliament's 275 lawmakers were present, and only 110 voted for the new red, white and black flag with "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great") in Kufic script, the ancient calligraphy developed in Mesopotamia. Many Iraqis, including some lawmakers who rejected the flag, were angered at what they considered a change to the flag in order to please the Kurdish north and its president, Massoud Barzani. posted 26 January 2008

President wants long-term treaty; Friday violence; Iraqi "rolling" elections

With its international mandate in Iraq set to expire in 11 months, the Bush administration is insisting that the Iraqi government give the U.S. broad authority to conduct combat operations and guarantee civilian contractors specific legal protections from Iraqi law, according to administration and military officials. Such usurpation of sovereignty faces a buzzsaw of opposition and any agreement would require the approvals of both the Iraqi Parliament and U.S. Senate.

While the United States currently has military agreements with more than 80 countries around the world, including Japan, Germany, South Korea and a number of Iraq’s neighbors, none of those countries are at war. And none has a population outraged over civilian deaths at the hands of armed American security contractors who are not answerable to Iraqi law. President George W. Bush has also said he is unlikely to reduce US forces in Iraq to less than 130,000 levels just before the surge.

As is has almost every Friday, Baghdad remained under curfew today. While citizens struggled to resupply for another week, the war continued.

U.S.-backed neighbourhood patrols killed two gunmen in a car east of Samarra on Friday. U.S. military forces killed one gunman and arrested 19 others during operations on Thursday and Friday in central and northern Iraq. Three bodies were found on Thursday in different districts in Baghdad. Police and U.S.-backed neighbourhood patrols killed one gunman, wounded another and arrested two who were wearing explosive vests north of the city of Falluja.

A senior Iraqi Shi'ite cleric was lightly wounded in a bomb attack in Kerbala late on Thursday that killed two of his bodyguards. Sheikh Abdul Mehdi al-Karbalai, a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was wounded in the hand after his convoy was hit by a roadside bomb near a checkpoint.

Iraq will be forced to hold "rolling elections" around the country because the security situation is too poor for a nationwide poll to be policed properly, the deputy prime minister said on Thursday. Local elections are planned, throughout the country. The last voting, in December 2005, were for election of the Parliament and were considered successful even though some groups boycotted. posted 25 January 2008

Body count grows in Mosul, elsewhere; Rising costs of occupation; Frigid cold and fuel shortages

Eighteen corpses have been pulled from the wreckage of buildings blown to bits by a powerful booby-trap in Mosul, raising the death toll to 34 and 148 people wounded, police said on Thursday. Police and rescue teams were still shifting through the debris of the building and about 15 adjoining houses shattered in the blast the previous evening.

The police chief of Mosul, Brig. Gen. Falih Mohammed Hassan, was ambushed and killed Thursday by suspected gunmen as he was touring the site of a bomb blast. His convoy was then hit with a roadside bomb as it fled the scene.

In Baghdad, two policemen were killed and five people were wounded when a roadside bomb struck a police patrol near the Karrada district. Gunmen abducted seven oil tanker drivers on Wednesday near Samarra, as they were transporting oil from the Baiji oil refinery to western Anbar province. U.S. soldiers backed by attack aircraft killed 20 suspected Iraqi insurgents in raids in northern and central Iraq over the past two days, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.

The costs of the occupation and war in Iraq continue to rise. "Funding for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and other activities in the war on terrorism expanded significantly in 2007," the Congressional Budget Office said in a report released on Wednesday. New estimates by the Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday show a worsening situation, with the deficit jumping to at least $250 billion this year and possibly $350 billion once the full costs of the economic stimulus legislation are factored into the equation. War funding, which averaged about $93 billion a year from 2003 through 2005, rose to $120 billion in 2006 and $171 billion in 2007 and President George W. Bush has asked for $193 billion in 2008. In related news, General Dynamics Corp. said Wednesday that higher sales of combat vehicles to the Army and corporate jets pushed fourth-quarter earnings up 42 percent.

The Middle East is in the grip of a cold wave. Blackouts and long lines at the fuel stations throughout Iraq are increasing as subsidized, state-controlled supplies run dry and the black market boosts prices. With many of Iraq's power plants shut and refineries stopped, Iraqis have neither fuel nor electricity. "We have not had electricity for a week now and it took me about four hours to buy fuel for my car," east Baghdad resident Jaafar Dhia Ali said in a U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report. Winter has set in reaching below zero temperatures in Baghdad alone. From Dec. 24-31, according to the State Department report, the supplies of heating and auto fuels were 42 percent to 67 percent short of the supply target. posted 24 January 2008

Dentistry dean killed; 2 U.S. casualties; MRAP fatality; Bush, Powell lied, people died

Gunmen killed the dean of Baghdad University's dental school while he was driving home from work on Wednesday, Iraqi police said. Munthar Muhrej Radhi, who headed the country's premier dental school, was found dead in the front of his car in western Baghdad. He had been shot multiple times. His death brought the total Iraqi casualities for Wednesday to more than 160.

In Mosul, a massive weapons cache exploded, killing 9 and injuring 75 people. Women and children were among the victims, police said, but it was unclear if they were on the street outside the building at the time or if the explosion had damaged nearby houses.

Eight Iraqi soldiers were also killed and two wounded when gunmen opened fire on them in Baghdad's central Bab al-Muadham area on Wednesday.

Six members of an Iraqi family from the Al-Abara district of Baqouba where killed by unknown gunmen Tuesday, after cooperating with Iraqi police, offering them tea and food. Gunmen killed Aziz Sulaiman a professor at Mosul University on Tuesday in southeastern Mosul. Four bodies were found in Baghdad and Mosul.

A U.S. soldier was killed and another was injured Tuesday when their vehicle rolled over in the northern city of Kirkuk, the military announced. A roadside bomb wounded Colonel Yadjar Shukur, chief of Kirkuk's police operations room on Tuesday when it hit his convoy in southern Kirkuk.

A new-style anti-mine armoured vehicle - the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) - that the US military is hoping will reduce casualties from roadside bombs in Iraq has proven vulnerable, with a first soldier killed in an attack at the weekend. MRAPs are being used in the area by troops of the US 6th Squadron, 8th Cavalry Regiment to edge forwards through territory littered with roadside bombs. The Pentagon last year decided that the deployment of the MRAP was a priority and ordered 15,400 of them at a cost of 22.4 billion dollars. Standing about 12 feet high and weighing around 18 tons, the vehicles can carry six to 10 soldiers, depending on the model.

The Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism determined, through a collective study found that President Bush "unequivocally" lied to get the U.S. into war with Iraq. A nonprofit collaboration of two independent, non-governmental organizations has concluded that President Bush used at least 532 misleading and deceptively false statements to justify military action against Iraq. In all, the Bush administration as a whole used a mind-numbing 935 false statements to goad America into war with Iraq.

Among the seven top officials cited, Colin Powell was the most egregious in the dispersal of dissembling and mendacious language regarding the requisite call for war against Iraq. Powell is attributed to having made 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in a two-year period beginning on September 11, 2001 and through the commencement of military action in Iraq on March 18, 2003. posted 23 January 2008

Baqouba High School hit; Country's budget stalled; U.S. High School recruits lower

Iraq's casualty count rose by more than 50 on Tuesday as violence continued its daily rounds throughout the country.

A suicide bomber blew himself up in front of a high school in Diyala province Tuesday, killing at least one person and wounding 22 others. Students, teachers, bystanders and at least one policeman were among the wounded in the 8:30 a.m. attack in the provincial capital, Baqouba.

Meanwhile in Baghdad, a roadside bombing wounded two policemen Tuesday in the eastern Mashtal area. A roadside bomb killed an employee of the Transport Ministry and wounded six others when it targeted their bus in Diyala Bridge, southeast of Baghdad. Another roadside bombing near a passing police patrol wounded four people — two policemen and two female bystanders — in the Madain area. Seven bodies were found in districts across Baghdad on Monday, police said.

In Kirkuk, a roadside bomb wounded two people when it exploded near their car on Tuesday. Gunmen killed a bodyguard of Salahuddin province's police chief and wounded another in an attack on their car in Shirqat. In Basra, gunmen wounded three policemen when they opened fire on their car. U.S. forces arrested 19 gunmen on Monday and Tuesday during operations in central and northern Iraq, the U.S. military said.

Iraqi parliament members refused to ratify the country's 2008 budget on Monday after divisions over several areas of spending. The head of the Sadrist bloc, Nassar al-Rubaie, said his MPs rejected the $48 Billion budget because it did not give enough money to teachers nor did it resolve the issue of monthly food rations to citizens, which are being reduced. Most of the unease, however, stems from a decision to allocate 17% of the budget to the oil-rich autonomous Kurdish region and on top of that to pay for its peshmerga security force from the national defense budget.

MP Iyad al-Samarrai, head of parliament's finance committee and MP for the powerful Sunni National Concord Front, accused the government of evading questions about the budget and of not being accountable for its spending. Another MP, Haider al-Ibadi, head of parliament's investment and economy committee, said the budget "does not give a clear strategy of how unemployment and poverty will be overcome."

The percentage of Army recruits with a high school diploma dropped last year, continuing a trend that has worsened since the start of the Iraq war, according to a report released Tuesday. National Priorities Project, a research group that analyzes federal data, found that nearly 71 percent of Army recruits graduated from high school in the 2007 budget year. The Army’s goal is 90 percent high school graduates, which it hasn’t met since 2004. Each year since, the number of recruits with at least a high school diploma has steadily declined so the military has had to increase the number of waivers and raise enlistment bonuses to fill its ranks. posted 22 January 2008

MLK Day; More aistrikes; Civilian killings; 3 soldiers dead; Turkish invasion coming?

While the war rages in Iraq, millions of peacemakers celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his opposition to American imperialism and war. The Bush Administration imposed a different legacy on Iraq. Then, as now, the world sees "an orderly buildup of evil, an accumulation of inhumanities, each of which alone was to make men hide in shame. What was woeful, but true, was that my country was only talking peace but was bent on military victory. Inside the glove of peace was the clenched fist of war," as MLK said of the war in Vietnam.

On Monday the U.S. military said it carried out a third air assault overnight on a suspected militant stronghold south of Baghdad. Bombers and fighter jets hit more than 30 targets with 35 bombs weighing a total of 19,000 pounds in the Sunni-majority area called Arab Jabour. Two U.S. air raids earlier this month dropped some 80,000 pounds of bombs on the area.

U.S. and Iraqi commandos claim to have killed a suspected Shiite militia leader Monday during a raid in western Baghdad. But relatives said the man was a truck driver who was murdered while trying to shield his wife from the troops. Hundreds of Iraqis chanted "there is no God but Allah" and carried a huge Iraqi flag as they followed the coffin of Jawad Abdul-Kadim during a funeral service in the Amil neighborhood. Protesters said he was not affiliated with any militant groups. Abdul-Kadim's son, Hamza Jawad, said his father was trying to keep the troops out of the bedroom until his wife could dress properly, but one of the soldiers reached through a space in the door and opened fire. "My father is innocent, and he is not affiliated with any group," the 13-year-old said.

Elswehere, a booby-trapped parked car exploded near a crowded market , killing two Iraqis and wounding nine others in Qaiyara near Mosul. Three people were wounded by a roadside bomb which exploded after a U.S. patrol went by in eastern Baghdad's Baladiyat district. Joint Iraqi and U.S. counterinsurgency raids Monday northeast of Baghdad resulted in two militants' deaths and the arrests of 18 suspects, the military said.

The U.S. military also announced on Monday that three more soldiers were killed in combat on Saturday. Two were killed by a roadside bomb while on patrol south of Baghdad and the second was a U.S. Marine killed in a gunfight in the western Anbar province. Since the Iraq war began in March 2003, 3,922 U.S. service members have been killed, 25 of them in January.

Iraq's parliament gave a first reading on Monday to a draft law that offers a general amnesty to as many as 68,000 detainees held in US and Iraqi prisons in a bid to boost national reconciliation. The detainees, mostly Sunni Arabs, are being held without charge. Most have been detained for more than a year. MPs said the bill will not apply to those sentenced to death or convicted of terrorism, premeditated murder, kidnapping, robbery with aggravating circumstances, incest, drug trafficking, forgery, rape, sodomy or the smuggling of antiquities. The US military holds the more than 26,000 - more than Saddam ever imprisoned - at Camp Cropper near Baghdad international airport and at Camp Bucca near the southern port city of Basra.

Is Turkey planning a ground invasion of northern Iraq? On Monday the Turkish armed forces ordered some 150,000 soldiers along the borders to take all necessary preparation while operations continue against Kurdish rebels in Sirnak Province in southeast regions of the country. Warplanes meanwhile flew over Kato and Gabar mountains looking for members of the Kurdish PKK party. Ergin Saygun recently traveld to Baghdad to meet with Iraqi and US commanders. Turkish media reports at that launching a wide-scale ground military operation against PKK bases was the key topic of this meeting. Apparently military-diplomacy has now overtaken civilian-led decisionmaking in countries like Pakistan, Turkey and the U.S. posted 21 January 2008

Sunday violence; 'Unfit' troops sent back to Iraq

There were at least 85 casualities throughout Iraq during the past 24 hours as millions of Iraqis joined ceremonies marking the climax of annual Ashura rituals.

A suicide bombing killed six people in Anbar province on Sunday, but the target of the attack, Aeifan al-Issawi, was unhurt. The bomber detonated explosives in his belt after four guards stopped him at the checkpoint leading to the sheik's farm near Fallujah.

Abdullah Abdul Rahman, age 7, reacts as a doctor bandages parts of his left arm in the al Kindi hospital in the Shiite enclave of Sadr City, eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008. Abdullah lost his left hand after a bomb hidden in a trash bag exploded near a restaurant in Sadr City Saturday evening, killing at least two people and wounding 12.

A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed a civilian and wounded two policemen in Zayouna district in eastern Baghdad on Sunday. Police said they shot dead the driver of a car rigged with explosives during an attempted attack on a police checkpoint in eastern Mosul. The car detonated, wounding two people. Five Iraqis were killed and 20 were wounded in mortar attacks in Balad.

Iraqi soldiers killed eight gunmen and arrested 54 others during the last 24 hours across Iraq, the Defense Ministry said. U.S. forces detained 16 gunmen on Friday and Saturday during operations targeting al Qaeda in central and northern Iraq, the U.S. military said.

Soldiers who were medically unfit or considered borderline have been sent to the Middle East to meet Army goals for “deployable strength,” The Denver Post reported Thursday. Quoting internal Army e-mails and a Fort Carson soldier, the newspaper said that more than 50 troops were deployed to Kuwait en route to Iraq while they were still getting medical treatment for various conditions. At least two have been sent home. Capt. Scot Tebo, the surgeon for Fort Carson’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team, wrote in an e-mail obtained by the newspaper that “We have been having issues reaching deployable strength, and thus have been taking along some borderline soldiers who we would otherwise have left behind for continued treatment.”

Master Sgt. Denny Nelson, a 19-year Army veteran who was given the Bronze Star, said he fractured his leg and destroyed tendons in his feet while jumping on his daughter’s trampoline. He said he was sent to Kuwait last month even though Fort Carson doctors ordered that he not run, jump or carry more than 20 pounds for three months. Nelson said two other soldiers were deployed with torn rotator cuffs, another was deployed even though he was taking morphine for nerve damage and another had mental health issues. Nelson said that while he was in Kuwait he was told by superiors he would be in charge of 52 soldiers who were receiving medical treatment. Maj. Gen. James Simmons,deputy commander for support with the Multi-National Corps-Iraq and deputy commander of III Corps and Fort Hood, said the U.S. is "on course" in Iraq. posted 20 January 2008

Mehdi truce may not hold; Soldier killed; Fights continue in Basra; Academic shortage

The U.S. military claims that about 75 percent of Baghdad neighborhoods have been secured -- up from 8 percent one year ago. The military considers 356 of Baghdad's 474 neighborhoods to fall in the "control" or "retain" categories of the four-tier category system. The designations mean insurgent activity in those areas has mostly been eradicated and normal economic activity in the areas has resumed.

Iraq's national security adviser was holed up inside a Shiite mosque in northwest Baghdad for several hours Friday as an angry crowd gathered outside to demand the release of security detainees, government and police officials said. Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, a Shiite, was safely extracted by a security force that escorted him to the Prime Minister's office in the fortified Green Zone. They said the crowd, estimated at several dozens, gathered outside the Jawadeen mosque in the Shiite Shula neighborhood to demand the release of relatives from detention. They pelted al-Rubaie's entourage with rocks and shoes, but there were no reports of injuries.

Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia might not renew its six-month ceasefire, a key cause of the decline in violence in Iraq, unless attacks against it stop, a Sadr aide said on Saturday. Salah al-Ubaidi, a senior official in Sadr's political movement in the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf, accused "criminal elements" inside Iraqi security forces of attacking Sadr's followers and Mehdi Army fighters. "If the government security forces do not stop their campaigns of detention and arresting our followers, we may reconsider our decision to freeze the Mehdi Army," Ubaidi told Reuters. The six months of the declared ceasefire run out next month. Violence across Iraq has fallen 60 percent since June, and U.S. military commanders say the Mehdi Army ceasefire has been crucial to the improvement in security.

One American soldier was killed when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle during combat operations north of Baghdad, the US military said in a statement on Saturday. At least 3,927 members of the U.S. military have died since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Much of Basra, Iraq's second largest city, was in shambles on Saturday after intense fighting the previous day. Police say they raided a Husseiniyah (Shi'ia praying hall) where "doomsday cultists" were holed up. The street battles between the Jund al-Samaa militant group and Iraqi forces raged for a second day as the death toll from the fighting in two predominantly Shiite southern cities rose from 50 to at least 75. Iraqi authorities said at least 36 people were reported killed in Basra and at least 32 in Nasiriyah.

Elsewhere, two bombs hidden under trash struck an Ashoura procession in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Saturday, killing at least two marchers and wounding five.

A continuing shortage of academics is damaging higher education throughout war-torn Iraq. Widespread threats against Iraqi university staff have all but stripped the country of its intellectual core, particularly in Baghdad. Approximately 2,000 academics have fled the country, according to Tariq al-Bakaa, a former minister of higher education who served under the 2004 government of the then prime minister Ayad Allawi. “Not a week goes by without an announcement that a professor or other teaching staff member has been killed," says Kawther Ahmed Fadel, a 19-year-old student at al-Mustansiria University in Baghdad.

Most professors have fled to Jordan, Gulf States, Libya and Syria, where some have established the Syrian International University for Science and Technology. Many others cannot find work or are struggling to make ends meet in their countries of refuge, but are wary of returning. In 2003, the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority instituted “de-Baathification” policies, under which party members – including 1,000 lecturers and professors - were fired from their jobs. posted 19 January 2008

Clashes in South; U.S., Turkey bomb Iraqi villages; Benefit for refugees; Failing to prosecute contractors

More than 50 Iraqis were killed and 60 wounded on Friday when Iraqi police clashed with gunmen who staged a series of hit-and-run raids in two southern cities on Friday, security officials said. The dead and injured were mostly in Basra and Nassiriya, in which gunmen were reported to be using heavy machineguns and mortars. Three policemen may have also been killed and a curfew has been placed acrosss the city. Basra police chief Major-General Abdul Jalil Khalaf said police and Iraqi soldiers had responded to several attacks.

The US military renewed air blitzes on villages south of Baghdad while Turkey struck areas on the northern border on Friday. Both countries claim to be targeting insurgents with their airstrikes. Turkey claimed to have destroyed 60 targets during the week including ncluded two anti-aircraft posts, four ammunition depots as well as training and logistical bases. The US military claimed on Friday that it killed nine suspected members of the Al Qaeda terrorist network, while 24 people were detained. Iraqi police said seven bodies were found after one air strike in the town of Riyadh.

In Baghdad's UR district, a woman and a child were killed on Friday when a roadside bomb targeting a U.S. patrol exploded. Two policemen were killed and two wounded when a bomb exploded in a house they were searching in Baquba. Two more policemen were killed and two wounded when gunmen attacked a police patrol in al-Wejaiheiah east of Baquba.

A number of Arab entertainers have launched a worldwide fund-raising campaign, aimed at raising over $120 million, to assist more than four million Iraqi refugees, both at home and abroad. The brainchild of Naseer Shamma, a popular Iraqi musician, the three-month campaign kicked off last week under the slogan "Arabs hand in hand with Iraqis". A benefit football match between Egypt and Iraq, African and Asian champions in 2007, will also be the highlight of the campaign. Other Iraqis have also launched campaigns to raise awareness of the plight of their compatriots. Yazen Al-Safi, co-founder of the New Zealand chapter of the UK-based Walk for Iraq organisation, told Al Jazeera that volunteers throughout the world have been "walking" to raise awareness and funds for displaced Iraqis.

A report released Wednesday by a U.S.-based human rights group is criticizing the Justice Department for failing to hold private security contractors operating in Iraq and Afghanistan responsible for acts of violence. The report by the New York-based Human Rights First says private security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan are not being held accountable for excessive use of force, which has given rise to what the group calls "shoot first, ask questions later, or never." The report says private security contractors are operating in a virtual law-free zone, which threatens the safety of Iraqi and Afghan civilians. The Justice Department's Bresson says the department is aggressively pursuing a number of cases involving private security contractors in Iraq and is fully committed to investigating and prosecuting crimes in federal court. posted 18 January 2008

5 U.S. casualties; Curfews throughout Iraq before Ashura; Diyala mosque targeted; More oil woes

Three U.S. soldiers were killed and two wounded by small arms fire during operations in Iraq's northern Salahuddin province on Wednesday, the U.S. military said. U.S. and Iraqi forces killed seven insurgents loading a vehicle with weapons in Mosul and U.S. forces killed three insurgents and detained nine suspected militants on Tuesday and Wednesday during operations targeting al Qaeda in central and northern Iraq, the military also reported.

Three U.S. Army soldiers who were gunned down during a three-hour firefight in the Salahuddin province north of Baghdad last week may have died from friendly fire, military officials said.

Iraqi security continued to patrol areas around shrines in Kerbala on Thursday as tens of thousands of Shi'ia pilgrims thronged the streets two days before the celebration of Ashura.

A suicide bomber attacked a mosque crowd near Baqouba in Diyala province on Thursday, killing 10 people. The bomber detonated his explosives among a crowd of Shi'ia pilgrims at the door of the mosque, targeting the men who were performing the rites just outside.

A curfew was be slapped on Baghdad and 10 Iraqi provinces on Thursday for the three-day Shiite Muslim festival of Ashura. All traffic is banned from Thursday night in the southern provinces of Babylon, Basra, Diwaniya, Karbala, Missan, Muthanna, Najaf, Thi-Qar and Wassit. The curfew will also apply to Baghdad and Diyala province in the center-north. In the capital, bridges across the River Tigris will also be closed to traffic, a statement quoted interior ministry spokesman General Abdel Karim Khalaf as saying.

The Iraqi Oil Ministry has decided to stop cooperating with international oil companies participating in production-sharing contracts with the Kurdish regional administration in northern Iraq, an official said Thursday. The decision is considered a first step toward implementing the ministry's threats to blacklist and exclude these companies from any future deals with Baghdad if they refuse to abandon their oil deals with the self-ruling Kurdish government. The Oil Ministry's decision came days after 145 Iraqi Arab lawmakers from rival sects joined forces to criticize what they say is overreaching by the Kurds, alleging the powerful U.S.-backed minority's go-it-alone style threatens national unity. They took issue with Kurdish ambitions in the disputed northern city of Kirkuk and in negotiating deals with foreign oil companies without involving the central government.

Not reported earlier: Five school children were killed Tuesday when a car in the convoy of a top judicial official accidentally ran them over while on their way to school in a central Baghdad neighborhood, police and hospital officials said. The children, ages 6 to 10, were run over in the panic that ensued when the official's guards exchanged fire with police at a checkpoint when the convoy failed to stop. One child died instantly, while the other four succumbed to their wounds later in hospital. posted 17 January 2008

Marine killed; 50+ Iraqi casualties; Healthcare worsening

US military forces disclosed that a marine soldier was killed in the western province of Anbar and investigations are underway. The death brings to 20 the number of US troops killed in January.

A woman wearing a vest lined with explosives blew herself up near a popular market and mosque in Khan Bani Saad, a town 9 miles south of Baqouba, on Wednesday, killing eight people and wounding seven. The U.S. military announced Wednesday that one of the key al-Qaida in Iraq leaders in Diyala, Abu Layla al-Suri, also known as Abu Abd al-Rahman, was killed in a military operation Dec. 30 near Muqdadiyah. Gunmen kidnapped a policeman and killed a university student in an overnight attack on a house in a village near Tuz Khurmato. Two roadside bombs killed two people and wounded five near the town of Nahrawan, southeast of Baghdad.

In Baghdad, a bomb planted near a bus station in the Bab Al Muazim area, went off in the early hours on Wednesday in killing three people and injuring seven. In southern Baghdad, two bombs went off at the same time in Zafaranyah, leaving one person dead and four injured. The bodies of six people were found in different areas of Baghdad on Tuesday.

Iraq's largest oil refinery in the northern town of Beiji remains shut down after a fire Jan. 7, an Iraqi oil official said Wednesday. The official said the refinery, which is used to process around 140,000 barrels a day, remained shut because of a power cut. Shuaiba refinery near Basra, Iraq's second largest, was also ablaze Tuesday and was shut down because of damage caused by the fire to some of its units.

Iraq's healthcare is in disarray and worsening with doctors and nurses fleeing abroad and child death rates soaring, according to a report on Wednesday. Up to 75 percent of Iraq's doctors, pharmacists and nurses have left their jobs since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. More than half of those have emigrated, the report by health organisation Medact said. "The health system is in disarray, not only because of the underlying security, but owing to the lack of an institutional framework, huge staff shortages, intermittent electricity, unsafe water supply and frequent violations of medical neutrality," the report, "Rehabilitation Under Fire", said.

It levelled particular criticism at the U.S. Defense Department which administered Iraq immediately after the invasion. It had pursued its own agenda on rebuilding the health sector, ignoring international practices, Medact said. Of more than $18 billion assigned to Iraq's reconstruction, just 4 percent was set aside for healthcare. Death rates among children under five are now nearing those in sub-Saharan Africa, despite Iraq being a relatively wealthy, well-resourced and educated country. Eight million Iraqis are in need of emergency aid, the report said. posted 16 January 2008

10 more years?; Basra refinery fire; Chilly Baghdad

U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, visited Baghdad on Tuesday while Turkish warplanes dropped bombs on northern Iraq. Rice warned that more political progress (i.e. passage of oil law) was needed before the U.S. would withdraw. "Yes, there is still a lot of work to be done. I talked with the leaders today about a provincial powers law, about the need for provincial elections, we talked about the need for a hydrocarbons law," she said.

The Iraqi defense minister said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq’s borders from external threat until at least 2018. Those comments from the minister, Abdul Qadir, were among the most specific public projections of a timeline for the American commitment in Iraq by officials in either Washington or Baghdad. And they suggested a longer commitment than either government had previously indicated.

A roadside bomb in Baghdad's Karrada district on Tuesday wounded eight people, including 3 police.

An oil refinery on the outskirts of Basra. A blast at an oil refinery in the Iraqi city of Basra triggered a fire which injured four people, an oil ministry official said, adding that the blaze was swiftly brought under control. Iraq said a helicopter from the U.S.-led coalition caused the blaze.

American and Iraqi troops killed 60 Iraqi insurgents and captured nearly 200 during a week-long offensive - Operation Iron Harvest - in northern Iraq, U.S. military officials said Monday. 79 weapons caches were found since the four-province campaign began. The weapons stores included about 100 roadside bombs, more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition and more than 4,000 pounds of homemade explosives, the military said.

Iraq's government on Monday blamed neighbouring countries, a gasoline shortage and sabotage for power cuts that have left people shivering in many parts of the country, gripped by a bitterly cold winter. In the capital, where residents faced blackouts and water shortages during the summer, some districts were again reported to be without water and with only an hour or two of intermittent power a day. "We have been without electricity for four or five days, not for a minute. Before that we used to have it for an hour a day. We have a small electricity heater that we all gather around," said Um Farah, 47, who lives in Qadissiya in southern Baghdad.

Temperatures in Baghdad have regularly been below zero since the start of winter and last week the city witnessed its first snowfall in memory.
Residents in some areas said they had had no water for several days and rooftop water tanks were running low. "This is a crisis. We have not had electricity for two days. As for water, it has been cut since yesterday until now," said Um Aqil, 57, in Baghdad's northeast Adhamiya district. The Electricity Ministry said the national grid had lost 600 megawatts of power in the past few days for reasons that were largely outside its control. posted 15 January 2008

Iraq vets pave path of death in U.S.; Monday in Iraq

Military veterans, returning from Iraq, are leaving a trail of death and heartbreak in U.S. Town by town across the United States, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Washington: "Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife." Pierre, South Dakota: "Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress." Colorado Springs: "Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring."

The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in the United States, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment - along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems - appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction. Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing.

Gunmen killed an Iraqi Appeals Court judge - Amir Jawdat al-Naeib - and his driver on Monday, raking their car with bursts of gunfire before speeding off in Baghdad's western Mansour district.

Elsewhere, a parked car bomb wounded six people, including three policemen, when it exploded near a police patrol in southern Mosul. Gunman also shot dead a senior official in Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr office in the town of Zubair, 12 miles south of Basra. U.S. and Iraqi troops launched an operation in two areas in the volatile Diyala province on Monday, killing 15 suspected al-Qaida insurgents and captured 58 others. Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers and policemen backed by U.S. troops stormed at dawn the two towns of Buhruz and Muradiyah south of Baquba.

The south has been relatively quiet, so far, as Shi'ia celebrate the Festival of Muharram. posted 14 January 2008

Little hope for troop cuts; Sunday violence; Electricity outages; Marine died

A year after he ordered a large increase in U.S. troops in Iraq, President Bush remained noncommittal on troop cuts and said that he is prepared to slow or even halt further reductions of forces there. After meeting with Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker in Kuwait, Bush noted the sharp reduction in attacks on U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians in recent months, but said it was too soon to know if the results would hold.

Meanwhile in Baghdad, two mortar bombs wounded two people when they landed on a gas station in al-Doura on Sunday. A store containing alcohol in the Makhmour area of northern Baghdad was bombed. A roadside bomb wounded three people in the Sadr City district and the U.S. military reported killing one person in Baghdad. A motorbike curfew was also imposed to start on early Monday as part of security measures ahead of Ashura.

Elsewhere in Iraq: In Babel, two explosive devices detonated injuring at least three Iraqis. The first explosion detonated in a vehicle, injuring two Iraqis and burning the car near the entrance to the Alexandria district, while the other explosion injured one person in a house. Gunmen killed a woman when they attacked a house in the northern city of Mosul. Security officies in Kerbala arrested seven armed suspects. Police retrieved three bodies on Saturday.

The Iraqi capital Baghdad and other major cities are plunged into darkness due to prolonged disruptions of power supplies from the national grid, according to Aziz Sultan of the Electricity Ministry. The stoppage is the severest to hit Iraq and comes amid reports of further fuel shortages and more acts of sabotage directed at electricity towers and stations. Nearly five years after U.S. invasion, the country’s power generating capacity has plummeting to levels unseen before despite investments estimated at billions of dollars. The shortages follow a halt in the export of gas oil from Turkey used in driving major power stations in the country. Both Turkey and Kuwait have also unexpectedly halted exports of electricity to the country. Natural gas-driven plants were not working because of lack of fuel and output has plunged recently.

The U.S. military announced that a marine was killed in a non-combat incident on Friday. The mililitary also reported the discovery of an insurgent base complete with two tunnels hidden amid the orange and palm groves of Diyala province. posted 13 January 2008

Neighborhood patrol families attacked; Flag changes; Baathist reinstatement bill passes

Gunmen attacked two houses in the village of al-Siddiq north of Baghdad on Saturday, killing six people including a former Iraqi army officer and two members of a U.S.-backed neighbourhood patrol. A witness said, "They came in a black car. Four gunmen got out near the house of Sa'adoun Ahmed, then I heard shooting and women crying. When I arrived I saw the bodies of Sa'adoun and his son Ahmed. A few metres away we found the bodies of the two other sons, Hakim, 16, and Mohammed, 15."

In other news, A parked car bomb wounded four people including two soldiers when it struck an Iraqi army patrol in a town east of Baquba. Two roadside bombs exploded in succession, wounding two people in Palestine Street in eastern Baghdad.

U.S. forces arrested 15 gunmen during operations on Friday and Saturday in central and northern Iraq, the U.S. military said. Tens of thousands of Iraqi troops and police have been deployed in the shrine cities of Kerbala and Najaf for the 10-day Ashura ceremony marking Shiite Islam's holiest days, police said on Saturday. Some 20,000 troops and police will be in Najaf itself and 4,000 policemen are patrolling the 30-mile route to Karbala.

One of Iraq's most powerful Shi'ite political and religious figures - Ammar al-Hakim - issued a stunning call yesterday for the government to set aside differences with Sunni Muslim politicians and entice them back to help lead the country.

Saddam Hussein's handwritten praise to God will be dropped from the Iraqi flag and the symbolism behind its three green stars will be changed, according to a bill presented to parliament on Saturday. The Iraqi flag still bears the ousted dictator's handwritten Allahu Akhbar" (God is Greater) while the three stars officially symbolise unity, freedom and socialism -- the slogan of Saddam's Baath party. Under the new flag law, given its first reading by parliament on Saturday, the praise to God will be printed -- in yellow -- in the Kufi form of Arabic script while the stars will now represent peace, tolerance and justice.

Iraq's parliament voted Saturday to give jobs back to thousands of former supporters of Saddam Hussein's Baath party who were fired after the U.S. invasion in 2003. The bill, approved by a unanimous show of hands, seeks to relax restrictions on the rights of members of the now-dissolved Baath party to fill government posts, but only for those who are deemed "non-criminal". The strict implementation of so-called de-Baathification rules also meant that senior bureaucrats who knew how to run ministries, university departments and state companies ended up unemployed in a country where 35 years of Baath party rule and extensive government involvement in the economy had left tens of thousands of party members in key positions. posted 12 January 2008

Turkey bombs; Bush: easily 5 more years in Iraq

Turkish artillery and fighter aircraft shelled northern Iraq on Friday morning, but there were no immediate reports of any casualties or material damage. Turkish warplanes repeatedly struck PKK targets in the mountainous north of Iraq in December and troops also made small-scale cross-border raids.

Light snow fell in Baghdad early on Friday in what weather officials said was the first time in about a 100 years.

U.S. Air Force Col. Peter Donnelly, commander of the 18th Expeditionary Air Support Operations Group told reporters on Friday that the aerial bombings of yesterday was "a success" that allowed American soldiers to push into areas where they have not been in years. The goal is to retain control of Baghdad and create a buffer zone around the capital city.

Also on Friday: A car bomb outside a bakery in New Baghdad district in the east of the capital killed four persons and wounded eight. A roadside bomb wounded three policemen when it hit their patrol in Mahmudiya. Iraqi soldiers killed nine gunmen and arrested 59 others during the past 24 hours across Iraq, the Defense Ministry said.

President George W. Bush said on Friday the United States would have a long-term presence in Iraq that could "easily" last a decade, but that it would be at the invitation of the Iraqi government. Nearly half of U.S. diplomats unwilling to volunteer to work in Iraq say one reason for their refusal is they don't agree with Bush administration's policies in the country, according to a survey released Tuesday. posted 11 January 2008

9 US soldiers dead, 6 injured; Massive airstrikes; WHO reports on Iraqi deaths

Nine American soldiers were killed and six were injured in the first two days of a new offensive - Operation Phantom Phoenix - Iraq fighters holed up in districts north of the capital, the U.S. military reported Wednesday. Six soldiers were killed and four were wounded Wednesday in a booby-trapped house in Diyala. Three soldiers were killed and two wounded in an attack Tuesday in Salahuddin province, north of Diyala. The blows against U.S. troops came as commanders continued to say "progress is being made." Since the start of the invasion in March 2003, 3,921 U.S. service members have been killed and 28,871 have been wounded.

In another possible war crime, U.S. warplanes dropped 40,000 pounds of bombs on more than 40 targets in civilian areas on Baghdad's southern outskirts on Thursday. The U.S. Air Force sent two B-1 bombers and four F-16 fighter jets, aiming at three large target areas in Arab Jabour that the military claims are al-Qaeda "safe havens." Iraqis say the attacks are retribution for U.S. soldiers killed earlier in the week and that 21 persons died. The military said it killed at least five Iraqis and captured at least 18 suspects. U.S. helicopter fire also killed four insurgents who were placing a roadside bomb near the town of Yusufiya on Sunday, just south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

In Baghdad, Two Iraqis were killed and 10 wounded, all from the police and army, when a roadside bomb detonated after they arrived at a small road in central Baghdad where an earlier bomb had blown up inside an abandoned car. A car bomb in eastern Baghdad's Palestine Street neighbourhood killed one person and wounded four. Two churches in Kirkuk were the target of bomb by unknown entitites on Wednesday. Police said three people were wounded in the attacks. Overall, 38 Iraqis were killed or wounded on Wednesday.

Some 151,000 Iraqis died violently in the three years after the March 2003 invasion of the country, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a report on Wednesday. The WHO said the figures were three times higher than those from the Iraq Body Count, a group that compiles death tolls, which reported on its Web site that 47,668 Iraqi civilians died in the same period. The study's findings, published on the Web site of the New England Journal of Medicine, are based on information collected during a wider survey of family health in Iraq, designed to provide a basis for the Iraqi government to develop and update health policies and plan services. The difficulties in gathering accurate results led the researchers to conclude that the number of Iraqi deaths in the survey period, which included Iraq-based combatants, was between 104,000 and 223,000. In October 2006, the Lancet, a U.K. medical journal, published a report by the Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the School of Medicine at Baghdad's al-Mustansiriya University, which stated that more than 600,000 people had died violent deaths in Iraq since the invasion. posted 08 January 2008

UNHCR asks for $261M; Two F-18s crash

Hunger is rising in Iraq, as more families are left homeless and the government cuts back food rations. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is appealing for $261 million to help displaced persons and the UN World Food Programme's (WFP) is asking for help feed 750,000 of the most vulnerable internally displaced persons (IDPs) inside Iraq. Iraq's WFP dir