Thread: Archive Latest News - Think Tank - 16/08/07 - 03/11/07

Ramadi's Sunni sheiks unfazed by slaying;
The tribal leaders say attacks and threats will not affect their ties with U.S. and Iraqi troops battling insurgents.

ramadi, iraq -- Sheik Raad Sabah Alwani's cellphone beeped with a text message: "Watch your back," it read, before going on to warn the Sunni tribal leader that he would be killed during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The sheik laughed as he showed the message to U.S. troops and Iraqi friends during a late-night feast of chicken, lamb, dolmas and other local favorites. It was Sept. 28, halfway through Ramadan.

Alwani was careful not to translate the full Arabic text: It included a dirty phrase, he explained good-naturedly while entertaining visitors in the garden of his villa, under the palm fronds and stars.

For a man with a death threat stored in his phone, Alwani seemed remarkably unworried. His friend Sheik Abdul Sattar Rishawi was slain Sept. 13, the first day of Ramadan for Iraq's Sunnis, in a blast for which the militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility. Another close friend, police Lt. Col. Salam Mohammed Abbas, died Feb. 14 when a bomb sent a chunk of metal slicing through his skull.

Like his slain friends, Alwani is a prominent member of a movement started last year to ally tribal leaders with U.S. and Iraqi forces against the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq.

But Alwani and other sheiks say the slayings of Abbas and Rishawi, who headed the pro-U.S. Anbar Salvation Council, were lucky hits by militants struggling to reclaim an area that has abandoned the insurgency.

"These people, they cannot affect the battle against terrorists," Alwani said of the killers.

The assertion appears to be holding up for the time being, at least in Ramadi and its surrounding areas. The region remains calm under a blanket of Iraqi police, who are impossible to miss in their cobalt blue, button-down shirts. Many of the officers say they feel safe enough to work without body armor.

The investigation of Rishawi's slaying suggests that an unusual combination of events enabled his assailants to strike.

At least nine people have been arrested, including one of Rishawi's bodyguards. U.S. military officials say the bodyguard recently had been promoted to head Rishawi's security detail after the sheik argued with his previous chief bodyguard. Other sheiks say the detained guard had been offered as much as $1.5 million to kill Rishawi.

A police station sits across a dirt road beyond the back gate of Rishawi's sprawling compound, but road work there made it easier for killers to plant the bomb that destroyed the sheik's car as it passed, investigators say.

Alwani said that because it was clearly an inside job, he has felt no need to beef up his security, which consists of a posse of armed men and loyal police officers in his affluent Ramadi neighborhood. Like most of the city's districts, it is a virtual gated community, with blast barriers and concertina wire limiting access and Iraqi security forces checking vehicles.

Alwani spoke between puffs on a Cuban cigar, a gift from Marine Maj. Rory Quinn, a regular visitor. Gazelles grazed under a tree in a corner of the garden. Lights flooded a scene that Quinn noted could not have been possible a year ago.

"A third of these guys were shooting at us last year. That guy in particular!" the major said cheerfully as a young man with an assault rifle, one of Alwani's guards, waved hello.

In the northern Ramadi district of Jazeera, where Rishawi lived, Sheik Mohammed Farhan Hayes was similarly unfazed. He has named his home Defiant, Hayes said, indicating the brick structure under construction on a lot overlooking a field in which two horses grazed.

Terrorists destroyed the old house last year, said Hayes, who also was Rishawi's friend. "I'm not afraid of these guys," he said.

Most of the area sheiks have had close calls with insurgents.

Hayes walks with a limp from a gun battle with would-be assassins who drove up alongside his vehicle and opened fire. U.S. forces accidentally shot Hayes when the rolling gunfight crossed their path.

Alwani survived a mortar attack on his neighborhood after he rejected insurgent demands to stop working with U.S. forces.

Rishawi's father and two brothers had fallen victim to insurgents before they killed him.

Sheik Awad Jedie Albu Quod lost his brother, who was slain as he sat on the front stoop of the family home. Militants drove by and shot him, Albu Quod said as he chain-smoked Gauloise cigarettes one recent evening after iftar, the breaking of the daylong Ramadan fast.

He said these tragedies, along with shared anger over Rishawi's death, had backfired on the insurgents, who had hoped to stoke violence by killing the high-profile sheik who had met with President Bush 10 days before his death.

"They thought when they killed Sattar, security would collapse, but now it is better than before," Albu Quod said.

Tribal leaders, police and Iraqi civilians have been galvanized to be more vigilant, he said. "We lost just one Sattar. We now have 1,000 Sattars."

Rishawi and Abbas have been memorialized in posters around Ramadi, about 60 miles west of Baghdad. One shows Rishawi's chiseled, heavily browed face in noble profile. The other shows Abbas smirking into the camera with a tough-guy gleam in his eyes, bearing a striking resemblance to a young Robert De Niro.

On Ramadi's streets, residents wax eloquent about Rishawi, calling him "indispensable" and a "hero."

Among ordinary citizens, there is no love for a foreign army, nor for the predominantly Shiite Muslim government it protects in Baghdad. But residents here express gratitude for the security that has allowed them to return to work, school and socializing.

Early each morning, the central market comes alive with vendors laying out colorful displays of fruit, clothing and trinkets. In Jazeera, Hayes showed off a new adult education center, where women in colorful sequined skirts and shawls mixed with others wearing somber, cloak-like black abayas.

"My God, I cannot believe that I am going with my students to school every day without fear," said Salma Jasim, a Ramadi teacher. "I feel it is like a dream. We've started going to markets and going out at night after iftar to visit our relatives."

Jasim and others credit the change to Iraqi police officers, most of them locals, with a stake in the community.

"We move freely because the people of the city control the security, not the Americans or the Iraqi army," said Sattar Hussein, a trash collector. "The people of the city know who is from Al Qaeda and who is an agent who wants to make problems."

Although residents say they would like to see the U.S. forces leave, the sheiks make it clear that they are looking to the troops to help maintain calm. They are well aware that insurgents would like to reclaim Ramadi and neighboring villages.

In June, attackers opened fire on men guarding a highway checkpoint outside the farming hamlet of Tarabsha, about 15 miles northwest of Ramadi. The area is the domain of Sheik Ashor Jero Hamadi Shabab, another member of the Anbar Salvation Council.

"Yes, I want the coalition forces to go back where they came from, but not now. We need them," said Shabab, whose remote village has no permanent police presence. Instead, he pays 61 men who make up a neighborhood watch program.

"We've won the first battle against the insurgency, but we still have more to go," he said. His private security guards nodded in agreement.

LexisNexis News - Latest News from over 4,000 sources, including newspapers, tv transcripts, wire services, magazines, journals.

3 American troops slain in bombings;
The U.S. military reports it killed 25 militants in a raid, but Iraqis say most of the dead were civilians.

baghdad -- Roadside bombs killed three American soldiers Friday, and U.S. and Iraqi forces differed in their accounts of an overnight raid on a suspected hide-out for Shiite Muslim militiamen.

The U.S. military said American forces backed by attack aircraft killed 25 militiamen in the assault on the village of Jizan Imam, about 40 miles northwest of Baghdad. Some Iraqi officials, though, said most of the dead were civilians mistaken for hostile forces.

The U.S. troop deaths brought to at least 3,813 the number of American forces killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003, according to icasualties.org.

Two of the soldiers died when a bomb detonated near their vehicle in Baghdad, and the third was killed in a bombing in Salahuddin province, north of the capital.

Both attacks involved the lethal armor-piercing explosives that U.S. military officials say are often smuggled in from Iran, which they accuse of supplying, training and providing intelligence to Shiite militias. The Iranian government denies the allegations and rejects claims that members of its Quds Force, a secretive military unit, are operating in Iraq.

The U.S. military said the Friday raid was aimed at a militia commander they alleged had ties to Quds Force agents. A military statement said "an estimated 25 criminals" were killed in a fierce firefight that broke out when U.S. forces raided Jizan Imam.

According to the military account, men armed with assault rifles and grenade launchers opened fire on the U.S. troops. The Americans called in airstrikes and two buildings were destroyed, they said.

However, some Iraqi security forces in the area said the shooting erupted because of confusion over the arrival of the American forces at 1:30 a.m. They said some residents assumed that the troops were attackers and opened fire, sparking the gun battle.

An Iraqi army colonel said four houses were destroyed and that the dead were civilians. He said it was the fourth time the village had been hit by airstrikes.

It is common for U.S. and Iraqi officials to have conflicting accounts of military raids. U.S. military officials say they fire only on known or suspected threats, but Iraqis say the Americans often strafe buildings occupied by civilians, causing casualties.

In southern Iraq, an associate of Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr was fatally shot in what appeared to be the latest assassination stemming from a bloody rivalry between Shiite militias. The cleric, Sheik Yaser Yasri, was killed Thursday night, said officials in Basra, where Sadr's Mahdi Army is vying for power with the Badr Organization, a militia affiliated with the rival Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.

Several clerics on each side have been killed, and there are concerns that as British forces reduce their presence in Basra, the bloodshed will increase.

LexisNexis News - Latest News from over 4,000 sources, including newspapers, tv transcripts, wire services, magazines, journals.

25 killed in battle in Iraq;
Coalition, Iraqis differ on whether dead were insurgents

BAGHDAD -- Coalition forces supported by aircraft killed at least 25 people early Friday. U.S. military officials said the dead were members of a radical Shiite Muslim group backed by Iran, but an Iraqi government official said they were armed civilians.
It was one of the biggest firefights in Iraq this year.

The coalition troops were in Diyala province west of the provincial capital, Baqubah, seeking a leader of the so-called Special Groups when they came under attack, said Maj. Winfield Danielson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. He declined to identify the unit involved or its nationality.

U.S. soldiers have been patrolling the area heavily much of the year.

The Special Groups started as part of the Mahdi Army militia, controlled by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. But when Sadr ordered a cease-fire, the Special Groups ignored it and continued attacking U.S. troops. American military officials have said Iran's elite Quds Force supports the group with weapons, money and training.

Falih al-Fayadh, the director of an office that represents the prime minister in the province, said that more than 20 people had been wounded Friday and that the dead and wounded were residents who'd often been attacked by terrorists.

The locals fired first, Fayadh said, but only because they mistook the soldiers -- who came about dawn -- for insurgents. Those killed included two women and a child, he said.

"There was clearly a problem with the coordination between the coalition commanders and local police," Fayadh said.
Danielson said the troops involved reported no civilian casualties. They were seeking a Special Groups commander who is thought to be involved in smuggling weapons from Iran to Baghdad, where Special Groups fighters have been blamed for several recent attacks on U.S. troops.

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS

OTHER ACTION: Elsewhere in Iraq, the U.S. military reported that coalition forces killed at least 12 suspected terrorists Friday.
In Baghdad, they killed seven and detained one while hunting an associate of senior leaders of the group al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Near Yusufiyah, south of Baghdad, they killed four terrorism suspects, and they killed one and detained one in the northern city of Kirkuk.

SOLDIERS KILLED: Four U.S. soldiers were reported killed -- three Friday in roadside bombings in Baghdad and near Beiji to the north, and one Thursday in a small-arms attack in the capital, The Associated Press reported.
At least 3,813 members of the U.S. military have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an AP count.

INVESTIGATION: The U.S. military said it was investigating the deaths of three civilians shot by U.S. sentries near an Iraqi-manned checkpoint, according to the AP. Iraqi officials said the victims were U.S.-allied guards and were mistakenly targeted.

LexisNexis News - Latest News from over 4,000 sources, including newspapers, tv transcripts, wire services, magazines, journals.

Turkish Artillery Shells the Border Areas of Zakho District

An informed source in Sindi area, Zakho District announced that the Turkish artillery shelled yesterday for an hour and a half the areas of Gali Basagha, Beer Bala and Afli near the Turkish borders.

The citizens mentioned that they heard today the sound of flying planes in the sky of the area, the source added.

PUKmedia :: English - Turkish Artillery Shells the Border Areas of Zakho District

Turkish Foreign Minister to Visit Iraq

Turkish Foreign Minister, Ali Babacan, is scheduled to visit Iraq officially in the near future.

Turkish Foreign Minister soon will visit Iraq to discuss with the Iraqi officials the situation in Iraq and the peace process in the Middle East, according to Turkish Media.

In addition to Iraq, Babacan intends to visit several other countries, including Jordan, Syria, Israel, and Philistine.

PUKmedia :: English - Turkish Foreign Minister to Visit Iraq

Iran to re-open its border with Iraq

Iran will re-opens its border with Iraq on Sunday after a two-week closure to protest at the detention of an Iranian by US troops, the semi-official news agency Fars reported.

"It has been agreed to re-open the borders as of tomorrow (Sunday), October 7, 2007" Iran's Supreme National Security Council's deputy in charge of domestic security, Mohammad Jafari, was quoted as saying on Saturday.

Tehran had closed its borders with northern Iraq on September 24 following the detention of Mahmoud Farhadi by US forces.

The US military charges that Farhadi is an officer in the covert operations arm of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, accused by American commanders of helping Shiite militias involved in Iraq's bloody sectarian conflict.

Iran and the Kurdish regional government however say Farhadi is a businessman who was part of a commercial delegation visiting Sulaimaniyah.

According to Kurdistan trade minister Mohammed Raouf, the closure has cost the autonomous Kurdish region one million dollars a day as trucks conveying goods remained stuck at the border.

"After two days of negotiations, it was agreed that Iraq takes necessary steps to control the border and block the penetration of terrorists into the Iranian soil," Jafari said of the results of recent talks with a high-ranking Kurdish delegation in Tehran.

The talks would continue on October 18, he said.
Iran has accused the United States of turning a blind eye to the actions of the local rebels.

Washington also accuses Tehran of fomenting unrest in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

Iran to re-open its border with Iraq - Yahoo! News

Iraq Shia Leaders Sign Truce Deal
Two of Iraq's most influential Shia leaders have signed a deal to try to end violence between their groups.

Radical cleric Moqtada Sadr and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, have been locked in a bitter dispute for months.
The leaders have agreed to try to end further bloodshed, foster a spirit of good will and form joint committees throughout the country.
A number of recent attacks in southern Iraq have been blamed on Shia rivalry.

'Iraqi unity'

In a statement, the two leaders said their aim was to maintain both the Islamic and the national interest.

"The agreement is essentially a commitment of honour," a spokesman for Sadr's group Liwa Sumaysim told Agence France-Presse news agency.

"The most important aspect is that it forbids both sides to engage in bloodletting against each other and against Iraqis in general."

A spokesman for Mr Hakim's group, Hamid al-Saadi, said: "Iraq needs deals between factions to enhance and preserve Iraqi unity."

The two leaders also say their groups will co-ordinate their media and cultural efforts.

The BBC's Jon Brain in Baghdad says, if successfully implemented, the agreement will resolve one of the many disputes that make it so difficult for Iraq to achieve reconciliation.

Mr Hakim's Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, formerly the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, is one of the main parties in the ruling coalition. Moqtada Sadr came to prominence after the US-led invasion in 2003 and leads a movement that is backed by his own armed militia, the Mehdi Army. The cleric ordered the suspension of the militia's activities in August. However, he has since boycotted the government and withdrawn his six ministers.

Our correspondent says that de****e the new mood of rapprochement, Moqtada Sadr has given no indication that his group plans to return to the ruling alliance.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/7031683.stm

And another article - I think more will come in the next few days

Al-Hakim and al-Sadr Sign an Agreement

PUKmedia 2007-10-06 17:24:52

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim , president of the Iraqi Supreme Islamic Council (ISCI)and head of Shiite United Alliance Bloc in the Iraqi parliament , and Muqtada al-Sadr, head of Sadir group signed an agreement today aiming at avoiding bloodshed and reactivate fraternity in all spheres.

PUKmedia got a copy of the agreement, according to which all Media and cultural committees and agencies of both sides have to abide by the agreement.

According to the agreement, both sides also have agreed to form joint committees in all Iraqi provinces to convergence all and prevent turmoil and control disorder.

PUKmedia :: English - Al-Hakim and al-Sadr Sign an Agreement

Turkey puts up buffer zones along Iraq border

More buffer zones designed to prevent Kurdish rebels crossing over the border to and from Iraq have been established in southeastern Turkey, the Turkish military said Saturday.

The 27 zones set up in the regions of Sirnak, Siirt and Hakkari add to others created in June, the military said in a statement posted on its official website.

They are to stay in place until December 10 and are aimed at stopping the flow of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels using northern Iraq as a rear base for operations for southern Turkey, it said.

At the same time, security officials in the southeast said a big army sweep was underway to find Kurdish rebels who used heavy weapons to attack a military post in Baskale, near the border with Iran. A soldier was killed in the attack.

Turkey, the European Union and the United States consider the PKK a terrorist organisation. More than 37,000 people have been killed since the PKK took up arms in 1984 to fight for an independent Kurdish state.

Turkey puts up buffer zones along Iraq border - Yahoo! News

Iraq rejects testimony by former anti-graft chief

Iraq rejected on Saturday testimony by the former head of the country's anti-corruption commission who said Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki protected some corrupt relatives from the investigative body.

"The testimony by ... Radhi al-Radhi in front of members of (U.S.) Congress is nothing more than false allegations ... that serves known sides and figures who are systematically attempting to harm Prime Minister Nuri Kamil al-Maliki's reputation," a statement from Maliki's office said.

Radhi, who left Iraq in August after threats against him, told U.S. lawmakers on Thursday that 31 employees at the Iraqi Independent Integrity Commission were killed because of their jobs and that the government lost $18 billion through corruption.

The statement from Maliki's office said the prime minister had consistently asked Radhi to tackle graft and pointed out that Iraq's parliament had accused Radhi himself of politicising the independent body.

"The prime minister continuously demanded the former head of integrity (Independent Integrity Commission), to pursue corruption in all institutions and to bring those implicated to justice regardless of their political, religious or ethnic background," the statement said.

"But the former head of integrity, according to evidence and documents that were presented in (parliament), followed only parts of corruption cases ... ignoring huge cases of corruption which implicated certain figures and parties," it said.

Maliki vowed tough measures against graft since taking up his post last year but corruption remains rampant in Iraqi institutions.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KHA657033.htm