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American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, July 1, 2009 – U.S. forces in Iraq helped to bolster Iraqi sovereignty in recent days with the opening of a new health care center and the return of two combat outposts to Iraqi control.

A new center is bringing access to health care closer for the 30,000 residents of the Humer Kwer area of Sulaimaniyah province.

Ousman Younes, minister of health for the Kurdistan Regional Government, presided over a recent ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Ruzh Hallat Primary Health Care Center.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region Division managed the $540,000 construction project. The U.S. Economic Support Fund provided money for the project, and Gulf Region North’s Sulaimaniyah office was the on-site construction manager.

“Most of the Humer Kwer residents currently have to travel an indirect route of approximately seven kilometers to access the nearest existing primary health care center,” said Lucy Tamlyn, team leader of the U.S. Regional Reconstruction Team Kurdistan Region. “This project is a great example of the partnership between the United States and the Kurdish region. We look forward to continuing that partnership.”

Army Col. Margaret Burcham, commander of the Gulf Region’s North District, praised the project team for working hard to deliver the health care center.

“The Corps of Engineers is very pleased to coordinate a partnership to provide such a high-quality medical clinic that will last for many years,” she said. “This is real value for the money, … a stunning facility.”

Amenities at the new health center include three doctors’ offices, two patient rooms, an X-ray room, laboratory, administrative offices and a pharmacy.

The United States has allocated more than $40 million for the health sector in Iraq’s Kurdish region, of which $10 million is earmarked for the Sulaimaniyah province.

Elsewhere, the Service Battery of 1st Battalion, 77th Field Artillery Regiment, 172nd Brigade Combat Team, handed over control of Combat Outpost Summers, near Suwayrah, to the 32nd Iraqi Army Brigade on June 29.

Summers was the fifth and final security station in Wasit province to be returned to Iraqi control under the U.S.-Iraq security agreement, which called for all U.S. combat troops to withdraw from Iraqi cities by yesterday.

“Tomorrow you should be standing very tall,” Army Col. Dick Francey, 41st Fires Brigade commander and commander of U.S. troops in Wasit province, told Iraqi soldiers at the ceremony.

“Iraqi security forces are capable of protecting their people,” he said. “We stand by you as friends and realize you are in the lead.”

In compliance with the agreement, 1st Battalion, 77th Field Artillery Regiment, soldiers moved to Forward Operating Base Delta after the ceremony. The battalion will take authority of the base and U.S. troops in Wasit when the 41st Fires Brigade redeploys to Fort Hood, Texas, in early August.

The Service Battery soldiers had lived and worked with their Iraqi partners on Summers since January.

In Basra, elements of the 21st Military Police Company and 178th Military Police Company, attached to the 4th Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team, withdrew all supplies and personnel and returned control of Combat Outpost Perry and the Old State Building to the Iraqi army June 28.

“This is a symbolic moment for the people of Iraq. It’s exciting to watch the Iraqi army step up and protect their people,” said Army 1st Lt. Jeremy Poisson, platoon leader for the 178th Military Police Company.

Army Col. Butch Kievenaar, commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, said two other locations will continue to have a U.S. presence to coordinate, train and advise Iraqi security forces at the request of provincial leaders.

(From U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region Division and Multinational Division South news releases. Army Sgt. Allison Churchill of the 41st Fires Brigade and Army Staff Sgt. Carlos M. Burger II of the 4th Infantry Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team contributed to this report.)

Source: Defense Link

WASHINGTON, June 11 /PRNewswire/ — Five new lawsuits allege that KBR, Inc. (NYSE: KBR) jeopardized the health and safety of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan by burning vast quantities of unsorted waste in enormous open-air burn pits with no safety controls.

Three of the lawsuits were filed Wednesday in federal courts in Kansas, South Carolina, and Utah by the Burke O’Neil LLC law firm and co-counsel on behalf of 25 military veterans and private contractors whose illnesses - which include multiple cancers, respiratory disease, chronic coughing, debilitating headaches, and neurological and skin disorders - were allegedly caused by round-the-clock hazardous emissions from the burn pits. Two more lawsuits were filed today in Ohio and Florida federal courts.

KBR is accused of allowing thick, noxious smoke, coming off of flames sometimes colored blue or green by burning chemicals, to hang over U.S. bases and camps across Iraq and Afghanistan since 2004. In April and May, 21 other current and former military personnel, private contractors and families of men who allegedly died as a result of exposure to toxic emissions from KBR burn pits brought similar claims in courts in nine states.

William O’Neil, Elizabeth M. Burke, and Genevieve McCormack, of Burke O’Neil LLC, in Washington, D.C., and co-counsel in Florida, Kansas, Ohio, South Carolina, and Utah, represent the veterans, KBR employee-contractors and two families of veterans who allegedly died of cancer after prolonged burn pit emission exposure.

According to the complaints, the burn pits are so large that tractors are used to push waste onto them and the flames shoot hundreds of feet into the sky. KBR allegedly burned waste such as biohazard materials including human corpses, medical supplies, paints, solvents, asbestos, items containing pesticides, animal carcasses, tires, lithium batteries, Styrofoam, wood, rubber, medical waste, large amounts of plastics, and even entire trucks.

Attorney Elizabeth M. Burke, of Burke O’Neil LLC, stated, “KBR utterly disregarded the safety of the troops when they chose to use open air burn pits and failed to use incinerators and other safer methods of waste disposal. The hazards of operating large open-air burn pits were well known, and KBR promised to minimize the environmental effects of the burn sites they operated in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, by forsaking safety for money, KBR willfully endangered these men and women who honorably served their country in military service or in support of the military.”

The plaintiffs in the new filings include the family of the late Air Force Major Kevin E. Wilkins, of Eustis, Florida; John A. Wester Jr., of Murray, Utah; Derrol A. Turner, of Goose Creek, S.C.; Vincent C. Moseley, of Summerville, S.C.; Alex Harley, of Goose Creek, S.C., Benjamin Boeke, of Grove City, Ohio; Craig Kervin, of Perrysburg, Ohio; Barry Zabielinski, of Kent, Ohio; Wallace McNabb, of Mankato, Kansas; Maurice Callue, of Miami, Florida; Dennis Wayne Briggs, of Kissimmee, Florida; Edward Lee Buquo, of Tallahassee, Florida; Wayne E. Fabozzi, of Niceville, Florida; Sharlene S. Jaggernauth, of Alexandria, Virginia; Floyd James Johnson Sr., of Malvern, Florida; Tamra C. Johnson, of Riverview, Florida; Richard Lee Keith, of Pierson, Florida; Daniel Santiago Morales, of Saint Cloud, Florida; Phillip McQuillan, of Naples, Florida; Ildebbrando Perez, of Ocala, Florida; Luigi Antonio Provenza, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Ruth Ann Reece, of Odessa, Florida; Eduardo Saavedra Sr., of Orlando, Florida; Michael Donnell Williams, of Sanford, Florida; and Jermaine Lynell Wright, of Deltona, Florida.

The legal team for the plaintiffs intends to seek class certification of the lawsuits to cover costs of medical monitoring, future medical expenses, and other damages for other individuals exposed to KBR burn pit emissions.

The defendants are KBR, Inc., of Houston; Kellogg, Brown & Root LLC, of Austin, Texas; Kellogg, Brown & Root Services, Inc., of Houston; and Halliburton Company, of Houston.

The five new cases are:

“Maurice Callue, et al., v. KBR, Inc., et al.,” in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida (Case No. 09-21590).
“John A. Wester Jr., et al., v. KBR, Inc., et al.,” in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah (Case No. 2:09-cv-531).
“Derrol A. Turner, et al., v. KBR, Inc., et al.,” in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina (Civil Action No. 2:09-cv-01530-DCN).
Wallace McNabb, et al., v. KBR, Inc., et al.,” in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas (Case No. 2:09-cv-2303-JAR-DJW).
“Benjamin Boeke, et al., v KBR, Inc., et al.,” in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division (Case No. 2:09-cv-479).

Attorney Contact: Elizabeth Burke, of Burke O’Neil LLC, Charlottesville, Va., 434.249.1275.

Media Contact: Erin Powers, Powers MediaWorks LLC, for Burke O’Neil LLC, 281.703.6000.

SOURCE Burke O’Neil LLC

By Army Sgt. Mark Miranda
Special to American Forces Press Service

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE ADDER, Iraq, June 9, 2009 – Military operations in Iraq formally ended for Romanian forces June 4, as one of America’s coalition allies prepared to ship out some of its remaining troops with an end-of-mission ceremony held by Romania’s 26th Infantry “Red Scorpions” Battalion.

The Romanian flag was lowered over the 26th’s compound here, affectionately known as “Camp Dracula,” in a ceremony following a memorial for the Romanian military personnel who died in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The ceremony was held just an hour before the U.S. Army 1st Armored Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team conducted a relief-in-place, transfer-of-authority ceremony with the outgoing 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division.

Romanian President Traian Basescu, who is the supreme commander of Romanian armed forces during wartime, was on hand.

Romanian Lt. Col. Gabriel Toma, commander of the 26th Infantry Battalion, received the U.S. Bronze Star Medal from Army Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr., commander of Multinational Corps Iraq.

“It’s hard to say farewell to a trusted partner,” Jacoby said. “Few have been as committed to freedom of the Iraqi people as the Romanians, and I extend my thanks, as it’s been an honor to serve with them here in Iraq.”

Jacoby praised the Romanians as a dedicated and capable force, and expressed condolences for their lost soldiers.

Since August 2003, Romania has deployed more than 5,200 troops to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Assigned to two different multinational divisions, Romanian forces have provided intelligence support to Multinational Division South by conducting reconnaissance and surveillance missions and operating unmanned aerial vehicle platforms. Romanian forces also provided base security, supply-route security and quick-reaction forces in Basra, and conducted training and monitoring of Iraqi army units, culminating with the May 23 graduation of Iraqi commandos on Camp Ur.

(Army Sgt. Mark Miranda serves with the 1st Armored Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team.)

Source: Defense Link

By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday May 27, 2009 20:43:42 EDT

A Navy Reserve officer serving in Iraq as an individual augmentee died Monday after his convoy was hit by a roadside bomb outside Fallujah, the Defense Department announced Wednesday.

Cmdr. Duane G. Wolfe was 54. According to a spokeswoman at Naval Base Ventura County, Wolfe worked in civilian life at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., as the civilian deputy commander at the 30th Space Wing Mission Support Group. In Iraq, he was attached to the Army Corps of Engineers.

Two others were killed and two were wounded in the attack, although they were not identified in the news release.

Wolfe was the officer-in-charge of the Anbar area office, overseeing $300 million worth of construction projects in the formerly volatile province. Most projects were for local Iraqis, including “the first ever waste treatment facility for Fallujah,” according to the news release.

A former Seabee chief who signed up in 1972, Wolfe was commissioned in 1990 and was assigned to several California-based units in his career, as well as Naval Engineering Force, Korea.

Wolfe joins six other Navy personnel who have been killed in the war zone on IA tours. Other recent IA deaths:

• On May 11, Cmdr. Charles Springle, 52, was shot and killed with four other service members at stress control clinic on Camp Liberty in Iraq, allegedly gunned down, by a U.S. soldier who is now in custody.

• On March 27, Lt. Florence Choe and Lt. j.g. Francis Toner were shot and killed in Afghanistan, reportedly by an insurgent posing as a soldier. They were assigned to Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan at Camp Shaheen, Mazar-E-Sharif.

Source: Military Times

Taiwan News, Staff Writer , Agencies
2009-05-14 10:12 AM Fonts Size:

Artillery shells tore through a hospital packed with wounded civilians in Sri Lanka’s war zone for a second day Wednesday, killing at least 50 people, setting an ambulance ablaze and forcing the medical staff to huddle in bunkers for safety, doctors said.

A doctor working at a makeshift hospital at Mullivaikal, inside the tiny strip of territory still held by the rebels, said three shells slammed into the facility on Wednesday, leaving at least 52 dead and 60 others wounded.

Two hospital employees were among those killed, Doctor T. Varatharajah said.

News of the alleged attacks comes as the UN Security Council urged the warring sides in the conflict to ensure the safety of civilians, voicing “grave concern” at the “worsening humanitarian crisis” there.

The international body unanimously adopted a non-binding statement that expressed “grave concern over the worsening humanitarian crisis in northeast Sri Lanka, in particular the reports of hundreds of civilian casualties in recent days.”

The strike on the hospital came as the government marched on with its offensive to destroy the reeling Tamil Tiger rebels and end their quarter-decade quest for a separate homeland.

The government says its troops are not responsible for the shelling and that the military has not fired heavy weapons in the area in weeks.

But Human Rights Watch says satellite images and witness testimony contradict that claim and has accused both sides of using the estimated 50,000 civilians packed into the tiny coastal strip controlled by the rebels as “cannon fodder.”

The shelling was so intense Wednesday that a Red Cross ferry waiting off the coast to deliver food aid and evacuate the wounded had to turn back for a second day, the agency said.

U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for an end to the violence and steps to alleviate civilian suffering.

Obama called on Sri Lanka’s government Wednesday to “stop the indiscriminate shelling” that has killed hundreds of civilians and allow U.N. humanitarian teams access to war-wounded.

He also called on the Tamil rebels to lay down their weapons and release civilian captives. He said the situation was a humanitarian crisis that could turn into a catastrophe.

A Red Cross worker and his mother were also killed in shelling, the third Red Cross staff member killed by shrapnel in the war zone in the past two months, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

“This latest tragic incident shows how dangerous it is for everyone in the area,” said Paul Castella, the head of the Red Cross delegation in Colombo.

Reports of the fighting are difficult to verify because the government has barred journalists and aid workers from the war zone.

The government has come under heavy international criticism for the large civilian toll of its offensive against the rebels, who are cornered in a two square-mile (five square-kilometer) strip of land.

Diplomats in Geneva said the United Nations was preparing for an emergency meeting of its Human Rights Council next week to discuss the worsening conflict. Fifteen of the 16 countries needed to back the motion were already on board, European diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Amnesty International urged Obama to push for a truce and appealed to the U.N. Security Council to establish a commission of inquiry into violations of international law.

Shooting happened at sprawling Camp Liberty base outside Baghdad

Associated Press
updated 6:09 p.m. PT, Mon., May 11, 2009
MSNBC

BAGHDAD - An American Army sergeant shot and killed five fellow soldiers following an altercation at a counseling center on a military base in Iraq Monday, officials said. The attack drew attention to the issues of combat stress and morale among soldiers serving multiple combat tours over six years of war.

The suspect had been disarmed after an earlier incident at the center but returned with another weapon, according to a senior military official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation into the shootings was ongoing.

Attacks on fellow soldiers, known as fraggings, were not uncommon during the Vietnam war but are believed to be rare in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A brief U.S. statement said the assailant was taken into custody following the 2 p.m. shooting at Camp Liberty, a sprawling U.S. base on the western edge of Baghdad near the city’s international airport.

Names not released
President Barack Obama, who visited a base adjacent to Camp Liberty last month, was shocked by the “terrible tragedy,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. Obama planned to discuss the shooting with Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

After a meeting with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Obama said he would make sure “that we fully understand what led to this tragedy” and will do everything possible “to ensure that our men and women in uniform are protected as they serve our country so capably and courageously in harm’s way.”

The military statement in Baghdad said nobody else was hurt, but military officials in Washington said one person was wounded. The names of the victims and shooter were not released.

Pentagon officials said the shooting happened at a stress clinic, where troops can go for help with the stresses of combat or personal issues. Soldiers routinely carry weapons on Camp Liberty and other bases, but they are supposed to be unloaded.

The military official told The Associated Press that the sergeant had been involved in a verbal altercation at the center. His service weapon was taken from him for his own protection and he was driven back to the center later in the day.

The official said that when the sergeant returned he had another weapon. It was unclear whether he was returning under orders or of his own volition.

Another senior military official said the shooter was a patient at the clinic. The official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because of the probe, did not know what relationship the shooter had to those he killed. It was unclear whether the victims were workers at the clinic or were there for counseling.

At the Pentagon, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the shooting occurred “in a place where individuals were seeking help.”

“It does speak to me about the need for us to redouble our efforts in terms of dealing with the stress,” Mullen said.

The U.S. military is coping with a growing number of stress cases among soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan — many of whom are on their third or fourth combat tours. Some studies suggest that about 15 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq suffer from some sort of emotional problems.

With violence declining, many soldiers face new challenges trying to shift from fighting a war to supporting the Iraqis — tasks that often require skills in which they have not been trained.

Troops under fire
Adding to the stress, there have been several incidents recently when men dressed as Iraqi soldiers have opened fire on American troops, including an attack in the northern city of Mosul on May 2 when two soldiers and the gunman were killed.

Rep. Harry Mitchell, a member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said the Camp Liberty shooting underscores the “critical need” to reach out to soldiers suffering from “the effects of combat stress and post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“Many troops are under great psychological strain and are not receiving the treatment they need,” said Paul Rieckhoff, founder and head of Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America. “Much more must be done to address troops’ psychological injuries before they reach a crisis point.”

The death toll from the shooting at the counseling center was the highest for U.S. personnel in a single attack since April 10, when a suicide truck driver killed five American soldiers with a blast near a police headquarters in Mosul.

“Anytime we lose one of our own, it affects us all,” U.S. spokesman Col. John Robinson said. “Our hearts go out to the families and friends of all the service members involved in this terrible tragedy.”

There have been several previous fragging incidents in the Iraq war.

Last September, Sgt. Joseph Bozicevich, 39, of Minneapolis was detained after allegedly killing two members of his unit south of Baghdad. The case remains under investigation.
In April 2005, Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar was sentenced to death for killing two officers in Kuwait just before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In June 2005, an Army captain and lieutenant were killed when an anti-personnel mine detonated in the window of their room at the U.S. base in Tikrit. National Guard Staff Sgt. Alberto Martinez was acquitted in the blast.
Spc. Chris Rolan, an Army medic, was sentenced to 33 years in prison in 2007 for killing a fellow soldier after a night of heavy drinking in Iraq.
In 2008, Army Cpl. Timothy Ayers was sentenced to two years and four months in prison after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the fatal 2007 shooting of his platoon sergeant in Iraq.
In other violence, the military announced Monday that a U.S. soldier was killed a day earlier when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Basra province of southern Baghdad.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, a car bombing killed two people Monday, including a 10-year-old boy, and wounded 10 others, police Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir said.

In Baghdad, a senior Iraqi traffic officer was assassinated on his way to work. It was the second attack on a high-ranking traffic police officer in the capital in as many days.

© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Attack is similar to incident in February in same region

Associated Press
updated 4 minutes ago
MSNBC

BAGHDAD - A gunman wearing an Iraqi army uniform opened fire on a U.S. military team Saturday, killing two American soldiers and wounding three others at a combat outpost in northern Iraq, the military said.

A military statement said the attacker was killed after the ambush-style assault 12 miles south of Mosul, which is one of the last urban strongholds for Sunni insurgents.

In the past, attackers have used military and police uniforms to bypass checkpoints and gain access to heavily guarded bases. But Iraqi military officials said the gunman was an Iraqi soldier who also served as a Sunni Muslim preacher for an army unit.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The attack will likely elevate worries about militant infiltration in Iraqi security forces as the U.S. military turns over more responsibilities in a phased withdrawal before all American forces leave at the end of 2011.

It also could be one of the few confirmed cases of a member of Iraq’s security forces targeting U.S. troops. On Feb. 24, two Iraqi police officers in Mosul opened fire on a visiting U.S. military team, killing one American soldier and an interpreter. The gunmen remain fugitives.

Earlier this week, a U.S. military spokesman, 1st Lt. John Brimley, called the February shooting “definitely an anomaly.”

The attack follows the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Iraq since September — with 18 American soldiers dying in Iraq in April.

Bombing foiled at Shiite mosque
In the northern city of Kirkuk, security patrols were boosted after an attempted suicide bombing Friday was foiled by guards at the last moment at a Shiite mosque.

Authorities identified the would-be attacker as a Syrian teenager who they believe was recruited by al-Qaida in Iraq. The suspect — 19-year-old Ammar Afif Hamada — was tackled on the doorsteps of the mosque while it was filled with worshippers.

The dramatic capture was welcome good news for Iraqi authorities after a spike in blasts by suspected Sunni insurgents that have claimed more than 200 lives since late April and raised question about the durability of recent security gains.

It also could offer investigators insights into insurgent operations in northern Iraq and smuggling routes from Syria — long considered one of the main pipelines to replenish insurgent ranks from across the region.

According to a police officer involved in the investigation, Hamada fired a pistol at one guard who tried to stop him. Then another guard tackled him as he continued toward the mosque’s main hall, grabbing the attacker’s hands to prevent him from detonating an explosives belt packed with grenades and connected to a trigger in the suspect’s digital watch.

The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to release the information.

Hamada traveled from Syria to the northern city of Mosul about a week ago, then arrived Wednesday in Kirkuk, where he was moved from safe house to safe house in mainly Sunni areas, the police officer said.

Kirkuk police chief Maj. Gen. Torhan Abdul-Rahman Youssef confirmed the details and said Hamada has been an al-Qaida operative in Iraq for the past four years and has confessed to participation in many operations in Diyala province and Baghdad.

Hamada, meanwhile, was being treated for serious head injuries at a hospital in Kirkuk after being beaten by guards and worshippers at the scene, police said.

Volatility in Kirkuk
Tensions have risen in Kirkuk as Kurdish leaders seek to incorporate it into their semiautonomous area, making it one of the most politically sensitive issues for Iraqi leaders and for U.S. military commanders preparing to withdraw their troops by the end of 2011.

The showdown is so volatile that Kirkuk was excluded from regional elections in January and the United Nations has offered a proposal for compromise plans.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS” in a segment to air Sunday, described Kirkuk’s ethnic rifts as one of Iraq’s most complicated puzzles.

“From an Arab-Kurd point of view, Kirkuk is a bigger problem by far than Mosul,” he said. “Mosul is really still a security problem from the standpoint of al-Qaida is still using that as kind of their last redoubt, if you will. But, you know, I think (the Iraqis) will continue to work these things through.”

© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

30 April 2009

Air Force Technology

After more than six years of fighting, the UK has today announced the successful completion of their combat mission in Basra and the withdrawal of British troops from southern Iraq.

Having already drawn down the divisional headquarters a month ago, the UK forces have handed over the coalition brigade command to US forces to mark the transition from a combat mission to focusing on helping the Iraqi Government rebuild.

UK Defence Secretary John Hutton joined forces stationed at the Contingency Operating Base (COB) outside Basra for a day of reflection, commemoration and celebration of British achievements in Iraq since Operation Telic was launched in 2003.

“The past six years have seen a heavy price paid,” said Hutton. “179 brave people have died in the service of their country on Operation Telic. But Iraq’s progress over the six years, no matter how uneven or uncertain it may have appeared at times, shows that their sacrifice has not been in vain.

“Following the peaceful elections in January, Basra has a new democratically elected and representative Provincial Council. Protected by the Iraqi Security Forces we have trained, the city finally has the chance to achieve its full potential. Basra is a better place for our men and women being there and I pay tribute to all of them,” he added.

The last day of the British mission was marked today by two main events; the official ‘transfer of authority’ to US forces, and a meeting between the defence minister and leaving military contingents as well as the few Royal Navy personnel who will be staying behind to continue to train the Iraqi Navy.

By Daniel Garrun.

Defense & Security News — By Agence France-Presse on May 1, 2009 at 7:40 am
Defence Talk

MOSCOW: Russia took formal control of the borders of Georgia’s separatist zones and slammed NATO exercises due in the country, as a spy row created new frictions between Moscow and the alliance.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev inked the border defence treaties with the leaders of the Moscow-backed rebel regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in a sombre Kremlin ceremony.

NATO, the Czech EU presidency and the United States voiced dismay at the accords, saying they breached an EU-brokered Russia-Georgia ceasefire deal agreed last August.

Under the pact, effective for 10 years, Russia assumes immediate responsibility for guarding the regions’ de facto borders with Georgia, including maritime patrols of Abkhazia’s strategic Black Sea coast.

Medvedev called the signing a “crucial political act” and said it would be “a key factor for establishing security on our borders and in the whole of the Caucasus”.

It comes just one week before NATO holds what it describes as anti-terrorist exercises in Georgia, in the face of vociferous Russian opposition.

“The planned NATO exercises in Georgia, no matter how our Western partners try to convince us otherwise, are an overt provocation. One cannot carry out exercises in a place where there was just a war,” Medvedev said at the signing.

Each side accused the other of violating the terms of the EU-brokered ceasefire that ended the five-day Russia-Georgia conflict last August.

“Any actions which would be seen and perceived by Tbilisi as encouragement for the course of remilitarisation… are seen by us as contradicting the six principles for resolving the conflict agreed last August,” Medvedev said.

NATO countered that Russia’s agreements with the two rebel regions were a “clear contravention” of the ceasefire accord and vowed to press on with the exercises, which will run from Wednesday to June 1 and involve over 400 soldiers.

“This is a clear contravention of the 12th of August and 8th of September agreements negotiated by the EU,” NATO spokesman James Appathurai said in Brussels.

The Czech EU statement stressed “the EU’s full support to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia in its internationally recognised borders.”

Security matters should be discussed in “relevant international fora,” it added, citing in particular foreign-backed peace talks due to resume in Geneva on May 18-19.

“This action contravenes Russia’s commitments under the August 12 ceasefire,” State Department spokesman Robert Wood said in a statement, adding the move “violates Georgia’s territorial integrity.”

Wood urged Russia to “honor its commitments” under last year’s ceasefire deal and said “establishing a ‘border’ under the control of Russian soldiers marks another step in the opposite direction.”

Georgia, for its part, shrugged off the border pacts, saying they simply formalised a state of affairs in place since the end of last summer’s war.

“This is yet another step by the Russian authorities towards completing the occupation of these two Georgian regions,” the secretary of Georgia’s National Security Council, Eka Tkeshelashvili, told AFP.

But diplomatic ties were further strained when a NATO diplomat confirmed that the alliance had ordered the expulsion of two Russian diplomats from Brussels, where NATO has its headquarters.

The diplomats, including the son of Russia’s ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, were evicted on suspicion of spying, after NATO unearthed a spy in Estonia’s defence ministry thought to be passing secrets to Moscow.

The expulsions by NATO will not go unanswered, Russia’s ambassador to the alliance, Dmitry Rogozin, warned Thursday.

“We are not going to lose our temper, those who did that want to undermine the wish of the presidents of our two countries (US and Russia) to have good relations,” Rogozin said.

News of the expulsion and the fresh sparring over Georgia came just one day after Russia and NATO resumed formal dialogue with ambassador-level talks of the NATO-Russia Council.

The talks were the first official high-level contact between Russia and NATO since the alliance froze ties with Moscow in protest at the Georgia war last August.

50,000 thought to be trapped; U.N. estimates 6,500 killed in recent months

Associated Press
updated 12:05 p.m. PT, Fri., May 1, 2009
MSNBC

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka’s government urged civilians in the northern war zone to flee the fighting Friday, promising to ensure their safety amid accusations that civilians were killed after the military pounded the area with artillery shells.

Government forces have cornered the Tamil Tiger rebels in a 3-mile-long strip along the northeast coast and appear poised to end the quarter-century civil war.

However, international pressure has grown for a cease-fire to protect tens of thousands of ethnic Tamil civilians trapped in the area. The government accuses the Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam rebels of holding the civilians hostage.

In a brief leaflet dropped by aircraft on the area, President Mahinda Rajapaksa appealed to the civilians to flee across the front lines, according to the government.

“Your suffering is prolonged by this action of the LTTE who are holding you as a human shield for their own safety and security,” the leaflet said. “I appeal to every one of you to come over to the cleared areas.”

The president promised to ensure the safety of all civilians.

Rajapaksa had earlier pledged to stop using heavy weapons in the war zone to safeguard the civilians, but reports from the densely packed war zone accused the military of continuing to launch artillery attacks and airstrikes.

10 reportedly killed by one shell
A new artillery barrage began Thursday night and lasted until Friday morning, with more than 100 shells hitting the area, said a government health official in the war zone.

One shell hit the top of a coconut tree and exploded, sending shrapnel raining down on the civilians below and killing 10, the official said.

The official, who said he witnessed the attack, declined to be identified by name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara denied the army had fired artillery, and said the insurgents might be setting off the explosions themselves to implicate the government.

Suspected rebels also opened a new front in the war — in cyberspace — hacking the army’s official Web site and replacing it with photos that purportedly showed civilian casualties of the war. The military, which blamed the Tamil Tigers for the cyber attack, said it planned to have the problem fixed Friday.

Concern over the fate of the estimated 50,000 civilians trapped in the war zone has grown, following a U.N. report that nearly 6,500 civilians were killed in the last three months.

The British and French foreign ministers called for a humanitarian truce during a rare visit Wednesday, and Japan’s special mediator for the conflict, Yasushi Akashi, was in Sri Lanka on Friday to call on the government to safeguard civilians.

Rajapaksa rejected the calls for a cease-fire, and praised the war effort.

“We fearlessly stood up to a brand of terrorism that the entire world believed was invincible,” he said in a May Day address Friday.

“Today various countries are calling for a cease-fire. Earlier, they asked for a cease-fire in the name of the people who were trapped in the no-fire zone. But these countries do not talk of the people who were liberated from terror,” he said.

“I undertake responsibility for the people who have escaped and those who are still held by force. It is my responsibility to ensure that they will be freed with no harm,” Rajapaksa said.

Naval battle
The Tamil Tigers have been fighting since 1983 for an independent state for minority Tamils in the north and east after decades of marginalization by governments dominated by the Sinhalese majority.

The latest military offensive has cornered them in a tiny strip of northeastern coast and appears on the verge of defeating the rebel group.

Early Friday, naval forces fired on two rebel suicide boats and a third attack craft, destroying them and killing 23 Tamil Tiger sailors, Nanayakkara said.

The government and aid groups, meanwhile, were struggling to cope with more than 120,000 civilians who fled the war zone last week, overwhelming displacement camps.

The government said Friday it had begun resettling some of those who had been displaced by earlier fighting, returning more than 400 people to their homes in the Mannar district Thursday.

Also Friday, an international press group said the military’s success has been accompanied by a “brutal campaign” against dissenting media.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders branded Sri Lanka to be the “least respectful of media freedom” among countries with democratically elected governments.

The army and certain quarters among the majority ethnic Sinhalese have harassed the private media, particularly those writing on defense-related matters, the group said in a statement to mark World Press Freedom Day, which falls on May 3.

“Media, which have been forced into exile or gagged, no longer dare to criticize or investigate military strategy,” the statement said.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Prime minister demands those responsible be handed over for possible trial

MSNBC
Asssociated Press
updated 2:05 p.m. PT, Sun., April 26, 2009

BAGHDAD - Iraq’s prime minister denounced a deadly U.S. raid on Sunday as a “crime” that violated the security pact with Washington and demanded American commanders hand over those responsible to face possible trial in Iraqi courts.

The U.S. military, however, strongly denied that it overstepped its bounds and said it notified Iraqi authorities in advance — in accordance with the rules that took effect this year governing U.S. battlefield conduct.

The pre-dawn raid in the southern Shiite city of Kut ended with at least one woman dead after being caught in gunfire and six suspects arrested for alleged links to Shiite militia factions.

But efforts were quickly launched in an attempt to tone down the dispute.

The six detainees were released, said Major Gen. Read Shakir Jawdat, head of the provincial police that includes Kut. At the same news conference, U.S. Col. Richard Francey offered condolences to the family of the woman killed.

Most serious test of security pact
The fallout marks the most serious test of the security pact so far and could bring new strains during a critical transition period.

U.S. forces plan to move out of most major Iraqi cities by the end of June in the first phase of a promised withdrawal from the country by the end of 2011.

A statement from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki — in his role as commander general of Iraqi forces — called the raid a “violation of the security pact.”

He asked the U.S. military “to release the detainees and hand over those responsible for this crime to the courts,” according to an Iraqi security official who read the statement to The Associated Press.

The cascade of protests and questions began just hours after the sweep into Kut, which the U.S. military said targeted suspected backers of Shiite militias believed to have links to Iran.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at the mosque in Kut, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, to decry the American action and demand an investigation.

The provincial council then called an emergency meeting and a three-day mourning period. The Iraqi Defense Ministry also ordered the arrest of two high-ranking Iraqi officers for their alleged roles in allowing U.S. forces to operate in Kut.

“We condemn this crime,” said Mahmoud al-Etaibi, head of the council.

Operation was ‘approved’
Iraq’s military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, described it as the “first violation after signing the security pact.”

The U.S. military said its troops acted within the framework of the security pact, saying “the operation was fully coordinated and approved by the Iraqi government.”

The accord, which took effect Jan. 1, requires American commanders to coordinate raids and other pre-planned strikes with the Iraqi government and military, or work in joint U.S.-Iraq units.

At least one person died in the raid, which the U.S. military said targeted the financier of Shiite militia factions believed to be backed by the Iranians. Iraqi officials placed the death toll at two.

The Defense Ministry spokesman, Mohammed al-Askari, said an Iraqi brigade commander and a battalion commander were arrested for “allowing American troops to conduct a military operation in Kut province without informing the Iraqi government or coordinating with it.”

Kut provincial police chief, Brig. Gen. Raed Shakir Jawdat, said he was unaware a raid was conducted. The U.S. military did not provide information on whether Iraqi security forces took part.

‘Stepped into the line of fire’
The military said a woman was in the area during an exchange of gunfire with one of the suspects and “stepped into the line of fire.”

It said those detained were suspected of aiding so-called “special groups” — Shiite militia factions that were once part of the Mahdi Army of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr — and another faction known as the Promise Day Brigades created by al-Sadr.

Washington says the special groups are backed by Iran. Tehran denies the charges.

Iraqi police officials say the wife and brother of a local clan leader were killed. They also say the soldiers arrested the clan leader, Ahmed Abdul Muneim al-Bdeir, his brother — an Iraqi police captain — and five others related to the al-Bdeir.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to release the information.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

USA Today

BAGHDAD (AP) — Suicide bombers struck a humanitarian aid distribution point and a crowded restaurant in separate attacks Thursday in Iraq, killing at least 78 people in the deadliest day of violence to strike the country this year.

The bombings are the latest in a series of high-profile attacks that have raised concern of an uptick in violence as the U.S. military scales back its forces in Iraq ahead of a planned withdrawal by the end of 2011.

The latest attacks came as Iraqi security officials said they captured one of the most wanted leaders of the al-Qaeda-linked Sunni insurgency, an arrest that could deliver a significant blow to an intensified campaign of attacks.

The officials identified the arrested man as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi who’s believed to lead the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of Sunni militant factions that is believed dominated by al-Qaeda in Iraq. However in the past, Iraqi officials have reported al-Baghdadi’s arrest or killing, only to later say they were wrong. The U.S. military has even said al-Baghdadi could be a fictitious character used to give an Iraqi face to an organization dominated by foreign al-Qaeda fighters.

Al-Baghdadi has been a key target for U.S. and Iraqi forces for years. But little is known about his origins or real influence over insurgent groups. Those groups have staged a series of high-profile attacks in recent weeks, apparently including the two suicide blasts Thursday in Baghdad and north of the capital in Diyala province.

In Baghdad, a suicide bomber blew himself up among a group of Iraqis collecting humanitarian aid in a mainly Shiite area, killing at least 31 people, the Iraqi military said.

The attacker struck as police were distributing Iraqi Red Crescent food parcels in the central neighborhood of Karradah, the main Baghdad military spokesman said.

It not immediately clear who carried out the attack, but one witness said it appeared to be a woman. Women have been used in suicide bombings in Iraq, most recently during a Feb. 13 attack on Shiite pilgrims in Musayyib.

Muhanad Harbi, a shop owner near the blast site, said he saw a woman wearing a black robe wade into the crowd. He said it appeared she detonated an explosives belt.

Shanoon Humoud, 70, sat weeping amid burned food packages scattered on the ground. Her husband, her son and two grandchildren were killed in the blast.

Humoud said she was in her apartment praying when she heard the blast.

“I came down to look for my relatives who were getting the food,” she said. “But I couldn’t find them.”

Some police were among the 31 people killed and 51 people were wounded, the military said.

North of Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed 47 people, including Iranian pilgrims, in a crowded restaurant, said Iraqi and U.S. military officials.

Military spokesman Derrick Cheng said 47 people were killed and about 69 were wounded when the suicide bomber detonated an explosives vest near Muqdadiyah, an insurgent hotbed about 60 miles northeast of Baghdad.

Iraqi police and hospital officials said another 65 were wounded. Most of the wounded were pilgrims, the officials said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the U.S. military was working to verify who was captured.

“I can’t confirm … the capture of a senior al-Qaeda member or that it was Baghdadi,” he said. But he said he had no reason to doubt the credibility of the report.

Iraqi state television quoted military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi as saying al-Baghdadi was arrested in Baghdad. Security officials also told The Associated Press he was captured.

In 2007, Iraq’s government reported that al-Baghdadi had been killed and released photos of what it said was his body. Later, security officials said they had arrested al-Baghdadi. In both cases, the U.S. military said at the time it could not be confirmed and the reports turned out not to be true.

In March, a 17-minute audio message attributed to al-Baghdadi called Washington’s announcement of a troop withdrawal timetable from Iraq “recognition of defeat.” The statement was carried on militant websites.

Also Thursday, American soldiers who specialize in clearing bombs from roads boarded a plane Thursday from Iraq to the Taliban heartland in southern Afghanistan, part of the largest movement of personnel and equipment between the two war fronts.

President Barack Obama is deploying 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan to beef up U.S. operations there.

U.S. military commanders have said the sharp decline in violence in Iraq and the increasing capabilities of Iraq’s security forces made it possible to transition the soldiers.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Suicide bomber kills 5 American soldiers and 2 Iraqi policeman in Mosul

Associated Press
updated 11:46 a.m. PT, Fri., April 10, 2009
MSNBC

BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden truck into a sandbagged wall surrounding a police headquarters in northern Iraq on Friday, killing five American soldiers and two Iraqi policemen in the single deadliest attack against U.S. forces in more than a year, the U.S. military and Iraqi police said.

A sixth American soldier and 17 Iraqi policemen were wounded in the blast that took place near the national police headquarters in southwestern Mosul — Iraq’s third-largest city and al-Qaida’s last urban stronghold.

Suicide bombings — a hallmark of al-Qaida’s attack style — continue to threaten the city, which U.S. troops must leave by June 30 under an agreement with the Iraqis. The approaching deadline has raised fears about what will happen after American soldiers depart.

Lt. Col. Michael Stuart, chief of U.S. operations in Tikrit, an Iraqi city north of Baghdad, said the target was the Iraqi national police complex in Mosul and not the U.S. patrol. He said the American patrol just happened to be on the same street when the attack occurred.

“It was just bad timing,” Stuart told The Associated Press.

Friday’s blast was the deadliest single bombing attack in more than a year. The U.S. military said that the last time five U.S. soldiers were killed in an attack was when a suicide bomber targeted an American patrol in Baghdad on March 10, 2008.

A suicide car bomb struck a U.S. patrol in Mosul on Feb. 9, killing four American soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter. Four U.S. soldiers were also killed Jan. 26 when two helicopters collided over the northern city of Kirkuk.

Friday’s suicide bomber, who was driving a truck filled with grain, made a sharp turn as he approached the police complex, then rammed his truck through an iron barrier, hitting a sandbagged wall beyond it and detonating his vehicle near the station’s main building, Iraqi police said.

The blast shook the entire complex and badly damaged nearby buildings, witnesses and police said.

‘The situation was chaotic’
A policeman, who identified himself as Abu Mohammed, said he saw the truck driving behind two U.S. Humvees on the street leading to the police headquarters. The Humvees entered the complex, came to a stop, and within seconds, the truck turned and rammed the iron barrier, he said.

Iraqi police opened fire, but the truck kept moving until it reached the sandbagged wall where it detonated — just a few feet away from the Humvees, he said.

“The blast was very powerful and the situation was chaotic,” he said.

The U.S. military said two people were detained in connection with the attack, which is under investigation. The names of those killed were being withheld pending notification of families.

Although U.S. combat troops have to leave Iraqi cities by the end of June under the U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that went into effect this year, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Raymond Odierno, told The Times of London this week that the American troops may have to stay in Mosul and another northern city, Baqouba, after the deadline because insurgents remain active there.

Mosul, about 225 miles north of Baghdad, had been relatively quiet in recent weeks compared to the Iraqi capital, where attacks killed at least 53 people this week.

American casualties have fallen to their lowest levels of the war since thousands of Sunnis abandoned the insurgency and U.S. and Iraqi forces routed Shiite militias in Baghdad and Basra last spring.

However, fighting continues in Mosul and elsewhere in northern Iraq — a conflict that U.S. officials say is driven in part by ethnic rivalries between Sunni Arabs and Kurds. Many Sunni extremists are believed to have fled north after being driven from longtime strongholds in Baghdad and central Iraq.

Attack, raids
In a separate attack on Friday, a U.S. patrol of Striker vehicles was targeted by a roadside bomb, but no one was hurt in the blast near Taji, about 12 miles north of Baghdad, said spokesman Maj. Dave Shoupe. Taji police said eight Iraqi laborers paving a road by the site of the blast were detained for questioning.

Meanwhile, Iraqi police in the southern city of Basra said Friday they arrested 65 people in overnight raids after an attack on a U.S. convoy in the area and the kidnapping of two guards working for a local Iraqi security firm the previous day.

The arrested included 20 people who were already on a wanted list and 45 others, mostly militiamen, said the city’s police spokesman Col. Karim al-Zeidi.

The U.S. military said the American convoy was hit by a roadside bomb near Basra on Thursday, but there were no casualties. Separately, al-Zeidi said two guards working for an Iraqi security firm were abducted late Thursday from their car, which was left by on the side of the road near Basra along with the guards’ weapons.

Their identities and the company they worked for were not immediately known.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

31 March, 2009 09:11:00
Military World

British forces will officially begin their withdrawal from Iraq on Tuesday as the UK’s top general in the south of the country hands over to a US general.

Major General Andy Salmon will transfer authority for what will become Multi-National Division South to US Major General Michael Oates.

Most of Britain’s 4,000 troops will leave by 31 May, the official end-of-combat date.

About 400 will stay after that, either in HQ roles or to train the Iraq Navy.

‘Heads held high’

Major General Salmon says much has been achieved over the past six years.

He told the BBC: “We’ve helped deliver security, we’ve set the conditions for social and economic development and I think we can leave with our heads held high”.

The US role in southern Iraq will be slightly different, focussing more on training the Iraqi police, and keeping open the supply route between the south and Baghdad.

The BBC’s defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt says US soldiers are now a visible presence in Basra, with British troops handing over many of the buildings and duties at the camp as they pack up after six years in Iraq.

But Lt Colonel AJ Johnson, the American taking over the job of liaising with the Iraqi Army at Basra Operations Centre, says there will not be much difference in the US approach in Basra - which means ensuring the Iraqi Army and police remain the most visible presence on the streets here.

Lt Colonel Johnson told the BBC: “The bottom line, the aim of the transition itself is to make sure it’s seamless and that there’s generally no perception that the US army is here and they are going to do things different than the British did when they were here.”

The Americans are also reducing their numbers, with two brigades due to leave the province of Al-Anbar, once the heartland of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

However, the bulk of US troops are not due to leave until the end of 2011.

By Robert H. Reid - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Mar 29, 2009 15:37:51 EDT
Military Times

BAGHDAD — U.S.-backed Iraqi forces swept through a central Baghdad slum Sunday, disarming Sunnis from a government-allied paramilitary group to quell a two-day uprising launched to protest the arrest of their leader.

At least four people were killed and 21 wounded in the two days of fighting between government troops and the Awakening Council in Fadhil, a ramshackle warren of narrow, fetid streets on the east side of the Tigris River where al-Qaida once held sway.

Members of the Fadhil council said Sunday they decided to give up the fight and hand over their weapons to spare the neighborhood, whose bullet-pocked buildings bore witness to intense combat there two years ago.

Most of the top council members fled the neighborhood as Iraqi troops searched house-to-house, according to residents who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared for their safety.

Nevertheless, a few fighters were still holding out. An Iraqi patrol, accompanied by an Associated Press photo and video team, came under heavy fire, sending them ducking for cover as bullets sheared off bits of mortar from the buildings lining the narrow alleyway.

The confrontation in Fadhil is potentially explosive if it leads to a split between the Shiite-led government and the Awakening Councils, made up of Sunnis who abandoned al-Qaida and joined forces with the Americans to fight the insurgents.

Distrust runs deep between the Shiite-led government and the Awakening Councils, which the U.S. calls Sons of Iraq, because many of them are ex-insurgents. There have been fears that some fighters may return to the insurgency if they feel threatened by the government.

That could undermine U.S. plans to remove all combat troops from Baghdad and other cities by the end of June and end the U.S. combat role in Iraq by September 2010.

Members of the councils maintain that they are being unfairly singled out and targeted by the Shiite-dominated security forces because they are Sunnis. But none of the past arrests drew the kind of explosive reaction that followed Saturday’s detention of Adel al-Mashhadani.

“In our view, all these arrests and assassinations … is part of Iran’s plan to dominate Iraq,” said Shogaa al-Aazami, commander of an Awakening Council in west Baghdad. “We think the arrests and the assassinations will continue.”

Clashes broke out Saturday when Iraqi troops seized al-Mashhadani, accusing him of terrorist activity and leading an armed group loyal to Saddam Hussein’s ousted party.

Awakening Council fighters, who a few days earlier had been manning security checkpoints, opened fire on Iraqi troops, setting off gunbattles that persisted into Sunday. U.S. soldiers rushed to support the Iraqis, and U.S. helicopters patrolled above the neighborhood, once notorious as the place where a U.S. contractor’s helicopter was shot down in January 2007.

“Why does al-Mashhadani become a terrorist when before they used to consider him a hero,” said a member of the Fadhil council, who gave his name only as Abu Abdullah. “We are not going to submit to any terms from the Americans or the Iraqi authorities since we are afraid that they will stab us in the back as they did to our leader.”

Col. Bill Buckner, a U.S. military spokesman, said al-Mashhadani was arrested under a December 2008 warrant charging him with seven offenses including extortion, roadside bombings against Iraqi forces, robbery and ties to al-Qaida in Iraq.

Helicopters dropped leaflets over Fadhil with a statement from the Iraqi army’s top Baghdad commander asking Council fighters to “take a patriotic stance” and distance themselves “from suspect elements and outlaws.”

Iraqi officials sought to dampen fears that the move was part of a plan to disband the Awakening Councils.

Nevertheless, the move against the Fadhil group deepened the suspicion between the Sunnis and the Shiite-led government, which took control of the 90,000 Awakening Council members last October from the Americans.

“We hope the government will not arrest any member until it is proved he made mistakes,” said Sheik Mustafa Kamil Shebib, leader of the Awakening Council in south Baghdad’s Dora area.

Sheik Aifan Saadoun, a prominent Anbar province Awakening Council member, said no one wants criminals in the ranks but “we fear that this situation will turn into a ‘settling of scores’ by some political parties and we might be the victims.”

Awakening Council leaders have also complained of delays in receiving their salaries since they went off the U.S. payroll last year. U.S. officials blamed the delay on red tape and said salaries would resume this week.

Under pressure from the U.S., the government agreed to accept 20,000 of the fighters into the police or army and continue paying the rest until they could find them civilian jobs.

But U.S. officials say the process has been slowed because the drop in world oil prices has cut deeply into government revenues, prompting a freeze on army and police recruiting.

Ahmed Abu Risha, head of the Awakening Councils in Anbar province, said the government should speed up integrating volunteers into the army and police “to avoid what happened today” in Fadhil.

Also Sunday, a roadside bomb exploded near a security patrol in the southern city of Basra, killing one security guard and three civilians, police said.

Britain plans to withdraw its remaining 4,000 troops from the Basra area by July and will hand over responsibility to the U.S. Army this week.

On Sunday, Iraqi commanders thanked Britain for its contribution during a ceremony at a Basra hotel.

“The Iraqi army and the Iraqi public will remember the sacrifice by British forces for some time to come,” said Gen. Hawedi Mohammed, commander of Iraqi forces in the city.

Story Highlights
-Relatives of slain Iraqis struggle with feelings of grief, revenge
-Truth commissions provide forums for victims to be heard, perpetrators to testify
-Process lets participants “directly confront” the past
-Truth commissions could lead to other societal improvements, backers say

By Joe Sterling
CNN

(CNN) — As Iraqi officials speak loftily of ethnic and political reconciliation, Abu Wissam seethes.

He wants cold, hard justice for the killers of his son, Raed, a 25-year-old business school graduate, “cut to pieces” by Mehdi Army militia members in their Baghdad neighborhood.

The Wissams are among the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis caught in the maelstrom of the militia violence that rippled across Iraq after the 2006 bombing in Samarra of the Askariya Mosque, a Shiite shrine.

The kind of trauma and pain endured by the Wissam family is kindling an interest in a social healing process adopted by countries around the world — truth commissions. They are bodies across the globe that have provided a forum for victims and perpetrators to give cathartic public testimony on human rights abuses and come up with policy recommendations to correct the root cause of the abuses.

“Iraq, like many Arab cultures, is an intensely rich narrative culture,” said Miranda Sissons, Iraq director of the International Center for Transitional Justice, which helps countries pursuing accountability for past mass atrocities and human rights abuses. “The idea of standing up and witnessing is tremendously appealing, the kind of act and mechanism they can understand.”

The U.S. Institute of Peace — one of the independent agencies behind the all-important Iraq Study Group report in 2006 — is backing an initiative in Iraq to generate understanding and “spark public dialogue on the usefulness of the truth commission process.”

The institute is teaming up with Iraq’s Ministry of Human Rights to screen a USIP film across Iraq about the work of four different commissions.

Called “Confronting The Truth: Truth Commissions and Societies in Transition,” the film — produced by York Zimmerman and Peter Ackerman — explores the workings of such commissions in South Africa, Peru, Morocco and East Timor. The film is getting some good reviews among Iraqis.

“The truth commission process is one in which you encourage folks to directly confront that past and how to get behind it,” said Sermid Al-Sarraf, the executive director of the International Institute for the Rule of Law, a group that manages USIP’s rule of law programs in Iraq.

Truth commissions and other conflict-resolution strategies have been on Iraq’s radar for years.

Oral history projects have emerged, one being the Iraq History Project — which “gathers and analyzes personal narratives from victims, their families, witnesses, perpetrators and others” about the “torture, massacres, assassinations, rape, chemical weapons attacks, disappearances, and other acts of systematic repression” during the Saddam Hussein regime. That project is managed by the International Human Rights Law Institute of DePaul University College of Law in Chicago and is run by an all-Iraqi in-country staff.

Last year, Nobel Peace Prize winner Martti Ahtisaari’s Crisis Management Initiative and a conflict-resolution initiative at the University of Massachusetts Boston were behind an effort to forge the so-called Helsinki agreement — a statement of reconciliation principles among a wide range of Iraqi politicians. That process was notable because former antagonists in Northern Ireland and South Africa worked with the Iraqis.

Padraig O’Malley, a UMass conflict-resolution professor involved in the Helsinki process, is planning a three-day forum in April for “divided cities,” where officials from ethnically tense Kirkuk in Iraq will discuss common problems with officials from Derry/Londonderry and Belfast in Northern Ireland, Nicosia in Cyprus, and Mitrovica in Kosovo.

The International Center for Transitional Justice says Coalition Provisional Authority officials initially proposed a “truth-seeking commission” for Iraq in 2003 but eventually decided to “delay the process” in order for Iraqis to rigorously study other truth-telling efforts, as advocated by the center. In 2005, the center also discussed the establishment of a center for the missing and disappeared.

As for truth commissions today, some observers say there hasn’t been the political will on the part of the national government to pursue one. So says Joost Hilterman, International Crisis Group deputy program director for the Middle East and North Africa. He has argued in the past for the establishment of a truth commission process and believes such a process, for example, would have been the proper way to deal with the challenge of de-Baathification.

“I’m not against floating the idea,” Hilterman said, but there’s “no chance in hell” it would happen anytime soon.

Eduardo Gonzalez, the Americas deputy director of the transitional justice center, had been a staffer on the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where he was responsible for public hearings and victims and witnesses protection. He was interviewed in the USIP video, which featured touching testimony from victims of the warfare between government troops and Shining Path guerrillas between 1980 and 2000.

Gonzalez stressed the need to produce an accurate account of abuses, provide explanations for what happened, provide the proper opportunity for victims to be recognized, and help the society steer a new course for the future. Truth commissions don’t function as courts, and there are only rare occasions, such as in East Timor, where punishment would be meted out.

“Truth commissions, done right, could created a public dialogue,” he said.

He thinks a national Iraqi truth commission would probably be a few years down the road. But he thinks it’s more likely that a particular city, province or region could pursue them.

One particular truth commission, in Morocco, has been cited as one that Iraq could study. That’s because it was the first one in the Arab world and it detailed human rights abuses from 1956 to 1999 under King Hassan II.

Gonzalez said Iraq can benefit from studying all models, but he notes they share one thing — a commitment to objectivity.

The ICTJ’s Sissons notes that the British explored the idea of a truth commission as well, but experts told them Iraqis and not outsiders are the ones who need to pursue such an idea. She also said “the scale of violence” in Iraq and the “nature and complexity” of it “is so vast” that the German war crimes tribunals after World War II and the reparations to Holocaust victims come to mind.

But if a truth initiative is to be effective, it would have to be rigorously designed and properly framed, with a “distinct focus” and an “achievable mandate,” she said. There must be commitment, goals, dedication and governmental support in areas such as subpoenaing records.

“You don’t just tell the truth, hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya,’ ” she said.

But they can be very useful in Iraq, an “evidence-rich environment.” She said truth-telling commissions there could lead to many improvements in society, such as better detention registration policies, higher forensic standards, a freedom of information law, and a far-reaching reparations strategy.

As for the man on the street, people who gather at Abu Wissam’s house to talk about the violence they’ve endured don’t talk of forgiveness. They want the killers of their kin to be put to death.

Al-Sarraf and others all agree justice must be served in cases of heinous crime. But he seized on the concept of forgiveness. It’s an Islamic virtue, and it could play a powerful role in a truth-telling initiative.

“Even though there is the principle of ‘eye for an eye,’ there is also the higher ideal of mercy,” he said.

CNN’s Arwa Damon contributed to this report.

USA Today

JERUSALEM (AP) — An increasingly disturbing picture of the Israeli army’s conduct in the recent Gaza war emerged Friday, as new witness accounts from Israeli troops described wanton vandalism to Palestinian homes, humiliation of civilians and loose rules of engagement that resulted in unnecessary civilian deaths.

The revelations of soldier conduct over the past two days have set off soul-searching and alarm in a country where the military is widely revered. They also have echoed Palestinian allegations that Israel’s assault did not distinguish between civilians and combatants, at a time when some international human rights groups contend Israel violated the laws of war.

Israel launched the offensive on Dec. 27 in what it said was an effort to end years of Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights, which conducted a survey of casualties, says a total of 1,417 people were killed, including 926 civilians during the 22-day offensive.

Israel has disputed the findings, saying the most of the dead were legitimate targets, but it offered no evidence. Thirteen Israelis also died in the fighting.

The Israeli government has insisted it did all it could to prevent civilian casualties, but on Thursday, the army ordered a criminal inquiry into its own soldiers’ reports that some troops killed civilians, including children, by hastily opening fire, confident that the relaxed rules of engagement would protect them.

The inquiry was based on postwar testimony from a gathering of soldiers involved in the offensive, published in a military institute’s newsletter and leaked to two Israeli newspapers. The Haaretz daily published additional details Friday, and the transcript of the session was obtained by The Associated Press.

According to one account, an Israeli sniper killed a Palestinian woman and her two children after they misunderstood another soldier’s order and turned the wrong way. The sniper was not told the civilians had been released from the house and, in compliance with standing orders, opened fire when they approached him.

In another account, an elderly woman was shot dead while walking on a road. The soldier who described the incident, identified only as “Aviv,” said it was not clear whether the woman was a threat.

“From the description of this story, I simply felt it was murder in cold blood,” Aviv said, according to the transcript. “The order was to take that woman out, the moment you see her.”

Aviv said in one instance, his unit was sent to take over a house by bursting in, going up floor by floor and shooting anyone they saw.

“I call this murder,” he said. “From above they said it was permissible, because anyone who remained in the sector and inside Gaza City was in effect condemned, a terrorist, because they hadn’t fled.”

In the end, he said he managed to change the order so residents would be given five minutes to leave their homes, drawing protests from other soldiers. “Anyone who’s in there is a terrorist, that’s a known fact,” he quoted another soldier as saying.

Aviv said he felt an attitude among soldiers that “inside Gaza you are allowed to do anything you want, to break down doors of houses for no reason other than that it’s cool.”

“To write ‘Death to the Arabs’ on the walls, to take family pictures and spit on them, just because you can,” he said.

The army said Friday it had no additional comment beyond Thursday’s announcement of the inquiry. During the fighting, the military acknowledged loosening the rules of engagement, aiming to reduce casualties among Israeli troops.

Another soldier, Ram, described what appeared to be a rift between secular and religious soldiers.

“What I do remember in particular at the beginning is the feeling of an almost religious mission,” he said. He described a “huge gap” between background material provided by the army’s education corps, and religious material distributed by the army’s rabbinate.

“Their message was very clear: ‘We are the Jewish people, we came to this land by a miracle. God brought us back to this land, and now we need to fight to expel the gentiles who are interfering with our conquest of this holy land,”‘ he said.

Earlier this year, the military “severely reprimanded” an officer for distributing a religious booklet urging soldiers to show no mercy to their enemies. The army said the booklet was based on the writings of an ultranationalist rabbi and that the chief military rabbi had not approved it.

The published accounts revealed debate and soul-searching among the soldiers. Discussing the death of the old woman, one soldier, Zvi, said the shooting could be understood in the context of the battle zone. “Logic says she should be there,” he said. “It’s known that they have lookouts and that sort of thing.”

And Yossi said his unit was forced to clean up a home it had occupied on the same day that a Palestinian rocket wounded a mother and baby in an Israeli city. He said soldiers were unhappy, but complied.

“In the end I was convinced, and realized it was the right thing to do,” he said.

Danny Zamir, the head of the institute, called the discussion “instructive,” but also “dismaying and depressing.”

“You are describing an army with very low norms of value,” he said.

The heavy Palestinian civilian casualties and widespread destruction during the three-week war provoked international outcry against Israel, which halted its fire on Jan. 18.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Friday, March 13, 2009
World Tribune

GAZA CITY — The Hamas regime is refining its policies on the firing of rockets into Israel following its own 2008 war with Israel conducted almost entirely by firing short-range missiles from non-military sites. ShareThis

The Hamas Interior Ministry said security forces would track and arrest anybody suspected of firing missiles or rockets into Israel. They said such fire was not authorized and was harming the Gaza Strip.

“The rockets have been fired at the wrong time,” the ministry said on March 12. “Security authorities are tracking down the culprits.”

The statement followed increased Palestinian missile and rocket fire into Israel. About 170 missiles and rockets have been fired into Israel from the neighboring Gaza Strip since the end of the Hamas war in January 2009.

Israel has responded with air strikes on Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets as well as weapons tunnels near the southern town of Rafah.

Some of the latest attacks have been claimed by a group titled “Hizbullah Battalions in Palestine.” But Palestinian sources said they have never heard of such a militia, and the Interior Ministry said the group was bogus.

Hamas has sought to coordinate Palestinian militia fire in the Gaza Strip and urged groups not to claim responsibility. Missile and rocket attacks have been claimed by such militias as Islamic Jihad and Fatah.

During the 2008 ceasefire with Israel, which lasted nearly five months, the Hamas regime arrested several Jihad and Fatah missile squads. Most were released within a few days.

Copyright © 2009 East West Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

USA Today

BAGHDAD (AP) — About 12,000 U.S. troops will leave Iraq by September under President Obama’s pledge to end America’s combat role here, officials said Sunday, hours after a Baghdad suicide bomber killed as many as 32 people.

The troops probably will be removed from Baghdad and Anbar province — once the main battlefields of the war. All 4,000 British soldiers in southern Iraq are slated to leave by September.

A U.S. spokesman, Maj. Gen. David Perkins, said Iraq’s security has “greatly improved, and it has moved from a very unstable to a stable position.” He cited a 90% drop in violence that he called its lowest level since the summer of 2003.

Perkins described Sunday’s attack, the worst in Baghdad in months, as a sign that U.S.-led coalition forces have militants on the run.

“We are by no means complacent,” Perkins said at an afternoon Baghdad news conference. “We know that al-Qaeda, although greatly reduced in capability and numbers, still is desperate to maintain relevance here in Iraq.”

Several hours earlier, the suicide bomber detonated his explosives as he drove his motorcycle into a group of people, many of them police recruits, waiting near a side entrance of Baghdad’s main police academy in a mainly Shiite area of the city.

Iraqi and U.S. forces sealed off the scene, allowing only ambulances and fire engines to enter. Nervous Iraqi troops fired in the air to prevent onlookers and reporters from getting too close.

Haitham Fadhel said he was standing in one of three lines of recruits arriving for their first day of special guard training courses at the academy. He was knocked unconscious and was wounded by shrapnel but called himself lucky. Two of his friends were killed.

“We were feeling secure as we were waiting in a well-guarded area,” said Fadhel, 24, from the mainly Shiite neighborhood of New Baghdad. “Before the explosion occurred, I heard a loud shout saying, ‘Stop, stop, where are you going?’ Seconds later, a huge explosion shook the area.

“I am just wondering how a big security breach can occur in such a secured area.”

No group claimed responsibility for the blast, but suicide bombings are the signature attack of Sunni religious extremists, including al-Qaeda.

The heavily fortified academy has been hit by several bombings. A Dec. 1 suicide bombing there killed at least 33 people and wounded dozens, including four U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi general.

Iraqi officials provided conflicting casualty tolls Sunday, as is common in the chaotic aftermath of bombings.

Three medical officials and one police officer in the area where the bombing occurred said 32 people were killed, including 19 recruits, nine policemen and four traffic police, and about 60 others were wounded.

Another police officer said 28 were killed. The officials spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to release the information.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said 24 people were killed and more than 60 wounded.

Extremists increasingly have targeted Iraqi forces as they take over the country’s security from American troops. Last week, Obama announced the end of all combat missions in Iraq by the end of August 2010, leaving up to 50,000 U.S. soldiers to train and assist Iraqi security forces. All U.S. troops are to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

There are about 135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and their withdrawal will be gradual at first to leave most in place for parliamentary elections at the end of this year. Units due to leave Iraq at the end of their deployment will not be replaced.

The 4,000 British troops due to leave are the last British soldiers in Iraq.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraqi army and police are not ready to protect the nation from extremists.

“We need some time,” al-Dabbagh said. “By the end of 2011, Iraqi security forces should be able to provide security for the country and the people.”

Perkins said the remaining U.S. forces after the 12,000 Army soldiers and Marines leave in September will be spread out to make sure Iraq continues to be protected. That will be done in coordination with Iraqi authorities, he said.

The troop withdrawals will reduce U.S. combat power from 14 brigades to 12, along with some supporting units. The United States plans to turn over 74 facilities and areas under its control to the Iraqis by the end of March as part of the drawdown.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Displaced civilians become the casualties of a 6-year-old civil war

Associated Press
updated 3:35 p.m. PT, Tues., March. 3, 2009
MSNBC

ZAMZAM CAMP, Sudan - The tall 14-year-old’s parents were killed when government soldiers swept into his hometown in Darfur to chase out rebels. Then Arab militias went after the survivors. That’s when the teenager fled atop a truck piled with mattresses and pots.

Mohammed Bahreddine arrived at this refugee camp last week after a two-day journey, joining more than 26,000 people from the region around the town of Muhajeria who have flooded into the crowded camp in recent weeks.

It’s one of the largest single flights of refugees in the past year in Darfur — a sign how civilians are bearing the brunt of a war that entered its seventh year in February. At least 10,000 more people from the Muhajeria area are expected at Zamzam soon, camp leaders say.

The fighting comes as the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands prepares to announce Wednesday whether it will issue an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, on charges of war crimes in Darfur.

Many residents and international aid workers in Darfur fear that if a warrant is issued, the government in Khartoum will lash out with greater violence in Sudan’s vast, arid western territory, fueling the flow of refugees.

The government has sought to ease fears of any backlash, saying it will continue peace efforts in Darfur.

A confident al-Bashir derided the possibility of a warrant, smiling and waving at a ceremony Tuesday opening a dam in northern Sudan. “They will issue their decision tomorrow, and we are telling them to immerse it in water and drink it,” he said, using a common Arabic insult.

Uprooted
According to the U.N., some 2.7 million people have been displaced and 300,000 have been killed since Darfur’s conflict began in February 2003, when ethnic African rebels rose up complaining of discrimination by the Arab-led national government.

Al-Bashir’s regime is accused of unleashing Arab militias known as janjaweed, which have committed atrocities against ethnic African towns and villages. The government denies backing the janjaweed and says the death figures are inflated.

Government troops seized Muhajeria in early February after rival rebel groups in the area fought among themselves. Survivors say most of the town’s ethnic African population of Zaghawa tribesmen didn’t start fleeing until Arab militias moved in, looting and attacking surrounding villages. U.N. officials estimate at least 30 people were killed in the fighting.

Bahreddine’s voice stumbles when he tells of his parents’ death from an aerial bombing attack during the government’s initial assault on Muhajeria. “Our house was on fire. My parents died inside. I ran out,” the teen said.

He finally made it to Zamzam, where his grandmother lives. “I will never go back. Even our clothes, everything is gone.”

Zamzam camp already houses 50,000 people, and humanitarian workers say the pressure of new arrivals is straining scarce water resources.

Toby Lanzer, a deputy humanitarian coordinator for the U.N., says 50,000 people are believed to have been uprooted in the Muhajeria area over the past month. It is not known if all are moving toward Zamzam or if some are heading elsewhere.

“This is a very significant movement of people,” Lanzer said.

Mass exodus
During 2008, a total of 315,000 people fled their homes from multiple places across Darfur, indicating the Muhajeria flight is large for a single exodus.

The government of North Darfur province, where Zamzam sits, is reluctant to open new camps to house the influx, said Ahmed Salah, a provincial official. Besides the strain on resources, Zamzam and other camps are rife with anti-government sentiment.

“The idea is not to have new refugee camps or to have them settle there,” he said. “The hope is that they can return.”

The exodus from Muhajeria also reflects the complicated map of tribal rivalries in the area, which pits ethnic Africans against each other as much as against Arab tribes.

Zaghawa tribesmen moved into the area in the 1970s, forcing out rival African tribes. One rebel faction then turned the area into its stronghold, before being attacked in January by a rival rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement. Then the government forces drove out the JEM fighters.

Sharif Issac, a humanitarian coordinator for the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement, accused the government of using “forced migration” to empty Muhajeria of Zaghawa to make it easier to control.

“It will only create more frustration and maybe many of (the refugees) will join the rebels,” Isaac said.

However, the commander of a joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission, Nigerian Gen. Martin Agwai, said the government would not have attacked the town if JEM hadn’t waged its offensive first.

“If JEM did not move into Muhajeria, those people that are displaced … wouldn’t have been displaced,” Agwai said.

No place is safe
In a sign of the rearranging of the population, the government wants to move 100,000 people from the original tribes back into Muhajeria, said Daniel Augstburger, humanitarian director for the peacekeeping force.

But Augstburger said that even though the returning tribes may have an old claim to the land, the Zaghawas can’t be forced out. “We have to find a solution for everybody, not only for one part of the population,” he said.

Refugees from Muhajeria continue to pull into Zamzam in trucks that carry dozens of people perched atop piles of mattresses, blankets, water jugs and food. Some of the new families set up their belongings in a wooded area of the camp, taking cover under the trees.

“After the government forces came, they armed the tribes. They kill you if you go get water. So we left,” said Ali Hussein, a 26-year-old Zaghawa, whose family of five slept in the open, waiting for a tent from aid groups.

Hussein hopes to find a job in Zamzam and keep his family safe. “Here, there is protection.”

Peacekeepers nearby set up a checkpoint nearby to boost the sense of security among camp residents.

But Bahreddine said no place is safe. “The war is not yet over,” the teenager said, keeping a wary eye on the sky watching for the Sudanese fighter jets that fly over North Darfur. “We will die wherever we go.”

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.