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[COMMENT: There is something about freedom which cuts through the bondages of even the worst tyrants. There is a common sense in most people which impels them to live above their religion or philosophy.
But Bush & Co. are badly mistaken in trying to establish a "liberal
democracy". What we need to do is learn how to talk about a
Biblical democratic republic under God. We cannot do it even here in
America, how could we do it with the Muslims??? But the day is coming....
when we will know how to talk about the only kind of
freedom
which is real and can be sustained. E. Fox]
Sarah Baxter Washington, Marie Colvin and Samir al Bassam,
Baghdad
KARADEH used to be an affluent shopping area of Baghdad. It boomed for a while
after the American invasion as goods flooded into Iraq after years of sanctions.
But as sectarian violence intensified, the store fronts became shuttered and
shell-pocked.
In a vote of confidence in the surge by US troops, the shops were reopening last
week. Hareth Salah, a 24-year-old student, said he had stopped attending courses
at his technical college when the surge began last month.
“One of my friends was killed by the terrorists,” he said, “but now there are a
lot more Iraqi army checkpoints and I’m feeling more secure. I feel better; I
can go out and do my shopping. More people have opened their stores and the
markets are open longer.”
As the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war approaches on Tuesday, progress
remains uncertain but trends are hopeful.
“This is a bit of a rollercoaster ride,” said General David Petraeus, the US
commander in Iraq. “You’re trying to do what is necessary to keep the
rollercoaster generally going up, despite the ups and downs and the bumps.”
Murderous sectarian checkpoints have melted away as the Iraqi security forces
and American troops extend their grip on the capital. Abu Mohammed, a
34-year-old taxi driver, who lives in the largely Shi’ite Sha’ab district in
northern Baghdad, said: “Sometimes I would stop and wait for an hour or two
rather than take a chance on passing a fake checkpoint with a customer.
“We were so scared; anybody could be followed and assassinated.”
Figures released last week by Brigadier Qassim al-Moussawi, an Iraqi military
spokesman, showed civilian deaths down from 1,440 in the four weeks before the
surge began on February 14 to 265 in the four weeks that followed, although
there may have been some undercounting. According to the American military,
assassination attempts were down by 50%.
The number of US deaths was also down, from 87 to 66, although the concentration
of troops in Baghdad led to an increase of 12% in fatalities in the capital.
Frederick Kagan, a military historian and leading advocate of the surge, said:
“It is very early days but I’m very encouraged by what is happening. America
only has two brigades out of five there and we haven’t even started our major
operations yet. I had not expected this little resistance.”
Residents of the Iraqi capital are holding their breath. For each hopeful piece
of news there seems to be a car bombing or attempted assassination - such as one
on the Shi’ite mayor of Sadr City last week - that threatens their security.
“At least I don’t see bodies thrown here and there on the road, as in the days
before the security plan,” said Ramya Ahmed, 35, a Shi’ite living in Adamiya, a
largely Sunni neighbourhood.
A demonstration on Friday by militants loyal to the Mahdi army of the Shi’ite
cleric Moqtada al-Sadr shouting “No, no to America” has raised fears of a new
outbreak of hostilities with the cleric’s blackshirts.
Vali Nasr, an American expert, said Sadr was still growing in authority. “It is
very clear the Mahdi army made a strategic decision not to engage the Americans
in Baghdad,” he said, “but it has not been defeated. It is a tactical
withdrawal.”
Roughly 700 members of Sadr’s militia have been arrested and others have fled to
Iran. “Only the smaller people are left, so everyone is feeling more safe,” said
one relieved resident.
American forces have moved with relative ease to install joint security stations
with the Iraqis in Sadr City’s teeming slums. The number of these “mini forts”
in Baghdad is due to reach 30 in the coming weeks. Some families displaced by
ethnic cleansing have returned to check on their homes, although few have felt
confident enough to stay.
Car bombings in Baghdad rose to an “all-time high” of 44 last month, according
to a Pentagon spokesman, but troops are now fanning out to the suburbs and to
outlying towns such as Baqouba in an effort to uncover bomb-making factories.
The Americans’ Stryker Brigade combat team was redeployed last week to the area,
where there has been a sharp rise in attacks amid signs that Sunni insurgents
are regrouping.
An extra combat brigade and more than 2,200 military police are being dispatched
to Iraq, which by the end of May or early June will bring the number of
additional US troops involved in the surge to 30,000. But James Carafano, a
defence expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation, cautioned that an
increase in violence was likely during the spring and summer.
“The first thing you would expect the bad guys to do is to go to ground, map
things out, do some reconnaissance and figure out how to screw things up,” he
said. “You have to get through to next winter before you can say the surge has
worked.”
Suicide gas attack
Three suicide bombers using lorries loaded with chlorine gas killed eight people
and caused 350, including six American soldiers, to fall ill in Fallujah and
Ramadi this weekend.
The attacks prompted warnings that the insurgents are turning to new weapons to
spread panic. Symptoms ranged from minor skin and lung irritations to vomiting.
Insurgents have detonated three other lorries carrying chlorine since January.
Major-General William Caldwell, the American army’s spokesman, called it “a
crude attempt to raise the terror level”.
Chlorine gas was deployed as a weapon in the first world war but its use has
particular resonance in Iraq. Saddam Hussein turned chemical weapons on Kurdish
areas in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war.
Iraq the Model website
Saturday, March 17, 2007
One thing al-Qaeda excels at; making new
enemies.
With this series of dirty chemical bombings
a war between al-Qaeda and the tribes in Anbar is no longer a possibility. It
just became a fact.
I've read at least
two very optimistic reports from al-Almada
in the last week about purported victories of the tribes and police over
al-Qaeda in Ramadi and Fallujah. I was reluctant to trust the accuracy of the
reports which sited unnamed sources but now seeing the reaction of al-Qaeda
suggests that the action of the tribes was so painful that al-Qaeda retaliated
in the way we see today.
Al-Qaeda's terrorists-whom AP insists on calling insurgents-expended three
suicide bombers and precious resources against their supposedly sympathetic
civilian Sunni hosts instead of American and Iraqi soldiers and Shia civilians;
their usual enemies. If this indicates anything it indicates that al-Qaeda's is
reprioritizing the targets on the hit list. The reason: al-Qaeda is sensing a
serious threat in the change of attitude of the tribes toward them and perhaps
the apparently successful meeting of the sheiks with Maliki and the agreements
that were made then was the point at which open war had to be declared.
The tribes in Anbar are stubborn and they have many ruthless warriors. That's a
proven fact and it looks like Al-Qaeda had just made their gravest mistake—their
once best friends are just about to become their worst enemy.
Posted by Omar @
21:17
Comments (100)
| Trackbacks (4)
Friday, March 16, 2007
Is Iran’s honeymoon in Iraq over?
Iran’s “project” in Iraq has recently been facing one setback after another.
There are an increasing number of signs that the “project’s” prospects for
success, for realizing Iran’s ambitions in Iraq, do no point upward anymore. It
simply isn’t having much success lately in undermining Iraq’s emerging democracy
through politics and force.
In the past Iran has employed several tracks to interfere directly and
indirectly in Iraq. The mullahs celebrated several achievements in the project.
They rejoiced when pro-Iran powers took over a big part of the Iraqi government.
In this they saw the real chance of a satellite Islamic state in Iraq offering
them a strategic extension into the western front. It seemed as if the project
of exporting the Islamic revolution designed by ayatollah Khomeini was reaping
fruit after decades of planning. The dramatic fall of Arab nationalism in Iraq
and the potential transformation of Iraq into a Shia theocratic ally would mean
the fall of the last geographic wall between Iran and the allies in Syria,
Lebanon and the Palestinian territory. It would make the dream of Tehran’s
dominance in the region a reality.
To achieve this dream Iran was compelled to force the coalition out of Iraq.
This was attempted through constant calls for withdrawing coalition troops from
Iraq by extremists in the parliament, and through the occasional use of armed
forces. All maneuvers designed to push America to despair by creating the
dilemma of ‘why help those who shoot at our soldiers and treat us as occupying
enemies?’
While Iran couldn’t secure a majority support in Iraq’s political arena, it
definitely secured enough clout to impede the secular democratic project. This
costly -in lives and treasure - policy could, in the minds of the mullahs, force
America to forsake her goals in Iraq.
That, at least, was the plan. But a number of interesting developments in Iraq
in the last few weeks may mark the beginning of failure for Iran’s plan. The
developments listed here were collected from both large and small stories in
local Iraq newspapers. Perhaps none of them are significant alone, but putting
the pieces together allows one to sense that a sea change is underway in this
country and the tide is moving against Iran.
At last Friday’s ceremony in a major Shia mosque by a senior Shia cleric — in
Najaf no less — Tehran’s interference in Iraq was roundly criticized, calling it
an interference that “is not in Iraq’s interest.”
Another story notes the withdrawal of the Fadheela Party from the Shia bloc (the
UIA). The Fadheela leaders said the reason for breaking away from the UIA was
because the UIA didn’t act as a patriotic movement. This step stands as a
challenge by the Arabic hierarchy of Yaqoubi (the Ayatollah behind Fadheela) to
the Iranian-born Sistani and his hierarchy, combined with a call for
nonsectarian political process.
There’s also the month-old and continuing Baghdad security operation, and the
apparent determination of PM Maliki to confront and disarm all outlaws —
especially those with connections with neighboring countries. In addition, the
flight of Sadr and many others from Iraq has also dealt a blow to Iran’s
influence in Iraq.
I’m almost certain Maliki’s statement during the conference last Saturday caused
disappointment in Tehran. For the first time the head of state didn’t use double
standards in addressing Iraq’s neighbors. Iran was addressed in the same tone
that Suuni neighbors were addressed. This by the very Shia premier Iran was
hoping to make its puppet.
Not only the Shia front recorded setbacks. The Kurds of Iraq are distancing
themselves from Iran and flirting with their Saudi opponents. The visit Masoud
Barzani (the president of Kurdistan in Iraq) made to the Saudi capital has more
or less marked a significant change in Iran’s relationships with Iraq’s Kurds.
Especially at a time when the IRGC is threatening to chase down Kurdish rebels
on Iraqi soil in Kurdistan. It is highly probable that the visit was to remind
Iran that Kurds are at the same time Sunni.
All in all, things are not going the way Khamenie or Nejad were dreaming of just
a few months ago. Overall the course of events recently in Iraq indicates the
beginning of a severe fall for Iran’s stocks in Iraq.
Of course we shouldn’t expect Iran to just sit back and not respond. I think an
escalation in attacks by militias loyal to Iran will take place soon, especially
outside Baghdad.
Posted by Mohammed @
01:43
Comments (157)
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Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Action follows calm...
The front in Baghdad has been remarkably quiet in the last 48 hours, until about
an hour ago when we started to hear many explosions in the distance.
From the increased activity of jetfighters and the way the explosions sound it
looks like a wave of aerial bombing is underway somewhere on the peripheries of
the city…not sure yet what's going on but we'll provide an update if we find
more info.
Update:
It's pretty much quiet now but a freind calling from Palestine Street, just west
of Sadr city, says the explosions were very loud in that part of the city...I
guess only the morning will reveal what happned tonight.
Posted by Omar @ 22:20
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