These are the archives for the week ending 7th July 2006
Killings gather pace
The central morgue said Tuesday that it received 1,595 bodies last month, 16 percent more than in May, in a tally that showed the pace of killing here has increased since the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq. The American ambassador here, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, told the BBC on Tuesday that killing Mr. Zarqawi had not made Iraq safer. "In terms of the level of violence, it has not had any impact at this point," Mr. Khalilzad said. "As you know, the level of violence is still quite high."
The morgue, which takes bodies from Baghdad and its outskirts, offers a rough measure of the violence. The toll for last month, provided by the morgue deputy, who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the news media, was roughly double the 879 bodies the morgue received in June 2005. American officials say civilians bear the brunt of the killing, representing 70 percent of all deaths.
New York Times, 5/7/06
Another soldier dies in Afghanistan
Another British soldier has been killed in combat in Afghanistan - as Tony Blair was warned by his own backbenchers that UK forces faced a 'mission impossible.'
The soldier was shot dead in the hotbed town of Sangin, which in recent days has become the most dangerous battleground against Taliban fighters in Helmand province.
He was the fifth UK serviceman to be killed in or near the town in three separate firefights in the past eight days, and the sixth in the past month - a loss rate exceeding that in Iraq.
In a further alarming sign of worsening security yesterday the Afghan capital Kabul - a supposedly safe area compared with the lawless south of the country - was rocked by two bomb blasts against buses carrying Government workers, killing one and wounding more than 40 in the second day of such attacks in the city. In recent weeks violence by Taliban rebels has surged to its worst level since the Taliban was ousted from power by the U.S-led coalition in 2001.
In parliament today, Tony Blair told MPs British troops were "fighting a battle that I think is important not just for the security of Afghanistan. It is important for the security of the wider world. "It's important we realise they're giving their lives in support of a mission that is absolutely necessary and vital to our security here in this country."
Daily Mail 5/7/06
Iraqis queue to leave country
More than three years after the invasion, Iraqis seem increasingly to want to leave the country. Reports come pouring in about Iraqi refugees overwhelming Syria, Jordan and other nations in the region. Last month the United Nations released a report that more than 150,000 Iraqis have been displaced since February.
Iraqis who do not have a passport head for the Mansur Passport Office in Baghdad. Most spend the night there to be in with a chance. But no one believes this system works perfectly well. Several people in the queue suggested that the government hands out about 100 passports a day, the rest sold on a sort of black market.
Yahoo News, 4/7/06
Blair puts faith in security handover....
Prime Minister Tony Blair said "significant numbers" of British troops could be withdrawn from Iraq within 18 months. "I suspect over the next 18 months there will obviously be opportunities to draw down significant numbers of British troops because the capacity of the Iraqi troops will build up," he added.
British and Australian troops in southern Iraq are preparing to leave Muthanna province next month in the first such handover to Iraqi forces.
AFP, 4/7/06
...and leaves chaos behind
A provincial police chief resigned Tuesday and the governor said he would leave his post after coalition forces turn over security to Iraqi forces in the southern area later this month, citing fears that violence will increase.
A member of the Muthanna provincial council said the decisions were made at a meeting after nearly 300 fired policemen stormed into the local government headquarters in Samawah earlier in the day to protest their lost jobs. Other former policemen also reportedly beat another council member after breaking into his house Monday night. Another council member, speaking on condition of anonymity because he said he wasn't authorized to disclose the information, said earlier that other members of the panel also had offered to resign to protest the security handover because Iraqi forces were not ready.
Associated Press, 4/7/06
Deaths still at 1,000 a month
Deaths among Iraq civilians, police and soldiers dropped slightly last month but the number of wounded rose, indicating little easing of violence since the killing of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, government figures showed Monday. The tallies from the defense, interior and health ministries did not specify how many of the deaths and injuries occurred before the June 7 airstrike that killed the al-Qaida in Iraq leader.
Of the 1,006 Iraqis reported killed in political or sectarian violence last month, 885 were civilians, according to figures obtained by The Associated Press. The overall figure was down from the 1,053 deaths recorded by the three ministries in May. Despite the dip in deaths, the number of Iraqis wounded rose from 1,426 in May to 1,769 in June. In all, about 5,062 Iraqis were killed and 6,898 were wounded in the first six months of this year, the figures said.
Associated Press, 3/7/06
Britons criticise imperial US
The United States is no longer a symbol of hope to Britain and the British no longer have confidence in their transatlantic cousins to lead global affairs, according to a poll in The Daily Telegraph. The poll found that only 12 percent of Britons trust them to act wisely on the global stage. This is half the number who had faith in the Vietnam-scarred White House of 1975.
A massive 83 percent of those questioned said that the United States doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks. US President George W. Bush fared significantly worse, with just one percent rating him a "great leader" against 77 percent who deemed him a "pretty poor" or "terrible" leader.
More than two-thirds who offered an opinion said America is essentially an imperial power seeking world domination. And 81 per cent of those who took a view said President George W Bush hypocritically championed democracy as a cover for the pursuit of American self-interests. US policy in Iraq was similarly derided, with only 24 percent saying they felt that the US military action there was helping to bring democracy to the country.
AFP, 3/7/06
Sunni political bloc boycott parliament
Iraq's prime minister visited Gulf Arab leaders on Monday to win support for his plan to end communal bloodshed, but new bombings and a boycott of parliament by Sunni Arab lawmakers underlined the difficulty of his task.
Eleven people were killed when bombs exploded in crowded markets north and south of Baghdad, while mortar rounds landed in a market in the capital itself, wounding 10.
Iraq's main Sunni political bloc boycotted parliament for a second day and said the walkout would last until a colleague was freed by gunmen who seized her in a Shi'ite area of Baghdad on Saturday - seemingly accusing pro-government Shi'ite militias.
No one has claimed responsibility for kidnapping Taiseer Najah al-Mashhadani and her seven bodyguards, but Sunni leaders have long accused Shi'ite militias of targeting Sunnis.
Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki reached out to Sunnis in his national reconciliation plan unveiled last week, which seeks to end the three-year-old Sunni insurgency and sectarian violence that has pushed Iraq to the brink of all-out civil war.
Reuters 3/7/06
GIs planned rape and murder
Investigators believe American soldiers spent nearly a week plotting an attack in which they raped an Iraqi woman, then killed her and her family in an insurgent-ridden area south of Baghdad, a U.S. military official said Saturday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing, said the attack appeared "totally premeditated" and that the soldiers apparently "studied" the family for about a week before carrying out the attack.
The Americans entered the home, separated three family members from the woman, then raped her and set fire to her body, the official said. The three others were also slain. A senior Army official who also requested anonymity because the investigation is ongoing said one of the victims was a child.
U.S. officials said they knew of the deaths but thought the victims died due to sectarian violence. A local police official, Capt. Ihsan Abdul-Rahman, said Iraqi officials received a report March 13 alleging that American soldiers had killed the family in the Khasir Abyad district about 6 miles north of Mahmoudiya. He said he did not relay that report to American forces.
Yahoo News, 1/7/06
UK told to expect more casualties
The commander of British forces in Afghanistan warned on Sunday night that there would be more UK casualties hours after two soldiers were killed in a battle with the Taliban.
The soldiers were killed on Saturday after Taliban rebels attacked their base in Helmand province, where five British troops have been killed in the past three weeks.
Captain Drew Gibson from the British base in Helmand said that heavy casualties were not unexpected, but when outgoing British defence secretary John Reid visited Helmand in April, he said that ideally British troops would be able to get through their deployment without a shot being fired, an aspiration that now seems a dream.
Afghanistan is the world's top producer of the opium used to make heroin, and Helmand province is the centre of the country's narcotics trade, accounting for more than a third of output and providing a base for regional smuggling networks.
Nato is set to take command of 8,000 troops across southern Afghanistan at the end of this month in what will be a test for the 36-member alliance. Troops must stem violence that has reached heights not seen since 2001, as the Taliban have wrested control from the government in districts close to the main southern city of Kandahar.
Financial Times 2/7/06
Growing threats for UK in Iraq, Afghanistan
British troops are facing growing threats in Iraq and Afghanistan as the security situation worsens in both countries, a committee of lawmakers said Sunday.
The panel also said in its foreign policy report that the danger of another terrorist attack in Britain is high. "The continued deterioration in the security situation in Iraq is extremely worrying, as are the deepening sectarian and ethnic dimensions of the violence," the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee said in its report on the foreign policy aspects of the anti-terror fight.
While British, American and allied forces hope to eventually hand off responsibilities to Iraqi troops, the country's forces "remain a long way from being able to take the lead on security across Iraq," the lawmakers said.
The reliance on Shiite and Kurdish soldiers to build up troop numbers has added to tensions in a country already riven by ethnic violence, the lawmakers said.
Britain has roughly 7,200 troops in Iraq, and the report said they face extremely difficult conditions. Violence is also on the rise in Afghanistan, it noted. "There are signs that the tactics that have brought such devastation to Iraq are being replicated in Afghanistan," the lawmakers said.
Britain has more than 3,000 troops in Afghanistan, many of them part of a NATO force in the restive south, where Taliban militants are mounting a push to regain control.
Seattle Post Intelligencer 1/7/06
US troops accused of rape and murder
The US military is investigating whether American soldiers raped an Iraqi woman and then killed her and three members of her family, including a child, south of Baghdad in March, officials said yesterday. It is the latest in a series of military investigations in which US troops are suspected of killing civilians in Iraq.
In the latest case one of the soldiers who came forward with information about the crime said two soldiers were involved in the rape of the woman and then one of them killed her, a child and two adults, in their home.
The soldier suspected of killing the four family members was discharged from the military and is back in the United States, a US Army official said. The official did not provide the reason for the discharge. The soldiers were reported to have returned from the scene with bloodstains on their clothes. No one has yet been charged.
Independent, 1/7/06
Hundreds of mercenaries have been killed
Iraq is a war zone, and the death of a private security guard rates little mention. Yet private companies employing former soldiers and police officers to protect government officials and corporate heads has become a phenomenon of this conflict, leading to questions about not only their safety, but how well they are vetted and controlled.
They are a private army, and more than 60 companies, employing at least 25,000 security guards, now work in Iraq protecting government, non-government organisations and private contractors. US and British companies have received much of this work, during which hundreds of private contractors have reportedly been killed.
The Age, Australia, 1/7/06
Guantanamo trials illegal
The US supreme court delivered a devastating blow to the powers of the Bush administration in the war on terror, ruling that it had overstepped its authority by setting up military tribunals to try Guantanamo detainees in violation of the Geneva convention and US law.
The 5-3 decision was widely seen as a rebuke to the core argument of the White House that Mr Bush as wartime president has powers normally reserved for the legislature and the judiciary. It also implicitly outlaws rendition, torture and other coercive techniques banned under the Geneva convention, lawyers said.
Guardian 30/6/05