These are the archives for the week ending 9th September 2005
Explosion in Basra
At least 16 people have been killed and 20 injured in a car bomb attack in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. The explosion took place on Wednesday evening outside a restaurant near the city centre which was packed with members of the Iraqi security forces. It was the worst car bombing in Basra since the US-led invasion in 2003.
The attack follows the killing of four US security guards and two British soldiers in separate incidents near Basra earlier this week.
BBC News, 8/9/05
The 'rush' of war
Michelle Maxwell, worked in a nursing home in Austin, Minn. Then eight months ago, the Army National Guard specialist, 21, was sent to Iraq, taught to operate the heavy machine gun turret of a Humvee and told to shoot or run over anybody who threatened the truck convoys she was assigned to protect. "I said, `There's just no way.' I put old people to bed. There's no way I could run over a kid," Maxwell said.
That was before she saw fellow soldiers in her transportation unit getting blown up on the roads of northern Iraq. Now she talks about the "rush" of confronting insurgent attacks, forcing civilian traffic out of the way and stitching the pavement with her machine gun if another vehicle gets too close.
San Jose Mercury News, 8/9/05
Mercenaries killed
A roadside bomb struck a convoy of American security guards Wednesday in the southern city of Basra, killing four U.S. contractors, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said. An estimated 20,000 civilians are believed to be working for private defence contractors in Iraq. More than 200 have died there, including 13 employed by Moyock, N.C.-based Blackwater Security Consulting.
Southern Iraq, where some 8,500 British troops are deployed, has been mostly calm since U.S. and British forces occupied Iraq more than two years ago. However, violence has increased there in the past two months.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 8/9/05
Clarke confronts judges on terror law
The home secretary, Charles Clarke, has given a fresh warning to judges not to frustrate his decision to deport terror suspects by insisting the courts respect human rights deals struck with countries like Jordan.
His insistence that the courts should not follow existing European case law in this areas is the strongest indication that the government is serious about changing "the rules of the game" in the fight against terrorism.
It also shows that ministers are prepared to challenge judges directly in their attempt to deport suspected international terrorists and extremists who incite hatred in Britain.
Mr Clarke's warning comes as he prepares to appeal today to the European parliament in Strasbourg to overcome its civil liberites concerns and back a wide-ranging package of anti-terror measurers, including the retention of personal internet and mobile phone records for 12 months or more.
Guardian 7/9/05
Seven paras accused of murder
An army court martial yesterday heard the first graphic account of how seven British soldiers allegedly carried out a 'brutal' and 'unprovoked' attack on a group of Iraqi civilians that led to the death of an unarmed teenager from severe head injuries.
The paratroopers, who appeared at the court martial hearing in Colchester, Essex, and have been charged with murder, were alleged to have used rifle butts, helmets, fists and feet to batter the occupants of an intercepted Toyota pick-up truck.
The chief prosecuter, Martin Heslop QC, said: "This is not a case of soldiers responding to an attack nor being required to defend themselves in an operational engagement. This was nothing more than gratutious violence meted out to unarmed civilians" he added that witnesses had described the soldiers laughing and clapping their hands during the assault.
Guardian 6/9/05
Civilians flee Tal Afar
The area of Qala in Talafar District was under intense US air strikes and ground assaults as part of the security actions that started months ago in attempt to control the district, where frequent clashes between insurgents and US and Iraqi forces occurred. Citizens fleeing the city said that thousands of families left the city due to the intense bombings that destroyed a number of houses killing and wounding many people, while others escaped to the suburbs, asserting that they are suffering of shortage of food, water, and medical services.
The Human Rights Center of Iraq demanded allowing humanitarian organizations and rescue teams into Talafar to provide aid for civilians, especially children and elders forced to evacuate their houses due to the random bombing. It called for solving this issue with peaceful measures to preserve the safety of this city and save Iraq from turning into a field for hunting down terrorists at the expense of civilians.
Kuwait News Agency, 5/9/05
Fuel shortages halt transport
The country with the world's third largest oil reserves should not run out of fuel. But Iraq has come perilously close to doing just that. To save fuel, and to general confusion, the government has ordered half the capital's car fleet off the roads on any given day.
CNN, 6/9/05
No amendment to constitution draft
Iraq's main Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim sects abandoned efforts to amend a draft constitution on Tuesday and a version rejected by many Sunnis will be printed. "The talks have ended. We did not reach any agreement on making changes to the draft. It will be printed in the form it was read to the National Assembly last week," according to Bahaa al-Araji, a member of the parliamentary drafting committee. "No changes will be made," he said, adding that five million copies will be printed, starting on Thursday.
Many Sunni leaders have vowed to ensure the draft constitution is rejected in its present form. "We are ... very sad that they took this decision even though they know what will happen to this country if they pass it in this form," Saleh al-Mutlak, a senior negotiator for Sunni Arabs, told Reuters.
Reuters, 6/9/05
US too involved in new constitution
U.S. influence in the process of drafting a onstitution for Iraq is excessive and "highly inappropriate", a United Nations official says. "It is a matter of public record that in the final weeks of the process the newly arrived U.S. ambassador (Zalmay Khalizad) took an extremely hands-on role," Justin Alexander, legal affairs officer for the office of constitutional support with the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq told IPS. "Even going so far as to circulate at least one U.S draft."
Zaid al-Ali, a legal expert who also oversaw the drafting process in Baghdad, made a similar case. "There are three ways in which the occupation intervened in the context of Iraq's constitution-writing process," he said. "Firstly, the occupation authorities selected and affected the makeup of the commission that was charged with drafting Iraq's transitional law, and its permanent constitution. Second, the occupation determined the limits and parameters within which the constitution was to be drafted. Third, the occupation authorities intervened directly in order to safeguard its interests in the context of the constitutional negotiations."
Al-Ali said it was significant that one article in the draft constitution on foreign military bases was dropped from the final version. "One article contained in a previous draft provided that setting up foreign military bases in Iraq was to be forbidden, and that the only way in which this could be deviated from would have been by a two-thirds majority vote in Parliament." Al-Ali said "this article was dropped from the final draft of the constitution."
Inter Press Service, 5/9/05
Death penalty returns to Iraq
Human rights organisations have condemned the execution of three men, convicted of murder in Iraq, saying that it was a brutal decision.
Amnesty International strongly deplored the hangings of the three men and described the executions as "a deeply retrograde step" in the progress of democracy in Iraq.
"We deeply condemn the abuse of human rights by armed groups in Iraq, however the use of death penalty is a cruel and inhumane way to punish a crime with another crime," said Nicole Choueiry, the Middle East spokesperson for Amnesty International.
The Iraqi government on 1 September executed the three men in the city of Kut, 170km southeast of the capital. The hangmen followed the procedures of the old British colonial rule which causes the neck to snap and produces a quick death.
Many Iraqis have questioned whether the country's judicial system, which lacks transparency, is capable of determining guilt or innocence beyond enough reasonable doubt to allow the use of the death penalty.
Reuters 5/11/05
British death toll in Iraq reaches 94
Two British soldiers died when a roadside bomb exploded in southern Iraq today.
The two were travelling in an armoured Land Rover five miles east of Shaibah, in the British-patrolled Basra province, when the device detonated.
Today's casualties bring the British military death toll to 94 since the outbreak of hostilities in Iraq in March 2003.
Daily Mail 5/9/05
Iraq becomes drug transit point
Fears that lawless postwar Iraq is becoming a haven for international drug trafficking have escalated after the country's biggest seizure of heroin. Officers posing as would-be buyers have found 20 kilograms of the drug hidden in a car, the latest in a string of increasingly large seizures in the past year. The Afghan-produced heroin comes in via Iraq's porous border with Iran, creating what United Nations officials say is an important new drug route to Europe.
Sydney Morning Herald, 5/9/05
US plan major attack on Tal Afar
To the north, fighting raged for a second day Saturday in the outskirts of Tal Afar, an ethnically mixed insurgent stronghold. U.S. and Iraqi officials urged civilians to leave affected areas of the city, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad, a sign that the Americans were preparing a major assault.
U.S. forces crushed insurgents in Tal Afar last fall, leaving only about 500 American soldiers behind and handing over control to the Iraqis. But Iraqi authorities lost control of the city, and insurgent ranks swelled. That forced the U.S. command to shift the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment from the Baghdad area to Tal Afar to restore order. On Saturday, U.S. and Iraqi forces were firing at insurgents on the western side of the city, Iraqi officials said.
Elsewhere, American and Iraqi forces were moving house-to-house, searching for weapons and arresting men capable of firing them, Iraqi authorities said. Hospital officials said they were unsure of casualties because it was too dangerous for ambulances to reach the area. Officials said they hoped to get ambulances into the area Sunday.
Pravda, 4/9/05
Widespread resistance attacks
Iraqi insurgents launched a series of deadly attacks on police and local army units in and around Baqubah on Saturday, killing at least 19 Iraqi security force members around the city about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. Meanwhile, in the northern city of Tal Afar, Iraqi and U.S. forces remained locked in an intense battle with insurgents.
Gunmen also launched attacks in several other Iraqi cities with large Sunni populations, including Kirkuk and Samarra. At least 26 people were killed Saturday in the violence across Iraq.
Los Angeles Times, 4/9/05
Iraqi deaths are more than double their pre war level
The results of a recent study indicate that Iraqi civilian deaths have risen drastically since the United States invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The study, carried out byJohns Hopkins University professor Les Roberts and other researchers, shows that in the 14 months prior to the invasion, 46 deaths occurred in about 1,000 households surveyed, compared to 142 after the invasion; Iraqis, he said, were 2.5 times more likely to die after the war began.
Whereas most deaths before the invasion were attributable to heart attacks, strokes, and other ailments, most deaths after it were the result of violence. Moreover, Roberts reported that the coalition was responsible for 84% of these violent deaths.
Information Clearing House, 2/9/05
NATO to increase role in Afghanistan
NATO's top commander has said the alliance is planning for an expanded role in Afghanistan beyond the nation's Sept. 18 parliamentary elections. NATO's role would merge U.N.-mandated security assistance with U.S.-led combat operations, said U.S. Gen. James Jones. Such a move could free U.S. troops in Afghanistan for deployment to Iraq.
WebIndia123.com, 2/9/05