These are the archives for the week ending 27th May 2005
Iran U-turn on reformers
Iran's political watchdog, the Guardians Council, has agreed to allow reformists Mostafa Moin and Mohsen Mehr-Alizadeh to stand in next month's presidential election. Tuesday's U-turn was made in response to a demand from supreme leader Ayat Allah Ali Khamenei amid fears that the disqualification of reformers would prompt voters to boycott the poll and present the 26-year-old Islamic government with a crisis of legitimacy, state media reported.
Aljazeera, 24/5/05
Plans to divide Iraq
As Iraq begins writing its new constitution, leaders in the country's southern regions are pushing aggressively to unite their three provinces into an oil-rich, semi-autonomous state, a plan that some worry could solidify Iraq's sectarian tensions, create fights over oil revenues and eventually split the nation. In the southern Shiite Muslim city of Basra, where the provincial government launched the campaign, signs on the streets encourage residents to support the plan.
Local leaders have held several conferences to map out their proposed state and regional government. The discussion has created tension in Basra between Shiites and the Sunni Arab minority there. Some Sunnis already have left because they think the proposed new region excludes them. That response has some fretting that a state defined partly on religion could fuel the sectarianism that's engulfed the country since the Jan. 30 parliamentary elections.
Kansas City Star, 24/5/05
Second major US assault
About 1,000 U.S. Marines, sailors and soldiers encircled this Euphrates River city in the troubled Anbar province Wednesday, killing at least three insurgents after launching the second major operation in this vast western region in less than a month, an official said.
Helicopters swept down near palm tree groves, dropping off Marines who blocked off one side of Haditha, while other troops on foot and in armored vehicles established checkpoints and began moving toward the center of this city, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. U.S. warplanes circled overhead.
Marines took over several homes in Haditha, using them as observation and control centers as other troops fanned out through the city's mainly empty streets in an apparent bid to flush any insurgents out. "A lot of this is like bird hunting. You rustle it up and see what comes up," said Marine Col. Stephen W. Davis, commander of the operation.
USA Today, 25/5/05
Raids fuel resistance
Thousands of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers poured through Baghdad, detaining at least 285 suspected insurgents since Sunday in house-to-house searches and reportedly finding $6 million in a batch of $100 bills, the preferred currency for paying insurgent hit men and bomb-makers. Bystanders were also apparently caught up in the dragnet, however. Some Iraqis said that while Operation Squeeze Play took some insurgents off the streets, it's also likely to fuel the same cycle that has hounded the American presence for two years: angering moderate Iraqis while giving insurgents a friendlier environment in which to carry out attacks.
Raad Mutlek, a Sunni Muslim, was sitting in a candy shop in Baghdad's Abu Ghurayb neighborhood Monday. He was filling in for the shop's owner, his cousin, who was detained the day before during Operation Squeeze Play. ``They came here and detained people randomly,'' Mutlek said. ``The families of the innocent people who have been detained will seek revenge.''
One Shiite politician warned that the raids could lead to more problems. ``We have advised them that these random attacks on people and houses gives the insurgents a bigger base,'' said Hadi al-Ameri, an Iraqi lawmaker and commander of the Shiite Muslim Badr Brigade. The U.S. military said the raids accomplished their mission.
Mercury News, 24/5/05
Iranian Council bans reformists from election
The Iranian regime was yesterday facing fresh protests after powerful clerics disqualified reformists from standing in next month's presidential elections and approved just six, mostly hardline candidates. Iran's top political watchdog, the Guardians Council, announced late Sunday that just six out of 1,014 would-be candidates would be allowed to stand in the June 17 polls.
Eliminated was the main pro-reform candidate Mostafa Moin, leaving religious right-wingers all but certain of taking over from incumbent reformist President Mohammad Khatami. As expected all of the 89 women seeking to stand were also disqualified. The Guardians Council had said it would bar women from the presidency.
A record 1,014 people had registered for a chance to stand in the presidential polls, but all were subject to screening by the Guardians Council -- an unelected body has the power to vet all laws and candidates for public office.
Tapei Times, 24/5/05
US kills civilians in Pakistan
A battle between U.S. forces and militants in eastern Afghanistan spilled across the border into Pakistan during the weekend, and witnesses said American rocket fire had killed five Pakistani tribesmen. U.S. attack helicopters opened fire in Lawara Mandai, a Pakistani border town in the North Waziristan tribal region, as American forces pursued a dozen men who the U.S. military said had staged an ambush, officials and local residents said.
Although Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf quietly allows U.S. "hot pursuit" missions when guerrillas cross into his country from Afghanistan, opposition groups have denounced the American incursions as illegal attacks on Pakistani territory.
Los Angeles Times, 23/5/05
Bush refuses to cede US control in Afghanistan.....
President Bush on Monday told Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the United States will neither cede control of its troops in Afghanistan nor immediately return Afghan detainees from American custody. In their meeting, Karzai unsuccessfully sought from Bush the release of all Afghan prisoners in U.S. custody before parliamentary elections in October and an agreement that U.S. troops would secure permission from his government before raiding homes in Afghanistan.
Despite their differences, Bush and Karzai went to lengths in a joint appearance to praise and thank each other. Karzai needs Bush's continued support to maintain stability and ensure progress in his largely poor and undeveloped country. Bush can't afford to have Afghanistan, a showpiece in his pro-democracy agenda, fall apart in a civil war. The administration also hopes that the spread of freedom will help ease relations between the Israelis and Palestinians.
Houston Chronicle, 24/5/05
....and troops will stay indefinitely
President Bush and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan signed a landmark agreement yesterday to keep American troops in that country indefinitely and commit the United States to the long-term reconstruction of the fragile Afghan democracy.
Boston Globe, 24/5/05
"We will cut off the arms" of insurgents
Bombings targeting U.S. and Iraqi forces and Shiite Arab civilians at worship, at lunch, at home and on the road killed more than 50 people across Iraq on Monday, officials said, heightening sectarian tensions and taking the death toll past 600 since a new government was installed less than a month ago.
Iraq's Shiite-led administration, meanwhile, tried to portray itself as taking control of security. Iraqi television aired extended broadcasts of the trial of three accused insurgents facing the death penalty, and a new music video introduced on state TV featured Abul Waleed, commander of a feared police commando unit, saying: "We will cut off the arms" of insurgents.
Washington Post, 24/5/05
Security chief assassinated
The commander of an Iraqi counter-terrorism unit has been assassinated in a further demonstration of the insurgency's penetration of government structures. Maj-Gen Wael al-Rubaye, a security adviser to the Iraqi cabinet, was shot dead while being driven to work.
Independent, 24/5/05
British fighting secret war in north.....
The SAS has shot dead 12 insurgents in a secret war to protect Iraq's borders. The incident is described in a leaked document drawn up by American and Iraqi intelligence. It said the Special Air Service soldiers "engaged" the Arab insurgents crossing the border from Syria. Following a brief encounter, all 12 were killed. The report noted that those entering the country were not usually heavily armed as they collected weapons after arriving in Iraq.
Sunday Times, 22/5/05
....and paying the price
An RAF special forces aircraft that crashed in Iraq killing 10 servicemen on January 30 this year was shot down by insurgents with a volley of rockets or missiles, the media reported today quoting investigators. The crash was the worst loss of life suffered by British forces in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.
British officials originally thought the loss had been much worse. Only a few hours earlier, the aircraft had taken about 50 men from G Squadron, 22 SAS Regiment, down to Baghdad from the US base at Balad. The SAS had been using Balad as a forward operating base for missions inside the Sunni triangle, the heart of the Iraqi insurgency.
Quoting a source, the report dismissed a statement by Air Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, Chief of the Air Staff, on the day after the Iraq crash that the flight was "routine" as "either misinformed or possibly deliberate disinformation".
The Hindu, 22/5/05
US digs in for long haul
U.S. military commanders have prepared plans to consolidate American troops in Iraq into four large air bases as they look ahead to giving up more than 100 other bases now occupied by international forces, officers said. The new, sturdier buildings will give the bases a more permanent character, the officers acknowledged. But they said the consolidation plan was not meant to establish a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq.
Nonetheless, the consolidation plan appears to reflect a judgment by U.S. military commanders that American forces are likely to be in Iraq for some years, even after their numbers begin to decline, and that they probably will continue to face danger.
Washington Post, 22/5/05
Bush claims progress
President Bush says the United States is making strides in defeating terrorists and advancing freedom across the world, even as anti-American protests escalate in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush said he'll discuss "freedom's remarkable progress" in Afghanistan when he meets Monday with visiting President Hamid Karzai.
But deadly anti-American protests across Afghanistan are threatening Karzai's central government. Bush also cited democratic change in Iraq, where thousands of Shiites this week stomped on American flags painted on roads outside mosques in a show of anger over the U.S. presence there.
USA Today, 21/5/05
Mosques close in protest
From the minarets of Baghdad, Sunni muezzins Saturday issued their five-times-a-day call to prayer, but added: "Remain where you are to say your prayers" as the mosques remained closed to protest recent unexplained murders of civilians and clerics that some Sunni Arab leaders have blamed on a Shiite group with links to the government.
Sunni Arabs have accused the Badr Organisation, linked to one of the dominant parties in the Shiite-led government coalition, of the recent killing of dozens of Sunnis, including three imams.
Aljazeera, 21/5/05
Outsourcing the death count
There are 50,000 to 100,000 contractors working in Iraq, experts believe, though reliable estimates are hard to come by. The number of contractors killed is just as difficult to pin down, partly because the employers often keep the deaths quiet.
The U.S. military death toll, now over 1,620, would be higher but for the number of military tasks contracted out to the private sector, say analysts. ''Outsourcing troops not only outsources costs and capabilities, but also casualties,'' said Peter W. Singer, who specializes in the topic for the Washington-based Brookings Institution. Security firms ''have sent more troops and taken more casualties than all of our other reluctant allies combined.''
The U.S. Labor Department reports at least 305 cases where death benefits have been claimed for private contractors working in Iraq many by families of Iraqis who worked for U.S. companies, but the Labor Department wouldn't provide a breakdown by nationality. The total number of contractors killed is larger, but the true figure is difficult to estimate because many firms don't publicize workers' deaths and the U.S. government statistics aren't comprehensive.
Boston Globe, 21/5/05
US 'reluctantly' in control
Facing an intensifying insurgency and a frail government in Baghdad, the Bush administration has reluctantly changed course to deepen its involvement in the process of running Iraq. The change comes at a time when confidence in the government elected in January has been falling and U.S. officials have grown more pessimistic about how quickly Iraqi security forces will be able to take charge of the counterinsurgency effort.
U.S. officials acknowledged that they are pressing hard for Iraq to move ahead. While Iraqis are making the choices, the U.S. officials said, the Americans have "red lines" that their partners can't cross. One official said that while the Iraqis "are the ultimate determinants of their own destiny .... we have 140,000 troops here, and they are getting shot at. We're also spending a lot of money.... "
"We don't dictate action plans," the official said. "But we constantly remind them that we're working toward the same goal, and we have our 'red lines.' "
Los Angeles Times, 22/5/05
Sunni conference
More than 1,000 Sunni Arab clerics, political leaders and tribal heads ended their two-year boycott of politics in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq on Saturday, uniting in a Sunni bloc that they said would help draft the country's new constitution and compete in elections. The bloc represents moderate and hard-line members of the Association of Muslim Scholars, the Iraqi Islamic Party and other main groups of the disgruntled Sunni minority.
In a statement adopted at the meeting, the Sunni leaders called for "liberating'' Iraq from U.S.-led forces "by all legal means.'' The statement condemned "all terrorist acts that target civilians, no matter the reason,'' but said, "resisting the occupier is a legitimate right.'' Speakers accused the Shiite-dominated security forces of raiding mosques, killings and committing other violence against the Sunni minority.
"I swear to God, if the government or someone does not take care of this and solve our problem, then we will all fight them. No one will stop us, and no one will blame us,'' Lateef Migual Dulaymi, a tribal leader from the southeast, told delegates as he detailed allegations of harassment, drawing cries of approval.
Washington Post, 22/5/05
US stuck in prolonged war
The Bush administration has finally awakened to the grave dangers that Iraq's new government is courting by failing to reach out convincingly to credible representatives of the disaffected Sunni Arab minority. Washington's concern helped prompt Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's urgent mission to Baghdad earlier this week. Unless her pleas for greater inclusiveness are heeded, the new government will not be able to establish the nationwide legitimacy it needs to draw significant numbers of Sunnis away from the continuing insurgency.
The implications of that are clear. As senior U.S. military commanders now acknowledge, Iraqi forces aren't militarily strong enough to prevail over the insurgency and will not be for a long time. If Baghdad continues to shun a serious political strategy to draw away Sunni support from the insurgents, large numbers of U.S. troops will be stuck fighting a prolonged and bloody counterinsurgency war in much of northern and western Iraq.
International Herald Tribune, 21/5/05
Britain denies soldiers' families an inquiry
The British government declined a request from the families of soldiers killed in Iraq for an investigation into the legality of the war, according to a letter made public Friday. Lawyers for the Treasury wrote to the 10 families' lawyers that their contention that the European Convention on Human Rights obliged the government to set up an independent inquiry was ''fundamentally misconceived.''
The families made the Treasury's May 18 letter public and said they would seek a judicial review of the government's denial. Tony Blair had already rejected publicly their request for an inquiry, saying it was not necessary to go ''back over this ground again and again.''
Boston Globe, 20/5/05
Afghan prisoners kicked to death
Shocking and detailed accounts have emerged of how two Afghan prisoners were tortured to death by American interrogators and prison guards at Bagram air base, outside Kabul. A 2,000-page report on an internal investigation by the US military leaked to The New York Times and published yesterday provides exhaustive detail on how the two were kept chained in excruciating positions and kicked to death.
The report comes at a dangerous time in Afghanistan, with violence increasing and signs that the Taliban may be resurgent.
Independent, 21/5/05