These are the archives for the week ending 31st March 2006
UK court upholds detention without trial
A terror suspect being held by UK forces in Iraq without charge or court access has lost the latest round of a test case challenge over his detention. Hilal al-Jedda, who has dual British and Iraqi nationality, has been held in Basra since October 2004.
The Court of Appeal dismissed his challenge to a High Court ruling in August. During last August's hearing, Nigel Giffin QC, appearing for Mr Jedda, said his client had "simply been interned" by army officers using powers claimed to have been provided by UN Security Council Resolution 1546, passed in June 2004. This internment breached Mr Jedda's Article 5 right under the European Convention on Human Rights not to be deprived of his liberty, except in accordance with due legal process, he said.
The MoD has defended the detention on the grounds that the UN resolution "disapplied" all human rights protection from terror suspects and authorised a system of indefinite detention without trial.
BBC News, 29/3/06
A growing number of refugees
Sectarian violence has displaced more than 25,000 Iraqis since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine, a U.N.-affiliated agency said Tuesday, and shelters and tent cities are springing up across central and southern Iraq to house homeless Sunni and Shiite families.
The flight is continuing, according to the International Organization for Migration, which works closely with the United Nations and other groups. The result has been a population exchange as Sunni and Shiite families flee mixed communities for the safety of areas where their own sects predominate.
Washington Post, 28/3/06
Official: Don't trust security services
I sat late last night switching between Iraqi channels (the half dozen or so I sometimes try to watch). It's a late-night tradition for me when there's electricity- to see what the Iraqi channels are showing...I was reading the little scrolling news headlines on the bottom of the page. The usual- mortar fire on an area in Baghdad, an American soldier killed here, another one wounded there. 12 Iraqi corpses found in an area in Baghdad, etc.
Suddenly, one of them caught my attention and I sat up straight on the sofa, wondering if I had read it correctly. ...The line said: "The Ministry of Defense requests that civilians do not comply with the orders of the army or police on nightly patrols unless they are accompanied by coalition forces working in that area."
That's how messed up the country is at this point. It confirmed what has been obvious to Iraqis since the beginning- the Iraqi security forces are actually militias allied to religious and political parties. But it also brings to light other worrisome issues. The situation is so bad on the security front that the top two ministries in charge of protecting Iraqi civilians cannot trust each other. The Ministry of Defense can't even trust its own personnel, unless they are "accompanied by American coalition forces".
Baghdad Burning (http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/), 28/3/06
Rival Shia groups unite against US
Senior ministers from the three main Shia factions united yesterday to denounce an American raid on a Baghdad mosque complex in which at least 20 people died, opening the biggest rift between the US and Iraq's majority Shia community since the toppling of Saddam Hussein.
"At evening prayers, American soldiers accompanied by Iraqi troops raided the Mustafa mosque and killed 37 people" said Abd al-Karim al-Enzi, the security minister, who belongs to the Dawa party of the prime minister, Ibrahim al Jaafari.
"They (the victims) were unarmed. They went in, tied up the people and shot them all. They did not leave any wounded."
Baghdad's governor, Hussein Tahan, a member of the rival Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (Sciri), announced that local officials were ending their contacts with the Americans in protest at the killings.
The interior minister, Bayan Jabr, also of Sciri, who has been strongly criticised by the US embassy for his links with militias, said "Entering the mosque and killing worshippers was a horrible violation. Innocent people inside offering prayer at sunset were killed."
The Americans insisted yesterday that they had raided the complex after receiving intelligence that it was being used to hold hostages, store weapons and harbour insurgents. Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson said "It was not identified by us as a mosque. I think this is a matter of perception".
Ihssan Kamel Ali, who was in the mosque at the time, said "What upset me most was that there was a wounded man. An Iraq soldier asked an officer what to do with him. The officer said 'Just finish him off'.
Guardian 28/3/06
Soldiers flee to Canada
Hundreds of deserters from the US armed forces have crossed into Canada and are now seeking political refugee status there, arguing that violations of the rules of war in Iraq by the US entitle them to asylum.
A decision on a test case involving two US servicemen is due shortly and is being watched with interest by fellow service-men on both sides of the border.
At least 20 others have already applied for asylum and there are an estimated 400 in Canada out of more than 9,000 who have deserted since the conflict started in 2003.
Guardian 28/3/06
US push to remove Iraqi prime minister
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq has asked one of Iraq's most prominent Shiite politicians to seek the withdrawal of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's contentious nomination for a second term, two aides said Monday. The aides to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim said U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, had asked their boss during a meeting Saturday to personally deliver the message to al-Jaafari.
Ali al-Adeeb, a lawmaker with close ties to al-Jaafari and a member of his Dawa party, confirmed that he heard about Khalilzad's message. "The U.S. ambassador's position on al-Jaafari's nomination is negative. They want him (the prime minister) to be under their control," al-Adeeb said.
Forbes Business News, 27/3/06
Blair praise for America
British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday pledged to keep British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan until those countries are stabilized. "If the going is tough, we tough it out," Blair told a rare joint session of Australia's Parliament.
Blair told lawmakers that the "immediate threat is from Islamist extremism," which he said was "not a passing spasm of anger but a global ideology at war with us and our way of life." In a key foreign policy speech, Blair said the struggle was not just against "those who hate us," but also against opponents who believe Britain and its allies fight for their values selectively.
Blair also strongly defended the U.S. role in the struggle, saying the alliance he was describing "does not end with, but does begin with America."
He said that having Washington as an ally could sometimes be difficult, but said the United States was key to victory. "The danger with America today is not that they are too much involved, the danger is that they decide to pull up the drawbridge and disengage. We need them involved, we want them engaged," he said. "The reality is that none of the problems that press in on us can be resolved or even contemplated without them."
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 27/3/06
40 die in Mosul suicide bomb
At least 40 people have been killed by a suicide bomb inside a military base housing US and Iraqi forces near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. The attacker struck at an Iraqi police recruitment centre at the base in Kisk.
No Americans died, the US said. Up to 30 people were hurt in the blast, which went off among a crowd of recruits, Iraqi officials said.
BBC News, 27/3/06
Iraq ruling Shias demand control over security
Iraq's ruling Shia Islamist Alliance bloc demanded on Monday that U.S. forces return control of security to the Iraqi government after what it called "cold-blooded" killings of unarmed people by troops in a mosque.
"The Alliance calls for a rapid restoration of (control of) security matters to the Iraqi government," Jawad Al Maliki, a senior Alliance spokesman and ally of Prime Minister Ibrahim Al Jaafari, told a news conference. In angry tones, Khudair Al Khuzaie, another Alliance official, described the deaths at the Mustafa Shia mosque in Baghdad on Sunday evening as a "cold-blooded" killing.
Earlier, Iraq's minister of state for national security gave a death toll of 37, much higher than the 20 quoted by police, and renewed allegations that U.S. and Iraqi troops tied up worshippers and others in the mosque complex and shot them.
Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates, 27/3/06
US clashes with Al-Sadr
U.S. and Iraqi special forces killed at least 16 followers of the Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Sunday in a twilight assault on what the U.S. military said was a "terrorist cell" responsible for attacks on soldiers and civilians. Aides to Sadr said those killed were innocents praying in the al-Moustafa mosque in the Shaab neighborhood, well north of Adhamiyah, when the assault began at 6 p.m.
"I think we are going to have a firm stance against the American forces because of this crime," Salam al-Maliki, the country's transportation minister and a close Sadr ally, said on al-Iraqiya television. The network aired footage throughout the night of bloody bodies lying on a concrete floor and men wrapping the corpses in blankets by the light of glow sticks and carrying them away.
Washington Post, 27/3/06
US presses for talks, but may sidestep government
Iraqi leaders held their first formal talks in several days as Washington kept up pressure on them to form a national unity government to help quell sectarian and insurgent violence that saw 29 more people killed on Friday.
U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been a driving force in pressing for a unity government, said: "I am the one who's saying, 'The country is bleeding, you need to move'." U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld added his voice to increasingly urgent calls from Washington for a government deal to be completed -- leading senators visiting Baghdad this week lectured Iraqi politicians and spoke of American "impatience".
The leaders of the main parliamentary parties elected in December attended Friday's meeting, with the exception of secular former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a senior government source said. However, he was represented at the talks. Further talks are due on Saturday, although the leaders have made clear they first want to finalise an agreement to set up a National Security Council.
Allawi, with powerful backers in Washington, is widely tipped among senior political sources to play a leading role in the new Security Council, which some portray as a powerful parallel administration whose creation could sidestep deadlock among Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds on forming a unity government.
Reuters, 24/3/06
Reid: "problem of Iran has to be countered"
The Secretary of State for Defence, John Reid, has said the "world community" will not allow Iran to continue developing a nuclear weapon "without seriously taking some form of action".
In the clearest statement yet of the government's determination to prevent Iran's nuclear industry from growing to the point where it can produce weapons, Reid claimed the problem of Iran was "one that had to be countered".
Reid, in what will be interpreted as a coded political warning, said his favourite definition of diplomacy was "the art of saying, good dog , good dog, until you find a big enough rock" to bash the animal with.
On Iran, Reid claimed "up to this point we have engaged in diplomacy, we still are, it will go on that way."
Reid's overt warning to the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, comes in the week when the United States confirmed it was ready to open a dialogue with Iran. The offer of talks made last November by the USA had been ignored by Tehran. But last week the US ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said it was ready to hold talks with Iran that are expected to focus on accusations that Iran is helping in the destabilisation of Iraq.
Reid's comments on almost a conditional diplomacy backed by the threat of action from the world's community over the nuclear issue, is proof that the US and the UK want to see a unified stance against Ahmadinejad.
Sunday Herald 26/3/06
Bad news for Bush from 'liberated' Afghanistan
President Bush's recent pep rallies for the Iraq war seem designed primarily to bolster support for him and his war among true-believer Republicans.
That is why the case of the Afghan who could be sentenced to death in his native land for converting from Islam to Christianity has become a public issue at a terrible time for Bush.
There could hardly be a bigger slap in the face for Bush's conservative religious base. The case raises questions about the ultimate value of supposed efforts at Western-style democratization in the Middle East.
Religious conservatives especially are confronted with a key question: Did the United States supplant the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan only to install a government that adheres to a practice that reeks of the Dark Ages?
Have 255 U.S. military personnel died and 685 been wounded in the so-called Operation Enduring Freedom so that an Afghan government prosecutor can call the convert "a microbe (who) should be cut off and removed from the rest of Muslim society and should be killed"?
The short answer: Apparently yes, as some Afghan officials seek to enforce their view of Islamic law, known as sharia.
If this can happen in traditionally conservative Afghanistan, what should be expected from Iraq. It was once one of the most secular of Islamic nations, but the new Bush-blessed constitution gives increased, unspecified legal power to fundamentalist Islamic clerics.
Houston Chronicle 25/3/06
Battle for Baghdad
The battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims for control of Baghdad has already started, say Iraqi political leaders who predict fierce street fighting will break out as each community takes over districts in which it is strongest.
"The fighting will only stop when a new balance of power has emerged," Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish leader, said. "Sunni and Shia will each take control of their own area." He said sectarian cleansing had already begun.
Many Iraqi leaders now believe that civil war is inevitable but it will be confined, at least at first, to the capital and surrounding provinces where the population is mixed. "The real battle will be the battle for Baghdad where the Shia have increasing control," said one senior official who did not want his name published. "The army will disintegrate in the first moments of the war because the soldiers are loyal to the Shia, Sunni or Kurdish communities and not to the government." He expected the Americans to stay largely on the sidelines.
Independent, 25/3/06
Optimism and death
Iraq's president issued a highly optimistic report Friday on progress among politicians trying to hammer out the shape of a new unity government. Meanwhile, at least 51 more people, including two U.S. soldiers, were reported dead in rampant violence.
President Jalal Talabani said the government could be in place for parliamentary approval by the end of the month, but acknowledged, "I am usually a very optimistic person." He spoke to reporters after a fifth round of multi-party talks among the country's highly polarized political factions.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad brokered the sessions as the Bush administration is applying extreme pressure on Iraqi politicians to form a government. Washington hopes to begin withdrawing troops this summer, but is banking on a decrease in violence once a national unity government is in place.
Toronto Star, 24/3/06
UN calls for control of death squads
The United Nations on Wednesday called on Iraq's government to urgently assert control over the security forces and all armed groups in the war-torn country as cases of killings, torture, illegal detention and displacement are on surge.
"Throughout the reporting period, insurgent activities, including terrorist acts, intensified after Feb. 22 and continue to affect the civilian population, "the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) said in a bimonthly rights report covering the first two months of this year.
"Allegations that 'death squads' operate in the country grew stronger following the discovery by the (U.S.-led) Multinational Forces in Iraq and the Iraqi Security Forces of a suspicious group,acting within the structures of the Ministry of Interior," the report said.
The report pointed out that "families living in mixed neighborhoods were forcibly evicted from their homes or left voluntarily because of threats of violence from militias, insurgents and other armed groups." It added that civilians, "especially women and children," continue to bear the brunt of the human rights violations.
The seven-page report also emphasizes throughout the UN mission's apprehension over the treatment of detainees in Iraq, adding that international law and best practice must be upheld. UNAMI has repeatedly expressed concerns to relevant members of the government about allegations of systematic human rights violations in detention centers under the direct or indirect control of the Ministries of Interior and Defense.
China View, 23/3/06