64 Dead in Iraq; 4 US Troops Killed;
Bombings in Baghdad, Bodies in Baquba;
US vs. Mahdi Army in Diwaniya
AP reports that 64 persons were killed or found dead in Iraq on Saturday. Among them were 4 US troops, killed by a roadside bomb near Baquba.
27 bodies were found in Baquba, a mixed city northeast of the capital. Police found 7 bodies in the northern Turkmen city of Tal Afar. Karbala authorities said that 22 Shiite shepherds had been killed and that 6 of their bodies were found in al-Anbar province. Police found 12 bodies in Baghdad.
McClatchy says that guerrillas came into Baquba and chased 21 shopkeepers out of their shops, then burned them, causing over a million dinars of damage. Some parts of Baquba also took mortar fire on Saturday.
A car bomb in the Shiite Sadr City part of Baghdad killed 1 and wounded 5. Guerrillas in Baghdad set off 5 roadside bombs and sent mortar shells on some neighborhoods, wounding over a dozen Iraqis. US forces raided the offices of Khalaf al-Ulyan, a member of parliament from the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front.
Major fighting continued in Diwaniya between US forces, allied with the local police, and the Mahdi Army militia. The Shiite fundamentalist militia had been taking over entire neighborhoods of the city and making them offlimits to police and central government figures. Reuters says that local Iraqi authorities reported that 13 bodies came into the morgue and that 41 persons were injured. They said that 6 of the dead were non-combatants killed when US warplanes bombed a house said to be used by militiamen. The US maintained that only one person, a deadly militiaman, was killed in the attack.
Aljazeera reviews the reports of some Iraqi bloggers that the Wall Street Journal is not publishing.
Iran barred Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki from its air space during his trip to Japan Saturday evening. Al-Maliki had had good relations with Tehran and it is not clear why Iran took this step. A recently freed Iranian diplomat claimed Saturday that he had been tortured while in US custody.
The Telegraph has discovered documents indicating that the British authorities plan to have troops in Iraq through 2012 at least. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is claiming that a recent British raid on a police HQ in Basra violated Iraqi sovereignty. They want an apology.
A British captain who knows Arabic and Pushtu and has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan has concluded that both wars are wrongheaded and counter-productive and that good men are now getting killed for an effort that is a "shambles."
US detention centers in Iraq are alleged to be terrorist training grounds, according to the LAT.
William Douglas of the McClatchy wire service examines Bush's allegation that if the US leaves Iraq, the "terrorists will follow us here." He finds that security experts generally find the claim unsubstantiated and exaggerated. (I.e., it is propaganda, folks.)
Hannah Allam finds anxiety increasing among Saudi Arabia's newly emancipated Shiite Muslims that the violence in Iraq between Sunnis and Shiites will cost them. Moves toward granting them more rights by the Wahhabi authorities have slowed recently.
Labels: Iraq War
posted by Juan Cole @ 4/08/2007 12:30:00 AM
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4 Comments:
The Iranian authorities are losing the plot, and their actions are increasingly ad-hoc and arbitrary.
They reached a peak about a year ago, but were infected by the same delusional arrogance the USA had before the Iraq invasion.
They have made a lot of enemies in the Iraqi government, including Maliki. They tried and failed to replace the existing players with their SCIRI stooges. Iranian involvement in the mass abductions from Iraqi ministies have been established, and were aimed at destabilizing the government. Many of the thousands of Interior Ministry officials who have been sacked were Iranian agents. Iran's reaction to their removal was abismal, including a letter from a Qom ayatullah to "brother" Maliki informing him that the ministry was being taken over by Ba'athists (Sunnis) and instructing him to fix it!
Their centuries-old dream of region domination had been encouraged by the reports in the western media about Iran's ascendacy, but they were brought down to earth by the contacts with Turkey and Saudi in particular seeking to establish harmony and mutual respect in the region. This has been largely successful, to the dismay of Cheney-like figures in the Iranian establishment, causing argements and some irrational rapid reactions and change of posture as demonstrated by the UK sailors crisis.
News wire services are reporting, and the American News Media echoes are screaming: “Radical cleric al-Sadr tells followers to attack Americans”
yet, cited translations (to English) of the original text are more nuanced:
“You, the Iraqi army and police forces: do not walk alongside the occupiers, because they are your archenemy”
“God has ordered you to be patient in front of your enemy, and unify your efforts against them — not against the sons of Iraq... You must [endeavor to] protect and build Iraq [ie., a nation not under Foreign Occupation?]”
reports subsequent to this statement have Shi'ites, in particular, making conspicuous efforts to display the flag of IRAQ on buildings and vehicles; as well as making pilgrimages carrying Iraqi flags to cities such as Najaf, etc.
it would be useful, professor, if you would be so kind as to translate and comment on the original text written my M. al-Sadr, s'il vous plait.
Six Canadian soldiers were killed today in Afghanistan. Reports are a bit sketchy, but their deaths were caused by an explosion.
It kind of put a crimp in Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's "celebrations" at the Vimy war memorial in France. Many think he's trying to ramp up war fever so that he can call an election and be swept into power on a wave of patriotic ferver. He finds his minority status in parliament a tad restrictive, since he can't do whatever he wants.
Six more dead young people. A complete and utter waste.
As Muqtada puts thousands into the streets of Najaf to demand US withdrawal, 10 U.S. troops die in Iraq; 6 on Easter Sunday .
If reports that Sistani and Sadr have reconciled or at least arrived at a modus vivendi, I fear that Bush is just one fatwa away from his own Operation Anabasis by which time his only remaining supporters may indeed be Barney and Laura.
By then I imagine Bush will heed the advice of Juan Cole, the Council on Foreign Relations, the ISG, and a host of other experts (not to mention the American people) and will set a new "course" of diplomatic engagement, and US military disengagement
By then American combat capability and diplomatic influence will have sunk far beneath their present, historic nadir.
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