Informed Comment

Thousands of followers of Shiite leader Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr peacefully protested across southern Iraq on Friday, according to McClatchy. They prayed and then stood silently in solidarity against the security agreement being negotiated by PM Nuri al-Maliki with George W. Bush.

Sadrists Demonstrate in Kufa. Courtesy Amara.net, a Sadrist site.

(On both the Iraqi and American side, this agreement is being characterized as a mere understanding between two executives. It is not being categorized as a treaty and there is no plan to submit it either to the Iraqi parliament or to the US Congress. It seems that the Bush team hopes it will take on the force of law just by virtue of existing and having been signed by the two leaders.)

Aljazeera had a debate between Hasan Salman, who supports al-Maliki, and Nizar al-Samarra’i, a Sunni dissident, this afternoon. Salman said that the agreement might be stipulated to be only for one year, so as not to detract from Iraqi sovereignty. He also said he welcomed the Sadrist demonstrations because they strengthened al-Maliki’s negotiating position.

Except that I don’t think the demonstrations are intended to help al-Maliki, but rather to delegitimize and bury him.

Even Jalal al-Din Saghir, a member of parliament from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which is allied with al-Maliki, preached a sermon at the Buratha Mosque in north Baghdad, saying, according to McClatchy:

‘”The Iraqi people should see every single letter in (the agreement) and it should be transparent. What the people accept we do and what they reject we do,” said ISCI lawmaker Jalal al Din al Saghir in his Friday sermon. “Most of what the Americans offered was against Iraq’s sovereignty. If this treaty is done it won’t be on Iraq’s sovereignty, constitution and its land.” ‘

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that there is broad Sunni and Shiite uneasiness with the agreement, even inside Iraqi governing circles.

Al-Hayat says that those familiar with the current draft of the agreement says that it speaks of the establishment of 400 US military sites and bases through the country, of legal immunity for American troops and citizens, and an abrogation of any undertakings previously made, to share in the reconstruction of the country.

Another source told al-Hayat that US Ambassador Ryan Crocker is pressing for language permitting permanent US bases, and removal of other language forbidding the US to attack a third country from Iraqi soil. (This source does not sound reliable to me. US officials have repeatedly said they do not want “permanent” bases, and the provision disallowing the use of Iraqi soil as a launching pad for one country to attack another is in the Iraqi constitution.)

The Iranian Speaker of the House, Ali Larijani, called on Iraqis to resist the security agreement with the US with the same courage that they oppose the Occupation itself.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is also said to oppose provisions of the agreement.

The source told al-Hayat that there tensions pervade the US-Iraqi relationship because of disputes over the text of the agreement.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq, the largest bloc in parliament and cornerstone of the al-Maliki government, issued a statement through his office. He spoke of the existence of:

‘ a national consensus on rejecting many of the points put forward by the American side in the agreement, because they detract from national sovereignty.” He said that such a consensus existed in the National Security Council, which is composed of the leaders of the major political blocs in the parliament.’

Unlike the Sadrists, who reject the agreement altogether, al-Hayat says that ISCI simply has problems with some specific provisions. For instance, it objects to US troops being able to arrest Iraqis at will and hold them, and to be able to use deadly force at will without coordinating with the Iraqi government. It also objects to extraterritoriality (immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts) for American troops, civilians and private security guards.

Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni Arab and leader of the fundamentalist Iraqi Islamic Party, agreed with al-Hakim’s stance. He said in a statement issued on Friday that Iraq’s sovereignty is a “red line”.

Al-Hayat’s sources also say that US Ambassador Ryan Crocker privately told the Iraqi government that the US rejects the holding of a national referendum on the provisions of the agreement. He is alleged to have brandished the threat that if the agreement was not reached, Iraq would remain under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, i.e. in a sort of receivership to the UN Security Council.

If this allegation is true, it puts Crocker on a collision course with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, since, Al-Hayat maintains, Sistani is absolutely insistent that the provisions of the agreement be submitted to a popular referendum.

In Karbala, Sistani’s representative, Sheikh Ahmad Safi, said in his Friday sermon that the agreement must not be allowed to shackle future generations of Iraqis, and must not detract from Iraqi sovereignty. He insisted that the agreement would be null and void if it was not voted on by the elected Iraqi parliament.

(I don’t think it will be voted on by parliament.)

On another front, al-Hayat says, former prime minister and former Da’wa Party leader Ibrahim Jaafari has founded and new nationalist political current that will seek to reach out across ethnic and sectarian divides to unite Iraqi nationalists across the board.

Meanwhile, the CSM reports on rogue Mahdi Army splinter groups in Risala, in Baghdad, and the way they terrorize residents.

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At least 35 persons died in political violence in northern Iraq on Thursday. Suicide bombers killed 20 persons and wounded dozens in three attacks on police and recruits, with the largest attack at Sinjar. In Tikrit, Awakening Council tribesmen armed and paid by the US shot to death 15 jihadis in a tanker headed for Baghdad with suicide belt bombs when the driver and his passenger opened fire at a checkpoint. (Details below).

“Turkish warplanes struck 16 Kurdish guerrilla targets in northern Iraq on Thursday morning . . . The statement on the General Staff’s Web site said the operation against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebel group, launched at 0800 GMT, had been completed successfully. “

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Adil Abdul Mahdi, one of two Iraqi vice presidents, is in Tehran for a visit with President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Abdul Mahdi, considered close to the Americans in Baghdad, is nevertheless also a leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the leading political party that was founded in 1982 in Tehran for Iraqi expatriates by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In Tehran, Abdul Mahdi spoke at a news conference with Ahmadinejad, saying he considered the Iranian president’s recent trip to Baghdad “a turning point in the history of the relations between the two countries.” He added, “The people and government of Iraq have long valued Iranian support for Iraq and its role as the path of their progress.” He said that his visit to Iran is for the purpose of “discussions of economic issues and services, as well as political and security matters.”

Gee, that’s not how the US talks about Iran. Yet here is Iraq’s elected Vice President, and he doesn’t seem to agree with John McCain’s characterization of Iran’s role in Iraq.

For his part, Ahmadinejad said that the “enemies” are afraid that Iraq might turn into a base against global arrogance (i.e. Western imperialism). He said the Iraqi government and people have a bright future.

Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky at Tomdispatch.com examine John McCain’s actual stances on the Iraq War from 2003 and find that he didn’t actually initially oppose it and that he sounded at every point just like Bush. At the same site this week, Frida Berrigan on how the Pentagon has been turned into the Swiss Army Knife of bureaucracies by the Bush administration.

Tom Engelhardt points out that “the U.S. military has, in the last two months, fired at least 200 Hellfire missiles into the Iraqi capital, according to the Washington Post, most of them into Sadr City, the vast, heavily populated Shiite slum in east Baghdad. (“Just six” had been used in Baghdad in the previous three months.)”

Well no one is more happy than I that US military casualties are way down in May. But apparently it is because US troops didn’t have to fight in Sadr City so much, because we like bombed it back to the Stone Age, with all those civilians densely packed in there. And no wonder the Mahdi Army suddenly decided to let al-Maliki’s troops in. 200 missiles is a lot of missiles to rain down on your extended family.

The proselytizing Marine at Fallujah has been removed from the checkpoint and is under investigation. Apparently it was just one guy flying solo. It will take some time to repair the damage he did.

McClatchy reports political violence on Thursday:

‘ Baghdad

Gunmen throw a hand grenade in a Kia minibus as both vehicles were driving down Muthanna Military Base Street heading towards Alawi al-Hilla, central Baghdad at 10 am Thursday. The hand grenade detonated severely injuring 6 civilians.

2 unidentified bodies were found in Baghdad by Iraqi Police today. 1 in Saidiyah and 1 in Palestine Street.

General Manager of a private Iraqi oil company, Hussein Ali Abdulhussein survived an assassination attempt in al-Masbah neighbourhood in Karrada at around 9.30 pm. He is now in the neurosurgery hospital being treated for his wounds.

Nineveh

16 recruits killed and 21 others, some severely injured when a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt detonated in a crowd of young men queuing in front of the Directorate of Police in the southern part of the town Sinjar, 120 km to the west of Mosul at 10.30 am Thursday. They were applying for positions in the police force. The Chief of Police of Sinjar has been deposed as a result of this incident.

2 policemen killed and 10 people, 5 policemen and 5 civilians injured when a suicide car bomber detonated targeting a Rapid Response Force patrol in the Ghabat area to the north of Mosul. The suicide bomber was dressed in police uniform and driving a police vehicle, said the commander of RRF battalion. The explosion also caused a great deal of material damage in the area.

Diyala

A roadside bomb targeted an Iraqi Army patrol in Bizayiz Buhruz, 20 km to the south of Baquba at 10 am Thursday, killing 2 servicemen.

A roadside bomb exploded on he main route between Khanaqeen and Qara Teppa 70 km to the northeast of Baquba seriously injuring a man and his son. Rasheed Nebeel and his son Husam are both in hospital.

Salahuddin

A tank truck was stopped at a Sahwa checkpoint at the northern entrance to Tikrit. The truck that was headed towards Baghdad was stopped and the driver was asked to open the tanker for searching. Instead of complying with the order, the driver and his assistant took out weapons and started shooting. The Sahwa members and the security forces returned fire and killed them both. Then they opened the tanker and found at least 10 men with explosive belts on. They took them out and executed them.” ‘

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The USG Open Source Center translates the fatwa of Ayatollah Kadhim al-Ha’iri (Haeri) condemning any security agreement between Iraq and the United States (Via BBC Monitoring). Haeri, an Iraqi, lives in Qom because he refuses to reside under foreign military occupation. He is sometimes called Iraq’s ‘fifth grand ayatollah.’ The other four live in Najaf and are less involved in politics than Haeri.

OSC also translates a program of the Iranian Arabic-language satellite channel, al-Alam (The World) on opposition by Iraqi politicians in the southern Shiite port city of Basra to the proposed US-Iraqi security agreement. The report quotes a member of the al-Da’wa Party but that party has 2 branches and it is not clear if it is Prime Minister al-Maliki’s branch. It also quotes Sadrist Salah al-Obeidi. The allegation is made that there are fatwas from Iraqi Shiite ayatollahs forbidding the agreement.

‘May 29, 2008 Thursday

IRAQ’S AYATOLLAH AL-HA’IRI ADVISES AGAINST SECURITY AGREEMENT WITH US

Text of report by Lebanese-based Shi’i News Agency website

[Shi'i News Agency headline: "Statement by Religious Authority Al-Sayyid Al-Ha'iri on the US Government Agreement with the Iraqi Government"]

The religious authority, His Eminence Grand Ayatollah Al-Sayyid Kazim al-Husayni al-Ha’iri, may his shadow lasts, has issued a statement on the US agreement with the Iraqi government. The following is text of the statement:

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. praised be God, and may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon Muhammad and his good, chaste family members. “And incline not to those who do wrong, or the Fire will seize you” “Islam rises above all and none rises above it.” [Koranic verses]

My dear sons in our occupied Iraq: May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you.

You are aware that the occupiers of Iraq want to legalize their illegitimate presence on our land so that it will be possible for them to tamper with the security of the homeland and the citizen and to continue to plunder the country’s resources and thus increase the poverty and deprivation. They want to force the Iraqi Government to agree, under the excuse of removing Iraq from the Seventh Chapter of the UN Charter, to completely concede Iraq’s independence and resources and make its presence and future go with the wind, where it will not have authority or sovereignty, and force it to agree to provisions that will stamp the stigma of humiliation and disgrace on Iraq’s forehead forever.

Such enforcement on the government will not leave any dignity or sanctity to the individual. They want their dog, which is squatting on Iraq, protected from any accountability by the government or the nation. They want all Iraq’s political and legal entities: The presidency, Prime Ministry, and Council of Representatives, as well as the nation to be accountable to the Americans. “If they enter a country, they despoil it, and make the noblest of its people its meanest. Thus do they behave.” [Koranic verse]

Besides, the American, who has entered Iraq with the slogan of liberation, soon announced himself an occupier. He did not fulfil any promise. Therefore, is any goodness expected from such agreements?

From the position of fatherhood, I give my advice to every official in this nation not to stain himself with such an agreement. Let him fear God for what is left of his dignity.

Let everyone know also that such an agreement will not be binding to anyone, except to the one who signs it. No one should ever think that he can plot against our nation despite its preoccupation with its tragedies; the killing, destitution, starvation, and deprivation. All this is the work of the Americans and their supporters. The nation, whom Prophet Muhammad, may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, awakened, will not accept humiliation and disgrace. Here is his grandson, Al-Husayn, peace be upon him, crying out defiantly: “Never will we be humbled.”

Our zealous sons, we are going through a difficult test. We have no other choice but to adhere to the truth together. Do not ignore what is being plotted against you and do not busy yourselves with trivial matters that lead to differences between you. This is the wish of your enemy, who is lying in wait for you.

Place your trust in Allah, close your ranks, stay alert, and watch out of your enemy.

I address the occupation from my place here by repeating the words of our Lady Zaynab, peace be upon her: “Go ahead and plot and do what you like, but by God you will never wipe out our Koran and revelation.”

Dear sons: Let me tell you. The blessed religious seminary in Iraq is dearer, cleaner, higher, and nobler than the recognition of the legitimacy of such an agreement.

May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you.

[Signed] Kazim al-Husayni al-Ha’iri, 15 Jumada al-Ula 1429 Hegira

Source: Shi’i News Agency website, Mount Lebanon, in Arabic 21 May 08′

‘Al-Alam TV: Basra’s Political, Religious Leaders Oppose Security Treaty With US
Al-Alam Television
Thursday, May 29, 2008

(Newsreader) Representatives of political, religious parties and currents in Basra were unanimous in their rejection of the security treaty which Washington plans to conclude with Baghdad. Shaykh Salah al-Ubaydi, representative of the Sadrist Trend in Basra, said that the Trend was committed to fatwas issued by religious authorities which prohibited such treaties.

(Reporter) A political and popular rejection of the security treaty to be signed between Iraq and the United States was voiced by representatives of political and popular forces in Basra. Basra’s representatives in the Iraqi parliament rejected the treaty on the grounds that it is an infringement on Iraq’s sovereignty and a threat to neighboring countries. It goes against the Iraqi constitution which specifies that Iraq must not be used as a springboard for aggression against neighboring countries.

(Abd al-Musawi, Al-Dawah Party MP) We should not sign a treaty with the US which threatens our neighbors. We do not accept for Iraq to become a base from which to launch attacks on our neighbors or to set up bases in Iraq which threaten our neighbors or seek to interfere in their interests.

(Salah al-Matat, member of Basra’s Provincial Council) If this treaty is not clear and not formed on the basis of parity, then it will represent a future threat. We want Iraq to be independent and not to fall under anyone’s protection.

(Reporter) The spokesman of the Sadrist Trend Shaykh Salah al-Ubaydi reiterated his rejection of the treaty and said that it aims to solidify the US presence in Iraq, a matter which religious authorities have prohibited.

(Shaykh Salah al-Ubaydi) The office of the Martyr Al-Sadr has made clear its position on the security treaty between the US and Iraq. It is rejected and is unacceptable and there are many fundamental reasons why it is unacceptable. One of these is the verdict of the religious authorities in this regard. Sayid al-Ha’iri has issued a statement in which he rejected (the security treaty) and also the office of Sayid Al-Sistani has clarified in a number of oral questions a rejection of the treaty.

(Reporter) On the fringes of a human rights meeting, the leaders of Basra’s religious and political blocs have urged the Iraqi government to reject the security treaty with the US forces and replace it with treaties with Iraq’s neighbors that guarantee Iraq’s security and sovereignty. The US-Iraqi treaty thus faces popular and political rejection because it is seen as an infringement on Iraq’s sovereignty and a cause of concern for the region’s security.

(Description of Source: Tehran Al-Alam Television in Arabic — IRIB’s 24-hour Arabic news channel, targetting a pan-Arab audience)’

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CNN is reporting that Shiite leader Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr is demanding that any US-Iraqi security agreement be submitted to a national referendum.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that he is in good company:

‘ Sources close to the office of the Shiite Supreme Exemplar, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, told al-Hayat that he called on the Iraqi prime minister during the latter’s visit to Najaf recently, to deal cautiously with the agreement and called on him to organize a national referendum on it.’

So the idea of a national referendum on any Status of Forces agreement seems to be spreading. In my view, one impetus for this adoption of a California-style referendum approach is that the Iraqi parliament is not seen as strong enough to express the will of the people. Parliament often cannot hold a session because it lacks a quorum. The United Iraqi Alliance and the Kurdistan Alliance run it as a tyranny of the majority, when the UIA can get Shiite independents to vote with it. Often if al-Maliki is afraid he cannot get a law passed, he will avoid holding a precise one-by-one vote of the parliamentarians. Rather he’ll ask for general assent without a voice vote. In essence, Iraq is being run by the cabinet, which often doubles as both executive and legislature (functioning as a sort of senate).

In 2006, the Sadrists in parliament demanded that the Iraqi government request for the renewal of the UN mandate for US and other foreign forces in Iraq be submitted to parliament before it was sent to the UN. Al-Maliki rejected that demand.

So if the legislature is rendered relatively toothless, it loses a great deal of legitimacy.

Hence the demand for a national referendum.

Any opposition of the Shiite religious leaders to a US-Iraqi security treaty could put it in question, in a big way.

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On Wednesday, the Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front (IAF, Tawafuq) withdrew from talks on rejoining the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of the Shiite fundamentalist Islamic Mission Party (Da’wa).

Despite the confidence of Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni, that his bloc would eventually rejoin the government, the development was a blow to al-Maliki. Al-Sharqiya television had reported on Tuesday (via USG Open Source Center and BBC Monitoring):

“The United Nations has committed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to present the names of the new ministers to his government before the beginning of the International Compact Conference on Iraq that will be held in the Swedish capital, Stockholm. Informed sources said that Al-Maliki held a meeting with Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi after Al-Tawafuq Front MPs suddenly escalated their tone against the Iraqi Government, accusing it of impeding a settlement and of humiliating the Front, as was said by Al-Tawafuq Front MP Zafir al-Ani. Umar Abd-al-Sattar, key leader in the Iraqi Islamic Party, expected the collapse of the negotiations. The sources added that the meeting between Al-Maliki and Al-Hashimi tried to salvage the negotiations, and anticipated the announcement of the new names of Al-Tawafuq ministers before the beginning of the Stockholm conference so as to give a boost to the prime minister in front of the participants, namely, that his government is a unity government.”

As it happened, al-Maliki had to show up in Stockholm without his Sunni Arabs in tow.

The collapse of these talks and the failure of al-Maliki to achieve substantial reconciliation with Sunni Arabs are blows to the success of the US troop escalation (“surge”), which was advertised as necessary to move Iraq toward communal peace. This Sunni-Shiite reconciliation was one of four major benchmarks announced by George W. Bush in January of 2007, which he said should be achieved by June, 2007. In the subsequent year and a half, al-Maliki’s national unity government collapsed, the Sunnis have remained in the opposition, and hundreds of thousands of Sunni Arabs have been ethnically cleansed from Baghdad in the meantime. Many of them are sweltering in Syria as refugees, their life savings dwindling, their former homes occupied by Shiite squatters.

Iraqi Sunnis have just gotten the bad news that they will need visas for Jordan. There are between 500,000 and 750,000 Iraqis in Jordan, almost all of them Sunnis, with some 360,000 being there illegally. (Jordan’s population is only a little over 6 million).

Many Sunni Arab Iraqis, once the country’s ruling elite, now feel oppressed by Shiite, Kurdish and American Christian dominance. The story that Marines are passing coins to Sunnis in Falluja with Christian messages on them is felt as a further humiliation, especially coming after the incident of the US soldier using the Qur’an for target practice. The coins passed in Fallujah had John 3:16 inscribed on one side, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” This verse is not a good place to begin a Christian-Muslim dialogue. The Qur’an explicitly rejects the idea that the One God can have a “son” as polytheistic. Some Islamic theologians have argued that the phrase “Son of God” is a metaphor, which cannot be translated literally into Arabic. In any case, there are lots of Gospel verses that Muslims might find interesting, but they would generally take this one as a clear signal that Bush’s Christian Soldiers consider Iraqi Muslims to be supine and abject.

The USG Open Source Center translates an Aljazeera report on the withdrawal of the IAF or Tawafuq from negotiations about rejoining the al-Maliki government. The report says that the negotiations collapsed because al-Maliki rejected a cabinet nominee of the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), one of three components of the IAF. The IIP, an Iraqi offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, is headed by Tariq al-Hashemi, one of Iraq’s two vice presidents. Apparently IIP’s coalition partners did not agree on that slate of candidates for inclusion in the cabinet. The report says that the collapse of the negotiations may reinforce a Sunni conviction that al-Maliki’s government is biased against them.

‘May 28, 2008 Wednesday

IRAQI AL-TAWAFUQ FRONT WITHDRAWAL MAY HAVE “SERIOUS” EFFECTS – AL-JAZEERA

LENGTH: 580 words

Doha Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel Television in Arabic at 0507 gmt on 28 May carries the following announcer-read report over video: “Iraqi Al-Tawafuq Front has decided to suspend its talks with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki regarding its return to the government. Dr Salim al-Juburi, official spokesman for the Al-Tawafuq Front said that the decision to withdraw the candidates was taken following Al-Maliki’s objection to a candidate who was proposed by the front to occupy cabinet posts.”

The channel then carries a three-minute video report by its correspondent Aziz al-Mirnisi, who speaks about “a new crisis on the horizon of the Iraqi political scene.” He says: “After long talks with the government on some cabinet posts, the Sunni bloc, represented by the Iraqi Al-Tawafuq Front, decided to stop its talks seeking to return to Nuri al-Maliki’s government. The front, which has five ministers and one deputy prime minister in the current government, said that Al-Maliki’s government, which is dominated by Shi’is and Kurds, did not respond to the front’s demands regarding a list of nominees that it proposed to occupy cabinet posts. The front justified this decision as being a result of Al-Maliki’s objection to one of the nominees to the post of deputy prime minister for security affairs.”

Speaking about repercussions of the withdrawal decision, Al-Mirnisi says: “The withdrawal decision may provoke once again accusations against Al-Maliki’s government of bias against the Sunnis in Iraq, which may have serious political and security effects on the political process as a whole if the matter is not addressed by the government. Convincing the front to rejoin the government’s makeup is a main US policy objective, and a step that many consider necessary to realize national reconciliation among Iraqis.”

Immediately afterwards, the channel’s anchorwoman Fayruz Zayyani interviews Khalaf al-Ulayyan, National Dialogue Council chairman and Al-Tawafuq Front MP, via telephone from Baghdad on the front’s suspension decision.

Al-Ulayyan says: “We were not aware of such a list, neither the first nor the second. This matter was only limited to the Iraqi Islamic Party [IIP], who nominated a number of figures from within the IIP and others close to the IIP to occupy these positions without consulting other members in Al-Tawafuq Front. We did not know anything regarding this list; we expressed our objections to the prime minister and nominated a number of independent technocratic ministers and asked the prime minister to choose whom he deems suitable to occupy cabinet positions.”

When asked if he could confirm leaked news by the Iraqi Government on disagreements within the Al-Tawafug Front, Al-Ulayyan says: “This is true; there are disagreements. Our brothers at the IIP want to dominate the entire [Al-Tawafuq] Front in addition to the nominated ministers as happened in the past, not leaving the chance for others to participate in decisionmaking or nominating any figure for any cabinet positions.”

Speaking on possible consultations with the front on the current disagreement with the IIP, Al-Ulayyan says: “We tried, for several times, to sit with the IIP leaders to discuss these issues; however, the IIP obstinacy made this matter almost impossible. Moreover, Dr Adnan al-Dulaymi, who is head of the [Al-Tawafuq] Front, is extremely biased towards the IIP and does not care about others.”

Source: Al-Jazeera TV, Doha, in Arabic 0507 gmt 28 May 08 ‘

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