Kirkuk a Powderkeg: NYT;
Ramadi Bombing Targets Police
Kurdish control of Kirkuk creates a powder keg in Iraq, the NYT explains this morning:
' it demonstrates that despite a recent decline in violence, Iraq’s unsettled ethnic and regional discord could still upend directives emanating from Baghdad and destabilize large swaths of the country — or even set off a civil war. . .
Kurdish authority is visible everywhere in the city. In addition to the provincial government and command of the police, the Kurds control the Asaish, the feared undercover security service that works with the American military and, according to Asaish commanders, United States intelligence agencies. '
A suicide bombing in Ramadi has left at least 7 policemen killed and more wounded.
Gareth Porter is skeptical about that AP story alleging Iran-trained hit squads in south Iraq. Me, I didn't bother with it. Iran trained the Badr Corps, which is now the backbone of Prime Minister al-Maliki's security forces, and the US cheered when Badr-dominated forces asserted themselves in Basra and Amara. So Iranian training is only sometimes bad?
McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Monday:
' Baghdad
Five people (3 policemen and 2 civilians) were injured by a roadside bomb in al Riwad intersection in Mansour neighborhood in west Baghdad around 9:00 a.m.
Around 10:00 a.m. Gunmen opened their machineguns fire targeting the car of Faris Jabir Thahir; a member in Shaheed al Mihrab organization (one of the organizations in ISCI ) in Zafaraniyah town in southeast Baghdad. Faris was killed at one and his wife was injured seriously.
Around 10:30, an IED exploded targeting an American convoy in al Ordin intersection (Jordan intersection) in Yarmouk neighborhood in west Baghdad. Nine Iraqi were injured including three policemen. No American casualties were reported.
Three people were injured (2 policemen and a civilian) by a roadside bomb near the national theater in Karrada neighborhood in downtown Baghdad around 1:00 p.m.
Basra
A director of an election center and his deputy were killed and a companion was inured when gunmen attacked them while they were going to work in Bahadriyah area south of Basra on Monday morning. The election commission confirmed the incident.
Kirkuk
Gunmen killed Raheem Thyab al Bayati; one of the leaders of Sahwa south of Tuz city north of Baghdad around 2:00 p.m.'
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/19/2008 12:05:00 AM
|
Facebook
4 Comments:
[D]espite a recent decline in violence, Iraq’s unsettled ethnic and regional discord could still upend directives emanating from Baghdad and destabilize large swaths of the country — or even set off a civil war
That is a curious scrap of editorializing to find floating amidst a news story that assures us that "[T]he Kurds hav[e] already consolidated their authority in Kirkuk."
Time will tell what is really going on out there, but meanwhile I find the idea that successful consolidation has been accomplished by relying upon the secret police rather than either the 'real' police or the military plausible in the abstract.
That is how your normal Greater Levantine political racket works, after all.
But God knows best. Happy days.
Don't really understand your hostility to the Kurds. Especially don't understand why you think the Palestinians deserve their own country but the Kurds do not. Every argument given for a Palestinian homeland applies to the Kurds. In fact, the Kurds have a much stronger argument since they at least have a good, undisputed title to the land they're on while of course the Palestinians certainly don't.
"Gareth Porter is skeptical about that AP story alleging Iran-trained hit squads in south Iraq. Me, I didn't bother with it" ; I didn't either because the AP has become a government mouthpiece, not a source for journalistic reporting.
Anon at 12:19 repeats a common mis-understanding/representation.
1) The Kurdish warlords, Barazani and Talabani, are opposed to an independent Kurdistan. People should complain to them, not IC.
2) The Palestenians are stateless while the Kurds in Iraq are full citizens, and have become a super race with the help of their Zionist friends who now control occupied Iraq. Not only they have the presidency, Foriegn ministry, and various top positions, their Peshmerga and savage Asaish secret police roam Iraqi cities and countryside and commit large-scale crimes with impunity.
3) The majority of the non-Kurdish Iraqis want the Kurds to be independent, and the Kurds are refusing, for now at least.
4) Under US directions and help, the Peshmerga helped themselves to hundreds of Iraqi tanks and other military hardware in April 2003. The US then systematically destroyed the rest of the tanks and sold them for scrap. Both the Kurds and American think that they have a mini-Israel in Iraq which can do what it likes and has more powerful weapons. Hardly makes them Palestenian equivalent.
Post a Comment
<< Home