Call me suspicious. Bound bodies found floating in a lake just don’t seem to me very likely to be the victims of suicide. Riad’s friend writes: ‘ A friend of mine, Austin middle-school teacher and pro-Palestinian activist Riad (also spelled Riadh) Hamad, was found gagged & bound in a lake. His death was declared by […]
Archives for April 2008
132 Wounded in Sadr City; The $3 Trillion Shopping Spree
The spring dust storms in Baghdad have given cover to renewed guerrilla fighting there. On Thursday Iraqi guerrillas used the cover of the dust storms to bombard the Green Zone with mortar shells. On Friday clashes broke out between Mahdi Army militiamen in Sadr City and Iraqi and US troops at the edges of the […]
60 Killed in Diyala Bombing; NDU Study: Iraq War Debacle; Netanyahu: 9/11 benefitted Israel
A suicide bombing at a funeral for pro-American militiamen in a village northeast of Baghdad in Diyala province killed at least 60 persons on Thursday and wounded a similar number. This attack follows a previous bombing in the provincial capital of Baquba that had killed 60. The US-backed ‘Awakening Councils’ are being fought in Diyala […]
Pope: Iraq War "has no moral justification"; Says Decision Should have been Made by UN
Here is what Pope Benedict really thinks of Bush and his Iraq War: Is the war that has been announced against Iraq a just war? “All I can do is invite you to read the Catechism,” [the present Pope when he was still] Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger replied with a mischievous grin, “and the conclusion seems […]
Sunni-Shiite Divide in Baghdad Worsens
Aljazeera English reports on the increased Sunni-Shiite divide in Baghdad. The video of blast walls and closed bridges is worth the price of admission. My only puzzlement is why they did not say more about the ethnic cleansing of the Sunnis from Iraq, such that the city is now overwhelmingly Shiite. Also, for those of […]
Islamic Radicals Announce Accord with Sunni Tribes
The USG Open Source Center translates a speech by Abu Umar al-Baghdadi, the putative leader of the radical Islamic State of Iraq, which has committed many bombings in the center-north of the country. FYI — ISI Leader Al-Baghdadi Announces Agreement with Sunni Tribal LeadersJihadist Websites — OSC SummaryTuesday, April 15, 2008 . . . On […]
Bombs, Violence Kill 60 in Northern Iraq
The massive violence in Iraq on Tuesday underlines that in the north, the US is mainly fighting Sunni Iraqis, some of them neo-Baathists. It is a misnomer to call the resistance “al-Qaeda,” since most of them are not foreign fighters but Iraqis, and none of them has Usamah Bin Laden’s telephone number. The recent propaganda […]
28 Killed in Wave of Violence; Sadr Demands Reinstatement of Sacked Troops
AFP reports: ‘ A surge of violence killed 28 people in the past 24 hours in Iraq, among them 12 members of the Kurdish peshmerga forces who died in a bomb blast near the Syrian border, officials said on Monday. The country’s north bore the brunt of the violence, with the attack on the [Kurdish] […]
Bhasin Guest Editorial: Bilal Hussein and Freedom in Iraq
Fantasizing Democratic Freedoms in Iraq Madhavi Bhasin Associated Press (AP) photographer Bilal Hussein has been held for two year on being suspected of helping Iraqi insurgents, but without being formally charged by the US military. On April 9, 2008 the Iraqi judges dismissed the accusations against him and ordered his release under the Amnesty Law. […]
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