60 Dead in Attack on Shiite Pilgrims;
Turkish invaders Kill 33 PKK Guerrillas;
2 US Soldiers Killed;
Stewart Skewers McCain
Between 40 and 60 Shiites were killed and 105 wounded on Sunday by a suicide bomber at Iskandariya in northern Babil province as they made their way south to the holy city of Karbala. Entire families were on the move together, so that the bombing killed or wounded many women and children. Many of the killed or wounded were struck by ball bearings from the makeshift bomb.
Alexandra Zavis of the LAT Times reports that the Iskandariya bombing was preceded by clashes between Sunnis and Shiites in the southwestern Dora district of Baghdad. On Saturday, Shiite crowds had taunted the Sunnis left in Dora that the highway through the neighborhood now belonged to them. Since many Sunnis have been ethnically cleansed from that area during the past year, the taunts stung.
Members of the Sunni Awakening Council (on the American payroll) went to the Iraqi army units in the neighborhood to complain about the Shiite pilgrims' taunting, and the army--mostly Shiite--attacked the Sunnis! A Sunni charged that on Saturday, "Army forces started shooting randomly at locals."
So then on Sunday morning more Shiite pilgrims come through on their way to Karbala, with Mahdi Army militiamen escorting them. First, Sunni guerrillas set off a roadside bomb. Then others threw grenades from a bridge on the pilgrims below. About 3 pilgrims were killed, and 43 were injured.
That is, the violence in Dora began as a conflict between the supposedly quiescent Mahdi Army and the US-backed Sunni Awakening Council! I suspect it is a microcosm of what will happen when the Sunnis come back to Baghdad from Damascus. (For the dynamics in Dora, see Nir Rosen's Rolling Stone piece, linked below).
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that a curfew has been imposed on Baghdad, as millions of pilgrims head for Karbala for the holy day later this week.
Guerrillas killed 2 US soldiers on Sunday. One was killed by a roadside bomb that also injured three other US GIs. Another died from small arms fire.
Turkey continued its ground and air operations against the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) bases in northern Iraq on Sunday, operations inside Iraq that left 33 PKK guerrillas dead and cost the lives of 8 Turkish soldiers.
Nir Rosen has been on the ground recently in Baghdad, not embedded, and he reports on the downsides of the troop escalation the Bush administration calls the "surge," which include the ethnic cleansing of the Sunnis of Baghdad and the US paying millions to gunmen who were al-Qaeda a couple of months ago.
Aswat al-Iraq reports in Arabic that the sheikh of the powerful Dulaim tribe in al-Anbar Province, Ali Hatim al-Sulayman,--a leader of its Awakening Council-- has demanded the dissolution of the al-Anbar Governing Council and new provincial elections in April. He maintains that the Governing Council runs a spoils system, giving out jobs in the provincial bureaucracy only to members of the Iraqi Islamic Party, which he says has been disastrous for the economy. I fear there is a budding conflict between the armed Awakening Councils and the elected Sunni officials in places like al-Anbar. Provincial elections are actually scheduled for Oct. 1.
John McCain is now not just saying that the US will be victorious in Iraq, he is saying flat out that "the U.S. has succeeded in its war in Iraq." McCain must have a special antonyms dictionary where words mean the opposite of what they mean. Or maybe he's depending on the US mass media not to tell the American public what is going on over there. He'd be making a pretty good bet; I watched a lot of news on Sunday and I barely saw Iraq mentioned. And this on a particularly violent day with a hot civil war and a Turkish invasion force on the ground. They spent hours on the cattier parts of the US presidential campaign.
But at least Jon Stewart made fun of McCain's over-optimism at the Oscars:
As if all this violence were not enough, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had to fly off to London later Sunday for medical treatment. Apparently the diagnosis done there a couple of months ago, of exhaustion, was incorrect and that the symptoms have recurred. For Iraq to be without an effective prime minister in the midst of several major, violent conflicts is not good.
The Turkish invasion of Iraq (I can't believe I'm writing those words) sent oil up to nearly $100 a barrel on Monday in Asia. The speculation effect here seems to analysts out of proportion to reality. Iraq has only been exporting 300,000 barrels a day from Kirkuk by pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean. (And that is when the pipeline is not disabled by sabotage, as it frequently has been.) The Turks say that their operation will not interrupt that flow. But even if it did, 300,000 barrels a day isn't that much given the 87 mn. barrels a day global oil production.
McClatchy reports other political violence in Iraq on Sunday
' Baghdad
. . . An IED exploded targeting a US convoy near Salahuddin square in Kadhemiyah neighborhood north Baghdad around 10:00 a.m. The U.S. military said that the attack killed one US soldier and wounded three others. It also wounded an Iraqi civilian.
Around 12:30 p.m. an IED exploded targeting a US army convoy near the entrance of Hurriyah city northwest Baghdad. The US military said that three Iraqi civilians were injured. The Iraqi police said that five Iraqis were injured.
Around 12:00 p.m. Two civilians were injured when an IED exploded targeting civilians near al Kubaisi market in Zafaraniyah neighborhood southeast Baghdad.
Police found four bodies in Baghdad. Two bodies were found in Doura, one body was found in Waziriyah neighborhood and one body in Ur neighborhood Kirkuk
A civilian was killed and nine people were wounded (6 of them are Sahwa members including the leader of Sahwa Colonel Hussein Khalaf Ali and a commander of battalion in Sahwa) when a car bomb exploded targeting Sahwa members in Hawija town south of Kirkuk on Monday morning. . .
Basra
The police of Abo Al Khaseeb released a kidnapped young man (a student in the college of engineering) in Abo al Khaseeb town south of Basra city. The tribal police released two kidnapped civilian after chasing the kidnappers in al Abbasiyah neighborhood downtown Basra city '
Barney Rubin on the crucial political changes in the North-West Frontier Province, which is predominantly Pushtun, and what they mean for understanding the Pakistani Taliban and their activities across the border in Afghanistan. This piece is a must-read by someone at the cutting edge of this subject.
And, a warm congratulations to Josh Marshall of TPM on winning the Polk Award. Bloggers rock!
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 2/25/2008 12:31:00 AM
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I noticed CNN has dropped the name "This Week in War" and now is using "This Week in Politics" for its weekend summary show.
Shouldn't you be more carfull with the words you are using. Yesterday for instance, labelled the Serbs manifesting against the US ambassies in Austria and Belgrade "terrorists" : a bunch of activists or an angry mob reacting to the US acknoledgement of the independance of Kosovo don't make any terrorists; terrorists use bombs or other media in order to kill people. They don't limit themselves to material damages; nor do they act spontaneously in the open : they prepare their actions in secret and long in advance. In the blogosphere both bloggers and commenters are continually using words like terrorism, genocide, totalitarism, fascism, nazism and holocaust. Using these words in all kinds of circumstances (mostly in inadapted circumstances) is a language abuse which doesn't benefit to anyone. It's the same with words like freedom and democracy, of which Bush/Blair and the neocons made an abundant usage discrediting the very concepts they pretend to defend. We have to track propangada, to look what stands behind the words, but for that the first rule is to use them carefully ourselves.
It's the same thing to-day, when you speak of a Turkish invasion. As if we could compare it to the US invasion of Iraq. As of now, applied to the Turks the word seems largely exagerated. I'd merely speak of a punitive incursion of Turkey in Iraq. An invasion is a more comprehensive operation, whose goal is to occupy a territory by force; in the case of Turkey, we have the force, but it's not yet clear whether it will be a longlasting incursion (aka a real invasion) or remain a punitive incursion. Anyway, in order to become such ruthless occupiers as the US is in Iraq, the Turks still have a long way to go.
On the other hand, what is succeeding in North Iraq shouldn't be minimized as it could easily drift into an uggly conflict; but it's too early to tell : are the Turks just going after the PKK or do they have other intentions ? May be that the Turks are advancing their pawns for the After-Bush era, may be that they want to be ready for the inevitable US defeat and withdrawal ?
Concerning the oil prices : the oil market is hold by speculators (aka war profiteers). It became evident after the recent subprime crisis and the following market crash : when speculators needed to cover their ass, they suddenly flooded the markets with oil letting its price sunk.
The US has indeed achieved victory against the Iraqis, as McCain claims.
The majority of the American people and nearly all the top politicians are anti-Islam and anti-Arabs. Destroying a key Arab Muslim country equals success.
The 'surge' added even more.
The number of Iraqi refugees is now in the millions. Those in Syria and Jordan bring the added benefit of burdening two more Arab/Muslim nations.
The death and destruction peaked during the surge.
The first cantonization results have been achieved, with more to come soon.
The associated reports to Congress worked like a dream in scaring the hell out of Maliki and Co to make them do anything they can for the Americans.
For the first time, the USA has felt confident enough to ask for "enduring" presence. Khalilzad had insisted that no troops would stay and Bush repeated "as long as necessary and not a day longer" ad infinitum earlier on.
The Iraqi people have finally lost all hope and are offering less and less resistance.
The icing on the cake, an oil law that allows Big Oil to add Iraq's oil to their balace sheets, has not yet materialized. But there is still a chance.
The three trillion dollar war
The cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts have grown to staggering proportions
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3419840.ece
referencing your question over the weekend of " what do amerikans get out of this " - well, looks like they get to pay higher taxes and go further into debt.
I used a bit of this post this morning when I wrote up Travus T. Hipp's morning news and commentary to Archive.org & my site.
My comment was an indirect rebuttal of what I feel to be a form of insidious 'creeping disinformation', and I just want to set the record straight:
The pertinent part of the post:
"Worse than “Below the Fold”… Sixth Page News: The Iraq war has been entirely relegated there in most U.S. newspapers…
But WE (That editorial ‘We‘) remember!
There has been a suicide bombing of Shiite pilgrims in Karbala…
Why? You ask… Juan Cole’s Informed Comment:
Alexandra Zavis of the LAT Times reports that the Iskandariya bombing was preceded by clashes between Sunnis and Shiites in the southwestern Dora district of Baghdad. On Saturday, Shiite crowds had taunted the Sunnis left in Dora that the highway through the neighborhood now belonged to them. Since many Sunnis have been ethnically cleansed from that area during the past year, the taunts stung.
Members of the Sunni Awakening Council (on the American payroll) went to the Iraqi army units in the neighborhood to complain about the Shiite pilgrims’ taunting, and the army–mostly Shiite–attacked the Sunnis! A Sunni charged that on Saturday, “Army forces started shooting randomly at locals.”
So then on Sunday morning more Shiite pilgrims come through on their way to Karbala, with Mahdi Army militiamen escorting them. First, Sunni guerrillas set off a roadside bomb. Then others threw grenades from a bridge on the pilgrims below. About 3 pilgrims were killed, and 43 were injured.
That is, the violence in Dora began as a conflict between the supposedly quiescent Mahdi Army and the US-backed Sunni Awakening Council! I suspect it is a microcosm of what will happen when the Sunnis come back to Baghdad from Damascus. (For the dynamics in Dora, see Nir Rosen’s Rolling Stone piece, linked below). [In Full]
Folks, Da’ Buffalo wants to point out that NONE of these events… The Sunni/Shiite militias battling with each other… The suicide bombings… None of it would be occurring without the decade long concerted effort to destabilize and destroy the sovereign state of Iraq by the U.S. government and certain European nations whom I am too disgusted with to name.
That makes the U.S. government and those nations responsible, under international law, for EVERY SINGLE DEATH RECORDED."
In Full @ My Site
...or Archive.org
The commentary for the day is:
The Presidential Plagarism Schtick… Just Visualize The Guy Who Did Other Kids High School Papers, After He Grew Up
"I suspect it is a microcosm of what will happen when the Sunnis come back to Baghdad from Damascus."
And when do u suppose this will happen? The surge has brought meagre numbers back, and after any US withdrawal the Shia Militias will make it impossible for them to return and gain a foothold for fighting.
..."the U.S. has succeeded in its war in Iraq." ...
Well, this helps explain something that happened last week. I was in a conversation with a friend to is a staunch republican and he told me the same thing. I was flabergasted. The "proof" of his point was that the [liberal] news was not reporting as much/any violence. Supposedly they would report it if it were happening because they love to tear down the republican administration.
I was speechless, because the whole thing seemed to come from nowhere. It must be something that has been building in the echo chamber for a while.
Back in 1991, Daniel Pipes predicted the following would happen if the US invaded Iraq:
"Like the Israelis in southern Lebanon . . . American troops would find themselves quickly hated, with Shi'ites taking up suicide bombing, Kurds resuming their rebellion, and Syrian and Iranian governments plotting to sabotage American rule. Staying in place would become too painful, leaving too humiliating."
(Daniel Pipes, "Why America Can't Save the Kurds," Wall Street Journal, April 11, 1991, p. A15.)
Despite the fact his predictions (and more) have come true, Pipes also now claims the Iraq war was a success anyway.
Good NYT Afghanistan article. It illustrates the failure of US strategy and US power in attempting to somehow mold an area of the country into some sort of American ideal.
The article provides a good look at the use of air power - instant, ferocious, and counterproductive.
It just proves you can't sculpt a statue with a machine gun.
It might be worth noticing in advance what Rear-Colonel F. Kagan of AEI and GOP, esteemed intellectual progenitor of the Ever-Victorious Surge of ’07®, is up to.
Iranian Influence in the Levant, Iraq, and Afghanistan (FREDERICK W. KAGAN / KIMBERLY KAGAN / DANIELLE PLETKA)
[The Diagnosis, p. 59:]
The question of Tehran’s goals and intentions need not detain us. Taking an Olympian view, one might note that Iran is, with a few exceptions, simply behaving like a normal powerful state: using its economic power to derive political leverage; supporting some factions and opposing others in regional politics; training, equipping, and advising favored military organizations against their enemies; and so on. Yet explaining Tehran’s behavior as natural realpolitik or, more disingenuously, as a response to the surrounding American menace, does not diminish the reality of the Iranian threat to the United States and its allies. Nor does it account for the fact that the Islamic Republic is not a status quo power and , regardless of how many ordinary Iranians may feel, often seeks to promote an ideology that is, at its root, hostile to the fundamentals that underpin U.S. society.
[The Panacea, p. 68:]
Mobilization. The United States is not now mobilized on any dimension appropriate for the necessary struggle. Our military is too small, our foreign aid programs ill-designed, our intelligence systems dysfunctional [that damn NIE!], and our decision-making apparatus poorly designed and conditioned to take a holistic view of the challenges we face in a key region. Mobilization and reorganization to face the new threat were key components of the Cold War containment strategy. They are no less important or urgent now.
Happy days.
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