Female Suicide Bomber Kills 8 in Diyala;
Turks bomb Iraq again
A female suicide bomber killed 8 Iraqis in Diyala province on Thursday, including the head of a local Awakening Council.
Turkey bombed 13 targets in northern Iraq on Thursday, targeting positions of the Kurdish Workers Party or PKK. Turkish PM Tayyip Rejep Erdogan recently visited Baghdad and relations seemed to be improving, but apparently the PKK issue is still hot. Bombing another country is not a trivial act.
8 oil union activists have been forcibly transferred by Basra to Baghdad. It is unclear what law would allow the government to do that. If they were charged with a crime, they should be brought to court in Basra, not transferred elsewhere. The Iraqi oil union is seen by the government as an obstacle to US companies coming in to develop the oil.
Former appointed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is skeptical about the political success of the surge.
McClatchy says Iraqi troops are just not ready to take over from the US.
McClatchy reports political violence on Thursday in Iraq (beyond the Turkish bombing and the Diyala suicide bombing:
'Baghdad
A roadside bomb planted outside the residence of Dawa Party member, Abdulrahman Mohammed Dawood in Zafaraniyah, southeastern Baghdad exploded injuring Dawood and two of his security detail at 11 a.m. Thursday.
Gunmen attacked a checkpoint manned by Awakening Council, a U. S backed militia, in Adhamiyah at 9 a.m. killing two members. The gunmen used silencers on their weapons, said Iraqi Police.
One unidentified body was found by Iraqi Police, Thursday. It was found in Nidhal Street, central Baghdad.
Nineveh
A suicide car bomber targeted a checkpoint manned by Iraqi Army in al-Intisar neighbourhood, eastern Mosul killing two soldiers, injuring two others.'
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 7/25/2008 03:38:00 AM
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3 Comments:
"McClatchy says Iraqi troops are just not ready to take over from the US."
So, not quite ready for prime time? What a surprise! I ask myself: if a Great Power has a publicly stated goal of keeping an army in a client state indefinitely, and one of the principal rationales for such policy is that the client's army is "not quite ready," then wouldn't it be clever to make sure that the client army is never quite ready? Hmmm. However, from the half-full view, be assured that great progress is being made.
Re former PM Allawi 'says surge not so great' :
He goes a good bit further and says that the un-de-baathification law is being used as a backdoor purge (as feared at its passage), and that reversals on the relative (2005 civil war level) calm being read as security gains are likely soon.
Reading between the lines on Youseff's McClatchey reportage, the IA is conducting keystone martial law outside of the capital, kicking doors on bad intel, and deposing/restraining local governates in several provinces. Half-trained half strength units are just barely kept at some compromise between ineffective ops and running amok by US overwatch.
With the stalled provincial elections threatening to push back the 2009 election for national offices, Maliki's deal with Hakim's ISCI / Badr controlled army is starting to drift towards 'one man one vote one time.'
With $140/Bbl oil money now available for patronage, the street and the mullah's may be forced to choose between chaos and strongman rule.
"The Iraqi oil union is seen by the government as an obstacle to US companies coming in to develop the oil."
NO, they are obstacle to US companies coming in to ROB the Iraqi oil (a bit of difference, I suppose)
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