Iraq

Iraq awoke to a statement by the Multi National Forces that Al-Qaeda in Iraq is planning more and more suicide and car bombings, specifically stolen ambulances. The one district that is specifically mentioned is the Karakh district of Baghdad. The US military has announced that it has intelligence to this effect. This is the day after over 50 people were killed in a bombing at a funeral in the Diyala province, for two brothers who had turned against Al-Qaeda. The brothers were part of the Diyala Awakening group, the type that has spread across the country in the past year and has been said to be partly responsible for the decrease in violence along with Sadr’s ceasefire.

The US statement came on the heels of AQI’s latest communication with their followers: a tape by Ayman Al-Zawahiri. Fancying himself one of the myriad political commentators we have on 24-hour television here in the US, Zawahiri says that the Bush administration is leaving a ‘problem’ to his successors by ensuring that the troops remain in Iraq for the rest of his term. He also calls the Iraq war ‘a failure’, echoing a few American politicians.

The death toll from a Thursday evening blasts in Baghdad has risen to 68 with over 120 wounded, according to Al Jazeera English. The dual bombs were set off in a crowded market, and no one has yet claimed responsibility. They were set off one right after another, with a New York Times piece quoting witnesses as saying that the first bomb was hidden in a trash can, with the second possibly originating from a suicide vest.

Walter Pincus and Karen DeYoung have written an excellent piece in Washington Post called “Officials Lean Toward Keeping Next Iraq Assessment Secret“, in which Director of National Intelligence Mitch McConnell writes his recommendation to Senator John Warner (R-VA) that the next Iraq report be kept classified. It is to be presented in April before Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker testify before Congress on the state of the Iraq war. With the previous assessments from intelligence agencies having massive coverage from the media, this may be a way for the administration to create a buffer between them and the public before making their final Iraq decisions now at the end of their tenure. Two further estimates are due by fall on the state of the Afghanistan war and the ‘terrorist threat to the homeland’.

According to an AFP report picked up by Lebanon’s Daily Star, women are bearing the brunt of violence in Iraq according to ‘Women for Women International‘, womens’ rights group. 64% of women surveyed by the organization have reported increased amounts of violence against them in the past five years. Many more women are being threatened because of leaving their homes without wearing the veil. Iraq’s Minister for Womens’ Rights (a Kurd) has stated that the greatest threat for women comes from extremist Islamic groups.

64 people were killed and over 100 more were wounded when what are believed to be two female suicide bombers detonated their payloads on Friday morning. The first was in a market in central Baghdad, which killed 46 people and wounded 82, and the second detonated in a market in southeastern Baghdad with 18 killed and 25 wounded.

In other news, rockets were aimed at a British base in Basra, at the airport. Two British soldiers were wounded, and according to Capt. Finn Aldrich, many more Iraqi casualties were reported. There are no numbers on the Iraqis as of yet. The British withdrew from Basra city for the most part back in September of 2007, and only officially handed the entire province back over to the Iraqis on December 16th, 2007. Before the pull out, the province’s police chief Major General Khalaf, had warned (dismissing fears for his own safety) that not only were his own ranks infiltrated by sectarian militants, but that the religious officials themselves were not doing enough to stop the bloodshed. He bluntly said that the they needed to encourage the militants to stop the violence. His outspokenness has earned him many assassination attempts, a larger one having wounded four of his guards in November of 2007. More to come on the nature of the intra-sectarian violence that permeates Basra in an upcoming post.

Monday greeted the reports of five US troops killed in Mosul as a result of a roadside bomb, or IED. For a comprehensive definition of what an IED is, click here for the Globalsecurity.org’s explanation (click here for an Iraq specific explanation). The ‘pre-offensive’ is gearing up in Mosul, after Prime Minister Maliki announced the plans on Friday. Defense Ministry spokesperson Mohammed Askari has said “The largest portion of those forces have arrived already. They are Iraqi army forces and include troops, mechanized troops and air force…The plan will be similar to the ones implemented in Baghdad and Diyala [province].”

The real problems in Mosul stem from tensions between Arabs and Kurds, and has created a new flashpoint in the country’s battle against internal sectarian and ethnic violence. Defense Minister Abdel Qadir Jassim Mohammed visited the city on Sunday, and gave a press conference saying that “The situation in Mosul is worse than imagined by far“. He also said that the Iraqi military’s deployment in Mosul was scattered and lacked unity. The situation with the security forces was being rectified, according to him.
Following up on the bomb blast in Mosul on Wednesday, the death toll has risen to far beyond the initial report of 12. It is estimated to be about 60. The Iraq Red Crescent reported that many families had buried their deceased relatives without registering the deaths with the authorities or local morgue.

Mosul, in the Kurdistan province in northern Iraq, has suffered a bomb blast that came almost immediately after police arrived to act on a tip that the building contained explosives. According to Brigadier General Abdul Karim Al-Jubouri, it occurred at 1630 local time, and witnesses said it was the loudest blast they had ever heard in Mosul. Apparently, it was a booby-trapped house that has followed a string of such houses that have killed many Iraqi forces, US/Coalition forces, and civilians according to the Bloomberg website. However, Brig. Gen. Al-Jubouri has said that officials do not think that it was a traditional booby-trap mechanism by the usual suspects, because the insurgents would wait for the local security officers to actually enter the building to increase the victim yield. In addition, he also said that insurgents would warn local residents to leave the area, which did not happen in this case.

An attempted assassination on the head of the Kirkuk police academy has resulted in five civilians dead and over 10 injured. A suicide car bomb missed its target in a town called Dibis, about 20 miles northwest of Kirkuk. This marks a rise in violence in the once placid area of Kurdistan.

BBC does these pieces sometimes where they will interview and tell the story of someone who is living the headlines. In a piece dated January 19 they tell the story of Noor who is an Iraqi refugee living in Syria. It’s quite searing, and gives a human perspective to the media headlines. In today’s Washington Post however, US officials are calling a cache of files on foreign fighters flowing into Iraq “one of the deepest reservoirs of information we’ve ever obtained of the network going into Iraq”. The youngest would-be bomber’s profile discovered in these documents was 16 years old.

In other developments, members of the Issawi tribe were killed when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt on Sunday in Fallujah, making it the second suicide attack in the Anbar province over the weekend. On Saturday, six policemen were killed and 13 wounded west of Ramadi.

Woman bomber kills 11 in Iraq in Baquba, capital of the Diyala province. Incidentally, this is the province where a major operation to clean out insurgents is underway. Unfortunately, this has been the third female bomber in three months in Baquba. With the upsurge in booby-trapped houses killing coalition and local security forces, the insurgents are not going quietly. An unannounced visit to Baghdad by Secretary Rice had her meeting PM Maliki and FM Hoshiar Zebari and praising the political process that has moved along ‘quite remarkably’, as she termed it.