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Iraq:

A Failing State, Corrupt Sectarian Government, Civil War, Death and Destruction Everywhere

January 13, 2016 

 

US strikes a bank in Mosul, January 12, 2016 anadolu	An attack on an army vehicle in Al-Tarimiya, north of Baghdad, January 12, 2016

 

US strikes Daesh cash holding facility in Mosul

Anadolu, 12.01.2016

WASHINGTON --

Strike destroyed 'millions' of dollars; killed 5 to 7 people, says Pentagon

A U.S.-led coalition airstrike destroyed a Daesh cash storage facility in Iraq, according to a defense official quoted by CNN Monday.

The unnamed official did not specify how much money was in the building in Mosul but said 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs were dropped on the facility, destroying "millions" of dollars worth of cash.

The strike came early Monday and according to the CNN, the Pentagon believes five to seven civilians might have been killed.

The official said the coalition targeted cash-holding buildings one or two times in 2015, but Monday’s strike was probably the biggest.

 

Attacks in Iraq that killed dozens shatter relative calm after IS losses

Iraq attacks shatter relative calm after IS losses - US News

January 12, 2016,

By SUSANNAH GEORGE and SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press

BAGHDAD (AP) —

Deadly attacks in Baghdad and a nearby town have shattered the relative calm far from the front lines of the war against the Islamic State group, raising concerns Tuesday that the extremists may focus once again on attacking civilians after a string of battlefield losses.

In recent months, Iraqi and Kurdish forces backed by U.S.-led airstrikes have forced IS out of Sinjar in the north and the provincial capital of Ramadi west of Baghdad.

But the extremist group has proved resilient after previous defeats, often seizing territory on other frontiers of its amoeba-like caliphate. In the days after IS fighters were driven out of Ramadi, the group launched a coordinated assault on the western town of Haditha which was repulsed by Iraqi forces.

On Monday, the Sunni extremist group went after softer targets in Baghdad and the town of Muqdadiyah to the northeast, with attacks that appeared to be aimed at killing Shiite civilians and aggravating sectarian tensions -- a strategy pursued with horrifying results by the group's predecessor, al-Qaida in Iraq.

Gunmen targeted the entrance to the Jawhara mall in a mainly Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad late Monday with a car bomb and a suicide bomber before storming in and opening fire. They killed 18 people and wounded more than 50 before Iraqi forces landed on the roof and battled their way inside, killing two attackers and arresting another four. A separate car bomb elsewhere in the city killed five people and wounded 12.

Later that night, back-to-back suicide attacks on a cafe frequented by government-allied Shiite militiamen killed at least 24 people and wounded 52 in the Shiite-dominated mixed town of Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles (90 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad. The Islamic State group on Tuesday claimed both major attacks.

Angry Shiite mobs responded to the Muqdadiyah bombings by attacking several Sunni mosques, completely destroying two of them and killing an imam, said Sheikh Abdul-Latif al-Himaim, Iraq's head of Sunni Religious Endowments. "Organized gangs were behind the attack (on the mosques), seeking to inflame sectarian tensions," he said.

The attack and the violent response recalled the darkest days of Iraq's sectarian fighting in 2006 and 2007, when tens of thousands of Shiites and Sunnis were killed in revenge attacks.

"These attacks are part of a deliberate campaign to undermine the strength of the Iraqi security forces," said Patrick Martin, an Iraq analyst at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C.

"These are not isolated incidents," he said. "All these attacks are part of the same campaign by ISIS to essentially force Iraqi security forces to respond and prevent them from conducting forward operations. It's aimed at undermining their strength."

The U.N. envoy to Iraq, Jan Kubis, called on all sides to "refrain from being drawn into a cycle of reprisals" and warned that the attackers seek to take Iraq "back into the dark days of sectarian strife."

The government announced that IS had been driven from the Diyala province a year ago, but the group has continued to carry out attacks in the area. Pro-government Shiite militias led much of the fighting against IS in Diyala, and today have a major role in securing the province.

The area around the Jawhara mall in Baghdad was placed on lockdown after the attack. Residents got their first look at the damage on Tuesday morning, finding streets littered with glass and rubble.

Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi toured the site on Tuesday, calling the assault a "desperate attempt" by the militants to retaliate after the loss of Ramadi and saying Iraq would "spare no efforts" in expelling them from the country.

Many residents, however, were still in a state of shock.

 

As Iraq fights Islamic State, violence rises in Shiite south

Jan 09, 2016 11:29 AM EST

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN

Associated Press

BAGHDAD (AP) -

As the sun sets over Iraq's southern city of Basra, Ahmed Hilal rushes to lock his door. At night, every knock sends his heart beating faster. In the morning, the father of three or someone he trusts walks his children to school, barely five minutes away.

The U.S. refugee program came under fresh criticism Friday after federal authorities revealed that two Iraqi-born men arrested on terrorism-related charges had come to America as refugees. The U.S. refugee program came under fresh criticism Friday after federal authorities revealed that two Iraqi-born men arrested on terrorism-related charges had come to America as refugees.

An Islamic State affiliate in eastern Libya is claiming responsibility for Thursday's suicide truck bomb attack targeting a police base in the town of Zliten. An Islamic State affiliate in eastern Libya claimed responsibility for a suicide truck bomb attack targeting a police base in the town of Zliten that authorities said killed at least 60 policemen and wounded around 200.

U.S. military officials say an American Predator drone crashed Thursday in Iraq but say it was not shot down by enemy fire. U.S. military officials say an American Predator drone crashed Thursday in Iraq but say it was not shot down by enemy fire.

Fear has become part of daily life amid a surge of violence in Basra, where rampant crime, kidnappings and extortion have become commonplace. Marauding Shiite militiamen drive around in cars with tinted windows and without plates, while local clans wage bloody feuds.

"If someone knocks on the door, I pray to God that nothing bad will happen," said the 40-year-old Hilal, a school employee. "Any sound of shooting, even if it's far away, scares us. "

Basra and Iraq's southern Shiite heartland were spared from the Islamic State group, which seized much of northern and western Iraq in 2014. But as Iraq has struggled to combat the group, security forces have increasingly been redeployed from the south, leaving a security vacuum that has been filled by unruly militias and criminal gangs.

Local officials blame the lack of police for soaring theft, armed robberies, kidnappings for ransom, bloody tribal disputes and an uptick in drug trafficking. Residents complain that infighting over government posts and the growing influence of Shiite militias have exacerbated the situation.

Last month, Hilal's nephew was shot and killed in broad daylight by car thieves. The young man's last moments were caught by the surveillance camera of a nearby store. The video shows him trying to run away from the car with the keys after pulling over. One of the attackers chases after him and guns him down before the carjackers speed away.

A Basra security official said an Iraqi military division of about 8,000 troops redeployed from the region in late 2014 to join the fight against IS, along with a police battalion of about 500 troops, leaving nine incomplete police battalions and only one army battalion for the entire Basra province, which has a population of about 3 million.

The result, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss security matters with the media, has been a wave of armed robberies targeting homes, cars, jewelry stores and currency exchanges, as well as a resurgence in tribal clashes and an increase in drug trafficking from neighboring Iran to Gulf Arab states.

Local officials contacted by The Associated Press declined to give specific figures on the violence, but Basra councilman Ahmed Abdul-Hussein was quoted by the al-Mada local newspaper as saying that police registered 1,200 criminal cases in the past four months, mainly killings, kidnappings, robberies and tribal disputes.

Basra, about 550 kilometers (340 miles) southeast of the Baghdad, is Iraq's second-largest province and home to about 70 percent of its proven oil reserves of 143.1 billion barrels. Located on the Persian Gulf and bordering Kuwait and Iran, it is also Iraq's only outlet to the sea and the hub for most of the country's oil exports of nearly 3.8 million barrels a day. Last month, daily exports averaged about 3.215 million barrels from Basra.

Several Basra residents, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity fearing for their safety, painted a picture of pervasive lawlessness. Armed tribesmen fight each other and sometimes besiege oil fields, demanding jobs for their sons, they said.

A truck driver described how gunmen opened fire as he was driving on the highway one night in November, just north of Basra. They forced him to pull over, grabbed him and took him to a nearby farm, where they held him for five days. He was released after his family paid $10,000 in ransom.

Traumatized, the truck driver left his job and is now unemployed.

"I'm afraid that I might get kidnapped again and this time, we have no money to pay anymore," he said.

Basra governor Majid al-Nasrawi recounted a November heist in which a gang robbed employees of a local security company who were on their way to their office from a bank with the equivalent of nearly $1 million in cash for company salaries. Police arrested some of the gang members in December but only retrieved about half the money.

In October, gunmen stole about 600 million Iraqi dinars (about $500,000) in salaries from the state-run South Oil Company, said al-Nasrawi.

Outside Basra, dozens of militants driving SUVs raided a camp for falconry hunters last month in a remote desert area in Samawah province, abducting up to 26 Qatari hunters. Since then, there has been no word on their fate.

In an effort to boost security, the governor recently announced a door-to-door campaign to disarm tribes in Basra's northern suburbs. He warned provincial security forces and pro-government Shiite militias they would be disarmed, sacked and prosecuted if they take part in tribal fighting.

The Interior Ministry dispatched an intelligence unit to Basra last month to help contain the situation. Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, also raised the alarm in a recent Friday sermon, denouncing the tribal disputes that have "left dozens of innocent people dead" in Basra.

In recent months, Basra activists have staged protests to demand the resignation of senior local officials and better security and public services. They also recently launched a campaign entitled "Stop the Killing" to draw attention to the violence, activist Haider Abdul-Amir Salman said.

Like many of his friends, Salman said his family has faced attacks and threats. They survived unharmed when gunmen tossed a bomb into their home in September. The 40-year-old doctor and father of two said he escaped a kidnapping attempt on him and his son.

"Basra is suffering," said Salman. "And the crimes won't stop as long as weapons are everywhere and the tribes protect the criminals."

Associated Press writer Nabil al-Jourani contributed to this report from Basra, Iraq.

Follow Sinan Salaheddin on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sinansm

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

ديالى اا إصابات في صفوف المدنيين بانفجار عبوة ناسف.. صلاح الدين اا اختطاف مسؤول مفوضية الانتخابات الحال..   ديالى اا الميليشيات الطائفية تغتال ثلاثة مدنيين.. مواقف اا الهيئة تصدر بيانا حول حرب الميليشيات الطا.. بغداد اا قتلى وجرحى من الجيش الحكومي بانفجار استهد..

بغداد اا ميليشيات حكومية تقتحم منزلا غربي العاصمة .. بغداد اا العثور على ثلاث جثث مجهولة الهوية بمناطق .. اعتراف حكومي اا الإدعاء العام لايحاسب المفسدين ولا.. بغداد اا قتلى وجرحى بانفجار جنوبي العاصمة..   اعتراف حكومي اا المفسدون هم أصحاب القرار ولايمكن ا.. ديالى اا إصابة مدير استخبارات المحافظة ومقتل ضابط ..

 

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