Gorilla’s Guides

Basrah: British Convoy Attacked : Aswat al Iraq:

A civilian was injured when a column of British occupation forces was attacked by a bomber using a roadside bomb in central Basrah. The British base in Shuaiba (40 km west of Basra) came under attack  using Katyusha rockets.  URL:

Kirkuk: Shamit Bridge : Iraqi Patrol Bombed : Aswat al Iraq:

At least one Iraqi soldier was killed and four others, including an officer, were wounded on Wednesday when their patrol was attacked by a bomber using a roadside. The attack was at Shamit bridge, 60 km southwest of Kirkuk. URL:

US Statement on Central Criminal Court of Iraq : Aswat al Iraq:

The article summarises a release by the American army of occupation:

“BAGHDAD, Iraq – The Central Criminal Court of Iraq convicted 48 security detainees from December 8 to 28, for various crimes including murder, kidnapping, illegal possession of special category weapons, violation of the terrorist laws, failure to renew resident identification, possessing and using a fake ID, use or attempted use of explosives, and illegal border crossing.

The trial court found a Syrian man and a Saudi Arabian man guilty of violating Article 4/1 of the Terrorist Law.  The defendants were captured June 19 in a targeted raid on Al-Qaeda members.  The defendants were found guarding a house containing a hostage and both admitted that they were responsible for guarding the hostage.  On Dec. 26 the trial panel considered all the evidence and sentenced the men to death.”
you can read the American release in full here.
URL on Aswat Al Iraq: URL on Centcom CPIC:

Executions al-Askari Denies Date for Hangings Set : Aswat al Iraq:

Sami al-Askari - Maliki’s political adviser - has denied that Barzan al-Tikriti, and Awwad al-Bandar will be executed tomorrow. In a telephone interview with Aswat Al Iraq he said that reports to this effect were “inaccurate” When he was asked whether an execution date had been fixed al-Askari replied “no date has been so far set to hang al-Tikriti and al-Bander.” He went on to say “Al-Tikriti and al-Bander will probably be executed next week after the Iraqi army day holiday on January 6th.” The two were convicted in the case of the murder of 148 citizens from Dujail village in 1982 following a failed assassination  attempt on Saddam Hussein.

Next Saturday, January 6th, is the date for the anniversary of the founding of the Iraqi army and is celebrated in Iraq as an official holiday. URL:
[He’s denying reports such as this one headlined as “Iraq to hang two Saddam aides Thursday” from AFP - markfromireland]

Othman Denies Kurdish Involvement In Saddam Hanging : Aswat al Iraq:

This article deals with Mahmoud Othman’s criticism of the Kurdish leadership with regard to Saddam Hussein’s hanging. Aswat Al Iraq have also published it in English. There are no significant differences. The text below is from the English version:

Kurdish leaders not notified of Saddam’s execution-legislator
By Awat Ali

Sulaimaniya, Jan 3, (VOI) – The Kurdish leaders were not notified of Saddam’s execution date and no Kurdish officials were among the 25 people who attended the execution, legislator said on Wednesday.

“None of the Kurdish officials attended Saddam’s execution at dawn on Saturday,” lawmaker Mahmuod Othman, of Kurdistan Coalition, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
Mr. Othman denied that Kurdish officials were notified of the date set to hang the former Iraqi President adding “we only learnt about Saddam’s execution from media reports aired on Friday by satellite channels.”

“Why did President Jalal Talabani and Kurdistan President Massoud al-Barazani refrain from declaring their stand about the non-notification of the Kurdish leaders as to when the death sentence against the former Iraqi President was planned to be carried out” Othman wondered.
“The Kurds were wronged with the death of Saddam Hussein,” said the legislator and added “how can we know now that he is dead about the companies which gave Iraq the chemical weapons used to gas and kill the Kurds during the anti-Kurds Anfal in 1980s.”

The former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was hanged on Saturday for crimes against humanity in Dujail case.
An Iraqi court had sentenced on November 5, 2006 Saddam, his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and the head of the former Revolutionary Court Awwad al-Bandar to death by hanging.

Saddam and seven of his top aides had been on trial since October 2005 on charges of crimes against humanity including the killing of 148 Iraqis from the village of Dujail after an attempt against his life in 1982.

The executed former Iraqi President is currently on trial in another case with six of his aides on charges of committing crimes against humanity for gassing Kurdish villages and killing nearly 182,000 Kurds during the Anfal anti-Kurds campaign in 1988.

After Saddam’s execution, the proceedings of Anfal case trial are expected to continue trying him in absentia.
URL[Arabic] : URL [English] :

Delegations from Anbar, Diyala, Kirkuk and Mosul to visit Saddam’s Tomb  : Aswat al Iraq:

Hundred of cars carrying delegations arrived from the governorates of Anbar, Diyala, Mosul and Karkok arrived to visit Saddam Hussein’s tomb. Condolence meetings and registers have been set up throughout Salāh ad-Dīn. URL:

Diyala : Muqdadiya : Three Police Wounded : Aswat al Iraq:

Three police wounded in an attack on their patrol. URL:

U.S. forces clash with gunmen in Deloiya : Aswat al Iraq:

This article deals with the fighting in Deloiya there is also an English version. There are no significant differences. The text below is from the English version.

U.S. forces clash with gunmen in Deloiya
By Ghazwan al-Juburi

Deloiya, Jan 3, (VOI) – Heavy clashes erupted on Wednesday in the Iraqi town of Deloiya between unidentified gunmen and U.S. troops which used aircraft to shell several farms in the town, a Deloiya police source said.

Several U.S. armored vehicles “raided al-Jubur district in central Deloiya (90 km north of Baghdad) at noon supported by Apaches,” the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

He said the forces were attacked by unidentified gunmen using RPG7 rockets and machineguns and several mines exploded at the armored vehicles.
“Heavy clashes erupted between the two sides and lasted more than an hour during which the U.S. forces used the choppers to return fire at the attackers in the farms area east of Deloiya,” the source added.

The source could not tell the casualties among the gunmen or the U.S. troops which blocked all roads leading to Deloiya and placed the town under embargo until further notice.
URL [Arabic]: URL [English]

Keep An Eye On This One

Top Iraqi Sunni chief thrown to his death

From correspondents in Baghdad January 03, 2007 07:58pm

A 75-year-old chief from Iraq’s powerful Tamim tribe was thrown to his death from the top of a Baghdad building after gunmen kidnapped him from a funeral, a relative said today.

Sheik Hamed Mohammed Suhail, a Sunni leader in a mixed Sunni and Shi’ite tribe, was seized from the funeral in Agarguff area near Abu Ghraib on the western outskirts of Baghdad on Monday.
“He was dragged from the funeral and taken to Shuala area in Baghdad and then thrown from the top of a building,” his nephew, tribal leader Sheik Ali Suhail al-Tamimi, said, blaming Shi’ite militants.

Shuala is a Shi’ite neighbourhood in western Baghdad.

Although Mohammed Suhail is a Sunni, nearly two thirds of his tribe is Shi’ite and he was known as a moderate who was working to reconcile Baghdad’s warring communities, his nephew said.

“We accuse the Mahdi Army of killing him in this ugly way,” Mr Suhail said, pointing the finger at radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s militia, which has been accused of killing Sunni Arabs in Iraq’s sectarian conflict.
Mr Suhail said his uncle died in a Shuala hospital.  “We demand that Mahdi army operating in the Agarguff area be investigated. These militias want nothing but sectarian war,” Mr Suhail said.

Tamim is a leading tribe in the Arab world with clans in countries like Syria and Jordan as well as Iraq.

[This one is seriously bad news  - mfi]

Commentary

The Americans Can Never be Trusted

Daoud Shirian Al-Hayat - 03/01/07//

The mendacious mutual recriminations between US officials and the rulers of Baghdad, regarding the way former President Saddam Hussein was executed, condemns and holds Washington culpable for the timing, the way the barbaric act was carried out, and the fact that it was shown to the people. Washington could have adhered to the implementation of the new Iraqi Constitution, which stipulates that three persons ratify the death sentence, and which prohibits the execution of the sentence during holidays, but it condoned the way the Constitution was adopted, in the sense that ‘we did not order it and it does not harm us’, and replaced the Constitution, justice and humanitarian senses with dependence on the opinion of the religious authorities and intolerance.

The hasty implementation of the death sentence against Saddam Hussein was an urgent US demand, just as it was a lust for sectarian revenge by the al-Maliki government, and evidence that what was reported as Washington’s acquiescence to growing pressure from the ruling elite in Baghdad was a mere allegation.

Washington regained its ability to steer the al-Maliki government once the sentence was implemented. The Americans intervened and prevented al-Maliki and his clique from hiding Saddam’s body, and they facilitated his burial, because they realized that the absence of the body, as al-Maliki and his group wanted, would heighten the anger in the Sunni street and would turn Saddam from a leader that was executed in a horrendous way into a martyr.

There is no doubt that implying that the Americans were outraged at the hasty implementation of the sentence and that they were deeply disappointed at what they call the failure of the al-Maliki government and the recognition of its destructive behavior is a continuation of the political mendacity between al-Maliki and the Americans, and is part of the political propaganda campaign exercised by the US administration against the American people and us. Washington sought to get Saddam out of the picture as soon as possible, for domestic, historical and political reasons.

Furthermore, the elimination of Saddam was an objective in itself. Killing Saddam means crushing the thorn of opposition to the US project and burying the secrets of a conspiracy that started with the invasion of Kuwait. The US found that al-Maliki’s clique shared the same desire. Al-Maliki believed that the elimination of Saddam would put an end to the Sunni rule over Iraq forever. But the result, which the Shiite officials in Iraq and the Americans did not expect, is that the brutal execution of Saddam created a state of Sunni and Arab alignment inside and outside Iraq, and increased Washington’s crisis. Washington has lost, through this barbarism, the Sunni Arabs and others, who came to doubt the US vision of the communal mosaic in the region.

The positions of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan regarding the hideous execution raise serious questions. These States were at odds with Saddam Hussein, strongly supported the reconciliation process, refused to intervene in the political process in Iraq from a sectarian perspective, in spite of all the pressure, and had always conducted their relations with all Iraqi parties from a political standpoint that aims for the unity of Iraq. They also supported the plan of former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, because he did not, in their belief, represent any sectarian orientation. But they discovered in the early hours of the Greater Bairam that all the slogans that were advocated by the al-Maliki and Ibrahim al-Jaafari governments and the remaining Shiite officials were merely political misleads, and that these rulers are carrying out a sectarian project under the umbrella of reconciliation and democracy. They also discovered that the execution of Saddam Hussein in this provocative way was a representation of Tehran’s determination to continue implementing its project; Tehran described the barbaric execution as ‘divine justice’.

Today, with the al-Maliki government having boasted about the barbaric execution of Saddam, and the US government having given its consent to the implementation and recording of the hanging in this manner, which runs contrary to US and humanitarian values, we must stop talking about the mistakes of US policy in Iraq.

What is going on in this country is a dirty and premeditated scheme: Washington dissolved the Iraqi army, while we were busy finding excuses for US policy, which is ignorant of the region’s history and the nature of the structure of the Iraqi people. The US allowed the adoption of a Constitution that cancels the Arabism of Iraq. We hailed this Constitution as an act of democracy. Then the execution of Saddam revealed Washington exercising an unprecedented savagery and its support for a handful of fanatic Shiites to replace the neo-conservatives for the implementation of the so-called ‘New Iraq’ project.

What kind of Iraq can we expect, after all that has happened? What kind of democracy are the US and the gang of al-Maliki promising us?

Summary Reports

You’ll see there from the Reuters reports that the American invaders having got what they demanded from their green zone government underlings are now realising that they have made yet another catastrophic error. They’re trying frantically to backpedal. When a dog bites you - you blame the master not the dog.

marlfromireland

Mclatchy

• Roundup of violence in Iraq - 3 January 2007 - 1/03/2007 02:38 PM EST
  By MOHAMMED AL AWSY, McClatchy Newspapers
  The daily Iraq violence report is compiled by McClatchy Newspapers Special Correspondent Mohammed al Awsy in Baghdad from police, military and medical reports. This is not a comprehensive list of all violence in Iraq, much of which goes unreported. It’s posted without editing as transmitted to McClatchy’s Washington Bureau.

Reuters

• Bush seeks backing for agenda on U.S. budget, Iraq
  03 Jan 2007 19:21:49 GMT
  Source: Reuters
  By Steve Holland WASHINGTON, Jan 3 (Reuters) - With Democrats poised to take over Congress, President George W. Bush on Wednesday used a Rose Garden ceremony and a newspaper opinion piece to try to …  Full article
• UN rights chief asks Iraq to stop executions
  03 Jan 2007 18:37:41 GMT
  Source: Reuters
  GENEVA, Jan 3 (Reuters) - United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour on Wednesday appealed to Iraq not to execute two ex-officials from the administration of former president …  Full article
• FACTBOX-Security developments in Iraq, Jan 3
  03 Jan 2007 18:34:38 GMT
  Source: Reuters
  Jan 3 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Iraq as of 1700 GMT on Wednesday: * denotes a new or updated item. * BAGHDAD - Police found 27 bodies in Baghdad over the …  Full article
• Iraq says Saddam video meant to stir trouble
  03 Jan 2007 18:28:31 GMT
  Source: Reuters
  (Adds authorities identify suspect) By Ibon Villelabeitia BAGHDAD, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Facing outrage over a video showing Shi’ite witnesses mocking Saddam Hussein on the gallows, Iraqi officials …  Full article
• U.S. on Saddam: “Would have done it differently”
  03 Jan 2007 17:51:15 GMT
  Source: Reuters
  (Adds quotes, edits) By Alastair Macdonald and Claudia Parsons BAGHDAD, Jan 3 (Reuters) - U.S. forces had no role in Saddam Hussein’s hanging, but would have handled it differently, a U.S. general …  Full article
• US raised timing, procedure concerns on Saddam
  03 Jan 2007 17:44:37 GMT
  Source: Reuters
  WASHINGTON, Jan 3 (Reuters) - The United States raised concerns with the Iraqi government about procedures and timing of former President Saddam Hussein’s execution prior to his hanging, a State …  Full article

markfromireland