Irak Main Developments Translated & Summarised From Arabic April 3 2007
Below you will find a list of today’s main events in Irak so far. Together with two stories from Al Zamam and several reports from the British newspaper The Independent. There is also a report from IRIN warning of the protential for massive bloodshed in Kirkuk. That this should come as “news” is astonishing – we have been warning of it for a long time now. As is well known fighters have been streaming north for the last few months determined to prevent the town being seized by separatists. There are reports that an American cargo plane has been downed eyewitnesses say by a missile.
In the first four days of this month 10 soldiers from the U.S. invader forces and one British soldier from the British invader forces have been killed by people resisting the unlawful invasion and occupation of Irak. Because of time constraints much of today’s posting is from English language sources. However there are important other developments which I have translated from Arabic and summarised below the fold.
Finally I welcome three new authors and long term contributors who have completed MFI’s web research and writing course to our writing team. They have been valued report contributors and report verifiers for more than a year:
- Ali Ibn Hussayn
- Hassan Abu Omar
- Um Thalit.
Saba
Breaking News – American Helicopters Bombing Residential Areas In Baghdad
Eyewitnesses are reporting said that an American helicopter has bombed residential neighborhoods this evening in south-east Baghdad with two missiles. There is intensive American helicopter activity over Sadr City.Civilians are being prevented from leaving their homes. There has been no official statement from the American invaders or their Iraki underlings the “security authorities”
Source: Aswat al Iraq
Main Developments Translated & Summarised From Arabic
The Iranian diplomat al-Sharafi Jalal, who was released late Monday in Baghdad after he was kidnapped by unknown gunmen in the Iraqi capital two months ago, left Iraq, a source at the Iranian embassy in Baghdad said on Tuesday. “The Iranian diplomat Jalal al-Sharafi was released late on Monday he has left Iraqi soil and is now on his way to Tehran,” the source, who asked not to be named, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI Al-Sharafi, the second secretary of his country’s embassy to Baghdad, was kidnapped on February 4 while driving his private car in downtown Baghdad.Al-Sharafi, the second secretary of his country’s embassy to Baghdad, was kidnapped on February 4 while driving his private car in downtown Baghdad. (See report from UK Independent below – Saba)
The Iraki Red Crescent Society has opened a refugee camp in Mosul for 25 families forced to flee Tal Afar first by the massive Tal Afar bombing and then the massacre of inhabitants by Iraki “police” loyal to the green zone government. The encampment consists of 100 tents. Green zone government spokesmen claim that 4 al-Qaeda gunmen killed, 21 arrested in clashes in Talafar.
The Association of Muslim Scholars, today condemned the bombing by American forces bombed of two houses in Zaidan village part Khalidiyahtownship Al-Anbar yesterday, Monday, and said that it resulted in the death of 30 civilians from two families including 14 children and the wounding of several others. In Anbar a car bomb detonated by remote control in Khalidiyah left 2 dead and 8 wounded (see below Saba). An “Iraki” army patrol was bombed today east of Fallujah destroying several of their transports.
There are TV reports (not verified elsewhere) that the American invader forces raided the Sadrist office today in north Baghdad and that they burned all its contents. No further details given and no statement from the American invaders or their Iraki underlings for the incident.
In Mosul people living near separatist political party offices (the PUK and KDP) have been warned anonymously to leave their homes before the places are attacked. Also in Mosul a local version of the Baghdad surge is being implemented. An English language version of the report is here. A policeman was wounded bya bomb in Mosul.
More than 2000 textile workers protesting the devastation of their livelihoods caused by the corrupt American Bremer regimes “reforms” of the Iraki economy gathered in Kut today. One policeman was killed and three others wounded by a bomb on the main road near the American invaders’ base “Delta” west of Kut. An bomb targeting an American invader military convoy on the Kut-Baghdad highway destroyed a “Hummer” vehicle today, an eyewitness said .A similar bombing attack occurred on Sunday and resulted in the destruction of a Hummer vehicle also unidentified gunmen attacked a fuel station, killing one guard and wounding another.
An armed group raided the market and shot down Haider Benarbia and seriously wounded two of his brothers in al-Khalis, additionally 10 employees ofthe Electrical Industries Department have been kidnapped since Monday. VOI quotes local residents as saying they have been “fighting against the militias and armed groups for survival.” (That “surge” is working really well is it not? – Saba)
The fuel situation in Diyala is now so bad that fuel rations are to be transferred from Wasit. In Diyala the bodies of five Iraki policemen were found by a National Guard patrol on the main road in northern Hibhib.
Colonel Jassim Mohammed Farhan a senior green zone government police commander escaped an assasination attempt near Tikrit one of his bodyguards was killed and another seriously wounded.
U.S. Cargo Transport Plane Reported As Shot Down By Missile
A U.S. plane, believed to be a cargo plane, crashed in a remote area in eastern Dalouiya, Salah al-Din province, eyewitnesses said on Tuesday.
“The plane was coming from the U.S. Anaconda airbase (formerly al-Bakr) and is believed to have been hit by a missile and caught fire in the air,” an eyewitness told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
The source added “U.S. helicopters fired at the crashed plane and prohibited anyone from approaching the scene.”
No comments were made by the U.S. army on the incident.
Source: Salah al-Din-U.S. : Aswat al Iraq (English) The Arabic report is here.
Other Developments (1)
- Baaquba – An armed group kidnapped a judge in al-Aazim area in northern Baaquba, Diala province, an Iraqi police source said on Tuesday.
- Baghdad – Three U.S. soldiers were killed on Monday in separate areas in Iraq, raising the total number of fatalities this month to 10, including eight during the first two days of April, the U.S. army said.
- Balad – The mayor of Balad, Salah al-Din province, was wounded along with five of his body guards after an explosive device went off, a medic from the Balad public hospital said on Tuesday.
- Basra – A British patrol came under an attack with an explosive device while conducting a search operation south of the city, where British soldiers had arrested a suspect and seized arms and ammunition, a military spokeswoman for the Multi-National Force – South said on Tuesday.
- Basra –Basra police freed a hostage in western Basra, a security source in Basra said on Tuesday.
- Dalouiya – A U.S. plane crashed in a remote area in eastern Dalouiya, Salah al-Din province, an eyewitness said on Tuesday.
- Diala – Five gunmen were killed while they drove their car rigged with explosives to target civilians in northern Khalis district, Diala province, an official security source said on Tuesday.
- Falluja – An explosive device went off near an Iraqi army patrol in eastern Falluja, Anbar province, eyewitnesses said on Tuesday.
- Hibhib – The bodies of five policemen were found by an Iraqi National Guard patrol on the main street, north of the district of Hibhib, Diala province, an Iraqi police source said on Tuesday.
- Khalis – A civilian was killed and two of his brothers were wounded in an attack on their store in the main market of Khalis district, while 10 employees disappeared from Baaquba on Monday, an Iraqi police source said.
- Kirkuk – An explosive charge went off near a Kirkuk emergency police patrol, wounding two policemen and a civilian, an official security source said on Tuesday.
- Kut – A U.S. force arrested the chief of al-Aabed tribe in central Wassit after raiding his home, an eyewitness said on Tuesday.
- Kut – A U.S. Hummer vehicle was destroyed when an explosive charge went off near a U.S. convoy on the Kut-Baghdad highway on Tuesday, an eyewitness said.
- Tikrit – The police chief guard in Salah al-Din province survived an assassination attempt in eastern Tikrit, while one of his guards was killed and another wounded, a security source in Tikrit said on Tuesday.
Source: Iraq-Security (Highlights) 1 (English) Aswat al Iraq the Arabic Version is here.
Other Developments (2)
- Baaquba – An armed group kidnapped a judge in al-Aazim area in northern Baaquba, Diala province, an Iraqi police source said on Tuesday.
- Baghdad- U.S. forces stormed on Tuesday the office of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in al-Hurriya city in northern Baghdad and burned down its contents, the state-run al-Iraqiya satellite channel reported without adding further details.
- Baghdad – Three U.S. soldiers were killed on Monday in separate areas in Iraq, raising the total number of fatalities this month to 10, including eight during the first two days of April, the U.S. army said.
- Balad – The mayor of Balad, Salah al-Din province, was wounded along with five of his body guards after an explosive device went off, a medic from the Balad public hospital said on Tuesday.
- Basra- A woman was killed on Tuesday when a landmine went off in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, a police source said.
- Basra – A British patrol came under an attack with an explosive device while conducting a search operation south of the city, where British soldiers had arrested a suspect and seized arms and ammunition, a military spokeswoman for the Multi-National Force – South said on Tuesday.
- Basra –Basra police freed a hostage in western Basra, a security source in Basra said on Tuesday.
- Dalouiya – A U.S. plane crashed in a remote area in eastern Dalouiya, Salah al-Din province, an eyewitness said on Tuesday.
- Diala – Five gunmen were killed while they drove their car rigged with explosives to target civilians in northern Khalis district, Diala province, an official security source said on Tuesday.
- Falluja- A booby-trapped car went off on Tuesday in central Khalidiyah city, west of Falluja, killing two civilians and injuring eight, eyewitnesses said.
- Falluja – An explosive device went off near an Iraqi army patrol in eastern Falluja, Anbar province, eyewitnesses said on Tuesday.
- Hibhib – The bodies of five policemen were found by an Iraqi National Guard patrol on the main street, north of the district of Hibhib, Diala province, an Iraqi police source said on Tuesday.
- Khalis – A civilian was killed and two of his brothers were wounded in an attack on their store in the main market of Khalis district, while 10 employees disappeared from Baaquba on Monday, an Iraqi police source said.
- Kirkuk- At least nine people were wounded on Tuesday when three explosive charges went off in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, a police source said.
- Kirkuk – An explosive charge went off near a Kirkuk emergency police patrol, wounding two policemen and a civilian, an official security source said on Tuesday.
- Kut- U.S. forces released a tribal chief after detaining him for less than a day in Kut, while a night curfew was imposed on the southern Iraqi city, a security source said.
- Kut – A U.S. force arrested the chief of al-Aabed tribe in central Wassit after raiding his home, an eyewitness said on Tuesday.
- Kut – A U.S. Hummer vehicle was destroyed when an explosive charge went off near a U.S. convoy on the Kut-Baghdad highway on Tuesday, an eyewitness said.
- Mosul- An Iraqi policeman was wounded on Tuesday when an explosive charge went off near his patrol vehicle in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, a police source said.
- Tikrit – The police chief guard in Salah al-Din province survived an assassination attempt in eastern Tikrit, while one of his guards was killed and another wounded, a security source in Tikrit said on Tuesday.
Source: Iraq-Security (Highlights) 2 (English) Aswat al Iraq No Arabic Version Yet: The Arabic Version is here.
Violence rages in Diwaniya, cleric says
A senior aide to the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said security conditions in the southern city of Diwaniya were worsening at an alarming rate.
Sheikh Haydar, Sadr’s spokesman in the city, warned that “real tragedy is in store for Diwaniya unless the authorities move to save the situation.”
Sadr’s political movement and its military wing, the Mahdi Army, are the domineering force in Diwaniya.
The city and the roads leading to it are not safe and there has been a substantial rise in attacks by unidentified gunmen most of them in the form of kidnappings for ransom and assassination.
Four civilians were shot and killed in the city in the past 48 hours.
The Sadr group is often reported to be implicated in the violence but Haydar said his movement strongly condemned murder and the use of force to solve problems.
Haydar accused U.S. occupation troops of ‘destroying’ Iraqi cities and held them accountable for much of the violence currently taking place in the country.
“We call on the national symbols and personalities to quickly move and repair the destruction occupation troops have cause following their invasion of the country,” he said.
Diwaniya, 180 kilometers south of Baghdad, is the administrative capital of the Province of Qadissiya.
Located in central Iraq, on a branch of the Euphrates River and on the Baghdad-Basra railroad, it is a marketplace for dates and grains
Source: Azzaman in English
Fear-stricken city asks government for protection
Unidentified gunmen have kidnapped and killed 21 workers on their way home to the restive Province of Diyala of which Baquoba is the capital.
Their bodies were dumped in a field close to the city in what is seen here as yet another blow to the joint Iraqi-US military operations to calm Baghdad and outlying districts.
The kidnapping took place during the day as the gunmen, wearing Iraqi military uniforms, set up a checkpoint on the highway linking Baghdad to Baquoba where they abducted the workers.
They were found a day later with their eyes blinded and bullets piercing their heads from the back.
The police say the workers are victims of sectarian killings that are going on across the country where people are being murdered in cold blood on identity.
The same day the police collected 16 more bodies dumped on the streets of Baghdad, bringing the number of victims in one single day in only two cities to 37.
International media representatives and their companies are apparently no longer interested in covering stories of sectarian violence claiming scores of victims every day.
Only deaths in the range of hundreds of innocent Iraqis today capture international media attention.
Iraqi and U.S. troops are still a long way from appeasing Baghdad where violence is still raging despite repeated military campaigns.
While the troops are busy with Baghdad, the villages, towns and cities surrounding it have become more violent than any time before.
Baquoba is so violent that many ordinary Iraqis do not dare leaving their homes. Kidnapping incidents are on the rise and now take place during daylight.
Attacks by insurgents on U.S. troops on the fringes of Baghdad and nearby areas are reported to have surged, with nine Americans killed in the past 48 hours.
Source: Azzaman in English
Relocation of Arabs from Kirkuk could trigger violence
BAGHDAD, 3 April 2007 (IRIN) – The Iraqi government should delay the relocation of Arabs from the northern city of Kirkuk as the move could prompt inter-ethnic tension and violence, analysts say.
On 29 March, the Iraqi cabinet endorsed a decision adopted by a governmental committee to relocate and compensate thousands of Arabs who had moved to Kirkuk, about 250km north of Baghdad, as part of former president Saddam Hussein’s ‘Arabisation’ policy, dating back to the 1980s.
“Any [such] measure should be postponed during this difficult time that the country and Kirkuk are going through,” Hafidh al-Jawari, a Kirkuk-based political analyst, said.
Relocating thousands of Arab families who have lived in the area since the 1980s and “turning the city into a Kurdish one overnight will only increase violence between the Kurds on one side and Arabs and Turkomen on the other”, al-Jawari added.
There are reportedly about 8,000 Arab families who have indicated their willingness to leave Kirkuk in exchange for a compensation package.
But it is those Arabs who are not willing to leave that could end up in violent clashes with Kurds. “There are some ‘Wafidin’ [Arab settlers who came under the ‘Arabisation’ policy] who refuse to leave under any condition. If they are forced to leave, there would most likely be violence,” Joost Hiltermann, Middle East project director for International Crisis Group (ICG).
“I didn’t steal the house or the land of a Kurd,” said Jassim Hassan, a 55-year-old Arab who moved to Kirkuk in 1984 from the southern province of Missan.
“The government gave me a piece of land, which belonged to no one, and helped me to build my house,” added Hassan, a father of six and retired teacher. “I will never leave this city, only my dead body.”
Saddam’s ‘Arabisation’ policy
During the 1980s and 1990s, Saddam’s government carried out an ‘Arabisation’ policy by which pro-government Arabs, particularly Shias from the impoverished south, were moved into the region and Kurds were pushed out.
After the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Kirkuk was seen as a ticking time-bomb as many former residents of the city – Kurds and other non-Arabs – streamed back to find their houses had either been sold or given to Arabs from the south.Over the past few years, many Arabs have been forced by returnees to leave the city, despite Sunni and Shia Arab leaders pleading them not to. This Arab resistance has largely been a result of Kurds seeking to incorporate Kirkuk into their autonomous Kurdistan region. Arabs and Turkomen oppose this.
“We strongly reject any incorporation of Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Regional Government,” said Sheik Abdullah al-Obeidi, a member of the Kirkuk’s provincial council and representative of Sunni Arabs.
Iraqi Justice Minister Hashim al-Shibli, who heads the committee overseeing talks on Kirkuk’s status, said that the return process would be “voluntary” and the decision would be implemented “without coercion”.
Those who moved to Kirkuk from other parts of Iraq after July 1968, when Saddam’s Ba’ath party took over, would be paid about US $15,000 and given land in their hometowns, if they returned, according to officials.
“Forms will be distributed soon to the Arab residents of Kirkuk to determine who had been part of Saddam’s Arabisation campaign,” al-Shibli added, without giving specific details on the initiative.Iraq’s constitution calls for a separate referendum on Kirkuk’s future by the end of this year. Opponents of the referendum want to put the vote off – concerned about Kurdish dominance and more violence if the referendum is held and the Kurds get the outcome they have been advocating. The relocation of Arab residents from Kirkuk would help the Kurds ensure a majority in favor of incorporating the city into Kurdistan, they say.
Source: IRIN IRAQ: Relocation of Arabs from Kirkuk could trigger violence
The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis
Exclusive Report: How a bid to kidnap Iranian security officials sparked a diplomatic crisis
By Patrick Cockburn
Published: 03 April 2007
A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.
Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.
In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment.
Better understanding of the seriousness of the US action in Arbil – and the angry Iranian response to it – should have led Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence to realise that Iran was likely to retaliate against American or British forces such as highly vulnerable Navy search parties in the Gulf. The two senior Iranian officers the US sought to capture were Mohammed Jafari, the powerful deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council, and General Minojahar Frouzanda, the chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, according to Kurdish officials.
The two men were in Kurdistan on an official visit during which they met the Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, and later saw Massoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), at his mountain headquarters overlooking Arbil.
“They were after Jafari,” Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of Massoud Barzani, told The Independent. He confirmed that the Iranian office had been established in Arbil for a long time and was often visited by Kurds obtaining documents to visit Iran. “The Americans thought he [Jafari] was there,” said Mr Hussein.
Mr Jafari was accompanied by a second, high-ranking Iranian official. “His name was General Minojahar Frouzanda, the head of intelligence of the Pasdaran [Iranian Revolutionary Guard],” said Sadi Ahmed Pire, now head of the Diwan (office) of President Talabani in Baghdad. Mr Pire previously lived in Arbil, where he headed the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Mr Talabani’s political party.
The attempt by the US to seize the two high-ranking Iranian security officers openly meeting with Iraqi leaders is somewhat as if Iran had tried to kidnap the heads of the CIA and MI6 while they were on an official visit to a country neighbouring Iran, such as Pakistan or Afghanistan. There is no doubt that Iran believes that Mr Jafari and Mr Frouzanda were targeted by the Americans. Mr Jafari confirmed to the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, that he was in Arbil at the time of the raid.
In a little-noticed remark, Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian Foreign Minister, told IRNA: “The objective of the Americans was to arrest Iranian security officials who had gone to Iraq to develop co-operation in the area of bilateral security.”
US officials in Washington subsequently claimed that the five Iranian officials they did seize, who have not been seen since, were “suspected of being closely tied to activities targeting Iraq and coalition forces”. This explanation never made much sense. No member of the US-led coalition has been killed in Arbil and there were no Sunni-Arab insurgents or Shia militiamen there.
The raid on Arbil took place within hours of President George Bush making an address to the nation on 10 January in which he claimed: “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops.” He identified Iran and Syria as America’s main enemies in Iraq though the four-year-old guerrilla war against US-led forces is being conducted by the strongly anti-Iranian Sunni-Arab community. Mr Jafari himself later complained about US allegations. “So far has there been a single Iranian among suicide bombers in the war-battered country?” he asked. “Almost all who involved in the suicide attacks are from Arab countries.”
It seemed strange at the time that the US would so openly flout the authority of the Iraqi President and the head of the KRG simply to raid an Iranian liaison office that was being upgraded to a consulate, though this had not yet happened on 11 January. US officials, who must have been privy to the White House’s new anti-Iranian stance, may have thought that bruised Kurdish pride was a small price to pay if the US could grab such senior Iranian officials.
For more than a year the US and its allies have been trying to put pressure on Iran. Security sources in Iraqi Kurdistan have long said that the US is backing Iranian Kurdish guerrillas in Iran. The US is also reportedly backing Sunni Arab dissidents in Khuzestan in southern Iran who are opposed to the government in Tehran. On 4 February soldiers from the Iraqi army 36th Commando battalion in Baghdad, considered to be under American control, seized Jalal Sharafi, an Iranian diplomat.
The raid in Arbil was a far more serious and aggressive act. It was not carried out by proxies but by US forces directly. The abortive Arbil raid provoked a dangerous escalation in the confrontation between the US and Iran which ultimately led to the capture of the 15 British sailors and Marines – apparently considered a more vulnerable coalition target than their American comrades.
The targeted generals
* MOHAMMED JAFARI
Powerful deputy head of the Iranian National Security Council, responsible for internal security. He has accused the United States of seeking to “hold Iran responsible for insecurity in Iraq… and [US] failure in the country.”
* GENERAL MINOJAHAR FROUZANDA
Chief of intelligence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the military unit which maintains its own intelligence service separate from the state, as well as a parallel army, navy and air force
Source: The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis – Independent Online Edition > Middle East
Robert Fisk: The war of humiliation
Published: 02 April 2007
Our Marines are hostages. Two more were shown on Iranian TV. Petrol bombs burst behind the walls of the British embassy in Tehran. But it’s definitely not the war on terror. It’s the war of humiliation. The humiliation of Britain, the humiliation of Tony Blair, of the British military, of George Bush and the whole Iraqi shooting match. And the master of humiliation – even if Tony Blair doesn’t realise it – is Iran, a nation which feels itself forever humiliated by the West.
Oh how pleased the Iranians must have been to hear Messers Blair and Bush shout for the “immediate” release of the luckless 15 – this Blair-Bush insistence has assuredly locked them up for weeks – because it is a demand that can be so easily ignored. And will be.
“Inexcusable behaviour,” roared Bush on Saturday – and the Iranians loved it. The Iranian Minister meanwhile waited for a change in Britain’s “behaviour”.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Holocaust-denying President from hell, calls Blair “arrogant and selfish” – and so say all of us, by the way – after refusing to play to the crowd at the United Nations. They’ll release “serviceperson” Faye Turney. Then they won’t release her.
Veiled Faye with her cigarette and her backcloth of cheaply flowered curtains, producing those preposterous letters of cloying friendship towards the “Iranian people” while abjectly apologising for the British snoop into Iranian waters – written, I strongly suspect, by the lads from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance – is the star of the Iranian show.
Back in 1980, when Tehran staged its much more ambitious takeover of the US embassy, the star was a blubbering marine – a certain Sergeant Ladell Maples – who was induced to express his appreciation for Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution just before America’s prime-time television news.
The Iranians, you see, understand the West. And they understand it much better than we understand – or bother to understand – Iran.
We have forgotten the years of Allied occupation in the Second World War, the deposition of the pro-German Shah and then, humiliation of humiliations, the overthrow of the democratic Prime Minister, Mohamed Mossadeq, engineered by the CIA’s Allen Dulles and an eccentric British scholar of Greek, an ex-Special Operations Executive operative – “Monty” Woodhouse by name – with a few guns and a pile of dollars. And the Iranians remember well, how back came the Shah of Iran, our “policeman” in the Gulf, the King of Kings, Light of the Aryans, descendant of Cyrus the Great, to stretch out the young Iranian men and women of the resistance on the toasting racks of their Savak torturers.
Nor have the Iranians any real intention of putting Faye and her chums in front of any court. They’d far rather have the Brits chomping through their “nan” bread on Sky TV, courtesy, of course, of Tehran’s Arabic “Al-Alam” channel. And did you notice that little “exclusive” label in the top left-hand corner of the screen when Rifleman Nathan Summers decided to go public?
How the Iranians love mimicking their oppressors. When the gold braid of the Ministry of Defence produce a complexity of maps to prove our boys were in Iraqi waters, the Iranians produce a humble coastguard with a Minotaur map to show that they were in the Iranian briney.
The Union Jack still flies on their rubber boat – but the Iranian banner floats above it. No one has yet explained, I notice, why our boys and girls in blue carry rifles on their sailing adventures if their duty is to hand them over when attacked. Are we actually trying to supply the Revolutionary Guards with more weapons?
But behind all this lie some dark questions – with, I fear, some still unknown but dark answers. The Iranian security services are convinced that the British security services are trying to provoke the Arabs of Iran’s Khuzestan province to rise up against the Islamic Republic. Bombs have exploded there, one of them killing a truck-load of Revolutionary Guards, and Tehran blamed MI5. Outrageous, they said. Inexcusable.
The Brits made no comment, even when the Iranians hanged a man accused of the killings from a crane; he had, they said, been working for London.
Are the SAS in south-western Iran, just as the British claim the Iranians are in south-eastern Iraq, harassing the boys in Basra with new-fangled bombs? Will the Americans release the five Iranians issuing visas to Kurds in Arbil whom they locked up a couple of months ago. No, says Bush. Well, we shall see.
There is a lot we do not know – or care to know – about all this. In the meantime, however, it will be left to Blair, Bush and the merchants of the SKY-BBC-CNN-FOX-CBS-NBC-ABC axis of shlock-and-awe to play the Iranian game. Will they put Faye on trial? Will our boys be threatened with execution? Answer: no, but be sure we’ll soon be told by the Iranians that they are all spies. A lie, needless to say. But Blair will fulminate and Bush will roar and the Iranians will sit back and enjoy every second of it.
The Iranians died in their tens of thousands to destroy Saddam’s legions. And now they watch us wringing our hands over 15 lost souls. This is a big-time movie, the cinemascope of political humiliation. And the Iranians not only know how to stage the drama. They’ve even written Blair’s script.
And he obligingly reads it to cue.
New TV footage shows captured servicemen
Footage of two of the 15 captured Royal Navy personnel was broadcast on Iranian state television last night.
The television station Al-Alam released footage of the captives standing in front of a map of the Persian Gulf where the sailors and marines were captured 10 days ago.
The captives’ speech was not initially broadcast, but one of the station’s newscasters said they had “confessed” to entering Iranian waters “illegally”, according to translations.
The British government maintains that the vessel was in Iraqi waters. The footage was condemned by the Foreign Office last night as “unacceptable”.
The two men were seen pointing to a picture of a boat, while the voiceover described how the servicemen had left HMS Cornwall on 23 March and arrived into Iranian waters in a small boat at 10am local time. The broadcaster said hostages were receiving “good and humanitarian treatment”.
The same station last week released footage of Faye Turney, the only woman among the captives, and Nathan Thomas Summers, whose footage was released on Friday.
The Ministry of Defence said they would not be identifying the servicemen. The families of all the personnel are understood to have been contacted last night to alert them of Al-Alam’s plan to release the footage.
Prior to the release of the footage, Foreign Office minister Des Browne had indicated that a diplomatic solution to the crisis could be sought when he said that “direct bilateral talks” with Iran over the capture were ongoing.
Helen McCormack
Source: Robert Fisk: The war of humiliation – Independent Online Edition > Robert Fisk
Relocation of Arabs from Kirkuk could trigger violence
BAGHDAD, 3 April 2007 (IRIN) – The Iraqi government should delay the relocation of Arabs from the northern city of Kirkuk as the move could prompt inter-ethnic tension and violence, analysts say.
On 29 March, the Iraqi cabinet endorsed a decision adopted by a governmental committee to relocate and compensate thousands of Arabs who had moved to Kirkuk, about 250km north of Baghdad, as part of former president Saddam Hussein’s ‘Arabisation’ policy, dating back to the 1980s.
“Any [such] measure should be postponed during this difficult time that the country and Kirkuk are going through,” Hafidh al-Jawari, a Kirkuk-based political analyst, said.
Relocating thousands of Arab families who have lived in the area since the 1980s and “turning the city into a Kurdish one overnight will only increase violence between the Kurds on one side and Arabs and Turkomen on the other”, al-Jawari added.
There are reportedly about 8,000 Arab families who have indicated their willingness to leave Kirkuk in exchange for a compensation package.
But it is those Arabs who are not willing to leave that could end up in violent clashes with Kurds. “There are some ‘Wafidin’ [Arab settlers who came under the ‘Arabisation’ policy] who refuse to leave under any condition. If they are forced to leave, there would most likely be violence,” Joost Hiltermann, Middle East project director for International Crisis Group (ICG).
“I didn’t steal the house or the land of a Kurd,” said Jassim Hassan, a 55-year-old Arab who moved to Kirkuk in 1984 from the southern province of Missan.
“The government gave me a piece of land, which belonged to no one, and helped me to build my house,” added Hassan, a father of six and retired teacher. “I will never leave this city, only my dead body.”
Saddam’s ‘Arabisation’ policy
During the 1980s and 1990s, Saddam’s government carried out an ‘Arabisation’ policy by which pro-government Arabs, particularly Shias from the impoverished south, were moved into the region and Kurds were pushed out.
After the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Kirkuk was seen as a ticking time-bomb as many former residents of the city – Kurds and other non-Arabs – streamed back to find their houses had either been sold or given to Arabs from the south.Over the past few years, many Arabs have been forced by returnees to leave the city, despite Sunni and Shia Arab leaders pleading them not to. This Arab resistance has largely been a result of Kurds seeking to incorporate Kirkuk into their autonomous Kurdistan region. Arabs and Turkomen oppose this.
“We strongly reject any incorporation of Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Regional Government,” said Sheik Abdullah al-Obeidi, a member of the Kirkuk’s provincial council and representative of Sunni Arabs.
Iraqi Justice Minister Hashim al-Shibli, who heads the committee overseeing talks on Kirkuk’s status, said that the return process would be “voluntary” and the decision would be implemented “without coercion”.
Those who moved to Kirkuk from other parts of Iraq after July 1968, when Saddam’s Ba’ath party took over, would be paid about US $15,000 and given land in their hometowns, if they returned, according to officials.
“Forms will be distributed soon to the Arab residents of Kirkuk to determine who had been part of Saddam’s Arabisation campaign,” al-Shibli added, without giving specific details on the initiative.Iraq’s constitution calls for a separate referendum on Kirkuk’s future by the end of this year. Opponents of the referendum want to put the vote off – concerned about Kurdish dominance and more violence if the referendum is held and the Kurds get the outcome they have been advocating. The relocation of Arab residents from Kirkuk would help the Kurds ensure a majority in favor of incorporating the city into Kurdistan, they say.
Source: IRIN IRAQ: Relocation of Arabs from Kirkuk could trigger violence
