Gorilla’s Guides

The reference article on Fatwas  has been published and can be found in the “Gorilla’s Guides For The Perplexed” permanent pages at the following address Fatwas A Brief Guide .

An extract:

Fatwas Affecting The Community As A Whole

The situation becomes more complex when the jurist is required to exercise his* judgement on matters that apply to an entire community. For example, it is generally accepted that citizens are required to give allegiance to their nation and, if necessary, to engage in war to defend its integrity and freedom. There are specialised societal agencies, the political, diplomatic, and military arms of government, to perform the assessments and carry out the tasks necessary to maintain a state’s integrity and freedom. That their job is to protect both the citizenry and the state does not empower them to issue a fatwa decreeing jihad, preparing for war, and then to escalate those preparations from a defensive posture to going on the offensive. Such decisions cannot be left solely to the arms of the state precisely because of their specialised role in society.

A religious authority empowered to issue a decree of war must consult those specialised social agencies and then exercise his judgement to clearly establish several points such as:

• Has the point been reached where all political, diplomatic, economic, propaganda, and other peaceful alternatives been exhausted? — In other word is a recourse to military force now the only available alternative to repel aggression?
• Has the point been reached where it is licit to take up arms against an enemy?
• If the answer to that question is “yes” to whom, exactly, does the term “enemy” apply?  Does it apply only to enemy invading forces or does it also apply to civilians, such as diplomats and “reconstruction teams” who are their as part of the invasion?
• Does the term “enemy” also apply to domestic forces and civilians who are assisting the invader?
• Is it acceptable to seek the assistance of foreign fighters to help repel the invader?

* It is worth pointing out that at the time of writing (April 2008) there are female students in some of the seminaries in Qum and have been for some years now. I am in my late forties assuming a normal lifespan I expect there to be female Ayatollahs within my lifetime.

Read in full:  Fatwas A Brief Guide .

Comments are closed on that page so if you have any comments please make them here. As with all the guides we will make available as a PDF to anyone who asks for it. Usually we have the PDF ready within a day or so.

Fatima

Ali Ibn Laith. Born December 14 1999 - Killed March 27 2008

Son of our much missed colleague Laith and his wife, last remaining brother to our greatly loved colleague Mohammed Ibn Laith and his sister.

O God! Pardon our living and our dead, the present and the absent, the young and the old, the males and the females.

There will be no further postings tonight.

We are upgrading and strengthening the site. The site will be down for about 7 hours tonight up and down like a yoyo on and off for the next few days.

Gorilla’s Guides.

The campaign of bombings of sites of major religious significance continued with the bombing in Kadhimiya in Baghdad.

The bridge bombing campaign in Baghdad continued with a suicide attack on one of the checkpoints at Jadriya bridge this evening that killed one policeman, wounded three others, and damaged the bridge.

The shockwaves of Monday’s bombing of the Mansour Hotel in Baghdad continued today. Tests at the scene confirmed that reports that the explosion was caused by a suicide bomber and that about 12Kg of explosive augmented by ball bearings and nails were used in the bomb. The bomber targeted a meeting of sheikhs and leaders both from Al-Anbar and the south causing the death of 12 persons, including Gen. Aziz al-Yassiri. Sheikhs Khalifa, Rabah Alaalouani, and Dahham al-Ubaydi are now confirmed to be among the wounded. The green zone government has withdrawn the license of SBS a British company that supplies mercenaries in Irak. During the press conference today Gen. Khalaf pointed to the existence of three entrances to the hotel one of which (the one overlooking the Tigris) was used by VIPs such as the Sheikhs. Security procedures at the entrances was the responsibility of SBS and Gen. Khalaf said that the company had not searched people coming into the hotel.

[Technical note: This interpretation of events sounds about right. There are 3 entrances to the hotel one of them used almost exclusively by staff it would be easy enough for someone known to the people at the checkpoint to use an excuse such as “I’m late for work” to escape a thorough search. 12Kg sounds about right for the scale of the damage and the absence of a crater coupled with the blast pattern visible in the photographs all point to such an attack. In not one of the photographs is there a crater visible. The wounds of the injured fit the pattern of bombings using relatively weak or small amounts of explosives. In order to maximise casualties when using weak explosives or small amounts of more powerful material it is now standard practise to include ballbearings, nails, or sharp slivers of metal. This techinque was pioneered by loyalist terrorists in Northern Ireland because they were forced to rely on homemade explosives unlike the IRA who had access to plentiful supplies of high grade explosive. — markfromireland. see also this report from freebab.com.]

Relations between Baghdad and Ankara continued to deteriorate. The commander of the Turkish armed forces reiterated today that there needed to be a cross-border operation in northern Iraq to crush Kurdish rebels there, adding that this would be useful. In a press conference broadcast on Turkish television Turkey’s Chief of Staff Gen. Yasar Buyukanit said:

“I said earlier (in April) that we need for a cross-border operation and that this would be useful. I now repeat this opinion. “

The southern governorates are to coordinate mine clearance operations representatives from Maysan, Dhi Qar and Babel, Najaf and Karbala attended a conferencein Basrah and agreed to coordinate their efforts.

Site News: We have today added a category “Bridge Bombing Campaign” to list of searchable categories for the site.

Nur

Reports From Baghdad

Continue reading ‘Reports From Irak June 27 2007’ »

Ikram’s Day

Continue reading ‘Iraqi Voices Series’ »

O God! Pardon our living and our dead, the present and the absent, the young and the old, the males and the females.

There will be no posting today — funerals

Khalil

There were two major developments in Irak today. We lead first with the sermon in Karbala by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s representative Sheikh Abdul-Mahdi al-Karbalaie. He made it clear that he had reliable information that the authorities new an attack was planned and denounced the complacency. He also raised the sovereignty issue and revealed that Karbala was also threatened. This is important because it follows up on the earlier statements made by the Grand Ayatollahs.  It represents a major threat to the legitimacy of the Maliki regime.

There were many sermons on the bombings today including one in Najaf by the SCIRI leader and one in Kufa by Al-Sadr’s representative. We haven’t reported on those as they were entirely predictable in content.

The second major incident was the bombing of the tomb of Talha Ibn Ubaid Ilah, a companion of The Prophet (PBUH) whose tomb and shrine are in al-Zubair, this is a major place of pilgrimage for Sunni Muslims from all over the world. How much of a disaster for the Maliki “government” it is may be judged by following the link to the Aswat Al Iraq Arabic language report - it got more than 1000 hits by early in the day and was still rising a few minutes ago - beyond 1,400 nearly 24 hours after the event.

In Site news markfromireland introduced a system that lets us collaborate on postings and update with bylines as well of course as being able to post individually. There were teething problems which is the technical way of saying that the editor of the day (me) didn’t bother to read the manual. :-)

Hassan

Denunciation Of Complacency Incompetence and Politicking With The Security of Holy Places By Sistani Representative At Friday Prayers:

At Friday prayers in Karbala Sheikh Abdul-Mahdi al-Karbalaie, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s representative said that the green zone government authorities had had clear warning that the Golden Dome was going to be attacked again and accused them of dereliction of duty.  During his sermon Sheikh al-Karbalaie said that the green zone government authorities had been warned that the Shrine was going to be attacked again, and despite the results of the first bombing had failed in their duty to take action on the warnings.

The Sheikh said that the responsible authorities had accurate figures for the deaths of thousands of citizens and attacks upon their houses of worship both Sunni and Shia alike especially in Baghdad and the governorate of Diyala . The Sheikh wondered “if there are difficulties and obstacles for the responsible authorities,” he then went on, “Why not make people aware of the fact of the obstacles and difficulties caused by political views, religious views, or regional regional rivalries.” “Or is it the lack of sovereignty?” he demanded.

The Sheikh criticised political motivations for not acting upon or not informing people of warnings. Saying that if some persons feared [the consequences of] disclosing political crises, what would be the consequences in terms of sectarian civil war of an attack upon one of the Holy Shrines?  He asked again “Do you ask patience and endurance of the people ?” And then warned of the consequences of such a bombing saying that only God knew what would happen. “Political crises are lesser than sectarian war” he warned.

The Sheikh called upon the citizens of Irak to be aware of the danger saying that we needed to use our foresight and wisdom to avoid sectarian war adding that the consequences of such war would be be “great losses [of life] and destruction of the social fabric and paralysis [of] all activity and life because of this disruption.” He said that everyone was required to respond to the directives of the religious authorities to act with restraint and that it was a most sacred duty to think wisely and of the interests of the Iraki people. He said that “silence is not required if one should think that [one or somewhere]  is vulnerable and in fear [of terrorists], but rather that everyone has to hold fast in defense to abort their [the terrorists] civil war and show the State that it is unable to provide protection to citizens.”

He added that this time promises to rebuild shrine should be sincere, that there should be a clear timetable in which the reconstruction must take place and that the road to Samarra should be protected. all of this was necessary because reconstruction would send “a message of calm and patience” to the citizenry.  He added that there were confirmed reports that the terrorists planned to attack the city of Karbala if they had failed in their attack upon the Shrine of the Imams in Samarra and called upon the Iraki people “not to resort to emotional reactions otherwise everybody will be loser:”

Grand Ayatollah Sistani had earlier issued a statement in both Arabic and English condemning the bombing and calling for calm.  

(Link to Arabic Report Link to English report)  report submitted by: —  Mohammed Ibn Laith

Reports From Baghdad

The curfew imposed in Baghdad has been extended until Sunday it will be lifted at 5am on Sunday morning. 

Maliki Gates Meeting:
At the meeting Gates told Malki he was a bad little toy dog for letting the situation get so bad and that if he didn’t improve his performance and get the oil law passed that Condosleazy Rice would spank him and Gates would cancel his reservation on the last helicopter out of the greenzone.
report and comment submitted by: — NurNouri al-Maliki met in Baghdad Friday with the American Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.  Gates was paying one of those completely predictable “surprise visits” that surprise western journalists but nobody else.

Kurdish separatist politician and green zone government president Talabani congratulated Iraqi Journalists on the occasion of the Iraqi press day which occurs the 15th of June June of each year, and pledged the introduction of prizes for young journalists who work day in the difficult conditions. Iraqi journalists celebrate “press day” on June 15th  of each year, which marks the first issue of Al Zawra in the year 1869.

Iraq has become the most dangerous place for journalists in the world, according to reports of a number of international organizations including the International Organization for Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) and RSF (Reporters Without Borders), whose secretary general Robert Minar pointed out during a visit to Baghdad last month that nearly 200 journalist have been killed, that there are 13 journalists and two assistants missing. The observatory of press freedoms in Iraq (JFO), the Iraqi journalists body which monitors the rights of journalists said that “Iraq is witnessing major attacks on journalists and media workers, acts of violence and the deteriorating security situation have resulted in the death  of 195 workers in the information field, 105 of them journalists killed because of their journalistic work, as well as 39 technical assistants , and 61 whose fate is “unknown. Since the beginning of this month three of the most prominent journalists for Aswat Al Iraq have been killed. 

Four U.S. soldiers were killed and another wounded in two separate attacks in Kirkuk and Diyala, the U.S. army said on Friday. The killing of the four soldiers brings the total number of soldiers in the American forces in Irak killed since the invasion in March led by the Americans in March 2003 to 3519 according to American official figures. 42 of whom were killed since the beginning of this month.

Reports From The Governorates

Al Anbar Governorate

The American base at Saqlawiyah (15 kilometers north of Fallujah) came under mortar fire. Four shells laned on the American base located near the Technical Institute building.

At-Ta’mim (Kirkuk) Governorate

A child was killed when an explosive charge went off near an Iraqi police patrol in northern Kirkuk, a Kirkuk police source said on Friday.

The explosive device “targeted one of the patrols of the Dumez police station, killing Haidar Ali who happened to be near the blast scene,” the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
None of the soldiers in the patrol were hurt in the attack that occurred in the northern part of Kirkuk, a city that lies 250 km northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Basra Governorate

The tomb of Talha Ibn Ubaid Ilah, a companion of The Prophet (PBUH) whose tomb and shrine in al-Zubair, Basrah governorate is a place of pilgrimage by Sunni Muslims from all over the world, was destroyed by bombers during the early hours of Friday morning. According to this AFP report the bombing was carried out by people posing as cameramen:

A group of people carrying a camera arrived at the Talha bin Obeidallah shrine at 6:00 am (0200 GMT),” said Major General Ali Mussawi.

“They said they wanted to film the mosque. But they went about planting bombs around it.

Source: Agence France-Presse | Iraq Sunni shrine bombed amid reprisal attacks

Following the bombing green zone government decided to impose curfews in Basrah governorate and city effective from 16:00 hours this afternoon until further notice.  

Diyala Governorate

The al-Salaam mosque in central Muqdadiya has been torched in In what appears to have been a reprisal attack for the bombing of the Golden mosque in Samarra. Eyewitnesses to the attack told Aswat Al Iraq that a group of gunmen arrived after the conclusion of Friday prayers and broke into the mosque they poured petrol over the mosque’s contents and set fire to it as they left. Muqdadiya is 57 km northeast of Baghdad.  report submitted by: —  Khaled

4 gunmen were killed and three others detained when they launched an unsuccessful attack against the home of a senior official in the Islamic Party and member of the Diyala governorate council. Aswat Al Iraq’s source did not reveal the name of the politiian who was the target of the attack. submitted by: —  Fatima

Karbala Governorate

Crime News:

Police in Karbala have charged a man with kidnapping and murder and are searching for his brother as an accomplice to kidnap and murder the police were notified by the brother of the victim Majid Taresh that he had been kidnapped from his car in al-Baladiya (3 km southeast of Karbala), investigations led the police to conduct a raid on a house in Qadissiya district (3 km west of Karbala) where the strong smell of decay led them to the body which has been buried in one of the rooms of the house. Police are interrogating their prisoner to find out if the motive was money or otherwise.  report submitted by: —  Mohammed Ibn Laith

Ninawa Governorate

Reports from Mosul Observer:

US forces today assassinated Brigadier Thannoon Ghazal, a retired Brigadier in the dissolved Iraqi Army, in front of his family today, according to an official source in Nineveh Police. The US Army unit shot him dead after they entered his home which is situated in Somer district, in the south of City. (Source: Mosul Observer الراصد الموصلي )

Salah ad Din Governorate

A combined force of 650 green zone government forces and American soldiers has been sent to Samarra to help bolster the forces already there. According to a statement issued by the American army of occupation to Aswat Al Iraq.

Approximately 300 Iraqi Army soldiers from 4th Battalion, 1st Brigade, 4th Iraqi Army Division, 140 National Policemen from the 3rd Battalion, 3rd National Police, and 150 other National Policemen arrived in Samarra Thursday to reinforce security forces there.

The statement said. (And they’ve been busy too.) The green zone government police in Samarra, have now confirmed that as we reported on Wednesday  that civilians have been killed and injured by sniper fire from green zone government and American forces in the city. Two civilians were killed and two others were injured all og the victims were residents of Samarra by snipers who were members of the Interior commando forces and the American forces that have imposed a curfew on the city since the night of the bombing of the golden shrine. He guessed that the victims had violated curfew. Aswat Al Iraq’s source, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that the dead and wounded had been removed to hospital in the town. 

Eye witnesses have reported that dozens of American and green zone government armoured personnel and military vehicles deployed along the highway to start securing the Baghdad-Tikrit route.  report by: —  Saba Ali Iihsan.

An American F-16 plane has gone down east of Ad Duluiyah, according eyewitnesses the plane was flying at low altitude and went down in the scrub land near the river by Bishkan village. The Arabic report on Aswat Al Iraq says that the witness said they did not hear gunfire from the ground and that the aircraft fell in the dense brush at the river’s confluence. The witness also said the ‘plane came down very fast . He added that American forces launched a search since dawn Friday for the wreckage of the plane and its crew using a large number of helicopters and boats and prevented anyone from approaching the scene. [In that area which is very much a “hot spot” if the pilot was alive when the plane landed he is very likely to have been taken captive, similarly even a corpse would be taken and used as a “bargaining chip.”]  

The plane was deployed to the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, whose headquarters are at an air base near Balad , 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad. At least nine helicopters have come down in Iraq in 2007, killing 30 people, mainly U.S. soldiers, but military plane crashes have been rare.  In May 2005, two Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet aircraft crashed in Iraq and officials said at the time they believed the warplanes may have collided in (Source: Reuters AlertNet - U.S. F-16 fighter plane crashes in Iraq)

report and commentary submitted by: —  Hassan

Wasit Governorate

Soldiers from the American army still trying to subjugate Irak stormed the Sadrist office in Suwayrah, Wasit, just southeast of Baghdad, killing one Sadrist and arresting another, eyewitnesses said on Friday. The American force raided the Sadrist office in the town of Suwayrah on Thursday evening during the raid they opened fire on the office leader ”Arkan” who was seriously wounded and who died in hospital Friday night. They detained Haidar Musawi an associate in the office and took him with them. According to the eyewitness quoted in Aswat Al Iraq’s Arabic language report as well as killing and wounding office staff the raiders wrecked furniture, smashed doors and fittings, and vandalised assets. 

In Kut private security guards have held a protest strike over the killing of one a colleague yesterday. He was shot by a customer when he refused to allow the customer collect fuel using plastic containers.   

Problem fixed - sincere thanks to everyone who paged, and wrote, and ‘phoned, telling us that the site was messed up. It was something that needed fixing from the hosting company’s end.

Du

This is a very shortened list of other incidents in Irak today:

Red Crescent Workers Update:

Gunmen in a minibus attacked a minivan this morning on themain Sayida to Bayaa road in al-Bayaa neighbourhood five civilians on board the bus were killed a sixth was wounded. (Gor: location veriified this earlier story (and Annas) - Hassan)

Update: to Maryam’s posting 4 Red Crescent Workers Killed In Baghdad Attack posted earlier today.

Hassan Abu Omar

Further Update

They were on their way to Damascas to coordinate some work and despeerately needed refugee supplies with the Syrian Red Crescent

Maryam

Other Significant Security Incidents In Irak April 28th 2007

Two civilians were wounded by the car bomb close to a mosque in the Cairo area (north Baghdad) that was targeting a green zone government patrol no other casualties. 

The bombing of day labourers looking for cleaning work as they gathered at a meeting point in al-Zafaraniyah (southern Baghdad) killed one civilian was killed and wounded eight others. The toll is expected to rise.

A mortar round landed on a residential area in al-Risala neighborhood, (southwestern Baghdad) killing three civilians and wounding 10 more amongst them two children. [Photo uploaded to here]. A number of homes were also destroyed.

The bomb that went off this afternoon in Bab al-Murad market in front of Imam Mousa al-Kadhim’s shrine in Kadhimiya, killed one civilian and wounded three others. (This is a “heavily guarded” area of the city because of the shrine (markfromireland))  (Eyewitness report verieifed now from 3 sources: Suicide bomber was the cause. (Mohammed Ibn Laith))

The American invaders announced that 9 of their American invader troops have been killed and 3 wounded. Of the 3346 American invaders killed since the invasion led by the United States in March in March 2003, 99 were killed since the beginning of the month of April until today. (Mohammed Ibn Laith)

An American invader mechanised patrol has been bombed near the Unity bridge, Fallujah, a green zone government soldier was killed by a sniper in Al-Mutasim.

Patrols of the U.S. invader army went through Fallujah this afternoon putting up poster on the walls of buildings, residential houses, shops and markets inviting Fallujah residents to volunteer for the green zone government ”army.” There have been repeated attacks including suicide bomber attacks in Fallujah on the “volunteer centers” which have resulted in the deaths of many people.  The American invader base in Saqlawiyah village north of the city was subjected to its usual barrage of mortar fire.

12 bodies have been found in Baqubah. Four bodies were found in al-Tahrir neighbourhood, southern Baqubah, four others near Ezzat mosque in the northeastern part of the city, four other bodies were found in separate unspecified areas of the city.

At least three resistance fighters were killed and eight  green zone government policemen were wounded in eight in northern Baqubah this morning.

A failed assasination attempt in Baqubah on a green zone government army officer left him seriously wound and his mother and son dead.

the fighting between American invaders and gunmen resisting the American invasion of Irak in al Wahdah in Diwaniyah the capital of Ad Diwaniyah governorate killed one civilian and wounded several others as they were caught in the crossfire. (Sadrain fighters have so far avoided any confrontations. Saba Ali) Bombing and heavy air activity has been reported.

Students in Karbala university are demanding the reomoval of the university president. (Mohammed Ibn Laith) The students are protesting the brutal behaviour of the “security” service run by the University president and his inefficiency in running the institution. Students are regularly attacked by the “security” service. Who they say contain terrorist elements, they say that the situation is becoming disastrous . The business faculty students are a particular target for obvious reasons.(markfromireland)

The bombing of a car on the main road 35 kilometres west of Kirkuk seriously wounded the green zone government soldier driving it. The Katyusha attacks in Kirkuk caused material damage only. The kidnapped students were freed.

In Mosul Abdullah Wahsh a former senior military inteligence officer was shot dead near his home in south-east  Mosul. Also in Mosul an armed group stormed a house in al-Hadbaaa neighbourhood in the northern part of the city late on Friday and opened fire at the family livingf there. Two family members were killed immediately and four others were wounded. The four wounded were taken to a nearby hospital where two of them died this morning. A gang of forgers who were in possession of seals, security authorisations, stamps, vehicle authorisations and the names of agents working for the green zone government in Ninawa g0vernorate were detained in a raid in Mosul.

A bomb exploded near a vehicle belonging to the green zone government army this morning in Muqdadiya killing one green zone government soldier and wounding another and setting on fire the APC.  The Americans have bombed several villages in the area there are known to be civilian casualties but the number is as yet unknown.

In Salah ad Din governorate in Huwaija, Dalouiya,  men armed with machine-guns attacked a civilian vehicle as three green zone government policemen boarded it to go to work killing first lieutenant Sadoun Mohammed and severely wounding two others. Sheikh Salah Dhiyab al-Juburi and his cousin were detained for four hours by American invaders in al-Jubur central Dalouiya no motive for the detention by the American invaders is apparent. 

The commanding FPS officer for Baiji refinery and his chauffeur iwere abducted by an armed group this afternoon, on the road-between Baiji and Kirkuk their fate is “unknown”.

Our thanks to the team who working with us who put in a lot of work on a very distressing day.

Saba Ali Iihsan
Mohammed Ibn Laith
markfromireland

Note to site subscribers: Mail reports will be delayed until Sunday morning Baghdad time due to the volume of data. Detailed summary has been sent out at the normal time. There are further reports below this “continue” link

Maryam

Continue reading ‘Other Significant Security Incidents Irak Summarised and Translated From Arabic April 28th 2007’ »

As you can see we’ve been busy :-). Welcome to almost final version of the overhaul of Gorilla’s Guides. We wanted from the start to give you a smoother running site with easier access to articles a better search easier navigation and so on. We’re not finished yet - a few things need still to be done, like making the links stand out a bit more, and then a very powerful and advanced search goes in. We hope you like the new look and the various little extras that will go in over the next few weeks.

Erdla