Gorilla’s Guides

These US backed, trained, and funded Green Zone Government troops first beat the man then they kill him in cold blood right in the middle of the street.

Follow this link to watch the video:

Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com

The women of Iraq have disappeared. Five years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, women’s secular freedoms - once the envy of women across the Middle East - have been snatched away because militant Islam is rising across the country. Across Iraq, a bloody and relentless oppression of women has taken hold. Many women had their heads shaved for refusing to wear a scarf or have been stoned in the street for wearing make-up. Others have been kidnapped and murdered for crimes that are being labelled simply as “inappropriate behaviour”. The insurrection against the fragile and barely functioning state has left the country prey to extremists whose notion of freedom does not extend to women. In Basra, where Mehdi Army retains a stranglehold, women insist the situation is at its worst. Here they are forced to live behind closed doors only to emerge, concealed behind scarves, hidden behind husbands and fathers. Even wearing a pair of trousers is considered an act of defiance, punishable by death. One Basra woman, known only as Dr Kefaya, was working in the women and children’s hospital unit at the city university when she started receiving threats from extremists. She defied them. Then, one day a man walked into the building and murdered her.

Behind the wave of insurgent attacks, the violence against women who dare to challenge the Islamic orthodoxy is growing. Fatwas banning women from driving or being seen out alone are regularly issued. Infiltrated by militia, the police are unwilling or unable to crack down on the fundamentalists. Ms Alebadi said: “After the fall of the regime, the religious extremist parties came out on to the streets and threatened women. Although the extremists are in the minority, they control powerful positions, so they control Basra.” To venture on the streets today without a male relative is to risk attack, humiliation or kidnap. A journalist, Shatta Kareem, said: “I was driving my car one day when someone just crashed into me and drove me off the road. If a woman is seen driving these days it is considered a violation of men’s rights.”

Source: Accompanying text to : YouTube - The Women in the New Iraq المرأة في العراق الجديد  shown above.

Thank you America for making it possible for these scum to set our Sisters’ rights back by several generations.

Maryam, Mohammed Ibn Laith.

Source: The Real News Network

Also See: United States blamed for assassination of Sadr aide

The timing of the killing — not even two weeks after more than 120 people died and at least 300 were wounded in fighting between Sadr’s militiamen and government forces in the port city of Basra — raises the specter of a wider rebellion that could spread to Sadr’s strongholds in Baghdad.

That scenario would only further tax the outgunned Iraqi security forces and could undo the gains of the U.S. military’s widely touted troop buildup strategy.

In the final instalment of Ghaith Abdul-Ahad’s series of films to mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, he travels to an orphanage in Sadr city, where children speak of their hatred of America. A generation of Iraqi children have been radicalised and anti-westernised by the war

Watch Video: Iraq’s lost generation

Video (4min 32sec): Ghaith Abdul-Ahad travels to an orphanage in Sadr city where he finds a generation of Iraqi children have been radicalised and anti-westernised by the war

Source Video: Iraq’s lost generation | World news | guardian.co.uk

For the fifth anniversary of the US/British-led invasion of Iraq, the Guardian’s award-winning foreign correspondent Ghaith Abdul-Ahad has teamed up with ITV News to bring us a series of extraordinary films for the ITV News and guardian.co.uk. In these unprecedented films he, as an Iraqi, goes where foreign journalists can no long go - to the heart of Baghdad’s most dangerous sectarian zones. He uncovers Iraq’s own killing field where only the “killers and the killed” can visit; and he reveals the desperate truth of the trafficked children of Iraq. Baghdad: City of Walls will run on guardian.co.uk and the ITV Evening News and News at Ten from Monday next week.

Videos in this series:

Source: Baghdad: City of walls | World news | guardian.co.uk

Three part series of video reports on the Iraki resistance group the “Islamic Front for Iraqi Resistance” (JAMI) by Hoda Abdel Hamid for Al Jazeera.

Iraq’s resistance fighters: part 1.

Iraq’s resistance fighters pt. 2: Weapons

Iraqi resistance fighters pt. 3: Women fighters

A five part video series provided by Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) on Mouna, a victim of the war in Iraq and a double amputee who was provided surgery and treatment by MSF surgeons, medical staff and physioterapists in Amman, Jordan. See this posting for background to the MSF programme: Report From Irak June 24th 2007 - Health

• Episode 1 – One day, three years ago… 

  "She was playing in the garden with her cousin," said her uncle. " A bomb exploded right next to her, less than a meter away. The explosion threw her across the room tearing one of her legs off. Her other knee and ankle were also injured… Her father was killed during the same explosion." … … …  "I’m going to get my false legs on soon. I think they’ll be easy to use," said Mouna. … … …  The smile has come back to Mouna’s face - the doctors here in Jordan have given Mouna hope. Every week, she casts herself a little further in the future, imagining herself going back to school, of studying and becoming a doctor. But as we’ll see, it will be no easy task reaching that goal … it will be about 5 months before she can walk again.

• Episode 2 – Her first steps

  Learning to walk again has become this 13 year old girl’s ultimate challenge… Encouraged by her uncle and prosthetics technicians, she focuses all her energy on trying to move her artificial limbs. It’s difficult for the moment, but she has time to learn … … … Mouna has one more exercise to do before this sessions is over. She has let go of the bars. She hasn’t experienced this sensation since the day that bomb tore her legs away while she was playing in the garden … … … Mousa Hermas:(in Arabic): "You think you’re going to fall if you let go of the bars? You won’t, I’m holding you. If you’re frightened it won’t work…OK, contract your muscles…I promise, I am holding onto you…Look you’re standing…" Does it hurt ? And your knees?

  Mouna, (in Arabic): Yes, it hurts

• Episode 3 – Put to the test

  After the fitting session with the prosthetics technician, Mouna is now waiting to see the physiotherapist again. Day in day out she fights to learn to live with her new legs.Mouna, (en arabe): "I want to walk again so I can leave hospital"   Mouna has been in Amman for 5 months … … … Yesterday, the technician told her that to be able to walk on her artificial limbs she’d have to build up the muscle in her thighs … … … She also needs to be able to straighten her knee completely… but she can’t do that yet.

• Episode 4 - Overcoming the pain

  Faris Bin Yassin, kinesiotherapist (English, but difficult to understand): "Because make the extension of the knee and movement of patella, before 3 weeks she has a fracture here because he wants the full extension,I have to make a small pressure here because this is painful’ … … … Slowly but surely, by stretching her muscles and freeing her patella, the physiotherapist helps Mouna reach closer to walking again. She will have to do these same exercises back at the hotel with her uncle. … … …  "It hurts when he gets me to move my leg."

• Episode 5 - Walking again

  Prothésiste: Walk towards me… grab my hands. Lift your head up, don’t be frightened. Take small steps. Turn round. Lift your head, lift your head up.

  Mouna: I can’t, I can’t do it.

  Prothésiste: Yes you can, I wouldn’t ask you otherwise.

  Prothésiste: Does it hurt?

  Mouna: No but I’m frightened you’ll let go.

  Prothésiste: Don’t be frightened.

  Mouna: I’m frightened that I’ll fall.

  Prothésistes : I’m holding you, you won’t fall, you won’t fall.

  Mouna: Don’t take such big steps…

  Prosthetics technician: You think I’m going to make you fall? Come on, let’s do it again, move your legs. Are you tired ?

  Mouna: Look! I just walked 7 floor tiles.

How to Donate to MSF

It is increasingly easy to do online donations with MSF through the national offices - who can provide tax receipts where necessary where possible. It is always best to refer to your national office for donations. In addition to online donations, MSF offices accept other forms of payments, many specific to their country. There are also other fundraising opportunities raised through these offices. More information about fundraising and various means of donating to MSF can be found on the respective national sites of MSF. Many offices provide on-line donation possibilities. Currently all donations must be directed to the national offices.

Currently all donations must be directed to the national offices.

Related: Wounded Iraqis cope with lifelong scars | Reuters

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - For generations to come, Iraqis will have to cope with the physical and mental scars of tens of thousands of people severely injured in the violence of the past four years.

They include thousands of amputees, many of them children. … … …

Read in full: Wounded Iraqis cope with lifelong scars | Reuters

Inside the surge, part two: the provinces

The second film from Guardian photographer Sean Smith on his time embedded with the US Marines in Iraq’s Anbar Province and the mountain division in the so-called “Triangle of Death” is now available . Links below are to the three in the series so far.

Iraq: The Real Story  This film explodes the myth around the claims that the Iraqis are preparing to take control of their own country

Inside the surge: Baghdad Sean Smith spent two months embedded with US troops in Baghdad and Anbar province. His harrowing documentary exposes the exhaustion and disillusionment of the soldiers.

Inside the surge: the provinces An exclusive film from Guardian photographer Sean Smith on his time embedded with the US Marines in Iraq’s mountain division in the so-called Triangle of Death.

Video: Inside the surge, part one (Baghdad)

Video: Inside the surge, part two (the provinces)

More from Sean Smith in Iraq

Slideshow: Sean Smith on life in Iraq before and after the invasion
More videos, pictures and news from Iraq

Source: Inside the surge, part two: the provinces | Video | Guardian Unlimited

Today’s reports from Irak using Arabic sources is very long none of it is good news your attention is particularly directed to the repeated ceasefire breakdown in Samawah and the escalating criticism of the Maliki regime by senior Shia clerics:

Brief Summary:

• The torrent of criticism of the green zone government from senior Shia clergy continues unabated. Grand Ayatollah Sistani’s representative has criticised it for being isolated in the green zone and called for them to end their isolation emerge from the Green Zone, and to work to ensure the security of Baghdad.
  

  “Baghdad is geographically two, one the fortified green zone, and the other a ghost town”

  (See Karbala in “Reports from the governorates” below the fold.)

• Like other governorates Basrah is facing a wave of price increases. Prices for fuel and petroleum derivatives are double the recently increased official prices. The knock-on effects of this are likely to be devastating to the green zone government parties in the forthcoming elections.
• The security situation in Mosul has deteriorated drastically during the day.
• 4 intelligence officers and 5 nurses have been arrested in connection with the kidnapping of a baby from a hospital in Mosul.
• Fighting between the JAM and the SIIC dominated authorities in Samawah resumed. It appears likely that the peace deal negotiated last year has broken down irretrievably. (Updated casualty toll is 7 dead and 52 wounded. Ceasefire agreement reportedly reached.)
• A major pipeline to the Dora refinery has been blown up.
• Turkish forces resumed shelling Zakho this evening at 21:00 hours.
• The reports of success of operations in Diyala are inaccurate and misleading according to a member of the Diyala salvation council. He also says that the MKO are involved in terrorist activities within Irak and that some of the targets bombed by the Americans have been bombed on the basis of misinformation aimed at creating atrocity propaganda to be used by organisations resisting the American invasion.
• Yet more U.S. marines are under investigation for yet another war crime dating back to the rape of Fallujah in 2004.
• An American raid on the home of a Sadrist leader in Karbala resulted in his detention and civilian casualties according to the Sadrist office in Karbala who have called for calm.
• A Chaldean Catholic priest together with his son and two family members have been kidnapped in Salah Al Din, the kidnappers are reportedly demanding $ 160,000 for their release.
• The assassin of Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim has been hanged.
•  7 green zone government troops have been killed in a bombing in Diyala 9 civilians have been kidnapped.

Continue reading ‘Reports From Irak July 6th 2007’ »