Gorilla’s Guides

The Iraqi armed services are likely to target widely-hated American security contractors when they lose their immunity to Iraqi law under a new agreement between the US and the Iraq.

The main American concession, during prolonged and rancorous negotiations over a Status of Forces Agreement (Sofa) that would determine the future military relationship between the US and Iraq, has been to agree to lift the immunity hitherto enjoyed by the 154,000 contractors, of whom 35,000 are private security men.

“The Iraqi forces will follow them with vigour because they are not popular in Iraq,” said Ahmed Chalabi, the veteran Iraqi politician, in an interview with The Independent. “People haven’t forgotten about the Iraqis who were killed by private security men in Nisour Square.” Security personnel from Blackwater USA are accused of killing 17 Iraqi civilians, including a mother and child, when they opened fire in the square in west Baghdad on 16 September last year.

The ending of immunity will have serious consequences for the 142,000 US troops in Iraq, who are highly reliant on contractors. Mr Chalabi says it is likely that the Iraqi security forces and judiciary will go out of their way to arrest foreign security men who break Iraqi law, which they have so far flouted.

The US has accepted that foreign contractors in Iraq will no longer have immunity from Iraqi law under a new security agreement now under negotiation, says the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari.

Mr Zebari, speaking to The Independent in Washington, said that if there was a further incident like the one in which 17 Iraqis were killed by workers from the Blackwater security company in Baghdad last September, the Iraqis would arrest and punish the contractors held responsible.

The American concession would have a serious effect in Iraq, where there are an estimated 160,000 foreign contractors, many of them heavily armed security personnel. The contractors, who outnumber the 145,000-strong US Army in the country, have become a vital if much-resented part of the military machine in Iraq.

If it is left to them [the US], they would ask for immunity even for American dogs.

Iraq’s Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, promised Iranian leaders during his visit to Tehran last weekend that Iraqi territory would not be used as an American platform for a military attack on Iran. It is noticeable that the Iraqi politicians within ISCI most vehement in opposing the deal are close to the Badr militia wing of ISCI that has traditionally had close links to Iran.

A dark pool of dried blood and a fallen red scarf mark the place where Ronak, who had fled to a woman’s shelter in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah when she was accused of adultery by her husband, was shot three times by a man hiding on the roof of a nearby building.

Ronak was wounded by bullets in the neck, side and leg and only survived after a four-hour operation. She was the latest victim of a huge increase across Iraq in the number of “honour” killings of women for alleged immorality by their own families.

Many are burnt to death by having petrol or paraffin poured over them and set ablaze. Others are shot or strangled. The United Nations estimates that at least 255 women died in honour-related killings in Kurdistan, home to one fifth of Iraqis, in the first six months of 2007 alone.

The murder of women who are deemed to have disobeyed traditional codes of morality is even more common in the rest of Iraq where government authority has broken down since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

A surprising reason explaining the massive increase in the number of honour killings is the availability of cheap mobile phones able to take pictures. Men photograph themselves making love to their girlfriends and pass the pictures to their friends. This often turns out to be a lethal act of bravado in a society where premarital or extra-marital sex justifies killing.

The first known case of sex recorded on a mobile leading to murder was in 2004. Film of a boy making love with a 17-year-old girl circulated in the Kurdish capital, Arbil. Two days later she was killed by her family and a week later he was murdered by his.

Car bombs and suicide attackers striking Sunni Arab targets killed nearly 60 people in central and northern Iraq in a sign that al-Qai’da in Iraq is trying to make a comeback after suffering reverses at the end of last year. Most of the fighting in recent weeks has been between Iraqi government forces backed by the US against the Shia militia of the Mehdi Army.

The first explosion was in the provincial capital of Baquba, north-east of Baghdad, where a car parked at a restaurant blew up in front of the central court house and government offices. “I was on my way to the government office when a big explosion occurred,” said a witness. “As I approached the site, I saw cars on fire, burnt bodies and damaged shops damaged with shattered glass everywhere.”

Some 40 people were killed and 70 injured by the bomb, many of them people visiting the government offices, and petition writers in the street outside who help people fill in forms and file petitions. Black smoke rose from the centre of Baquba as cars caught fire.