Gorilla’s Guides

 FALLUJAH, Jul 21 (IPS) - U.S. and Iraqi forces are preparing another siege of Fallujah under the pretext of combating “terror”, residents and officials say.

Located 69 km west of Baghdad, the city that suffered two devastating U.S. attacks in 2004 has watched security degrade over recent months.

“Ruling powers in the city fighting to gain full control seem willing to use the security collapse to accuse each other of either conspiracy (in lawlessness) or incapability of control,” Sufian Ahmed, a lawyer and human rights activist in Fallujah told IPS.

“They suddenly changed their tone from saying that the city was the safest in Iraq to claiming that al-Qaeda is a serious threat. Fallujah residents know their so-called leaders are using security threats to terrify them for their own political interests.”

In the face of U.S. military claims of improved security, violence has been rising by the day this month. The city has now been placed under tight curfew while U.S. and Iraqi military forces prepare for a new offensive, according to the local Azzaman daily.

Iraqi security forces have established new checkpoints around the city and are forbidding movement of people and traffic. Pick-up trucks are roaming the city warning residents that al-Qaeda has once again infiltrated Fallujah.

Iraqi police officers insist that the situation is under control despite the “occasional incidents that take place all over Iraq.”

The indications on the ground belie these claims. “The Americans and their allies transferred our leader, Colonel Fayssal al-Zoba’i from his post because they have bad plans for the city,” a major in the Fallujah police force told IPS. “He has all the right to keep his post because he was the one who led us to defeat the insurgency while the Americans failed. They (the U.S. military) seem to have a plan to destroy the city again.”

Iraqi police and troops from other areas are being deployed in the city in what police officials say is a build-up for a huge offensive. U.S. occupation forces are on the ready in nearby bases.

The government in Baghdad has made it clear that direct U.S. military involvement is critical for an “imminent offensive” in Fallujah, sources in the Iraqi military have been quoted as saying in Iraqi media.

The two U.S. sieges of the city during 2004 led to the destruction of approximately 75 percent of the city, thousands of civilian deaths, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people, according to the Fallujah-based Iraqi NGO Monitoring Net for Human Rights.

Some officers in the Fallujah police believe Iraqi politicians are using the threat of “terror” for election purposes, ahead of provincial elections scheduled for October.

“The resignation of Colonel Fayssal is not yet definite,” another police officer, speaking on terms of anonymity, told IPS. “But I agree that the Americans and the Islamic Party are planning something bad for the city before the provincial elections.”

The officer added, “We learnt that such plans could not be conducted in a quiet atmosphere, so politicians are adding gas to the fire just to make sure they win the elections. We, policemen and citizens, will be the victims as usual.” Residents fear parties will use the violence to accuse one another, and perhaps sabotage the election itself.

A police spokesman told IPS that “the media is exaggerating things once more” in speaking of another military operation in the city. The spokesman declined to give his name.

Everyone IPS spoke with in the city expressed fear of an impending attack.

There are meanwhile no signs of improvement of any other kind in Fallujah. Walls now divide the city into sectarian sections, with poverty, unemployment and suffering on all sides.

IRAQ: Fallujah Braces for Another Assault

FALLUJAH, Jul 16 (IPS) - Security has collapsed again in Fallujah, despite U.S. military claims.

Local militias supported by U.S. forces claim to have “cleansed” the city, 70 km to the west of Baghdad, of all insurgency. But the sudden resignation of the city’s chief of police, Colonel Fayssal al-Zoba’i, has appeared as one recent sign of growing unrest.

Authorities may have controlled the media better than the violence.

“Assassinations never stopped in Fallujah, but the media seems unwilling to cover the actual situation here,” a human rights activist in Fallujah, speaking on terms of anonymity given the tense situation, told IPS. “The two bomb blasts that killed six policemen earlier this month and another two that killed three on the weekend seem to have terminated the silence.”

People in Fallujah say they still suffer despite the relative improvement in the security situation. ‘Relative’ is the key word here, because the improvement is measured against two massive U.S. military operations in 2004 that killed thousands in the city, and displaced hundreds of thousands.

“Fallujah was slaughtered by the Americans when her people decided to fight, and then were suffocated when they decided to reduce the fighting against the occupiers,” former intelligence officer Major Ahmed al-Alwani told IPS. “There was strong resistance against American occupation forces since May 2003, but it was the Americans who pointed their guns at the innocent civilians and their houses.

“When the American military plans failed, they decided to hire local tribal militias to do the job for them,” Alwani said, referring to the ‘Awakening Group’ militia created by the U.S. military. “Those also failed, despite the executions and the crimes they committed against people.”

Many people throughout Iraq complain of the brutality and unlawful behaviour of these Awakening Groups. Members of these groups are paid 300 dollars per month by the U.S. military.

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The unexpected Iraqi resistance to the U.S. demands reflected the underlying influence of Iran on the al-Maliki government as well as Sadr’s recognition that he could achieve his goal of liberating Iraq from U.S. occupation through political-diplomatic means rather than through military pressures.

WASHINGTON, Jul 10 (IPS) - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s demand for a timetable for complete U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq, confirmed Tuesday by his national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, has signaled the almost certain defeat of the George W. Bush administration’s aim of establishing a long-term military presence in the country.

The official Iraqi demand for U.S. withdrawal confirms what was becoming increasingly clear in recent months — that the Iraqi regime has decided to shed its military dependence on the United States.

The two strongly pro-Iranian Shiite factions supporting the regime in Baghdad, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) and al-Maliki’s own Dawa Party, were under strong pressure from both Iran and their own Shiite population and from Shiite clerics, including Ayatollah Ali Sistani, to demand U.S. withdrawal.

The statement by al-Rubaei came immediately after he had met with Sistani, thus confirming earlier reports that Sistani was opposed to any continuing U.S. military presence.

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BAQUBA, Jun 24 (IPS) - Iraqis seem divided on who they would like to see as the next U.S. president, but few believe that either will end the occupation.

“The U.S administration has committed a big mistake in Iraq,” Adil Ibrahim, a local physician in Baquba, capital city of Diyala province, located 40 km northeast of Bagdhdad, told IPS. “We hope that whoever wins the election, the new administration can mend the huge mistakes of this one.”

Some wish for Barack Obama to win because he claims to represent a great change in the history of the United States.

“Being a black man, he definitely carries different thoughts about the world,” Ali Hussein, a city employee, told IPS. “We sympathise with him since he has some kind of Muslim origins. He may view Arabs in a new and different way.”

Adding to this view, Naser Mahdi, a secondary school teacher, told IPS, “I feel he is totally different. The world needs new blood in rulers, and we hope that he might decrease the dominating authority of the United States.”

“Because the result of the race affects the lives of Iraqis, I wish that a Democrat could win the round in order to give Iraqis a better future,” schoolteacher Khalid Abid told IPS. “We still hope to be viewed with care and consideration. Things surely must change in Iraq after the elections.”

But Abdulla Hamid, a city resident, expressed deep concern over Obama’s recent speech at the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S.

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BAQUBA, Jun 18 (IPS) - Just about everyone in Iraq is a loser as a result of the occupation, but none more than women. One of the more obvious signs of that is the very large number of widows.

The Asharq al-Awsat Arab media channel estimated in late 2007 there were 2.3 million widows in Iraq. These include widows from the 1980-1988 war with Iran in which half a million men were killed, the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, and from ‘natural’ causes. The news outlet cited the Iraqiyat (Iraqi women) group as a source for their figure.

For a widow, all things are the same, dark.

“Being a widow means being dead in Iraq today,” a professor from Diyala University, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. “This is because of the tremendous responsibilities cast upon her.”

The widows have become victims of the occupation, but also of social codes. Women are not supposed to commit mistakes, and when they do, their mistakes are rarely forgiven. Women are easily accused of doing ‘bad things’, regardless of proof.

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