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Mick Bednarak admitted to AP that the Iraqi Army is not up to actually holding the neighborhoods in Baquba that US troops recently cleared, in hard fighting, of Salafi Jihadi guerrillas. So Baquba is a city of like 300,000 northeast of Baghdad, in Diyala Province. Diyala has a 60% Sunni majority, and it had a lot of Baath military bases in the old days. It is now ruled by the (Shiite) Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which benefits from the province's proximity to Iran. The previous Iraqi military commander had to be fired because he was helping, behind the scenes, Shiite militias. They have a Shiite government in their province that they don't want, and they have a Shiite/Kurdish government in Baghdad that sends Shiite troops of the Iraqi Army against them. The Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Baquba have thrown up local militias, and they have made alliances with Baathi and Salafi Jihadi cells. They are just local guys or foreign volunteers who don't like seeing Sunni Arabs subjected to Shiite ayatollahs and secessionist Kurds.
So after 6 days of hard fighting, in which US troops were killed and wounded, what do we have? An Iraqi army unable actually to hold the 'cleared' neighborhoods, which are likely to throw up more guerrilla leaders and campaigns. A continued dominance of Sunni Arabs in Diyala by a Shiite government completely unacceptable to them. A US commitment to upholding the Shiite ("Iraqi") government. So I am angry because this looks to me like we sent our guys to fight and die for a piece of political quicksand in which the entire endeavor is likely to sink.
They detonated a bomb in the lobby of the al-Mansur Hotel during a meeting of tribal sheikhs, killing 12. Presumably these were leaders who had decided to fight the Salafi Jihadis or extremist Sunnis. AFP reports: ' An AFP correspondent said charred bodies of the victims and many of the wounded were lying near the reception desk in the rubble-strewn lobby, and that the ceiling had collapsed on the bodies. A hotel employee said a group of five or six tribal sheikhs had come into the lobby and ordered tea. As the employee headed back to the kitchen the explosion went off behind him. One of those killed was Fassal al-Gawud, an ex-governor of the western Sunni province of Anbar, where several tribal sheikhs have recently allied with US and Iraqi forces against Al-Qaeda, according to security officials. Hussein Shaalan, a Shiite MP from the liberal Iraqi National List of former pro-Western premier Iyad Allawi's political bloc and a tribal chief from the central city of Diwaniyah, was also killed along with his son and a bodyguard.
"Chemical Ali" (Ali Hasan al-Majid), a high Baath commander and cousin of Saddam who spearheaded the Anfal campaign of using poison gas against the Kurds in the north. This was toward the end of the Iran-Iraq War, when the Kurdish political leadership had allied with Khomeini in its bid to secede from Iraq. The gas campaign was indiscriminate, hitting Kurdish villages far from the Iranian front, and taking on a racial and genocidal aspect. Many of the deadliest cells operating in Iraq are actually Baathists, not Salafi Jihadis (what the US press and military mostly inaccurately call 'al-Qaeda'). Though many Baathists have little use for Saddam or Chemical Ali, the prospect of further hangings of high Baath commanders by the Shiite Dawa Party of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his Shiite allies is intolerable to them.
Then guerrillas detonated a bomb near the governor's mansion in Hilla, the capital of the mixed Babil province south of Baghdad. Hilla is a largely Shiite city, and Babil is controlled politically by the (Shiite) Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who is close to Iran. The northern reaches of Babil province, however, have a lot of Sunnis, who reject the new political situation.
Meanwhile, the Sunni Arab blocs in parliament have announced that they are boycotting the national legislature until former speaker Mahmud al-Mashhadani is reinstated. He was recently dismissed at the insistence of the Shiites and Kurds, allegedly for abusing MPs and for making outrageous statements. It was not widely reported in the Western press, but some of his anger against the Shiite MPs came from the kidnapping by the Mahdi Army of members of his own security guard.
Al-Hayat writing in Arabic says that PM Nuri al-Maliki has been exposed to vehement criticism from his own bloc (the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance) for his inability to provide security, and especially his inability to safeguard Shiite holy sites. He is also criticized for failing to put cabinet ministries to work, which have been vacant for months. One sign of the tension is that the Shiite vice president, Adil Abdul Mahdi, tendered his resignation early last week, but was prevailed upon by president Jalal Talabani to withdraw it. Al-Hayat says that the Iraqi parliament managed to muster a bare quorum of 140 members on Saturday, of whom 103 voted to extend the current session of parliament one month, until the end of July.
The LA Times has more, and evinces optimism that the parliament will pass petroleum and revenue distribution bills. Al-Hayat says that the Iraqi legislature issued a statement on the knighting by Queen Elizabeth II of author Salman Rushdie: "At a time when we call for a dialogue of religions and civilizations, and work to combat terrorism in all its forms and wherever it exists, we express our amazement and our regret that the Queen of England has honored a person who has insulted Islam and millions of its adherents." Note to Iraqi parliament: if a religion is true, it cannot be insulted, and if adherents have faith, they will be undeterred by criticism. Only false rites and weak faith need be afraid of novels.
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that PM Nuri al-Maliki has appointed a security commission for Karbala province, headed by a high-ranking Iraqi officer from the ministry of the interior to increase security in the province. Some 2000 extra police are being dispersed throughout it.
Badr Corps paramilitary of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, visited Karbala on Friday. He said that the Iraqis had battled the Saddam regime for 20 years, and that they are prepared to struggle for that long and more to take Iraq into the phase of progress, stability, democracy, and to forestall the return of dictatorship. He consulted with local officials on the city's security challenges. On Sunday, tribal chieftains will hold a congress in Karbala to discuss the best way to preserve its stability. In another Shiite holy city south of Baghdad--Najaf-- the Mahdi Army staged street marches for three days last week, ending on Friday. In the wake of these marches, the city saw assassinations and security disturbances.
Turkey alleged that PKK guerrillas rammed a fuel truck into a police station in eastern Anatolia. Turkish troops are already massed at the Iraqi border to deal with PKK fighters who have been given refuge inside Iraqi Kurdistan.
Syria is an economic basket case, with no prospects of moving away from a bloated, inefficient state socialist framework, and is a house of cards ready to fall at any moment?
Abu Aardvark on why maybe we shouldn't expect too much from those tribal leaders in al-Anbar province who are allegedly uniting against the Salafi Jihadis there.
Colin Powell and Condi Rice's staff are playing a key behind the scenes role in the push to shut down Gitmo. Steve doesn't mention, but I will, that it is no accident that African-Americans should be especially troubled about keeping people in cages with no formal charges and no right to a lawyer.
Excerpts: ' HILLA - A car bomb killed two people and wounded 18 in the Shi'ite city of Hilla, south of Baghdad, police said. gunmen after an attack on an Iraqi army checkpoint near Khalis, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, on Wednesday, the US military said. Attack helicopters were called in after the gunmen fired on the checkpoint. SAMARRA - Three police commandos and one gunman were killed in clashes in Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. BAGHDAD - Three people were killed and two wounded in...
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