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src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054js_/http://gorillasguides.com/wp-content/plugins/advancedsearch/advancedsearch.js"></script><link rel="stylesheet" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054cs_/http://gorillasguides.com/wp-content/plugins/advancedsearch/advancedsearch-lite.css" type="text/css" media="screen"/> </head> <body> <div class="container"> <div id="navigation"> <ul> <li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/">Home</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-6"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/gorillas-guides-for-the-perplexed/" title="Gorilla’s Guides For The Perplexed">Gorilla’s Guides For The Perplexed</a> <ul> <li class="page_item page-item-3589"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/gorillas-guides-for-the-perplexed/fatwas/" title="Fatwas A Brief Guide">Fatwas A Brief Guide</a></li> </ul> </li> <li class="page_item page-item-2066"><a 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id="search"><form method="get" id="searchform" action="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/"> <div><input type="text" value="" name="s" id="s"/> <input type="submit" id="searchsubmit" value="Search"/> </div> </form> </div> </div> <hr/> <div id="content" class="span-13 append-1"> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-12558"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/2011/03/01/iraq-authorities-using-violence-and-bribes-to-curb-dissent/#comments" title="Comment on Iraq authorities ‘using violence and bribes’ to curb dissent">1 Comment</a></span> Posted on March 1st, 2011 by Khalil Ibn Hussein</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/2011/03/01/iraq-authorities-using-violence-and-bribes-to-curb-dissent/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Iraq authorities ‘using violence and bribes’ to curb dissent">Iraq authorities ‘using violence and bribes’ to curb dissent</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/category/analysis-briefings-commentary/" title="View all posts in Analysis Briefings Commentary" rel="category tag">Analysis Briefings Commentary</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/anbar/" rel="tag">Anbar</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/baghdad-operations-command/" rel="tag">Baghdad Operations Command</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/constitution/" rel="tag">Constitution</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/corruption/" rel="tag">Corruption</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/demonstrations/" rel="tag">Demonstrations</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/human-rights/" rel="tag">Human Rights</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/human-rights-act/" rel="tag">human rights act</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/inis/" rel="tag">INIS</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/intelligence-services/" rel="tag">intelligence services</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/journalists/" rel="tag">journalists</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/khad/" rel="tag">KhAD</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/media/" rel="tag">media</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/mosul/" rel="tag">Mosul</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/nouri-al-maliki/" rel="tag">nouri al maliki</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/political-activists/" rel="tag">political activists</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/press/" rel="tag">Press</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/protests/" rel="tag">protests</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/security-forces/" rel="tag">security forces</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/the-nation/" rel="tag">The Nation</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <p>Authorities in Iraq are using a mixture of strong-arm tactics and financial persuasion to prevent anti-government protests gaining momentum.</p> <p>The political stakes escalated significantly when thousands of people took to the streets of Baghdad and other major cities last week to demand reforms, improved services and an end to the corruption associated with Iraq’s new political elite.</p> <p>Those demonstrations, the largest yet in Iraq, were met by force, as riot police opened fire on protesters with live ammunition. At least 29 people were killed, including a 14-year-old boy.</p> <p>Since then, army and police units have beaten, arrested or threatened scores of political activists and journalists, their colleagues say. Meanwhile, government security and intelligence agencies are trying to root out the organisers of the protests, especially those who are using the internet in an attempt to organise another mass protest.</p> <p>Hussein Abdul Hadi, a blogger who helped to arrange the "Day of Rage" march in Baghdad, said: "The intelligence services are collecting information about activists and after the demonstrations they have been making arrests and detaining people."</p> <p>According to Mr Hadi and other activists, the number detained in the past three days runs into the dozens. Abul Razzq Nouri, a blogger from Anbar province who helped to organise last week’s demonstration, said protest organisers and demonstrators were being "hunted down". The security services deny any systemic effort to silence demonstrators and have promised to carry out a wide-ranging probe into allegations of abuse.</p> <p>Qassim Attar, spokesman at the Baghdad Operations Command centre, which oversees security of the Iraqi capital, said he believed some soldiers had "overreacted" and behaved "stupidly" during the protest. "We have opened an investigation into the claims of damage against journalists and protesters and if we find evidence that laws have been broken by members of the security services, they will be punished," he said.</p> <p>With more demonstrations contemplated, Mr Nouri said Iraq was entering a "dangerous time", with the prime minister, Nouri al Maliki, apparently insistent on quashing dissent on the streets.</p> <p>"Al Maliki doesn’t want any future demonstrations and he is doing all he can to stop us, he is coming after us," he said.</p> <p>Even before the Friday protests, the prime minister had moved to defuse them, imposing a curfew and a vehicle ban.</p> <p>Another success for the government in tamping down the protests has been its management of the media. In the months running up to the demonstrations, the government has given Iraqi journalists gifts including plots of land, low-interest loans for car purchases and cash handouts, all of them officially sanctioned and distributed under the auspices of the journalists’ union.</p> <p>Sabah Khadim Hamza, office director at the journalist’s syndicate, was adamant the land allocations and car loans were not bribes, but instead perks the union had struggled to get for its members. "Many government employees in the ministries enjoy such benefits and we wanted to win them for hard-working journalists," he said. "It does not mean reporters will stop being independent."</p> <p>But critics were not so sure. "Most of the domestic media didn’t cover the protests in detail and really downplayed them. They didn’t interview protesters or ask them why they were marching," said one journalist for a leading Iraqi television channel.</p> <p>"Basically, al Maliki has found out how to control journalists. He’s given them money and land, and on Friday they paid him back by not covering the protests. Only the reporters working for outside media did their jobs properly that day," he said.</p> <p>The government repression, plus payments to journalists to spin public opinion in the government’s favour, have so far been effective in limiting the size and frequency of protests in Iraq.</p> <p>"The government has bribed and beaten journalists to stop them covering the demonstrations," said Nasir al Shalal, a leading human rights activist. "The police and army in Baghdad, Mosul and Anbar were targeting reporters who were trying to film the protests or cover them properly."</p> <p>Mr al Maliki’s office has said it would investigate allegations of improper use of force. But it insists that any abuses were an overreaction by a handful of security personnel, not a matter of policy.</p> <p>Officials have also long brushed off allegations that Iraqi journalists receive government bribes. They say gifts of land and cheap loans are designed to support poorly paid reporters who would otherwise have to find another profession, not to buy their silence or complicity.</p> <p>Mr Shalal dismissed such assurances. "It was not an accident. It was all quite deliberate. A decision was taken at the highest level about how to handle this."</p> <p>In Mosul, a traditional centre of opposition to the central authority, protesters have accused the government of sending out hit squads, armed with silenced pistols, to sow chaos among the demonstrators.</p> <p>Omar Majid, a blogger from Mosul, said: "The emergency security forces arrested and beat tens of activists, and gangs working for the government, dressed in civilian clothes, shot and injured people here during the Friday protest, to spread fear. Now these gangs are after us and anyone connected with the movement. They are trying to stop us."</p> <p>Shaker Kitab, an MP from Iraqiyya, said there were indications the government was acting illegally to suppress demonstrations.</p> <p>"It was a very modern and peaceful protest, in accordance with people’s constitutional rights, I don’t understand why some of the security forces were violent in their response. This must stop. People are allowed to campaign peacefully for their rights."</p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/middle-east/iraq-authorities-using-violence-and-bribes-to-curb-dissent?pageCount=0" class="external" target="_blank">Full: Iraq authorities ‘using violence and bribes’ to curb dissent – The National</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-11508"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/09/26/iraqi-journalists-face-daily-threat-the-national-newspaper/#respond" title="Comment on Iraqi journalists face daily threat – The National Newspaper">No Comments</a></span> Posted on September 26th, 2010 by Khaled</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/09/26/iraqi-journalists-face-daily-threat-the-national-newspaper/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Iraqi journalists face daily threat – The National Newspaper">Iraqi journalists face daily threat – The National Newspaper</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/category/human-rights/" title="View all posts in Human Rights" rel="category tag">Human Rights</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/attacks-on-journalists/" rel="tag">attacks on journalists</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/death-squads/" rel="tag">Death Squads</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/journalists-attacked/" rel="tag">Journalists Attacked</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/newspaper/" rel="tag">newspaper</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/radio-sawa/" rel="tag">radio Sawa</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/reporters-without-borders/" rel="tag">Reporters Without Borders</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/riyad-assariyeh/" rel="tag">Riyad Assariyeh</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/the-nation/" rel="tag">The Nation</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/western-baghdad/" rel="tag">western Baghdad</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <div style="padding-right: 5px; padding-left: 5px; float: right; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 5px 10px 5px 15px; width: 310px; padding-top: 0px"> <div class="container"> <div class="shadow"> <div class="frame"> <p><a title="Funeral_Riyad_Assairyeh_Captioned by Gorillas Guides, on Flickr" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27086036@N02/5025142441/" class="external" target="_blank"><img height="269" alt="Funeral_Riyad_Assairyeh_Captioned" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054im_/http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4111/5025142441_f6cfd5cda9_o.jpg" width="300"/></a></p> </p></div> </p></div> </p></div> </p></div> <p>BAGHDAD // After the Iraqi journalist Riyad Assariyeh was assassinated this month, his family advised other reporters to stay away from the traditional three-day funeral wake, fearing the gathering would present an easy target for militants. </p> <p>It is a sign of just how vulnerable Iraqi journalists now feel that many of them took the advice, paying respect to their fallen colleague on the first day of mourning and not returning. </p> <p>Assariyeh’s murder in Baghdad on September 7, and the killing one day later in Mosul of another reporter are part of an increasingly dangerous battle for control over information, that has seen insurgents and government institutions working to suppress the media, journalists and analysts say. </p> <p>Assariyeh, a highly regarded presenter on the state-run Iraqiyya television network, was shot by men using silenced weapons as he drove through western Baghdad. </p> <p>The attack was blamed on al Qa’eda in Iraq, a group that Assariyeh had been highly critical of. His popular television discussion show had focused on political and religious issues, and had countered al Qa’eda’s efforts to divide Sunni and Shiite Muslims.</p> <p>“For Iraqi journalists the situation is returning to the dark days of 2007,” said Hussein al Rubaie, a reporter with Radio Sawa from Hilla, south of Baghdad. </p> <p>This month he found a bomb wired to his car engine, discovering the device by chance because he had decided to check the water and oil levels in the engine. </p> <p>“You cannot be sure who wants to kill you in Iraq when you’re a journalist,” al Rubaie said. “I’ve recently done a number of reports about the growing strength of al Qa’eda in the area south of Baghdad. Perhaps because of that, they want to kill me. </p> <p>“Or if could be that a Shiite militia is after me. There are many people who are against journalists.” </p> <p>For the past few years, al Rubaie said, he had been taking fewer precautions than in 2007 because security had been improving. After the attempt on his life however, and the other attacks on journalists, he said he was going to return to an ultra-cautious way of working. </p> <p>“I’ll be as careful as I can,” he said. “I think there is a plan by al Qa’eda to kill journalists in order to spread fear and confusion.” </p> <p>It is not just militant groups that are making reporters’ lives hard in Iraq. Government officials have also used their powers to prevent journalists from airing critical reports. </p> <p>In Kut, the capital of Wasit province, Sjaz Salem, a newspaper reporter, was arrested and jailed this month over a story about interference by politicians in the supposedly independent judicial system. </p> <p>Officials have not commented on the case but the arrest, made the day after the report appeared in the local al Sada newspaper, supports the accuracy of his story, his colleagues say. </p> <p>“It’s a crazy situation. We have officials and terrorists trying to stop journalists in Iraq, trying to stop their work,” said one of Salem’s co-workers, speaking on condition of anonymity. </p> <p>A lawyer filed papers asking for Mr Salem’s release after he was denied bail. </p> <p>“They want to keep him in prison as a lesson to the rest of us,” Salem’s colleague said. “They want to punish him and warn other journalists not to oppose them.” </p> <p>Ala Allawi, an independent political analyst, said journalists were under fire from insurgents and the government because both feared the truth about their roles in violence and corruption being exposed. </p> <p>“Journalists are trying to expose the facts and to defend our rights, that is why they are the first to be targeted,” he said. </p> <p>Salem’s arrest was particularly troubling, Mr Allawi said, because it amounted to the state restricting freedom of expression – a return to the days of Saddam Hussein. </p> <p>“Under the old system ignorant people were in positions of power and they could arrest anyone for anything,” he said. “Now we are again seeing that people in government with no education can control our lives, regardless of the legality of their actions.” </p> <p>Ahmed al Bassam, an Iraqiyya journalist and colleague of Assariyeh, said the government had to safeguard journalists’ rights to work and to provide them with security. </p> <p>“We are not getting any support from the government,” he said. “The Iraqi security forces do not respect us, and terrorists are killing us. We are caught in the middle and the situation is getting worse, not better.” </p> <p>At least 230 media workers have been killed in the country since 2003, according to Paris-based media monitor Reporters Without Borders, making it the most deadly conflict for journalists since the Second World War. </p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/mailto:nlatif@thenational.ae">nlatif@thenational.ae</a></p> <p><strong>Source:</strong> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100926/FOREIGN/100929728/1002/rss" class="external" target="_blank">Iraqi journalists face daily threat – The National Newspaper</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-10582"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/05/18/17th-18th-may-2010-selected-english-language-coverage/#respond" title="Comment on 17th-18th May-2010 Selected English Language Coverage">No Comments</a></span> Posted on May 18th, 2010 by Nabil</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/05/18/17th-18th-may-2010-selected-english-language-coverage/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to 17th-18th May-2010 Selected English Language Coverage">17th-18th May-2010 Selected English Language Coverage</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/abdul-qader/" rel="tag">Abdul Qader</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/abdul-razzaq/" rel="tag">Abdul Razzaq</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/abdullah-azzam/" 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rel="tag">suicide bombers</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/suicide-bombing/" rel="tag">suicide bombing</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/summaries/" rel="tag">Summaries</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/tariq-hassan/" rel="tag">Tariq Hassan</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/tehran/" rel="tag">Tehran</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/the-nation/" rel="tag">The Nation</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/tigris/" rel="tag">Tigris</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/tigris-river/" rel="tag">Tigris River</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/tpao/" rel="tag">TPAO</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/turkey/" rel="tag">Turkey</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/turkish-petroleum-corporation/" rel="tag">Turkish Petroleum Corporation</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d9%85%d9%82%d8%aa%d8%af%d9%89-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b5%d8%af%d8%b1/" rel="tag">مقتدى الصدر</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/violence/" rel="tag">violence</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/who/" rel="tag">WHO</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/world-cup/" rel="tag">World Cup</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/xinhua/" rel="tag">Xinhua</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d8%ad%d8%b1%d9%83%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b5%d8%af%d8%b1/" rel="tag">حركة الصدر</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <p>I have selected Nizar Latif’s article "<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100517/FOREIGN/705169809/1002/rss" class="external" target="_blank">Alliance could keep al Maliki in power</a>" in "The National" because it covers very well the situation that the other blocs find themselves in with regard to the Sadrists. In that context I should mention this posting (<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/05/18/%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b9%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%82%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d8%aa%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%b9%d8%af-%d9%84%d8%a5%d8%b1%d8%b3%d8%a7%d9%84-%d9%88%d9%81%d8%af-%d8%b1%d9%81%d9%8a%d8%b9-%d8%a5%d9%84%d9%89-%d8%a5%d9%8a%d8%b1/">العراقية تستعد لإرسال وفد رفيع إلى إيران لمقابلة السيد مقتدى الصدر | Gorilla’s Guides</a>) made by my colleague Nabil which reveals that a delegation from Allawi’s list (the Iraqiyal list) met members of the Sadrist trend’s political bureau and that they are preparing to send a delegation to Iran to meet Muqtada al-Sadr.</p> <p>I have also picked an article that appeared in the London "Times" about the plan to build a wall around Baghdad in the hope of keeping bombers out.</p> <p>More immediately there is a lot of interest in the two al-Qaeda members arrested and who apparently were planning to attack the World Cup in South Africa. A <em>lot</em> has been made of the claims that one of them was a Saudi military officer, <em><strong>"not so fast"</strong></em> say the Saudis. (And if you think from Major General Mansour al-Turki’s name that Saudi Arabia is a family business you’d be right).</p> <p>Did you know that <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=3.1.411141523" class="external" target="_blank">"most of the prisoners freed by American forces from their prisons in the last few years have become Al-Qaeda leaders once they are released"</a> ? </p> <p>No? No, I did not know it either, but it does explain why every time that an alleged al-Qaeda member is killed/captured/accidentally blows themself up that they are always described as being a "senior" al-Qaeda commander/leader/prince/warlord. </p> <p>62 of them were sentenced to death today i don’t know how many of them received a fair trial or how many of them were truly members of an al-Qaeda affiliated movement. ( That there is an al-Qaeda inspired fighter movement in parts of Irak is true and they enforce their will brutally as the slaughter of two clergy proved).</p> <p style="padding-bottom: 1em; border-bottom: gray 1px solid">Nabil</p> <h3 style="color: #800000">The Day(s) In Quotes:</h3> <ul> <li><strong>Sheikh Dhea al Shouki, a leading preacher at Kufa mosque, in the Sadrists’ heartland to Nizar Latif on the political crisis: </p> <p></strong>“I tell the Iraqi people to look out for themselves and to protect themselves because the coming situation will be one of sectarianism and interference in Iraq by neighbouring countries. The Iraqi government is corrupt and the Iraqi army is not serving the people well.” </p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100517/FOREIGN/705169809/1002/rss" class="external" target="_blank"><strong>Source</strong></a><strong> </strong></li> <li><strong>Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman  Major General Mansour al-Turki to <em>Asharq Al-Awsat</em> on the identity of the Saudi military officer detained in Irak as an al-Qaeda commander  <br/></strong> <br/>"The identity of the individual mentioned by the material evidence requires verification, especially as the public information confirms that he has previously impersonated another figure. " </li> </ul> <h3 style="color: #800000">Human Rights:</h3> <p> <strong>62 Iraqis sentenced to death</strong><strong>: Xinhua</strong><br/> <blockquote>RAMADI, Iraq, May 18 (Xinhua) — A court in Anbar province gave death penalties to 62 Iraqis and different prison terms, including life imprisonment, to 130 others, a source from Anbar police command said on Tuesday. <p>The court in the province delivered the verdicts according to article 4 of the Iraqi counter-terrorism law after the court found them guilty for crimes of killings, bombings, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. </p> <p>Some senior leaders of the al-Qaida organization and leaders of other insurgent groups were among those who received death sentences, the source said. </p> <p>Many of the 130 convicts were either fighters of al-Qaida group or involved in assisting the group to carry out deadly attacks, the source added. </p> <p>"All the convicts were residents of Anbar province," he said </p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-05/18/c_13301622.htm" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>:</strong></p> </blockquote> <h3 style="color: #800000">Politics and Security</h3> <p><strong>Alliance could keep al Maliki in power – The National Newspaper</strong><strong>: </strong></p> <blockquote><p><em>snip</em></p> <p>Until yesterday it had seemed unlikely that Mr al Maliki would be chosen as the new alliance’s candidate for prime minister, with the Sadrists, a major faction in INA, saying they would veto his election. </p> <p>However, that threat has now apparently been withdrawn, giving a significant boost to Mr Maliki’s hopes of leading the country for another four years. </p> <p>“We have no veto over Mr al Maliki being chosen as prime minister and we can work with him, for the good of Iraq,” said Bahar al Araje, a senior Sadrist, confirming statements made by Saleh al Obeidi, a spokesman for the group’s leader, cleric Muqtada al Sadr. </p> <p><em>snip</em></p> <p>According to Mr al Araje, the Sadrists continue to harbour reservations about Mr al Maliki and he made it clear that, while the Sadr movement would not veto the prime minister’s coveted reappointment, it may not give him its outright support. </p> <p>“We still have criticisms of Mr al Maliki, including that he does not consult when he makes decisions, that he continues to detain followers of Muqtada al Sadr and that he has politicised the security forces,” Mr Araje said. “While we will not veto him, and while we will continue in an alliance with the State of Law coalition, I do not expect Mr al Maliki to be prime minister again, It will be another candidate.” </p> <p>The Sadr movement indicated it had laid down conditions for ending its veto against Mr al Maliki, including that he release scores of detainees. That has not yet happened. </p> <p>While a major obstruction to Mr al Maliki’s return as prime minister appears to have been removed, his position is far from certain. </p> <p>The State of Law/INA alliance has yet to name its leader, with a 14-member committee supposed to make the selection. </p> <p><em>snip</em></p> <p>Although the Sadrist leadership appears to have ended its open hostility to Mr al Maliki, Muqtada al Sadr’s followers seem far from convinced. </p> <p>With the atmosphere in Iraq increasingly one of alarm at rising violence and recent deadly sectarian attacks, Sheikh Dhea al Shouki, a leading preacher at Kufa mosque, in the Sadrists’ heartland, said he feared for the future. </p> <p>“I tell the Iraqi people to look out for themselves and to protect themselves because the coming situation will be one of sectarianism and interference in Iraq by neighbouring countries,” he said in a telephone interview. “The Iraqi government is corrupt and the Iraqi army is not serving the people well.” </p> <p><em>snip</em></p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100517/FOREIGN/705169809/1002/rss" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p> <strong>Baghdad to enclose city with 15ft wall to keep suicide bombers out – Times Online</strong><strong>: </strong><br/> <blockquote>Baghdad is to resort to one of the oldest forms of defence by building a massive wall around the capital to keep out insurgents, The Times has learnt. <p>A series of recent suicide bombings has driven the governor of the Iraqi capital to propose the concrete barrier, which will be 15ft (4.5m) high and 70 miles (112km) long. Every man, beast and vehicle entering will be searched at one of only eight gates along the main highways. </p> <p>Baghdad, roughly the same size as London and with approximately five million inhabitants, will face severe disruption as a result. Freedom of movement will be limited and workers and visitors alike will probably have to wait for at least an hour to enter. Once inside, though, it is hoped they will be much safer. Shatha al-Obeidi, an aide to Salah Abdul Razzaq, the governor, said: “We want to stop the terrorist from sneaking in. With the wall it will be much easier.” </p> <p>Building work is expected to take about a year. Once the wall is completed, officials plan to remove most of the 1,500 checkpoints and many miles of cement blast barriers that have sprung up inside Baghdad over the past few years. “We have become a city filled with concrete,” said Ms al-Obeidi. “That will change.” </p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article7129217.ece" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p> <strong>Iraqi forces capture 2 non-Iraqi Arab Qaida leaders</strong><strong>: Xinhua </strong><br/> <blockquote> <p>BAGHDAD, May 17 (Xinhua) — Iraqi security forces said Monday they have arrested two non-Iraqi Arab Qaida leaders, and one of them is said to be part of a plan to carry out terrorist act during the coming soccer World Cup in South Africa. </p> <p>The two were allegedly a Saudi and Algerian nationals who were captured in separate raids in Baghdad, according to a military spokesman. </p> <p>Azzam Saleh al-Qahtani, known as Sinan al-Saudi, 31, was an officer in the Saudi Army before he came to Iraq in 2004. Al-Saudi later became an al-Qaida security leader in Anbar and Salahudin provinces in western and central Iraq respectively, Major General Qassim Atta told a news conference. </p> <p>Atta said that al-Saudi was involved in "planning and coordination to carry out attacks during the World Cup in South Africa in complicity with Ayman al-Zawahiri (al-Qaida’s No. 2 top leader)." </p> <p>Al-Saudi was also involved in the Baghdad massive bombings and many robberies against jewellers and killings of many people, Atta added. </p> <p>Another Qaida leader named Tariq Hassan Abdul Qader, known as Abu Ysseen al-Jazairi, 34, an Algerian national, was also captured by a joint U.S. and Iraqi force, Atta said, adding that al-Jazairi was captured in November last year but his captured was not announced as he was interrogated for information about his terrorist group. </p> <p>Al-Jazairi, who entered Iraq in 2005 through Anbar province, was the leader of al-Qaida’s military wing in Karkh area, the west side of Tigris River that bisects the Iraqi capital, Atta said.</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-05/17/c_13299597.htm" class="external" target="_blank">source</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p> <strong>Saudi Arabia Wants to Verify Identity of World Cup Terrorist Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English)</strong><strong>: </strong><br/> <blockquote> <p>After the Iraqi security services announced their arrest of Saudi citizen Abdullah Azzam Saleh Misfar al-Qahtani, Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Mansour al-Turki informed Asharq Al-Awsat that Saudi Arabia is also looking for a fugitive with a similar name and characteristics. Iraq claims that al-Qahtani is a former Saudi army officer and a senior member in the Al Qaeda organization in Iraq, and that he was planning to carry out a terrorist attack at this year’s World Cup which is set to begin in South Africa in the next few weeks. </p> <p>Saudi Interior Ministry Security spokesman Major General Mansour al-Turki refused to confirm or deny that al-Qahtani had been arrested, telling Asharq Al-Awsat that "the identity of the individual mentioned by the material evidence requires verification, especially as the public information confirms that he has previously impersonated another figure. " </p> <p>In his statement to Asharq Al-Awsat, Major General al-Turki said that the information available to the Saudi security apparatus "refers to the departure of a Saudi citizen who has a similar name [to this] outside of Saudi Arabia as part of an unessential holiday in the month of Shawwal 1425 (2004) and that his return [to Saudi] has not been recorded until now." </p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=20993" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </p> </blockquote> <p> <strong>Iraq: Former prisoners ‘becoming Al-Qaeda leaders’ – Adnkronos Security</strong><strong>: </strong><br/> <blockquote>Iraqi security forces are concerned that many of the prisoners released by US troops are becoming leaders in the Al-Qaeda terror network on their release. According to local news site, Al-Sumaria News, Baghdad security forces spokesman Major General Qassim Atta revealed the level of concern to reporters on a visit to Abu Ghraib prison. <p>"Most of the prisoners freed by American forces from their prisons in the last few years have become Al-Qaeda leaders once they are released," he told reporters. </p> <p>"To stop this phenomenon we have signed a security accord with US troops, so that before freeing any prisoner they ask Iraqi forces their opinion." </p> <p>In the past US troops, who had more than 20,000 prisoners in Iraqi prisons, could release prisoners without informing local security forces.</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=3.1.411141523" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p><strong>News – World: Imams ’slaughtered in Iraq’</strong><strong>:</strong> </p> <blockquote><p>Baquba – Two Sunni Arab imams were brutally killed on Monday in Iraq, including one who was decapitated and had his head planted on a power pole, in attacks blamed on al-Qaeda, military officials said. </p> <p>The slayings in the province of Diyala, north-east of Baghdad, were against anti-Qaeda preachers who regularly railed against the terror network during Friday sermons. </p> <p>"At around 2.00pm (11.00 GMT), armed al-Qaeda members captured Sheikh Abdullah Shakur while he was in Saadiyah market," said a Diyala military command officer who declined to be identified, referring to the central town. </p> <p>"They returned an hour later with his head and attached it to an electricity post." </p> <p>Shakur, imam of Saadiyah’s mosque, had received several death threats from al-Qaeda, who had demanded that he leave the town, which is home to large Sunni, Shiite and Kurd populations. </p> <p>The town, located about 100 kilometres east of the Diyala provincial capital Baquba, was an al-Qaeda stronghold during Iraq’s sectarian conflict in 2006 and 2007. </p> <p>According to the Diyala military officer, in the village of Al-Bushaheen, 20 kilometres north of Baquba, gunmen burst into the home of Sheikh Hashim Arif at about 3.00am (00.00 GMT), dragged him to his garden and shot him dead in front of his family.</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=nw20100517165430331C338773" class="external" target="_blank">source</a></strong><strong>:</strong> </p> </blockquote> <h3 style="color: #800000">Society and Economy:</h3> <p> <strong>France24 – Iraq signs oil field deal with Chinese, Turkish firms</strong><strong>: </strong><br/> <blockquote>Iraq signed a deal with Chinese energy giant CNOOC and Turkey’s TPAO on Monday to develop a major southern oilfield complex, its 11th deal with foreign energy firms as Baghdad aims to boost crude output. <p>Among the cluster of fields in the Maysan complex, along Iraq’s border with Iran, is a field partially claimed by Tehran, whose forces temporarily took over an oil well in the Fakka oilfield in December for several days but withdrew after talks between the two countries. </p> <p><em>snip</em></p> <p>CNOOC and TPAO agreed to be paid 2.30 dollars per barrel of oil extracted from the Maysan cluster of fields, which has proven reserves of 2.6 billion barrels of oil. </p> <p>Under the deal, output is projected to be ramped up to 450,000 barrels per day (bpd), compared to current production of around 100,000 bpd. </p> <p>The Chinese firm will have an 85-percent stake in the joint venture, while TPAO holds the remaining 15 percent. The Iraqi government will have a 25-percent stake in the overall project. </p> <p>The agreed deal was worth around a tenth of what was initially requested — CNOOC and Sinochem, another Chinese energy firm, had originally asked for 21.4 dollars per barrel when the field was auctioned to foreign firms last June. </p> <p>Sinochem has since pulled out of the deal. </p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.france24.com/en/20100517-iraq-signs-oil-field-deal-with-chinese-turkish-firms" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p> <strong>Iraq, Kuwait still going at it » Kuwait Times Website</strong><strong>: </strong><br/> <blockquote> <p>A fierce legal fight between the national airlines of Iraq and Kuwait has revived deep resentments that have been simmering since Saddam Hussein first sent his army into oil-rich, neighboring Kuwait back in 1990. The dispute has been playing out in British courts since soon after the end of the first Gulf War, with Kuwait Airways claiming it is owed $1.2 billion by Iraqi Airways for 10 aircraft and spare parts that were looted during the occupation by Iraqi forces.</p> <p>Lawyers representing Kuwait have accused Iraq of perjury, forgery and a general pervasion of the justice system. In turn, Kuwait has been accused of exploiting Iraq’s instability and being insensitive to the suffering of the Iraqi people. The dispute resurfaced April 25 when the first Iraqi Airways flight from Baghdad to London in more than 20 years was met at Gatwick Airport by lawyers representing Kuwait Airway armed with an injunction issued by a British court. The authorities confiscated the passport of Iraqi Airways director Kifah Hassan Jabbar, and impounded the aircraft, which had been leased from a Swedish company.</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.kuwaittimes.net/read_news.php?newsid=MTMzNjM5NTE2NQ==" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-10375"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/05/06/6th-may-2010-selected-english-language-coverage/#respond" title="Comment on 6th-May-2010 Selected English Language Coverage">No Comments</a></span> Posted on May 6th, 2010 by Diya al din</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/05/06/6th-may-2010-selected-english-language-coverage/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to 6th-May-2010 Selected English 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href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/zubair/" rel="tag">Zubair</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d8%ac%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%8a%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b5%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%a8-%d9%88%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%87%d9%84%d8%a7%d9%84-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a7%d8%ad%d9%85%d8%b1/" rel="tag">جمعية الصليب والهلال الاحمر</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <h3 style="color: #800000">The Day In Quotes:</h3> <ul> <li><strong>Hussein al Shahristani on bringing the Akkas, Mansouriya and Siba gasfields on stream </p> <p></strong>“Once these fields are put on stream, the production will be used to meet Iraq’s growing energy needs as well as possibly exporting to neighbouring countries or the European Union,” </p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100506/BUSINESS/705069876/1005/rss" class="external" target="_blank">source</a>: </li> <li><strong>Hussein al-Shahristani on the agreement between Baghdad and the Kurdish Separatists on oil revenues</strong> <p>"We reached an agreement with the Kurds that all revenues will be handed over to SOMO and the Iraqi government will be responsible for paying the extraction expenses in Kurdistan," </p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.france24.com/en/20100506-iraqi-govt-resolves-oil-row-with-kurds" class="external" target="_blank">source</a> </li> </ul> <h3 style="color: #800000">Human Rights:</h3> <p><strong>France24 – Iraqi Kurdish journalist kidnapped and killed</strong><strong>: </strong></p> <blockquote><p>The family of a Kurdish journalist and student who was kidnapped and killed held his funeral on Thursday, hours after his corpse was found.</p> <p>Sardasht Osman, a final-year English student at Salaheddin University in Arbil, the capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, was found dead overnight in the restive northern city of Mosul officials said. <br/>He had been kidnapped on Tuesday on his university campus in Arbil.</p> <p>"I received a phone call saying a citizen had been kidnapped in Arbil and we informed police," said Marwan Abdulhamid, an official with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the region’s two dominant political parties.</p> <p>"Mosul police informed us at around midnight that they found a corpse with a university ID."</p> <p>Osman, 22, worked as a journalist for the magazine Ashtiname ("Letter for Peace" in Kurdish) and as an English-Kurdish translator.</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.france24.com/en/20100506-iraqi-kurdish-journalist-kidnapped-killed" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p> <strong>MI5 told all evidence in torture trials will be heard in public – Home News, UK – The Independent</strong><strong>: </strong><br/> <blockquote> <p>Six former detainees at Guantanamo Bay have won their legal battle to have their claims against the Government heard in public.</p> <p>In a far-reaching judgment on the principle of open justice, the Court of Appeal yesterday overturned a previous ruling which would have allowed MI5 to use secret evidence to defend itself against claims it was complicit in unlawful detention and torture.</p> <p>Last year, the High Court ruled that there was no reason in law why the court could not allow a "closed material procedure" to be used in a claim for damages. <br/>This would mean that the Government and the secret services would not have to disclose information to the claimants’ lawyers if they felt that doing so would damage the interests of national security, the UK’s international relations, the detection and prevention of crime, or was likely to harm the public interest in some way.</p> <p>It was proposed that any sensitive material would be disclosed to "special advocates" – barristers who had been given security vetting and clearance but who could not discuss the evidence with the six claimants. <br/>But yesterday the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, said the court would "take a stand" against secrecy that the judges said would undermine the "most fundamental principles of common law"</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/mi5-told-all-evidence-in-torture-trials-will-be-heard-in-public-1962557.html" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p> <strong>MoD asked Red Cross to look into Iraq birth defects – Home News, UK – The Independent</strong><strong>: </strong><br/> <blockquote> <p>"On DfID’s request," said Mr Thomas, "the ICRC has discussed this [reports of a rise in foetal abnormalities] with the technical director of Al-Fallujah General Hospital as well as another doctor based there. Both responded that although there were occasional cases of foetal abnormalities, these did not exceed two to three cases per year."</p> <p>In another letter written in January this year Mr Thomas said that because of the continuing dearth of reliable information on such cases, DfID had formally asked the Iraqi Ministry of Health to release any data regarding the claims.</p> <p>Allegations that the British Government was complicit in the use of chemical weapons linked to an upsurge in child deformity cases in Iraq are being investigated by the Ministry of Defence.</p> <p>The legal case, which is being prepared for the High Court by Public Interest Lawyers, specifically raises serious questions about the UK’s role in the American-led offensive against the City of Fallujah in the autumn of 2004 in which hundreds of Iraqis died.</p> <p>After the battle, in which it is alleged that a range of illegal weaponry was used against the civilian and insurgent population, evidence has emerged of large numbers of children being born with severe birth defects. Iraqi families who believe their children’s deformities are caused by the deployment of the weapons have begun legal proceedings against the UK Government. <br/>They accuse the UK Government of breaching international law, war crimes and failing to intervene to prevent a war crime.</p> <p>Lawyers for the Iraqis have sent a letter before action to the Ministry of Defence asking the Government to disclose what it knows about the Army’s role in the offensive, the presence of prohibited weapons and the legal advice given to the then prime minister, Tony Blair.</p> <p>Last month the World Health Organisation said it was investigating evidence of a worrying rise in the incidence of birth defects in the city which Iraqi doctors attribute to the use of chemical weapons in the battle.</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/mod-asked-red-cross-to-look-into-iraq-birth-defects-1964491.html" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p> <strong>Sex slave girls face cruel justice in Iraq – CNN.com</strong><strong>: </strong><br/> <blockquote> <p>Trafficking is a growing problem in Iraq. Some vulnerable women, desperate to support their families, are tricked into it by accepting fake marriage proposals. Many young girls, their parents facing dire economic circumstances, are just sold outright.</p> <p>"In some ways, their fate is worse than death," explained Samer Muscati from Human Rights Watch. "Once they’ve been trafficked, there’s a stigma even though they’re the victims in this horrific situation. They’ve been exploited and they’ve been trafficked to another country with no real recourse."</p> <p>According to Muscati, even if the girls do manage to escape the cruelty of their circumstances, it will be very difficult for them to escape the judgment of their families. <br/>"When they do come back to Iraq, if the family does accept them it’s very difficult because they’ve brought great shame to the family, they’re subjected to honor crimes. And we’ve come across cases where young women have preferred to stay in prison or custody than to be released and to face tribal justice," Muscati said.</p> <p>Rubaie puts it even more bluntly when discussing what little future awaits trafficked girls who manage to return home.</p> <p>"I’m sure the girl’s family won’t take care of her," said Rubaie. "I’m sure that neighbors and relatives and society will judge her, they’ll know that the girl had been a prisoner and the family will be ashamed of her.</p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/05/04/iraq.women.prisons/index.html?hpt=C2" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a>: </p> </blockquote> <h3 style="color: #800000">Politics and Security</h3> <p><strong>France24 – Kurds vow to back Shiite coalition choice for PM</strong><strong>: </strong></p> <blockquote><p>Iraq’s main Kurdish political bloc will accept the candidate for prime minister chosen by the new Shiite coalition of incumbent premier Nuri al-Maliki, a top official said on Thursday. <br/>"We will not veto anyone chosen by the alliances to take up the post of prime minister," said Roz Nawri Chawis, the autonomous Kurdish region’s deputy prime minister. <br/>Maliki’s State of Law Alliance and the Iraqi National Alliance (INA) led by Shiite religious groups announced on Tuesday that they were forming a new coalition following the March 7 parliamentary elections. <br/>The move was aimed at squeezing out a secular coalition led by ex-premier Iyad Allawi, whose Iraqiya bloc won the election with 91 seats but failed to build a parliamentary majority. <br/>The new Shiite coalition is also four seats short of the 163 needed to form a parliamentary majority but the Kurdish Alliance, comprised of Kurdistan’s two long-dominant political blocs, has said it will join it.</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.france24.com/en/20100506-kurds-vow-back-shiite-coalition-choice-pm" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p><strong>Bayati: SLC, INA Alliance to speed up forming next government  : National Iraqi News Agency – NINA</strong><strong>: </strong></p> <blockquote><p>The leader within the State of Law’s Coalition, Abas al-Bayati, confirmed that "The Alliance between the SLC and the Iraqi National Alliance will participate in speeding up the negotiations for forming the next government and ending the political tensions." <br/>He stated to the national Iraqi News Agency (NINA) "The Alliance between INA and SLC will set a timetable for the negotiations with the other blocs over forming the national partenership government to be able to provide services and represent all Iraqis."</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.ninanews.com/English/News_Details.asp?ar95_VQ=EMFFGH" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p><strong>Nijeifi criticizes calls to divide Iraq into three areas : National Iraqi News Agency – NINA</strong><strong>: </strong></p> <blockquote><p>The leader within the Iraqiya Slate, Usama al-Nijeifi, revealed that "There are calls to divide Iraq into three areas;" criticizing these calls saying "We reject these calls absolutely." <br/>Speaking to the National Iraqi News Agency (NINA) "These calls are dangerous and threaten the unity and the stability of Iraq." <br/>He added "The Alliance between the State of Law’s Coalition and the Iraqi National Alliance gave sectarian image," noting that "The Kurdistani Alliance is having the same attitudes while Iraqiya Slate preserved the national method away from confessionalism."</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.ninanews.com/English/News_Details.asp?ar95_VQ=EMFFID" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p><strong>Othman: Alliance between SL, NIA to satisfy Iran : National Iraqi News Agency – NINA</strong><strong>: </strong></p> <blockquote><p>The Kurdish Alliance’s official, Mahmoud Otham, expressed his dissatisfaction over the new alliance between State of Law (SL) and the National Iraqi Alliance (NIA) considering this move is to satisfy Iran’s demands. <br/>Othman said, “Kurdish leadership is not surprised with this move because on increased pressure on Iraq that threatens its security and independence.” <br/>He added that Iran works, from the start of the election process in intervening in Iraq’s affairs and putting pressure on political sides toward denying the Iraqiya Slate from forming next government.</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.ninanews.com/English/News_Details.asp?ar95_VQ=EMFGEH" class="external" target="_blank">source</a></strong><strong>: </strong> </p> </blockquote> <p><strong>IED blast leaves 1 killed, 3 wounded : Aswat Al Iraq</strong><strong>: </strong></p> <blockquote><p>“The IED went off at the entrance of the southern Baghdad district of al-Mahmoudiya, leaving one killed and three others wounded,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=131302" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p><strong>KUNA : Roadside bomb kills 2 in N. Baghdad – Military and Security – 06/05/2010</strong><strong>: </strong></p> <blockquote><p>BAGHDAD, May 6 (KUNA) — Iraqi police said on Thursday that two people were killed in a roadside explosion in Al Mansour district, northern Baghdad. <br/>A source in the Iraqi police told KUNA that the bomb exploded near a flowers auction in Al Mansour district. <br/>The explosion resulted in the death of two people and wounding four others. They were taken to a hospital for treatment, the source added. </p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2081286&Language=en" class="external" target="_blank">source</a>:</p> </blockquote> <p><strong>Woman wounded in central Falluja : Aswat Al Iraq</strong><strong>: </strong></p> <blockquote><p>A woman, standing in front of her house in central Falluja, was wounded in a random shooting on Thursday</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=131279" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p> <strong>Hand grenade wounds cop, civilian in Kirkuk : Aswat Al Iraq</strong><strong>: </strong><br/> <blockquote> <p>“Unknown gunmen threw a hand grenade on the guards of Kirkuk police chief near al-Shuhadaa tunnel, central Kirkuk, injuring a policeman and civilian,” Colonel Ahmad Shmerani told Aswat al-Iraq news agency. <br/>“The gunmen tried to escape but police forces managed to arrest two of them</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=131279" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p> <strong>IED injures 3 civilians in western Anbar : Aswat Al Iraq</strong><strong>: </strong><br/> <blockquote> <p>“The bomb went off near a water tanker truck in al-Qaem district in western Anbar, wounding three civilians, including the driver,” </p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=131279" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p> <strong>Al-Qaeda leader captured in Mosul : Aswat Al Iraq</strong><strong>: </strong><br/> <blockquote> <p>“The forces arrested Mahmoud Mohammad Salama, a senior leader of al-Qaeda in Mosul,” </p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=131288" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p> <strong>Kirkuk car bomber arrested : Aswat Al Iraq</strong><strong>: </strong><br/> <blockquote> <p>“The detainee, a 29-year-old man who had detonated an explosive vehicle near al-Huweija Hospital on March 22, was captured and is now under investigative custody,”</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=131297" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <h3 style="color: #800000">Society and Economy:</h3> <p><strong>France24 – Iraqi govt resolves oil row with Kurds</strong><strong>: </strong></p> <blockquote><p>An oil dispute between Iraq and the autonomous northern region of Kurdistan has been resolved, the central government’s oil minister said in Baghdad on Thursday. <br/>"We reached an agreement with the Kurds that all revenues will be handed over to SOMO and the Iraqi government will be responsible for paying the extraction expenses in Kurdistan," Hussein al-Shahristani told reporters. <br/>SOMO is Iraq’s State Oil Marketing Organisation which deals with sales of crude and other petroleum-based products.</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.france24.com/en/20100506-iraqi-govt-resolves-oil-row-with-kurds" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p> <strong>Iraq puts three natural gas fields up for bid – Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review</strong><strong>: </strong><br/> <blockquote> <p>Iraq’s oil minister on Thursday invited international energy companies to bid for contracts to develop three untapped natural gas fields. <br/>Hussain al-Shahristani expressed confidence in international interest in the fields, saying that 45 companies with experience in gas projects will submit their offers in the country’s third energy bidding round, set for Sept. 1. <br/>"We have indications that there is renewed interest among companies to compete for these fields," he said in a press conference. <br/>The Akkas gas field near the border with Syria has estimated reserves of 5.6 trillion cubic feet and was originally offered in Iraq’s first round of bidding. It only garnered a single offer, which was declined. <br/>Mansouriya gas field, with reserves of 4.5 trillion cubic feet, is located in the once restive province of Diyala north of Baghdad and received no bids in the round. <br/>The smaller Siba field, with 1.1 trillion cubic feet of reserves and near the border with Kuwait, will be offered up for the first time.</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=iraq-puts-three-natural-gas-fields-up-for-bid-2010-05-06" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p><strong>Iraq offers gas and oil licences – The National Newspaper</strong><strong>: </strong></p> <blockquote><p>Iraq, the holder of the world’s third-biggest proved oil reserves, has announced its third post-war bidding round for oil and gas licences.</p> <p>This time, Baghdad’s focus will be on developing the nation’s large but mainly overlooked gas resources.</p> <p>Starting on September 1, the Gulf state would seek offers to develop its Akkas, Mansouriya and Siba gasfields, Dr Hussain al Shahristani, the Iraqi oil minister, said yesterday. <br/>Iraq has sought for years to develop gas exports, in addition to expanding domestic supplies of the fuel to burn in power plants.</p> <p>Baghdad had earlier set aside the under-developed Akkas field, near the country’s western border with Syria, to supply the proposed Nabucco pipeline, which was conceived to reduce European dependence on Russian gas. <br/>“This will make Iraq one of the major producers for natural gas,” Ali al Dabbagh, the Iraqi government spokesman, said last week at a business forum in Abu Dhabi, in remarks heralding the gas auction.</p> <p>“Once these fields are put on stream, the production will be used to meet Iraq’s growing energy needs as well as possibly exporting to neighbouring countries or the European Union,” Dr al Shahristani added yesterday. <br/>The minister also said a US$4 billion (Dh14.69bn) joint venture with Royal Dutch Shell to gather and market up to 700 million cubic feet per day of gas produced as a by-product from Iraq’s main southern oilfields had been submitted to the government’s energy committee for approval, more than 18 months after Baghdad signed a preliminary deal with the company.</p> <p>The gas is currently being burnt as “waste” because Iraq lacks gathering and processing facilities.</p> <p>But the deal is controversial because Baghdad negotiated it directly instead of inviting competitive bids, and because it appeared to give Shell a monopoly over gas produced from Iraq’s main oil exporting province of Basra. <br/>Despite the country’s dire need for gas to fuel electricity generation, the agreement could still be overturned in parliament or by the next Iraqi government.</p> <p>In what appeared to be a compromise, Dr al Shahristani said the scope of the final deal would cover only three fields: Iraq’s biggest oilfield, Rumaila; the Zubair field; and West Qurna phase 1, which is being developed by ExxonMobil and Shell.</p> <p>The new bidding round for contracts to develop gasfields that are not associated with oil also faces challenges.</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100506/BUSINESS/705069876/1005/rss" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p><strong>France24 – Iraq says Kuwait reparations are unsustainable</strong><strong>: </strong></p> <blockquote><p>Iraq cannot sustain its reparations payments to Kuwait for Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion, which it says are the highest paid by any country in history, Oil Minister Hussein al-Shahristani said Thursday. <br/>"Iraq has paid Kuwait enormous amounts of compensation for its losses and we do not know of any country in the world that has paid such high sums," Shahristani told reporters in Baghdad. <br/>"The sum of money that Germany paid to France and Britain is less than what Iraq has paid to Kuwait, even though that was a world war and the losses were considerable." <br/>On April 13, Adnan Abdulsamad, head of the Kuwaiti parliament’s budgets committee, said the emirate had so far received 17.5 billion dollars out of the 41.8 billion dollars approved by a United Nations special compensation fund. <br/>"Iraq cannot continue to make these payments and has made this known to the UN Security Council," Shahristani said. "We call on our Kuwaiti brothers to work together with us to forget the past, which has cost our country more than our neighbours."</p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.france24.com/en/20100506-iraq-says-kuwait-reparations-are-unsustainable" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> <p><strong>Iraqi Airways chief released by British court</strong><strong>: Khaleej Times Online</strong></p> <blockquote><p>A British court released the head of Iraqi Airways on Thursday and allowed him to return home, Iraq’s transport ministry said in the latest twist in a legal nightmare for the airline. <br/>Kifah Hassan Jabbar had his passport seized and the plane he arrived on impounded at London’s Gatwick Airport on April 25 as a dispute with Kuwait Airways marred Iraqi Airways Company’s (IAC) first commercial flight from Baghdad to London in 20 years. <br/>“A British court today (Thursday) issued a decision for the release of Mr Kifah Hassan Jabbar, chief executive of Iraqi Airways,” the transport ministry said. <br/>It said the court ruling was greeted by “angry shouts” from Kuwaitis attending the hearing, who “expressed their discontent and dissatisfaction with the decision.” </p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.khaleejtimes.com/displayarticle.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2010/May/middleeast_May99.xml&section=middleeast&col=" class="external" target="_blank">read in full</a></strong><strong>:</strong></p> </blockquote> <h3 style="color: #800000">Commentary and Analysis</h3> <p><strong>The secret behind Iran’s power</strong><strong>: By Fatih Abdulsalam</strong></p> <blockquote><p>Why is Iran seen as a fundamental power in the region stretching from Afghanistan to Lebanon and in between Iraq, its golden state? <br/>There are some who think that Iran’s military maneuvers and revelations of new weapons, boats, frigates and missiles that can reach Israel and Europe are the source of this power. <br/>People who entertain such opinions, I am sorry to say, are naïve. The U.S. and Europe have no fears of the display of Iranian armaments. <br/>Strategy analysts and experts say Iranian weapons might be ineffective. The point is whether the weapons are operational and can be used. <br/>The analysts believe if the U.S. attacks Iran, the first thing its forces will do is to render Iranian weapons systems ineffective. <br/>Iran’s Western enemies will take the initiative and do not allow Iran to unleash its missiles and other weapons on their targets. <br/>But still Iran is a powerful country. Iran’s strong muscles are not due to its weaponry. <br/>Iran’s strength emanates from its diplomacy and the role it plays almost in all important files in the region. Arab states have almost no role to play here. <br/>Therefore, it is so hard for Iran’s nemesis, the U.S., to embark on any negotiating or movements in the region without taking Tehran into account. <br/>Tehran has proxies and agents throughout the region. They are the source of Iran’s power and not its weapons. </p> <p><strong><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news%5C2010-05-06%5Ckurd.htm" class="external" target="_blank">Source</a></strong><strong>: </strong></p> </blockquote> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-9870"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/04/18/18-04-2010-selected-english-language-coverage/#respond" title="Comment on 18-04-2010 Selected English Language Coverage">No Comments</a></span> Posted on April 18th, 2010 by Khalil Ibn Hussein</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/04/18/18-04-2010-selected-english-language-coverage/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to 18-04-2010 Selected English Language Coverage">18-04-2010 Selected English Language Coverage</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/afghanistan/" rel="tag">Afghanistan</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/al-iraqiya/" rel="tag">Al-Iraqiya</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/allawi-vs-maliki/" rel="tag">Allawi vs. Maliki</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/american-war-criminals-gw-bush/" rel="tag">American War Criminals (G.W. 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Sheikh Salah al-Ubaydi, spokesman for the Al-Sadr Trend, said that "the trend continues to ask all the winning parties to sit on a roundtable to reach a solution to the crisis of forming the next government." </p> <p>On whether the expected alliance between the State of Law Coalition, led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and the Iraqi National Alliance would lead to the exclusion of the Al-Iraqiya Bloc, led by Iyad Allawi, from the next government, Al-Ubaydi told Asharq Al-Awsat that any alliance between the two coalitions "does not mean abandoning the roundtable for forming the government and choosing the candidate for the post of the next prime minister," adding: "We have sent reassurance messages to all parties, which say that any alliance of this kind does not mean excluding or marginalizing others." He emphasized that "one of the most important points which we emphasized is to avoid and not to repeat the mistakes of the previous experience, particularly since the concern of the Iraqi street focuses on the need for stabilizing the security situation and also improving the living condition. Therefore, the negative phenomena that prevented the implementation of these positive points should be overcome, in addition to our demand that there should be no partisan appeasement , particularly concerning the issue of financial and administrative corruption even if the accused is a leader or affiliated to this of that party." He emphasized: "We want a real partnership government and not a government that is concerned with the interests of one party as happened in the past." </p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=20626" class="external" target="_blank">Read in full</a>: </p> </blockquote> <p><strong>Iraq remains a long way off from forming a new government – The Globe and Mail: </strong></p> <blockquote><p>He may have “won” last month’s Iraqi election, but there is little chance that Iyad Allawi will head the next Iraqi government. <br/>Six weeks after Iraqis braved threats of violence to cast ballots, giving Mr. Allawi’s Iraqiya party two more seats than Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the country is still a long way from having a new government. <br/>Unfortunately for Mr. Allawi, the demographics of the country and the role of outside parties have conspired against him. The best the one-time provisional prime minister can hope for, say observers in Baghdad, is a relatively minor role in cabinet for some of his people. <br/>It’s not for want of trying. “[Mr.] Allawi has done everything he could,” said one veteran analyst with an international organization in Baghdad. “But he had to play the hand he was dealt.”</p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/iraq-remains-a-long-way-off-from-forming-a-new-government/article1538381/" class="external" target="_blank">Read in full</a>: </p> </blockquote> <h3><font color="#800000">Security Coverage:</font></h3> <p><strong>Violence highlights fears of Iraqi security forces taking over after U.S. leaves </strong></p> <blockquote><p>By Leila Fadel Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, April 18, 2010; A12 </p> <p>RADWANIYAH, IRAQ — Raw welts and purple bruises run down the backs of dozens of Sunni Muslim men in a small village west of Baghdad — evidence, local residents say, of abuse by the Iraqi army that threatens to widen a sectarian rift. </p> <p>The wounds came from beatings administered last month by soldiers from the predominantly Shiite force charged with protecting the Sunni community here, villagers said. One by one, they said, the Sunni men were questioned, beaten and shocked with electricity in a roundup by mostly Shiite Iraqi soldiers, who were reeling from the killing of five comrades at a checkpoint. </p> <p>The violence comes at a time when the performance and professionalism of Iraq’s security forces are facing a crucial test. With U.S. troop levels scheduled to drop to 50,000 by summer’s end, Iraqi security forces control the streets. But they face deep mistrust in particular from Iraqi Sunnis, who in some areas consider the Army a less-than-neutral instrument of a Shiite-dominated government. </p> <p>In Radwaniyah, Sunni tribal leaders say the beatings have cemented fears about what might happen when the U.S. military leaves for good. They worry about being caught between the Sunni insurgents they turned against and a Shiite-led government they do not trust. </p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/17/AR2010041702704_pf.html" class="external" target="_blank">Read in full</a>: </p> </blockquote> <div style="border-right: silver 1px solid; padding-right: 5px; border-top: silver 1px solid; padding-left: 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; border-left: silver 1px solid; padding-top: 5px; border-bottom: silver 1px solid"> <table cellspacing="5" cellpadding="5" width="580" border="0"> <tbody> <tr> <td valign="top" width="285"> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE63G06Z.htm" class="external" target="_blank">Reuters AlertNet – FACTBOX-Security developments in Iraq, April 17</a>: </p> <ul> <li><strong>*</strong>BAGHDAD – A bomb attached to a car exploded, severely wounding five people in the Saydiya district in southern Baghdad, police said. </li> <li><strong>*</strong>MOSUL – Police found the body of man who had been shot in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. </li> <li>BAGHDAD – Iraqi police killed a gunman who opened fire on a police checkpoint in the Amiriya district in western Baghdad, Baghdad security command said in a statement. </li> <li>BASRA – A bomb planted in the house of a leader of the local government-backed council leader exploded in central Basra, 420 km (260 miles) southeast of Baghdad on Friday night, killing his wife and wounding his son, police said. </li> </ul> </td> <td valign="top" width="285"> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE63H0O9.htm" class="external" target="_blank">Reuters AlertNet – FACTBOX-Security developments in Iraq, April 18</a>: </p> <ul> <li>Following are security developments in Iraq at 1900 GMT on Sunday. </li> <li>MOSUL – Armed men wounded two retired senior army officers after they left a mosque in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. </li> <li>MOSUL – A roadside bomb exploded in the centre of Mosul, wounding seven civilians, police said. </li> </ul> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" colspan="2"> <p><strong>*</strong> Denotes new or updated item.</p> <p> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE63H0D4.htm" class="external" target="_blank">Reuters AlertNet – One US soldier dead, three injured in Iraq crash</a>:<br/> <blockquote>A U.S. soldier was killed and three were injured when their helicopter crashed in northern Iraq late on Saturday evening, the U.S. military said on Sunday. <p>In a brief statement, the military said the incident had not been attributed to enemy fire and was under investigation.</p> </blockquote> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div> <p><strong>KUNA : U.S. on target to reduce forces in Iraq to 50,000 by August — Odierno – Military and Security – 18/04/2010: </strong></p> <blockquote><p>The U.S. military remains on target to reduce its forces in Iraq from about 95,000 today to around 50,000 by mid-August, U.S. Army General Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, said on Sunday. <p>In an interview on "FOX News Sunday," Odierno said there was no move under way by the United States to revisit the Security of Forces Agreement with Iraq, which calls for all remaining U.S. forces to be out of that country by the end of 2011. </p> <p>If the Iraqi government wants U.S. forces in Iraq longer than that, "we can discuss it. … then we (U.S. officials) will make our own decision on that based on our policies," Odierno said.</p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=2076685&Language=en" class="external" target="_blank">Read in full</a></p> </blockquote> <h3><font color="#800000">Economic Coverage:</font></h3> <p><strong>Trade Arabia – Iraq cbank cuts rates to boost lending: </strong></p> <blockquote><p>Iraq’s central bank slashed its base rate by 100 basis points to six per cent as of April 1 in reaction to subdued inflation and to boost bank lending, senior advisers at the bank said. </p> <p><em>[snip]</em></p> <p>The IMF forecasts economic growth of 7.3 per cent this year, accelerating from estimated 4.2 per cent growth last year but well off 9.5 per cent growth in 2008 when oil prices were at record highs.</p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.tradearabia.com/news/newsdetails.asp?Sn=BANK&artid=177888" class="external" target="_blank">Read in full</a>: </p> </blockquote> <p> <strong>Etihad to Commence Services to Iraq: </strong><br/> <blockquote>Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, has announced it will commence flights from Abu Dhabi to Baghdad on April 26, subject to government and regulatory approvals, becoming the first airline in the UAE to fly to Iraq. <p>Etihad will operate five return services per week to Baghdad, operated by two-class Airbus A320 aircraft, and will expand its operation with two additional A320 return services to a second Iraq destination – Erbil – from June 1, subject to government and regulatory approvals. </p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.khaleejtimes.com/displayarticle.asp?xfile=data/theuae/2010/April/theuae_April450.xml&section=theuae&col=" class="external" target="_blank">Read in full</a>: </p> </blockquote> <p> <strong>Anham replaces Agility as US military supplier – Emirates Business 24|7: </strong><br/> <blockquote> <p>Dubai-based Anham has won a $2.2 billion (Dh8.08bn) contract to provide food and support services to the US military in Kuwait, Iraq and Jordan after Kuwait-based logistics firm Agility was replaced as the main supplier following indictments for overcharging</p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.business24-7.ae/companies-markets/logistics/anham-replaces-agility-as-us-military-supplier-2010-04-18-1.109319" class="external" target="_blank">Read in full</a></p> </blockquote> <p><strong>Argus Media :Analysis – Baghdad plans refinery spree: </strong></p> <blockquote><p>Iraq is drawing up plans to expand its effective refining capacity by 150pc to 1.2mn b/d at a cost of $10.5bn.</p> <p>The additional 740,000 b/d of capacity will come from four planned refineries (see table). A fifth planned refinery with a capacity of 100,000 b/d close to the 800mn bl East Baghdad heavy oil field is on the back burner because the field was not awarded to a foreign oil company in Iraq’s second bidding round in December.</p> <p>Cash-strapped Iraq will be unable to fund its planned downstream expansion alone and will seek private-sector investors. “We are open to discussing any type of investment. These can be joint ventures, build-operate-transfer agreements, build-own-operate agreements, or engineering contracts with deferred payment,” Iraq’s deputy oil minister for refining and gas processing Ahmad al-Shamma told Argus.</p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.argusmedia.com/pages/NewsBody.aspx?id=704433&menu=yes" class="external" target="_blank">Read in full</a>: </p> </blockquote> <p> <strong>The Peninsula On-line: Turkey’s TPAO plans to bid for Iraq fields: </strong><br/> <blockquote> <p>The state-run Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) is planning to bid for development of Iraq’s Akkas, Mansuriyah and Siba natural gas fields, TPAO Chief Executive Mehmet Uysal said in an interview yesterday.</p> <p>Uysal said TPAO aims to bid for the Akkas field in partnership with Italy’s Edison, and added that Chevron and Chinese firms are interested in gas and oil exploration in the Black Sea.</p> <p>“We have already started preparations seriously for oil exploration license tenders for which there will be invitations from now on. We can bid in partnership with consortia,” Uysal said.</p> <p>TPIC, the foreign exploration unit of state-run Turkish Petroleum, won a $318m contract to drill 45 wells in Iraq’s supergiant Rumaila oilfield in March. </p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=Business_News&subsection=market+news&month=April2010&file=Business_News2010041704135.xml" class="external" target="_blank">Read in full</a> </p> </blockquote> <h3><font color="#800000">Commentary and Analysis</font></h3> <p><strong>Green Scare: The Making of the New Muslim Enemy | by Deepa Kumar | CommonDreams.org: </strong></p> <blockquote><p>The events of September 11 laid the basis for the emergence of a vicious form of Islamophobia that facilitated the U.S. goals of empire building in the 21st century. This form of Islamophobia focused on the enemy "out there" against which the U.S. supposedly had to go to war to protect itself, from Afghanistan to Iraq. </p> <p>As George Bush famously put it, "We’re fighting them there, so we don’t have to fight them here." Or as he stated in his West Point speech in 2002, "We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats." In short, an endless "war on terror" on the enemy beyond U.S. borders was now justified, according to Bush. </p> <p><em>[snip]</em></p> <p>The most virulent expression of this "Green Scare" was articulated by NYU professor Tunku Varadarajan. In a Forbes.com article titled "Going Muslim" (<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/08/fort-hood-nidal-malik-hasan-muslims-opinions-columnists-tunku-varadarajan.html)" class="external" target="_blank">http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/08/fort-hood-nidal-malik-hasan-muslims-opinions-columnists-tunku-varadarajan.html)</a> published in November 2009, Varadarajan argued that what precipitated the tragedy at Food Hood–when Major Nidal Hasan turned a gun against his co-workers and killed 13–was not the racist harassment that Hasan faced in the Army or the emotionally debilitating nature of being an overworked Army psychiatrist, but rather a condition that he sees as inherent to all Muslims: the tendency towards violence. </p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/17-6" class="external" target="_blank">Read in full</a>:</p> </blockquote> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-8907"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/03/03/iraqs-new-death-squad/#respond" title="Comment on Iraq’s New Death Squad">No Comments</a></span> Posted on March 3rd, 2010 by Saba Ali</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/03/03/iraqs-new-death-squad/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Iraq’s New Death Squad">Iraq’s New Death Squad</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/category/features/" title="View all posts in Features" rel="category tag">Features</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/adhamiya/" rel="tag">Adhamiya</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/al-samarrai/" rel="tag">al-Samarrai</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/america/" rel="tag">America</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/awakening-councils/" rel="tag">Awakening Councils</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/brig-gen-simeon-trombitas/" rel="tag">Brig. Gen. 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We’re standing in the courtyard of his concrete-block house, his children are watching us quietly and his wife is twirling large circles of dough and slapping them against the inside walls of a roaring oven. He walks over to his three-foot-tall daughter and grabs her head like a melon. As she stands there, he gestures wildly behind her, pretending to tie up her hands, then pretending to point a rifle at her head. "They took the blindfold off me, pointed the gun at her head and cocked it, saying, ‘Either you tell us where al-Zaydawi is, or we kill your daughter.’" </p> <p>"They just marched into our house and took whatever they wanted," Hassan’s mother says, peeking out the kitchen door. "I’ve never seen anyone act like this." </p> <p>As Hassan tells it, it was a quiet night on June 10, 2008, in Sadr City, Baghdad’s poor Shiite district of more than 2 million people, when the helicopter appeared over his house and the front door exploded, nearly burning his sleeping youngest son. Before Hassan knew it, he was on the ground, hands bound and a bag over his head, with eight men pointing rifles at him, locked and loaded. </p> <p>At first he couldn’t tell whether the men were Iraqis or Americans. He says he identified himself as a police sergeant, offering his ID before they took his pistol and knocked him to the ground. The men didn’t move like any Iraqi forces he’d ever seen. They looked and spoke like his countrymen, but they were wearing American-style uniforms and carrying American weapons with night-vision scopes. They accused him of being a commander in the local militia, the Mahdi Army, before they dragged him off, telling his wife he was "finished." But before they left, they identified themselves. "We are the Special Forces. The dirty brigade," Hassan recalls them saying. </p> <p>The Iraq Special Operations Forces (ISOF) is probably the largest special forces outfit ever built by the United States, and it is free of many of the controls that most governments employ to rein in such lethal forces. The project started in the deserts of Jordan just after the Americans took Baghdad in April 2003. There, the US Army’s Special Forces, or Green Berets, trained mostly 18-year-old Iraqis with no prior military experience. The resulting brigade was a Green Beret’s dream come true: a deadly, elite, covert unit, fully fitted with American equipment, that would operate for years under US command and be unaccountable to Iraqi ministries and the normal political process. </p> <p>According to Congressional records, the ISOF has grown into nine battalions, which extend to four regional "commando bases" across Iraq. By December, each will be complete with its own "intelligence infusion cell," which will operate independently of Iraq’s other intelligence networks. The ISOF is at least 4,564 operatives strong, making it approximately the size of the US Army’s own Special Forces in Iraq. Congressional records indicate that there are plans to double the ISOF over the next "several years." </p> <p>According to retired Lt. Col. Roger Carstens, US Special Forces are "building the most powerful force in the region." In 2008 Carstens, then a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, was an adviser to the Iraqi National Counter-Terror Force, where he helped set up the Iraqi counterterrorism laws that govern the ISOF. </p> <p>"All these guys want to do is go out and kill bad guys all day," he says, laughing. "These guys are shit hot. They are just as good as we are. We trained ‘em. They are just like us. They use the same weapons. They walk like Americans." </p> <p>When the US Special Forces began the slow transfer of the ISOF to Iraqi control in April 2007, they didn’t put it under the command of the Defense Ministry or the Interior Ministry, bodies that normally control similar special forces the world over. Instead, the Americans pressured the Iraqi government to create a new minister-level office called the Counter-Terrorism Bureau. Established by a directive from Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, the CTB answers directly to him and commands the ISOF independently of the police and army. According to Maliki’s directive, the Iraqi Parliament has no influence over the ISOF and knows little about its mission. US Special Forces operatives like Carstens have largely overseen the bureau. Carstens says this independent chain of command "might be the perfect structure" for counterterrorism worldwide. </p> <p>Although the force is officially controlled by the Iraqi government, popular perception in Baghdad is that the ISOF–the dirty brigade–is a covert, all-Iraqi branch of the US military. That reading isn’t far from the truth. The US Special Forces are still closely involved with every level of the ISOF, from planning and carrying out missions to deciding tactics and creating policy. According to Brig. Gen. Simeon Trombitas, commander of the Iraq National Counter-Terror Force Transition Team, part of the multinational command responsible for turning control of the ISOF over to the Iraqi government, the US Special Forces continue to "have advisers at every level of the chain of command." </p> <p>In January 2008 the US Special Forces started allowing ISOF commanders to join missions with them and the ISOF rank and file. Starting last summer–when Hassan’s family was attacked–ISOF battalions began launching missions on their own, without American advisers, in Sadr City, where political agreements forbid the Americans from entering. Accusations of human rights abuses, killings and politically motivated arrests have surfaced, including assaults on a university president and arrests of opposition politicians. </p> <p>The US government has been focused on turning out "as many men in arms as possible, as quickly as possible," says Peter Harling, senior Middle East analyst at the International Crisis Group. "There has been very little impetus to build checks and controls to prevent abuse. It’s been very much about building up capability without the oversight that could prevent some of the units [from] turning into proxies working for some politician." </p> <p>In Sadr City opposition to the Iraqi government and the US occupation is strong. There is no longer any visible militia presence, but pictures of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr still stick to the US-built concrete walls that enclose the city, and calls to prayer end with a demand for the hastened exit of "the enemy." There, the ISOF uses a policy of collective punishment, aimed at intimidating civilians, charges Hassan al-Rubaie, Sadrist member of the parliamentary Security and Defense Committee. "They terrorize entire neighborhoods just to arrest one person they think is a terrorist," he says. "This needs to stop." </p> <p>US Special Forces advisers have done little to respond to allegations of abuse. Civilian pleas, public protests, complaints by Iraqi Army commanders about the ISOF’s actions and calls for disbanding it by members of Parliament have not pushed the US government to take a hard look at the force they are creating. Instead, US advisers dismiss such claims as politically motivated. "The enemy is trying to discredit them," says Carstens. "It’s not because they are doing anything dirty." </p> <p>On the same night Hassan Mahsan’s house was raided, 26-year-old Haidar al-Aibi was killed with a bullet to the forehead. His family says there was no warning. They tell me how it happened as we drink tea on the floor of their living room, furnished only with thick foam cushions and mournful depictions of the Shiite martyr Hussein. A woman weeps loudly in the corner, the sleeping child of her dead son almost obscured by the folds of her black garments. </p> <p>Fathil al-Aibi says the family was awakened around midnight by a nearby explosion. His brother Haidar ran up to the roof to see what had happened and was immediately shot from a nearby rooftop. When Fathil, his brother Hussein and his father, Abbas, tried to bring Haidar downstairs, they were shot at, too. For about two hours he lay lifeless on the roof while his family panicked as red laser beams from rifle scopes danced on their windows. "We had tests the next day at the university," Hussein says. "We didn’t think he would go like this." </p> <p>Down the road, around the same time that night, police commando Ahmed Shibli says he was also being fired on. He illuminates two bullet holes in his house with a kerosene lamp as we talk. The men who busted open his front door called themselves the dirty brigade, he says, and they were carrying American weapons, not the AK-47s or PKCs the National Police use. When they entered, they fired immediately. "It wasn’t a warning shot. They shot at me like they wanted to kill me as I was getting down on the ground. It was like we were first-degree terrorists." They fired again, he says, fatally shooting his ailing 63-year-old father. As blood poured from the old man’s hip, Ahmed says the men held a gun to his little boy’s head and forced his wife to search the room for the police-issued weapon he had left at work. </p> <p>Ahmed and his brother were hauled to the outskirts of the city, along with Hassan, where they were lined up with other men in the dark. Hassan insists on substantiating his story by showing me an official complaint issued by a local army commander named Mustafa Sabah Yunis, alleging that an "unknown armed squadron" entered the area and arrested him. </p> <p>Meanwhile, the Iraqi Army was rushing in to respond to the gunfire, and according to Hussein al-Aibi, these soldiers were shot at as well. He tells me the army got Haidar off the roof and drove him to the hospital. On the way, Fathil says, the vehicle was stopped by a dirty brigade operative, who asked Iraqi Army Major Abu Rajdi where they were going. According to Fathil, Rajdi told the operative, "This is a college student who has nothing to do with anything, and you shot him recklessly." The operative responded by hitting Rajdi and saying, "Turn around and go back, or we’ll shoot him and we’ll shoot you too." </p> <p>At Haidar’s funeral, Fathil asked Rajdi to testify. "You are a representative of the government, and you saw it all happen," he told the major. "You saw that he didn’t have a weapon in his hand." Fathil says the major declined. "This is the dirty brigade," he recalls Rajdi saying. "We are afraid of them. When we see them, we retreat. If I testify against them, I’ll be killed the next day. They kill and no one will hold them accountable, because they belong to the Americans." </p> <p>Major Rajdi’s fear and distrust of the ISOF are echoed by other members of the regular Iraqi Army. "Sometimes we are surprised when the Special Forces enter," says Lt. Colonel Yahya Rasoul Abdullah, commander of the Third Battalion of the Forty-second Brigade in Sadr City. "Bad things happen. Some people steal, and some abuse women. They don’t know the people on the streets like us. They just go after their target. We have suffered from this problem." </p> <p>Accounts of older ISOF operations I heard around Baghdad suggest that the Americans may have knowingly allowed violence against civilians. In Adhamiya, long the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency in Baghdad, two hospital employees described their 2006 run-in with the ISOF to me. According to both witnesses, a self-identified ISOF operative named "Captain Hussam" unloaded his machine gun in the Al Numan Hospital after seeing the body of his superior, who had died under the hospital’s care. An American operative with a red beard stood by silently watching. According to one witness, the Iraqi operative demanded his commander’s death certificate, threatening to "torture you, kill you and kill the people of Adhamiya" if they didn’t comply. The witnesses said the eight operatives who entered the hospital were driving Humvees, vehicles that only the Americans and the ISOF use. The next day, Captain Hussam returned, a witness said, offering a box of bullets as an apology. </p> <p>The effective head of the American ISOF project is General Trombitas of the Iraq National Counter-Terror Transition Team. A towering man with a gray mustache and a wrinkled brow, Trombitas spent nearly seven of his over thirty years in the military training special forces in Colombia, El Salvador and other countries. On February 23 he gave me a tour of Area IV, a joint American-Iraqi base near the Baghdad International Airport, where US Special Forces train the ISOF. As we walk away from the helicopter, he cracks a boyish smile. Though he’s worked with special forces all over the world, he tells me the men we are about to meet are "the best." </p> <p>Trombitas says he is "very proud of what was done in El Salvador" but avoids the fact that special forces trained there by the United States in the early 1980s were responsible for the formation of death squads that killed more than 50,000 civilians thought to be sympathetic with leftist guerrillas. Guatemala was a similar case. Some Guatemalan special forces that had been trained in anti-terrorism tactics by the United States during the mid-1960s subsequently became death squads that took part in the killing of around 140,000 people. In the early 1990s, US Special Forces trained and worked closely with an elite Colombian police unit strongly suspected of carrying out some of the murders attributed to Los Pepes, a death squad that became the backbone of the country’s current paramilitary organization. (Trombitas served in El Salvador from 1989-90 and in Colombia from 2003-2005, after these incidents took place.) </p> <p>"The standards get looser when the Americans aren’t with [the local special forces], and they can eventually become death squads, which I believe actually happened in Colombia," says Mark Bowden, author of <i>Black Hawk Down</i> and <i>Killing Pablo</i>, a book about the hunt for Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar by CIA and US Special Forces. The tactics taught in each country are the same, Bowden says. "They teach the same kind of skills. They use the same equipment." </p> <p>Trombitas told the official blog of the Defense Department that the training missions used in Latin America are "extremely transferable" to Iraq. Salvadoran Special Forces even helped train the ISOF, he tells me. "It’s a world of coalitions," he says. "The longer we work together, the more alike we are. When we share our values and our experiences with other armies, we make them the same." </p> <p>Trombitas guides me into a warehouse where ISOF operatives, most of them in black masks, have been preparing for our arrival. He walks me through a special display of their American equipment–machine guns, sniper rifles, state-of-the-art night-vision equipment and fluffy desert camo that makes soldiers look like teddy bears. He takes me up a catwalk overlooking a fake house stocked with cartoonish posters of big-breasted women pointing pistols, a couple of real men dressed as "terrorists" with kaffiyehs wrapped around their faces and a 10-year-old boy playing hostage. </p> <p>As we stand in the observation area, the door explodes. After a minute of constant shooting, the operatives march out with the "terrorists," the boy and a poster of an ’80s-style villain, wearing a jean jacket and holding a woman hostage. More than twenty bullet holes are centered on his forehead. "Look at that marksmanship," Trombitas says, smiling proudly. </p> <p>Trombitas gets to the issue of human rights before I do. He assures me that US Special Forces take allegations of human rights abuses very seriously–two Iraqi men were let go for prisoner abuse since he took over in August last year, he says–but he won’t comment on specific cases. I raise the issue of accountability and bring up one well-documented mission that caused waves in the Iraqi Parliament: in August the ISOF raided Diyala’s provincial government compound, reportedly with the support of US Apache helicopters. They arrested a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, Iraq’s main Sunni Arab party. They also arrested the president of the university, also a Sunni, and killed a secretary and wounded four armed guards during the night. </p> <p>I barely get the word "Diyala" out of my mouth before the American operatives standing around us start to grumble nervously and a translator jumps in. "For the reputation of the ISOF, please, let’s cut that off," he says. </p> <p>Abdul-Karim al-Samarrai, a member of the ruling United Iraqi Alliance and the parliamentary Security and Defense Committee, says that what happened in Diyala was one of many signs of the prime minister’s bad intentions for the ISOF. "Politicians are afraid because this force can be used for political ends," he says. In response to outrage from members of Parliament over the arrest of politicians by the ISOF, Maliki, who is officially required to approve every ISOF target, denied any knowledge of the Diyala mission. His claim of innocence raises important questions. If the man who is supposed to be in charge of the ISOF has no knowledge of its missions, then who is ultimately responsible for the force? Was Maliki lying to cover up the fact that he is using the force for political purposes? Or was someone else–namely the Americans–calling the shots? </p> <p>Diyala was only the first publicized case of possibly politically motivated arrests. In December the ISOF arrested as many as thirty-five officials in the Interior Ministry who were thought to be in opposition to Maliki’s Islamic Dawa Party. This past March the ISOF arrested at least one leader of the Awakening Councils, semiofficial Sunni neighborhood militias that have been increasingly at odds with Maliki over his failure to keep a promise to incorporate the councils into the military or give them other employment. </p> <p>The Maliki government has developed a "culture of direct control," says Michael Knights, a Lafer Fellow at the Washington Institute and the head of its Iraq program. Knights visits Iraq regularly and has close contact with the country’s security services. He says the people in charge of the ISOF at the regional levels are "personally chosen loyalists or relatives of Maliki. It reminds me of Saddam." Knights says that Maliki is only supposed to approve or reject missions that come to him, but occasionally he will "assert his prerogative as the commander in chief and tell the ISOF to do something or not to do something." Knights raises the possibility that the ISOF will become Maliki’s personal death squad. "The prime minister is looking for re-election, and there are not that many restraints on his ability to target political opponents, as [his government] has been doing with the Sadrists for years now." </p> <p>Samarrai, along with other members of Parliament, is calling for disbanding the Counter-Terrorism Bureau. He says there is no legal basis for an armed brigade to exist outside the control of the Interior or Defense ministry. "People are afraid of the existence of an organization with such dreadful capabilities that reports directly to the prime minister," he says. </p> <p>Member of Parliament Hassan al-Rubaie is concerned about the close relationship between the ISOF and the Americans. "If the US leaves Iraq, this will be the last force they will leave behind," he insists. He is worried that such a powerful and secretive force that is closely tied to the Americans could turn Iraq into a "military base in the region" by allowing the United States to continue to conduct missions in Iraq with the cover of the ISOF. "They have become a replacement" for the Americans, he says. </p> <p>President Obama has said he plans to increase reliance on the US Special Forces; Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s recent appointment of Stanley McChrystal as commander of Afghanistan suggests that he is keeping his word. From 2003 to 2008, McChrystal was the head of the Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees the Army’s most secretive forces and is responsible for the training of special forces abroad. McChrystal was also commander of US Special Operations Forces in Iraq for five years, during which time, according to the <i>Wall Street Journal</i>, he commanded "units that specialize in guerrilla warfare, including the training of indigenous armies." </p> <p>"The eventual drawdown in Iraq is not the end of the mission for our elite forces," Gates said in May 2008. Gates hasn’t spoken on the issue since Obama took office; but Obama says he will institutionalize irregular warfare capabilities, and the White House stresses the need to "create a more robust capacity to train, equip and advise foreign security forces, so that local allies are better prepared to confront mutual threats." </p> <p>Bowden says those "local allies" are often used for covert operations. "The United States Special Operations Command cultivates relationships with special forces in other countries because it gives the United States the opportunity of intervening militarily in a covert way," he says. "The ideal covert op is one that is actually carried out by local forces." </p> <p>As I stand on the tarmac with Trombitas in Area IV, waiting for our helicopter to return and fly us back to the Green Zone, I ask him how long the United States will be involved with the ISOF. "Special forces are special because we do maintain a relationship with foreign forces," he says. "Part of our theater-engagement strategy is to maintain a relationship with those units that are important to the security of the region and to the world." As our helicopter appears in the lightly clouded sky, he chooses his next words carefully: "We are going to have a working relationship for a while," he says. </p> <p><strong>Source:</strong> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090622/bauer/single" class="external" target="_blank">Iraq’s New Death Squad</a> | By Shane Bauer | <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193054/http://www.thenation.com/" class="external" target="_blank">The Nation</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="navigation"> <div class="alignleft"></div> <div class="alignright"></div> </div> </div> <div id="sidebar" class="span-10 last"> <div class="span-10" id="tabs"> <ul> <li class="ui-tabs-nav-item"><a href="#featured-articles">Featured Articles</a></li> <li class="ui-tabs-nav-item"><a href="#latest-articles">Latest Articles</a></li> </ul> <div id="featured-articles" class="widget"> <ul> <li><a 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