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Police, protesters clash in Samawa Iraq
About 1000 protesters have clashed with Iraqi police in the town of Samawa, south of Baghdad, leaving at least one person dead and about 60 others injured, police say.
The protest on Sunday was over the poor state of water and power supplies.
Witnesses said police opened fire on the crowd.
At least one person was killed and 46 civilians injured in the fighting, said Captain Hussein Manwar. Thirteen police officers were injured, he said.
Witnesses said the demonstration in front of the governor's offices began peacefully, but when it grew larger, government security guards fired shots into the air to disperse the crowd.
Clashes with police began after demonstrators threw rocks
and attacked a police vehicle, setting it on fire, witnesses said.
Iraq's new Shia-led government took power in January elections promising to end violence and restore public services. But frustrations are running high with electricity shortages and high unemployment.
Samawah, 370km southeast of Baghdad, is where about 600 Japanese troops are based.
They have been involved in a series of reconstruction efforts
since arriving in the area in January 2004, including paving roads, rebuilding schools and providing hospitals with medical supplies and equipment.
Troops killed
Elsewhere, a roadside bomb killed two US soldiers and injured three others in central Iraq, while in southern Baghdad three Iraqi soldiers were killed.
A US patrol with Task Force Liberty was hit at about 6pm on Saturday in the city of Samarra, about 95km north of Baghdad, the US military said.
All the soldiers were transported to a medical facility, where two of them died from wounds suffered in the attack, a statement said.
On Sunday, three Iraqi soldiers were killed in a drive-by shooting in southern Baghdad, hospital officials said.
The soldiers, who were in civilian clothing, were gunned down as they were heading to work, said Dr Muhammad Jawad of Yarmuk hospital.
A fourth soldier was injured in the morning attack in the southern neighbourhood of Saydida, he added.
Officials shot dead
Also on Sunday, armed men killed two employees of Iraq's Ministry of Oil and wounded two others, police said.
The assailants opened fire on their car in the New Baghdad district of the capital.
Armed groups have assassinated scores of government officials and ministry employees in an effort to topple the fledgling government.
They also frequently blow up pipelines, depriving the government of millions of dollars of crude oil revenues.
US troop reduction
Meanwhile, in a classified briefing to senior Pentagon officials last month, the top American commander in the Middle East outlined a plan that would gradually reduce US forces in Iraq by perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 troops by next spring, The New York Times reported on its website late on Saturday.
Citing unnamed senior military officers and Defence Department officials, the newspaper said the assessment by General John Abizaid, head of the US Central Command, followed a statement made last week by the top American soldier in Iraq, General George Casey.
Casey said the Pentagon could make "some fairly substantial reductions" in troops by next spring and summer, if the political process in Iraq remained on track and Iraqi forces assumed more responsibility for securing the country.
Together, the generals' appraisals offer some of the most concrete indications yet that the Pentagon is moving towards reducing US forces in Iraq, the report said.
They also reflect the Bush administration's growing concerns over how the country's involvement in Iraq is influencing domestic considerations.
Increase before polls
In his assessment, given as part of a larger regional analysis, Abizaid also warned that it was possible that the Pentagon might have to keep the current levels of about 138,000 American soldiers in Iraq throughout 2006 if security and political trends were unfavourable for a withdrawal, The Times said.
The number of soldiers will temporarily increase this December to provide security for Iraqi elections.
And some troops leaving Iraq could be held in Kuwait as a reserve force, the paper added.
It said senior administration and Pentagon officials, as well as political leaders in both parties, say there is mounting anxiety over the $5-billion-a-month cost of the war.
There are also concerns about an overtaxed military, dismal recruiting in the army and national guard, dwindling public support for the operation, and a steadily growing number of casualties.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8383D78D-6FF6-496F-9A60-977ED3698971.htm
Witnesses said police opened fire on the crowd.
At least one person was killed and 46 civilians injured in the fighting, said Captain Hussein Manwar. Thirteen police officers were injured, he said.
Witnesses said the demonstration in front of the governor's offices began peacefully, but when it grew larger, government security guards fired shots into the air to disperse the crowd.
Clashes with police began after demonstrators threw rocks
and attacked a police vehicle, setting it on fire, witnesses said.
Iraq's new Shia-led government took power in January elections promising to end violence and restore public services. But frustrations are running high with electricity shortages and high unemployment.
Samawah, 370km southeast of Baghdad, is where about 600 Japanese troops are based.
They have been involved in a series of reconstruction efforts
since arriving in the area in January 2004, including paving roads, rebuilding schools and providing hospitals with medical supplies and equipment.
Troops killed
Elsewhere, a roadside bomb killed two US soldiers and injured three others in central Iraq, while in southern Baghdad three Iraqi soldiers were killed.
A US patrol with Task Force Liberty was hit at about 6pm on Saturday in the city of Samarra, about 95km north of Baghdad, the US military said.
All the soldiers were transported to a medical facility, where two of them died from wounds suffered in the attack, a statement said.
On Sunday, three Iraqi soldiers were killed in a drive-by shooting in southern Baghdad, hospital officials said.
The soldiers, who were in civilian clothing, were gunned down as they were heading to work, said Dr Muhammad Jawad of Yarmuk hospital.
A fourth soldier was injured in the morning attack in the southern neighbourhood of Saydida, he added.
Officials shot dead
Also on Sunday, armed men killed two employees of Iraq's Ministry of Oil and wounded two others, police said.
The assailants opened fire on their car in the New Baghdad district of the capital.
Armed groups have assassinated scores of government officials and ministry employees in an effort to topple the fledgling government.
They also frequently blow up pipelines, depriving the government of millions of dollars of crude oil revenues.
US troop reduction
Meanwhile, in a classified briefing to senior Pentagon officials last month, the top American commander in the Middle East outlined a plan that would gradually reduce US forces in Iraq by perhaps 20,000 to 30,000 troops by next spring, The New York Times reported on its website late on Saturday.
Citing unnamed senior military officers and Defence Department officials, the newspaper said the assessment by General John Abizaid, head of the US Central Command, followed a statement made last week by the top American soldier in Iraq, General George Casey.
Casey said the Pentagon could make "some fairly substantial reductions" in troops by next spring and summer, if the political process in Iraq remained on track and Iraqi forces assumed more responsibility for securing the country.
Together, the generals' appraisals offer some of the most concrete indications yet that the Pentagon is moving towards reducing US forces in Iraq, the report said.
They also reflect the Bush administration's growing concerns over how the country's involvement in Iraq is influencing domestic considerations.
Increase before polls
In his assessment, given as part of a larger regional analysis, Abizaid also warned that it was possible that the Pentagon might have to keep the current levels of about 138,000 American soldiers in Iraq throughout 2006 if security and political trends were unfavourable for a withdrawal, The Times said.
The number of soldiers will temporarily increase this December to provide security for Iraqi elections.
And some troops leaving Iraq could be held in Kuwait as a reserve force, the paper added.
It said senior administration and Pentagon officials, as well as political leaders in both parties, say there is mounting anxiety over the $5-billion-a-month cost of the war.
There are also concerns about an overtaxed military, dismal recruiting in the army and national guard, dwindling public support for the operation, and a steadily growing number of casualties.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8383D78D-6FF6-496F-9A60-977ED3698971.htm
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One man appeared to have been killed, they added.
Residents of the normally calm, mainly Shi'a town burned vehicles, including a police car, just outside the governor's office and demanded his resignation, the witnesses said.
Police in riot gear held up plastic shields as protesters hurled rocks. Armed police stood on the roof of the governorate.
Iraq's new Shi'a-led government took power in January elections promising to end guerrillas violence and restore public services. But frustrations are running high with electricity shortages and high unemployment.
The Shi'a south was ill-favoured under former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated rule and hopes were high after his overthrow by invading US. forces, and then the election of a Shi'a-led government, that life would improve.
Daily life, however, remains hard for most and the Sunni insurgency further north continues to disrupt Iraq's economy.
Protesters took to the streets of Samawa last month because they could not get jobs in the police force, a highly dangerous profession in a country where insurgents have killed thousands of Iraqi soldiers and police.
Samawa and other Shi'a towns have been relatively stable compared to central Iraq, plagued by suicide bombings, shootings and kidnappings.
About 550 Japanese troops engaged in civil engineering projects are based in Samawa. They are protected by nearby Australian combat troops since the Japanese government has promised voters that the controversial deployment will not involve combat.
There was no sign of foreign troops in the town during Sunday's rioting.
The violence is worrying for the government because Samawa is a usually calm Shi'ite town in a region relatively free of the bloodshed gripping other parts of Iraq. Anger over a lack of jobs and problems with the power and water supply have sparked anger in many parts of Iraq.
On Sunday, police opened fire on a crowd of protesters gathered outside the governor's office, killing one person and wounding about 40, police and hospital sources said.
Mohammed al-Ghazawi, a representative of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, told Reuters protests would continue until the local governor resigned and public services in Samawa improved.
Sadr's Mehdi Army militia rose up against U.S. and British forces last year.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L08727071.htm
More than 50 people were wounded, including 18 police officers, and one person was killed. Witnesses said that police opened fire on a stone- throwing crowd of 1,000 people demonstrating in the intense heat. It is the third summer that the country has suffered without regular electricity or water.
Rioters burnt police cars and members of the Mahdi Army, the illegal militia of Moqtada al-Sadr, a rebellious Shia cleric, were seen moving around the streets with rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
Council officials said that they had appealed to the nearby city of Nasariyah to send National Guard reinforcements as protesters demanded the resignation of the governor, who is a member of the ruling Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri). The police chief of the province was dismissed last week after police fired on a demonstration over the same issues a month ago.
A British Army spokesman in Basra said that he was unaware of the rioting.
Samawah is a town in which Australian troops guard about 550 Japanese soldiers overseeing the slow-moving reconstruction effort. It is normally a quiet town used as a benchmark for the Shia south, which has suffered fewer suicide bombings than the Sunni areas to the north.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1725907,00.html