Publish to Newswire
Add an Event24 Dead in Sunni Counter-Attacks; Major Refinery in Flames
24 Dead in Sunni Counter-Attacks;
Major Refinery in Flames
In a further sign of a determined new year's counter-attack by the radical Salafis and/or neo-Baathists, a wave of bombings and kidnappings swept Iraq on Monday, leaving 24 dead, dozens wounded.
In the eastern Sunni enclave of Adhamiya in Baghdad, now more and more surrounded by purely Shiite districts, Sunni guerrillas attacked the offices of the local Sunni Pious Endowments Board, which overlaps with the leadership of the pro-American Awakening Council. al-Hayat reports in Arabic that one guerrilla detonated a belt bomb, and the other used a car bomb. They killed 14 persons, including Col. Riyadh al-Samarra'i, and wounded 25. Al-Samarra'i had commanded units of Sunni militiamen on the American payroll. While the Awakening Councils in other provinces are mostly tribal levies, in urban neighborhoods of Baghdad they appear often to be manned by former soldiers of the Baath Army or former Sunni guerrillas.
Further, three Awakening Council patrolmen were killed in various attacks in south Baghdad and Bayji. Several angry commanders of Awakening Council fighters called Al-Hayat to complain that the Shiite government of PM Nuri al-Maliki was offering them no support and was leaving them as sitting ducks. They said that the Iranian Quds Force or the Mahdi Army were in part behind the government's reluctance to provide them with security. They predicted that the campaign against them was only beginning. Shuja` Naji Shakir al-Adhami, a former Baath officer now leading an Awakening Council unit in al-Ghazaliya, went further and accused the Iraqi government of collaborating in attacks on the councils.
Reuters reports other attacks on Monday:
' BAGHDAD - A bomb hidden in a street vendor's cart killed four people and wounded 16 others in the Karrada district of central Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD - A bomb stuck on the side of a parked car killed one civilian and wounded four, including two policemen, when it detonated near a police checkpoint on the outskirts of Baghdad's Shi'ite slum of Sadr City, police said. . .
BAGHDAD - Gunmen in five cars kidnapped between eight and 10 neighborhood patrol volunteers in Baghdad's northern Shaab district. Police said the volunteers had been manning a vehicle checkpoint.
BAGHDAD - Seven bodies were found around Baghdad, police said. . .
MOSUL - Two bodies were found in eastern Mosul, one of them handcuffed and blindfolded, police said.
LATIFIYA - Gunmen killed a neighborhood patrol volunteer at a checkpoint in Latifiya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.'
In what appears to be an industrial accident, one of Iraq's major oil refineries, was damaged on Monday. The damage to the refinery raised the specter of shortages of gasoline and kerosene. At least 4 persons were killed and 24 were wounded in the fiery blasts.
McClatchy adds:
' Diyala
Police found five bodies near the main street in Qara Kitta village 100 Kms east Baquba north of Baquba. One of the bodies was the body of the mayor of Qaraqoosh village.
Gunmen killed a civilian in Buhorz village south of Baquba today morning.
A police office and a member of Sahwa were injured when a mortar shell hit a combined check point downtown Baquba city today morning.
Kirkuk
Gunmen killed three civilians (a husband and his wife and an Iraqi army soldier) in Abo Saif village, part of al-Reyadh city west of Kirkuk city yesterday night.
A katyosha rocket hit the area near the building of Iraqia channel downtown Kirkuk city today morning. No casualties were reported. '
Bill Boyarsky argues that leading Democratic candidates are not facing the truth, that the US cannot afford a continued Iraq troop presence in addition to the costs of implementing universal health care.
Farideh Farhi weighs in on the issue of the Iranian gunboats making a run at US naval ships. She feels that if the radio intercepts were accurate, it is highly unlikely that these were local units acting alone-- as I had suggested.
See also the recent postings at Global Affairs on Pakistan by Barnett Rubin.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 1/08/2008 06:30:00 AM 
According to General Abdul-Aziz Mohamed Jassem, director of military operations in the Iraqi Ministry of Defence, the security conditions in Iraq will continue to improve over the coming months. "2008 will mark a new beginning for the security situation in Iraq which will take as its starting point the relative stability being experienced in the various neighbourhoods of Baghdad," he said. "The evidence affirms that the coming few months will be critical in bringing an end to terrorism in the country." He went on to laud the new strategy formulated by the Iraqi government and the multinational forces for having been highly instrumental in restoring stability to the areas that had suffered security breakdowns. He anticipated "greater progress in this realm in the coming phase".
General Petraeus had a different take on the situation. He held that although Iraq has moved back from the brink of civil war, the recent security gains and the progress that had been made in curbing sectarian violence in Iraq were "fragile and could still break down". In a press statement issued to mark the end of 2007 the commander of American forces in Iraq said that he believed that the Al-Qaeda was the chief enemy in Iraq because it aims to rekindle sectarian violence. Success against this enemy "will be slow and intermittent, with some losses and some gains. There is certain to be some violent fighting and some more very difficult days and weeks, but increasingly fewer in number, God willing," he said. On the other hand, he was heartened by the progress achieved by the Iraqi Sahwa (Awakening) Councils. "The assaults in which Iranian weapons are used have declined," he said, adding a word of praise for the part Syria and Saudi Arabia have played in stemming the influx of foreign fighters into Iraq. This latter point was confirmed by a senior Iraqi Interior Ministry official who told Al-Ahram Weekly that Saudi and Syrian cooperation had a considerable impact on reducing the level of violence in Iraq.
The Iraqi government has approved or requested the extension of the presence of US forces in Iraq until the end of 2008. Washington is planning to withdraw 20,000 troops by the middle of this year. At the same time, it will reduce the profile of many of the remaining forces as it gradually hands security tasks to Iraqi forces.
More
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/878/re21.htm
Donate
$135.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.