Ex-Abu Ghraib prisoners sue US firms for torture

Four Iraqis announced Monday in Istanbul they are suing two U.S. firms and their employees for allegedly torturing them at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad five years ago.
Their lawsuit is against private security contractor CACI International and two of its interrogators, Daniel Johnson and Tim Dugan, and the translation agency L-3 (formerly Titan Corp) and its interpreter, Abel Nakhla, lawyer William Gould told AFP.Their complaint was to be lodged Monday at courts in Maryland, Ohio and Washington
-- the U.S. states where the alleged torturers live
-- as well as Michigan, where L-3 recruited most of its interpreters, said Gould in Istanbul, where he met with his clients from Iraq.
He said the court cases would show that the accused were in Abu Ghraib and involved in a conspiracy that included the torture of the plaintiffs.
Abu Ghraib prison became infamous after the publication in 2004 of photographs showing Iraqi detainees being humiliated and abused by their U.S. guards.
The scandal led to the sentencing of 11 soldiers to up to 10 years in prison. This the second set of lawsuits against CACI and L-3. Another group of former Abu Ghraib prisoners filed complaints against the two firms last year in the states of Washington and California.
One of the current plaintiffs, Suhail Najim Abdullah Al-Shimari, 49, was taken from his Baghdad home in November 2003 and spent more than a year at Abu Ghraib, where he claims to have been subjected to electroshock and night-long cold showers in the winter.
Sa'adon Ali Hameed Al-Ogaidi, 39, said he was repeatedly beaten at Abu Ghraib and tied to door handles.
Taxi driver Mohammed Abdwihed Towfek Al-Taee, 39, was taken to Abu Ghraib in 2003.
He has scars on his leg and head that he said came from beatings with an iron rod. "I wish I would be the last person to be detained and to be tortured," he said.
Abu Ghraib was closed in 2006.

Aziz lawyer offers to support London mayor

The lawyer for Tareq Aziz on Wednesday offered to support London Mayor Boris Johnson who is being probed for possession of a cigar case belonging to Iraq's former deputy prime minister. "I am ready to contact Johnson, stand by him and provide all necessary support in this ridiculous investigation," Badie Izzat Aref told AFP from the Jordanian capital Amman."Johnson did not steal or commit any crime, he simply took a souvenir.

He has always respected Tareq Aziz, who wishes Johnson had taken other valuable things, like his notebooks, which have been seized by the invaders."
The 43-year-old former journalist has admitted to having found the red leather cigar case among the debris of Aziz's home in Baghdad while visiting Iraq as a reporter after the U.S. -led invasion of 2003.

He wrote about it at the time and kept it as a trophy of his trip. Johnson, who took office last month, said on Tuesday he even has a letter from Aziz's lawyers stating that fallen dictator Saddam Hussein's senior aide wanted the mayor to keep the cigar case as a gift. Aref had no knowledge of any such communication, "but I am ready to send him the letter," he said. The London mayor has jokingly said it was "incredible" that he was being investigated while leaders like U.S. President George W. Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair were not being pursued.

Aref agreed. "Blair is the one who should be investigated and put on trial for his role in invading Iraq and for killing thousands of innocent people," the lawyer argued.Aziz, 72, who like Saddam had an affinity for Cuban cigars, and seven others are on trial in Baghdad over the execution of 42 merchants accused of racketeering while Iraq was under U.N. sanctions. He turned himself in to U.S. forces in April 2003 after they overthrew Saddam.

Brad and Angelina donate $1 mln to Iraqi kids

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have donated one million dollars to support the education of 8,000 children in Iraq and the United States affected by the war, a charity said Wednesday.

The iconic Hollywood couple made the donation to the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict via their charity, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.

A statement from the Education Partnership said the money would be split evenly between U.S. and Iraq non-profit groups.
Money will pay for basic necessities, including books and supplies to help send Iraqi children to school.

Aid will also go to refugee kids, and to school rehabilitation programs. The foundation will also help children in the United States who have a military parent killed in Iraq, or who are separated from a parent stationed in the country.

"These educational support programs for children of conflict are the best way to help them heal," Jolie, who has visited Iraq twice in the past year, said in a statement.Pitt added: "We hope to encourage others to give to these great organizations."Pitt, 44, and Jolie, 33, have donated millions of dollars to charity over the years. Jolie has long been an advocate for refugees and is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Iraq launches new crackdown on Shiite fighters

Iraqi forces backed by U.S. troops launched a new operation against Shiite fighters in the south of the country early on Thursday after the expiry of a four-day deadline to surrender arms."The operation started overnight.
The situation is normal and there has been no trouble," said Colonel Mehdi al-Asadi, police spokesman in Maysan province where the crackdown against the militiamen has been launched.
Asadi said the details of the operation would be announced at a press conference soon.Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had given a four-day deadline to Shiite militiamen in Maysan and in its capital Amara to lay down their arms which expired on Wednesday.
Dozens of Shiite militiamen surrendered to Iraqi forces hours before the deadline and police also recovered hundreds of landmines.U.S. commanders say Maysan has become a major centre for arms smuggling into Iraq from overwhelmingly Shiite Iran just over the border.
The current operation follows a similar crackdown launched by Maliki against Shiite militia in the main southern city and oil hub of Basra in March.That crackdown set off intense fighting between troops and militiamen, mostly from radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, in Shiite areas across Iraq in which hundreds of people were killed before a May 10 ceasefire.

Iraqi wins Miss Headscarf contest in Denmark

Iraqi-born Huda Falah was on Tuesday named Miss Headscarf 2008, beating 46 contesters in the competition organized by Danish public broadcaster DR.Falah, 18, won the competition that was open to anyone aged 15 or older.

"The woman is like a diamond and you don't show it to everyone," Falah said in an interview with the broadcaster, adding she entered the competition in order to help bridge the divide between Muslim and Danish youth.The broadcaster's 15-19 online community DR Skum announced the competition in May, but underlined it was a fashion contest, not a beauty contest and open to anyone - regardless of religion.Skum then said they believed the project would display the 'cool Muslim women' who 'often make up a very fashion-conscious and style-confident part of the Danish street scene'.
"The royal blue headscarf makes a sharp contrast to her dark brown skin," said one of the two fashion judges, Muslim fashion commentator Helen Latif.Co-judge and fashion expert Uffe Burchardt said Falah's headscarf had "a fantastic and stunning colour that really shows attitude and impact.

"Falah, currently studying to become a social or health worker, said she had worn a headscarf since she was aged nine after seeing her mother and cousins wear them.Muslim headscarves or hejab have recently been the focus of a heated debate in Denmark amid a proposal that judges should be banned from wearing hejab or other religious symbols like a crucifix, turban or skullcap in courtrooms.Muslim organizations said they feared the proposed move will likely be extended to other groups like nurses, doctors and police officers.

Iraqi dad says US forces killed son in cold blood

Iraqi teenager Abbas Khadum died in his father's arms; one of 25 men locals say were shot dead in a single day by U.S.

troops in a crackdown on Shiite militiamen in east Baghdad.His mother fought back tears while his father held a picture of the 19-year-old, his hair slicked back and dressed in a smart shirt buttoned up to his chin, as he gave his version of how U.S. troops had killed his son.

"In the middle of the night, the Americans positioned themselves on a roof of a nearby building site which overlooks the wall," Khadum's father, Abu Abbas, said, his bespectacled face framed in a traditional red keffiyeh scarf.

"At dawn, I stepped out of my house to go to prayers, and I found a bloodied body on my doorstep.

It was a laborer who had come to work on a building site close to the wall."Neighbors telephoned me to say I shouldn't go out because the Americans were shooting anything that moved.
"A little later, Said Saad, a man who sold drinks, who everyone in the district knew, was also killed.

Then one of my neighbors, Sabah Mahdi, had his head blown off by a bullet," Khadum's father said, as his wife wept.

"About 11 am, my son was due to go to university with his friends.

With all the shooting, he told them not to come and meet him at the house, but to wait a few streets away.

"He left and then a few minutes later, I was called and told he had been wounded.

I raced to him.

He had been shot in the back, at shoulder level. He was still breathing. He died in my arms as we took him to hospital," he said.That evening, a US soldier went to photograph the body at the mortuary and told Abu Abbas that the teenager was shot after attempting to bring down the wall.Khadum had not been in trouble before and "was not involved in politics," his family and friends said.

"It is true that people used to try and knock down the wall, but they came from other districts," his father added.Responding to claims his son was placing roadside bombs, Abu Abbas said Shiite militiamen "don't plant bombs on main streets in Baghdad in broad daylight."
Roadside bombs
U.S. forces, for their part, said Khadum was one of 11 "special group" criminals

-- a term used to describe fighters armed, funded and trained by Iranians

-- attempting to plant roadside bombs. His parents say he was just walking to university.

Khadum's family live in the heart of the Shiite-dominated Al-Obeidi neighborhood, where many followers of firebrand cleric Moqtada al-Sadr are rumored to have sought refuge after being driven out of nearby Sadr City.

The neighborhood has been a regular scene of bloody battles between U.S. soldiers and Sadr's Mahdi Army fighters after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered a crackdown on militias.

Mahdi army militiamen fought deadly street battles with U.S.

forces in the Shiite slum Sadr City for seven weeks until a truce was agreed, which took effect on May 10.Khadum's family home, an anonymous rectangular building with an iron gate, is around a dozen meters (yards) from a wide main road, part-hidden by a large concrete wall erected in mid May by U.S. f

orces to disrupt militia activities.U.S. forces built concrete barriers throughout Baghdad in a bid to prevent insurgents launching roadside bomb attacks on military convoys and to block militia movements.

People angry at the presence of the ugly grey barrier protested and launched regular attacks against it, to bring it crashing down.

But, according to Abu Abbas, American forces hit back. That same day, May 21, saw a total of 25 people, all men, killed by American gunfire close to the Al-Obeidi wall, according to the district's residents.

Cameraman Wissam Ali Ouda, who worked for private Iraqi television station Afaq, was among those killed; shot dead returning home after work.

Iraq's Sunni bloc suspends government talks

Iraq's main Sunni political bloc said on Wednesday it had suspended talks to rejoin the Shiite-led government after a disagreement with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki over a cabinet post.

Persuading the bloc to rejoin has been a main aim of U.S. policy in Iraq and is widely seen as a vital step in reconciling the country's factions after years of conflict.
Sunni Arabs have little voice in a cabinet dominated by Shiites and Kurds.
"We have suspended negotiations with the government and pulled out our candidates," said Salim al-Jibouri, spokesman for the Accordance Front.
He said the decision was taken after Maliki objected to a candidate for a cabinet position.
The Accordance Front pulled out of Maliki's national unity government in August, demanding the release of mainly Sunni Arab detainees in Iraq's jails and calling for a greater say in security matters.
Since becoming prime minister in May 2006, Maliki has faced constant criticism from Iraq's minority Sunni Arab community that he has promoted the interests of the majority Shiites ahead of the country's other sectarian and ethnic groups.
But he won praise from Sunni Arab politicians after launching a crackdown on Shiite militias in Baghdad and the southern oil city of Basra.
The government has also begun releasing Sunni Arab prisoners under a new amnesty law.

Jibouri said the Accordance Front drew up a list of candidates for six cabinet posts to hand to the government for approval but Maliki rejected the nomination for the Planning Ministry.
Maliki refused to give the Sunni bloc an extra government post as a compromise, said Jibouri. Officials from Maliki's office were not immediately available for comment.
A statement on Tuesday from the office of Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab and a senior member of the Accordance Front, said he had told reporters in Jordan the talks would succeed despite disagreements.
"We achieved significant progress on returning to the government although there are some differences in points of view over some ministries and candidates," said Hashemi.
"And we hope that in the coming days that this will be resolved and the Accordance Front will return to the national unity government.
" Sunni Arabs were dominant under Saddam Hussein and insurgents have drawn support from the community.

Violence against women surges in Kurdistan

Medics in Iraqi Kurdistan said on Saturday that they had seen a surge in violence against women in May, with both so-called "honor" killings and female suicide on the increase.

"At least 14 women died in the first 10 days of May alone," a doctor told AFP in the region's second largest city of Sulaimaniyah.

"Seven of them took their own lives, the other seven were murdered in still unexplained circumstances," apparently the victims of "honor" killings.

"Over the same period, we recorded 11 attempted self-immolations -- these women were so desperate they set fire to themselves," the doctor added, asking not to be identified.

According to Kurdish regional government figures, in Sulaimaniyah province alone more than 50 women attempted to burn themselves to death in the first four months of the year and another eight attempted to hang themselves.

The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq has regularly highlighted "honor" killings of Kurdish women as among Iraq's most severe human rights abuses.

Most of such crimes are reported as deaths due to accidental fires in the home. Aso Kamal, a 42-year-old British Kurdish Iraqi campaigner, says that from 1991 to 2007, 12,500 women were murdered for reasons of "honor" or committed suicide in the three Kurdish provinces of Iraq.

Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region runs its own affairs and has enjoyed relative peace and growing prosperity since the US-led invasion of 2003, while Arab areas of Iraq have been plunged into sectarian warfare.

Crimes against women are continuing despite campaigns by human rights activists and repeated condemnation of the oppression by women members of the regional government and regional parliament.

Denmark starts to expel convicted Iraqi refugees

Amnesty International's Danish section has denounced the government for starting to expel Iraqis convicted of serious crimes, forcing them to return to Iraq.

"These expulsions are unacceptable and against international and even Danish conventions that forbid sending anyone back to a country where their safety is threatened," Lars Normann Joergensen, the head of Amnesty Denmark, told AFP.

The government recently decided to expel 11 Iraqi refugees convicted of serious offences including drug dealing, assault, arson and even murder. It is the first time Denmark has sent Iraqis back to Baghdad.
But Joergenson said: "Iraq is still prey to violent unrest, with hundreds of deaths a month, and its government is incapable of ensuring the safety of its citizens.

" Some of those facing expulsion risked being killed or tortured on their return, he added.

Two people were sent back on Thursday and the other nine were due to follow over the next four weeks, said Hans-Viggo Jensen, deputy director of the national police force.

The Iraqi authorities had agreed to take the 11 back, he added.

One of those expelled had immediately been imprisoned in Iraq on his return, the Ritzau agency reported, quoting the man's wife.

Of the 11 selected for expulsion, 10 had legal papers for Denmark while the other was a failed asylum seeker.

Meanwhile, another 400 refugees whose asylum requests have been rejected are currently staying at centers in Denmark.

They are refusing to leave Denmark voluntarily despite being offered incentives by the Danish authorities.

Iraq's Aziz back in court without lawyers

The prosecutor in the trial of former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz called for a stiff penalty on Tuesday to ease the "hearts of the widows" of dozens of merchants he is charged with helping execute.

Aziz, the public face of Saddam Hussein's regime, entered the court wearing a grey suit and supported by a walking stick, a far cry from the once confident, cigar-smoking diplomat who exhibited faultless English, strong nerves and negotiating skills in Iraq's crises.

He was joined by his seven co-defendants in the case. The 72-year-old Aziz is reported to be in poor health.

His defense lawyers were not present, but it was not clear why.

The team of foreign lawyers who had agreed to defend Aziz, including French lawyer Jacques Verges, four Italian lawyers and a Lebanese-French attorney, were not granted visas for Baghdad, his Amman-based son Ziad Aziz said.

Verges has defended some of the world's most notorious figures, including Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie and Venezuelan terrorist "Carlos the Jackal.

"The charges relate to merchants who were killed after being accused of breaking price controls imposed in the wake of U.N.

sanctions on Iraq in 1990s.

"We ask that the court decides on a suitable punishment that will ease the hearts of the widows," prosecutor Adnan Ali said.

He said some family members of the merchants were killed.

"There was a systematic campaign planned under the cover of darkness.

Its villains were members of the Revolutionary Command Council and security agencies," Ali said.It is the first time Aziz, who also served as foreign minister under Saddam, has faced any charges since he gave himself up to U.S. troops in April 2003.

Easily recognized by his large glasses and white hair, Aziz played Iraq's top diplomatic role in the run-up to the 1991 Gulf War when he was foreign minister.
Plea of innocence
In his own defense, Aziz told the court on Tuesday that just because he was a member of council did not by itself implicate him in the killings.

"This is a selective process wrought by the personal motivations of those intent on destroying Aziz," Aziz said.

"It is a plot of personal revenge.

" The only Christian in Saddam's inner circle, Aziz rose to prominence in the world media around the time of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the Gulf War.Aziz is being tried by the same judge who sentenced Saddam to death for his role in the killing of 148 Shiite civilians after an assassination attempt against him in 1982. Other defendants include Saddam's half brothers Watban Ibrahim al-Hassan, then interior minister, and Sabaawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, a former security official.Another was Saddam's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majeed or Chemical Ali, who entered the court wearing traditional Sunni chequered head dress.

Al-Majeed has already been sentenced to death in June for his role in Saddam's "Anfal" military campaign in the 1980s, in which tens of thousands of Kurds were killed.

Their executions have been delayed by legal wranglings. Aziz's lawyers had wanted his trial to be moved to Iraqi Kurdistan in the relatively quiet north of the country or to be transferred abroad to ensure it is not influenced by the Baghdad government.Aziz has appeared as a witness in earlier trials of Saddam-era officials. He featured prominently in Iraq's conflict with Iran from 1980-1988, helping to win U.S. support and to forge strong economic ties with the Soviet Union.A former finance minister, central bank governor and two senior Baath party members also faced the Iraqi High Tribunal.

Iraq lawmakers move to ban toy guns

Children imitating sectarian divides in war games

Iraqi lawmakers, alarmed at the exceptional levels of violence children are exposed to daily, are about to pass a bill to ban the import of toy guns, an MP said on Wednesday.

"Our children see too much violence on TV, they have it on their video games, they hear their parents talk about violence every day. It is rampant in the streets," parliamentary committee on women and children chairwoman Samira al-Mussawi told AFP.Saying the bill has already been approved by the cabinet, Mussawi expects it to come before parliament before the end of the week.

According to Mussawi, children do not distinguish between toy guns and the real thing.

"They use them without knowing the reality of violence or killing," she said.

"We have to stop importing these kinds of toys and give our children others that will help them develop their brains.

"The lawmaker called on the education ministry to introduce subjects in schools dealing with matters such as non-violent conflict resolution and reconciliation.

Members of her committee, she added, backed efforts by the Iraqi army to curb the number of toy guns on the streets by going to schools and asking children to hand in plastic weaponry in return for other, creative toys.

Plastic toy guns, many imported from China, flood the shelves of toy stores, with shopkeepers saying the weaponry is the top seller, both for boys and for girls. Prices range from 5,000 to 40,000 dinars (four to 32 dollars), with the MP7AI rifle the favorite, as it resembles the type of weapons children see in American movies, shopkeepers told AFP.

Teachers say Iraqi kids play cops and robbers as do children in most countries, but that they also play war games, based on what is happening in the streets of their towns and cities. In some neighborhoods, it's police versus "terrorists", or army versus al-Qaeda. In other areas war games reflect the bitter sectarian divides

-- one side gets to be Shiite militiamen, the other Sunni insurgents.The only psychological study carried out in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 was on children by the Association of Psychologists of Iraq (API) in 2006.

It found that the violence was profoundly affecting them."The only things they have on their minds are guns, bullets, death and a fear of the U.S. occupation," said API spokesman Marwan Abdullah when he released the report.

Iraqi blogger: Baghdad after Saddam

Iraq's first blogger, Salam Pax, was in Baghdad on April 9, 2003. He watched cautiously as the US military entered the capital and took down Saddam Hussein's government.

But hopes for a better future were soon replaced with fears of looters taking the city apart brick by brick.

Five years later, he recounts the trials and tribulations experienced by Iraqis who woke up for the first time in 24 years without a government led by Saddam Hussein.

The collected weblog has been published by Guardian Books under the title The Baghdad Blog. He also made 19 short documentaries about life in Iraq after the war and was awarded Royal Television Society's award for innovation in 2003.

The events in Baghdad in early April five years ago were so overwhelming that it took three days and a succession of four-hour TV news snippets for the predicament to sink in.

Electricity had been cut off for a couple of days and we had been using a small power generator for four hours during the day and night mainly to check the news.

My uncles and aunts were all staying at our house … we thought that if we were going to be shocked and awed into democracy, we really ought to go through the experience together.

On April 7, my father woke up everyone because he had heard on the radio that the US army had entered Baghdad.

The 15 members of my extended family sat silently in front of the television set and watched a live feed from a US network showing American tanks rolling towards a presidential palace in central Baghdad.

It almost felt like watching an implausible scene in a science fiction film. This was followed two days later by footage of the Saddam statue in Firdous square being pulled down.

No more Saddam

We watched with disbelief.

Could Saddam really be gone now? We stayed home with our doors locked and waited for the retaliation of the Iraqi army, but there was nothing.

Days later we would see Iraqi military uniforms tossed in ditches as if the army just disappeared into thin air.

Then the images of the looting started appearing on all the news channels. This time we watched with anger and my uncles returned to their own homes to make sure their belongings did not get 'liberated' as well.

In rapid succession, we moved within three days from fear of being bombed to hope for a better future and back to fear of the chaos on the street.

We could tell from the events unfolding in the street three days after the coalition forces moved into Baghdad how this invasion would likely conclude.

Iraqis have never really recovered from the chaos of those early days.

But the truth is I chose not to dwell on what was happening in the streets and held on instead to a hope for a better future.

And with every little step forward we would look at each other and say 'it's happening'. But these forward steps were usually just blips of good news in what felt like an endless stream of bad news.

Corpses

But it has become increasingly difficult today to remember what good I had once been hoping would come out of the war and regime change.

I am left with a lot of bad memories.

There were days when the Red Crescent was begging for volunteers to assist in retrieving the corpses from the streets and giving them proper burial.

The local hospital's garden had to be converted into a makeshift cemetery after the electricity went out; there was no way the bodies could be stored in refrigerated morgues until they were identified by next of kin.

My mother, after going out only once after Baghdad was taken by coalition forces, decided she we would never venture outside her front yard again.

Not until I promised her that stability had returned to the streets.

That never really happened.

Painful memories

Going out in the city became an exercise in blocking out painful images and scenes; in some cases there were areas of the city you plainly avoided.

Have you seen what has happened to Baghdad's book market? I would rather have the image of that street as I remember it in my mind than the reality of what is left of it today.

Eventually, we had to leave our home when my neighbourhood was taken over by Sunni militias - all my Shia uncles and aunts also left their homes with all their belongings. Then came the walls which transformed an ethnically mixed and vibrant city into a series of sectarian ghettos.

And can one ever forget the neverending Iraqi civilian casualties.
To be honest, I still have no idea how to refer to April 9, 2003. For a while, one of our shortlived early governments called it "Baghdad Liberation Day" but that feels like a contradiction in terms as foreign forces stormed the city and that usually is described as an invasion.

On the other hand, I never really could bring myself to describing it as the "Fall of Baghdad".

I thought we were never going to let that happen although after five years of mostly death and bloodshed my beloved city is certainly not what it used to be.

I don't want to say fallen. But Baghdad is unquestionably and deeply hurt.

Salam Pax is and Iraqi documentary film-maker and the author of The Baghdad Blog. He graduated as an architect from Baghdad university but turned to blogging in 2002.

Aid groups deem Somalia too risky

A number of leading international aid agencies have announced that they consider it too dangerous for their staff to work in Somalia.

The statement was made on Wednesday by 39 organisations, including Oxfam, World Vision and Save the Children.

It came as seven people were killed in a battle on in Jowhar between fighters associated with the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and Ethiopian troops supporting the interim Somali government.

Mukhtar Robbow, a spokesman for the fighters, said his group had briefly seized the town.
Over the past year, Mogadishu, the capital, and other key cities have been hit by almost daily violence. Hundreds of civilians have died and tens of thousands forced to flee their homes.

The aid agency statement said: "The crisis engulfing Somalia has deteriorated dramatically while access to people in need continues to decrease; 360,000 people have been newly displaced and an additional half a million people are reliant on humanitarian assistance."

The statement is based on a report released last October.

"There are now more than one million internally displaced people in Somalia. Intense conflict in Mogadishu continues to force an average of 20,000 people from their homes each month."

Last week, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, presented the Security Council with a report proposing the deployment of 27,000 peacekeepers to replace the stretched African Union force.

The Security Council has reviewed options for increased UN involvement in Somalia, but certain members have ruled out an early deployment of a full peacekeeping force.

The aid agencies said families left in the capital are among "the poorest of the poor who did not have the means to flee".

"Record high food prices, hyper-inflation and drought in large parts of the country is leaving communities struggling to survive," they said.

Iraq's corporate genocide

Five years ago, I understood very little about the Iraq war. When asked to write an anti-war speech, I didn't even know where to begin. Today, I know why it happened, and I cannot say this is a war like any other, or even that it is a just war.
This war has been too long, too painful, too costly, too evil, too inhumane and too unjust to simply be deemed an invasion, or even worse, a liberation. Today, right here, right now, I want this war to be recognised for what it truly is - a genocide against the Iraqi people.
It is a corporate hate crime. It is not a "just" war.

It does not have a "just" cause. It lacks legitimate authority, it was executed with all the wrong intentions, it was certainly not a last resort, the probability of success was slim and most of all the weaponry has gone beyond "smart bombs".
If the international community recognises the conflicts in Bosnia, Armenia and Rwanda as genocides where human rights are replaced with the extermination of ethnic groups, then Iraq deserves the same recognition - and more.

Rape, indiscriminate killings and torture are all elements of genocide, but the situation in Iraq goes beyond that, fitting the description of something that is more 21st-century - a corporate genocide.
In stating that Iraq's genocide is distinct, the point is not to reduce the relevance of previous genocides or leave similar slaughters in other regions unacknowledged.
Rather, it is to recognise that while the perception of genocide in Iraq is not new, the extent to which it is now a valid belief is.
Corporate genocide is the mass cooperation of a business-led military invasion, where a population is sacrificed for the economic profit of the invader. A corporate genocide goes beyond blind hate and killing innocent civilians to gain power and territory.
In pursuing its economic strategies, the US has caused the death and injury, deliberate or not, of millions of Iraqis.

Foreign businesses that profit and thrive on war have gained new power in Iraq, but lack accountability. Private security firms have little motivation to promote peace - though it is their job - and to end this genocide.
Terrorising my people puts bread in their mouths and takes it away from the mouths of starving Iraqi children. Our war is their income.
To keep the money flowing, private security firms dehumanise Iraqi resistance and rebel groups by labelling them as terrorists. The international propagation of this portrayal is one element in the structuring of a corporate genocide.
Another is the inability of neither international law nor the international community to hold these firms accountable for their actions, including their killings of innocent people.
Individuals perceived to be a threat to the firm are treated as such and can be disposed of under the false guise of an attack, leaving the firms unaccountable. And because these firms have power, they can easily deny misusing it and be believed, if they admit to using it at all.
Not taking responsibility for destroying the lives of men, women and children marks a new chapter in the book of corporate genocide.

It is clear that five years later, the US has achieved little in terms of its humanitarian agenda but much of the goals listed in its hidden corporate agenda.
Iraqi natural resources are being distributed and scattered among the most powerful corporations, with very little profit earmarked towards the rebuilding of Iraq.
This is what the corporate genocide is about.
There is much debate about whether Iraq can stand on its own after the departure of the US Army. But it is crucial to keep in mind that the US never held Iraq up as a country and it never helped Iraqis come together as a nation.
I said it five years ago and repeat it now: a Western-style democracy cannot be forced on a nation that does not welcome it.
To not believe that we, the Iraqi people, will establish a form of government that we see fit for our needs, by ourselves, is an insult to the Iraqi solidarity and historical heritage that has always, continues to, and will never cease to exist.
Nofa Khadduri is a student at the University of Toronto in Canada and has been campaigning against the Iraq war since the age of 15.

US death toll in Iraq hits 4,000

The death toll of US military in Iraq has passed 4,000 after the US Central Command announced that four more troops had died in an attack.

The soldiers were killed on Sunday by a roadside bomb during a patrol in southern Baghdad, the military said on Monday.
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At least 50 Iraqis, most of them civilians, also died on Sunday in violence including bomb blasts and shootings.

In the most deadly attack, 13 Iraqi soldiers were killed when a suicide bomber drove a vehicle packed with explosives into a security checkpoint in the northern city of Mosul.
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On Monday Dana Perino, White House spokeswoman, said that George Bush, the US president, was "grieved" by the losses.

"He mourns the loss of every single life from the very first that was lost in this conflict to the ones that are lost today," she said.

"He bears the responsibility for the decisions that he made and he also bears the responsibility to continue to focus on succeeding."

More than 29,000 American soldiers have been wounded after years of conflict in Iraq, according to the icasualties.org website, which also carried the 4,000-strong US death toll.

The death toll is still considerably smaller than the number of Iraqis who have died in the conflict.

"It has been left to journalists and academics to try and estimate the number that have died. Estimates vary from 89,000 on the lowest side to the highest figure that I have heard - which is one million," James Bays, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Baghdad, said.

"When you speak to an Iraqi who has stayed here in this country throughout the last five years, everyone knows someone who has died, and most families have lost a family member."

At least 97 per cent of the US military deaths came after George Bush, the US president, announced the end of "major combat" in Iraq on May 1, 2003

Since the US military toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraq's president, it has faced a violent anti-occupation campaign and witnessed violence between the country's sectarian communities

No casualty is more or less significant than another; each soldier, marine, airman and sailor is equally precious and their loss equally tragic," Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, US military spokesman in Baghdad, said of the losses.
"Being in the military means we are willingly in harm's way to protect others in order to bring hope and a sustainable security to the Iraqi people."
The milestone death toll comes day after Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq, saying the US would remain in Iraq and promising American soldiers that they would emerge victorious

Hoda Abdel Hamid, Al Jazeera's Iraq correspondent, said the high death toll showed that the conflict had not been fully contained by the US.
"The Bush administration keeps saying that things are getting better and better. Reaching such a milestone is a reminder that the war is far from over in Iraq," she said.
"We are at a transition period. Despite the fact that the surge is working, despite the fact that the violence has dropped ... things could get much worse underground."
Abdel Hamid said that the "surge" could not work effectively unless it was accompanied by national reconciliation of Iraq's sectarian communities.

More than 80 per cent of soldiers killed have died in attacks by al-Qaeda in Iraq, Sunni and Shia fighters, icasualties.org said.
The remainder died in non-combat related incidents

Around 40 per cent of those killed were struck by roadside bombs, according to the website, making these weapons the main cause of fatalities.Small-arms fire was the second biggest killer, the website said, with helicopter crashes, ambushes, rocket attacks and suicide bombings also the cause of many deaths.
The deadliest year for the military in Iraq was 2007 when it lost 901 troops, the icasualties.org website figures said.

This figure compares with 486 deaths in 2003, the first year of the conflict, 849 in 2004, 846 in 2005 and 822 in 2006. Since the start of 2008, 96 soldiers have died.
Vietnam has been the deadliest war for the US military, apart from the two world wars, with 58,000 soldiers killed between 1964 and 1973, an average of 26 a day.
On average, just over two US soldiers die each day in Iraq.

American soldiers in Iraq interviewed by news agencies said that while they were sad about the losses, the conflict was justified.

"It's sad that the number is that high. It makes you wonder if there is a different way of approaching things. Nobody likes to hear that number," said senior Airman Preston Reeves, 26, from Birmingham, Alabama

"Every one of those people signed up voluntarily and it's a shame that that happens, but tragedies do happen in war.

"It's a shame you don't get support from your own country, when all they want you to do is leave Iraq and all these people will have died in vain."Against the backdrop of the rising US military death toll, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Democratic candidates for the 2008 presidential nomination, are calling for the withdrawal of troops.

Clinton has said that she may consider pulling troops out of the country after 60 days, she should win the nomination and the presidency.

But John McCain, who is set to become the Republican candidate in the presidential race, has advocated US soldiers remaining in Iraq.

McCain remains a strong supporter of Bush's controversial "surge", which saw 30,000 extra soldiers deployed in an attempt to improve security in Iraq.

Saddam watches remind Iraqis of happier time

Five years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, his memory lives on through wrist watches as people in his home town and birth village seek reminders of a time of safety, jobs and cheap living.In Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, watches featuring an image of the former Iraqi leader on the dial sell like hot cakes to a mostly older crowd, while younger shoppers like to try them on and pose, watch seller Hamad Younes said.

"People love these Saddam watches," said Younes of the timepieces, which have a starting price of 100 dollars. "They never stay in stock more than two or three days. The people of Tikrit love Saddam," he said.
Saddam drew many of his most trusted officials from the Sunni strongholds of Tikrit and the neighboring village of Awja, where he was born in 1937, relying on tribal loyalty to ensure his absolute grip on power.

Loyalty was rewarded with the finest imported goods and lavish state support.Nostalgia for Saddam's rule has driven the trade in the watches and other reminders of the Iraqi leader.

"People have started to ask for pictures of Saddam. Saddam mosque asked for a picture to hang above their door, that was the last one I did," said Shayban al-Aloosi, a painter and printer in Tikrit.

Another picture of the fallen leader hangs in the reception of a children's welfare centre. "Saddam died a martyr, and will remain a hero of Tikrit," the center's administrator Fatin Mohammed said.

Saddam was hanged in December 2006 for crimes against humanity.

"What did the Americans bring? Hunger, arrests and killing.

I wish Saddam was back. We cry for the time of Saddam," said Khodaeiyar Salah, an old man dressed in traditional Arab robes in Tikrit's central marketplace.

In Awja, the village where Saddam was born and laid to rest, a neglected appearance mirrors the mood of its people. Crude graffiti covers its walls, the roads are empty and dead trees are all that remain of its once-proud gardens."The worst day of my life was when Iraq fell.

Today Awja is empty, there are not many people left.

All my aunts and uncles have gone, or were arrested," said Suleiman al-Nasseri, 25.Many in Awja fled the violence that engulfed Iraq since Saddam's fall. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

Bombings and shootings remain a part of daily life in Iraq despite an overall drop in violence since Sunni Arab tribes turned on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda and 30,000 extra U.S. troops were fully deployed last June.

"Americans say Saddam was a killer and oppressor.

Now there's more killing and oppression than in Saddam's time. Every day there is killing, gunfire ...

only when the Americans came did we hear about racism and sectarianism," said Awja grocer Yassen al-Omar, who said he was related to Saddam's cousins.Shiites, Iraq's majority Muslim sect, and Kurds suffered terribly under Saddam, whose Sunni Arab-dominated government crushed dissent through brutal military campaigns, torture and executions.

At Saddam's marble tomb, covered in a riot of flowers and surrounded by pictures of the former leader, a group of men said prayers. The graves of Saddam's sons Uday and Qusay, who died fighting U.S. troops, are nearby.

"Saddam was a candle of the tribe and its light today and forever.

We miss him when we see him in pictures or on the news, and I swear we cry when we visit his grave and those of his sons, God rest them," Saddam relative Yaseen al-Majid said.

[Facts] Who are the Kurds?

-- The Kurds are a non-Arab, mainly Sunni Muslim people, speaking a language related to Persian and living in a mountainous area straddling the borders of Armenia, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.
-- For most of their history they have been subjugated. In modern times Iran, Iraq and Turkey have resisted an independent Kurdish state and the Western powers have seen no reason to help establish one. -- Perhaps the most famous of all Kurds is Saladin (1138–1193), who gained fame during the Crusades as one of the greatest rulers in Islamic history.
-- Contemporary Kurdish nationalism stirred in the 1890s when the Ottoman Empire was on its last legs. The 1920 Treaty of Sevres, which imposed a settlement and colonial carve-up of Turkey after World War One, promised them independence.

-- Three years after the 1920 Treaty of Sevres promised independence to Turkey's Kurds, Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk tore up the document. Kurdish revolts in the 1920s and 1930s were put down by Turkish forces. The Kurds were not recognized as a separate people or allowed to speak their language in public until 1991.
-- The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), named in 1978, took up arms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic homeland in the southeast. Since then more than 30,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
-- PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured in 1999, tried and sentenced to death. That was reduced to life imprisonment in October 2002 after Turkey abolished the death penalty. -- Fighting eased after Ocalan's capture, leading to a ceasefire and the withdrawal of rebel fighters from Turkey. Ocalan put new emphasis on seeking Kurdish rights through political, rather than armed struggle.
-- Today, some 3,000 Turkish PKK fighters are based in northern Iraq and launch attacks on security and civilian targets in Turkish territory. A few thousand PKK rebels are also believed to be inside Turkey
-- Around 40 Turkish soldiers have been killed in fighting in the past month alone. Erdogan's government is under heavy domestic pressure to pursue the PKK into northern Iraq.
-- Turkey has mobilized some 200,000 soldiers to the southeast, half of them along Turkey's border with Iraq, to stop PKK fighters crossing into Turkey from mountain bases in northern Iraq.
-- The Kurds fared little better in northern Iraq where, under a British mandate, revolts were quashed in 1919, 1923 and 1932.
-- Under leader Mustafa Barzani, the Iraqi Kurds waged an intermittent struggle against Baghdad after World War Two.
-- Kurdish northern Iraq won autonomy from Saddam Hussein with U.S. help in 1991, and has benefited from more than a decade of economic development. There has been some violence but it has not approached the levels seen in Baghdad.
-- Saddam's fall deepened the desire for autonomy and in September 2006 the president of Iraq's Kurdistan ordered the Kurdish flag to be flown on government buildings instead of the Iraqi national flag.
*Twice as many Kurds live in Iran as Iraq, but the national movement has had much less success, with a series of Kurdish leaders put to death by the Iranian government.
*Ismail Agha Simko led a major revolt in the 1920s but was killed by the Iranian government in 1930.
*In 1946, the Iranian Kurds established a short-lived Kurdish Republic, the only one in the 20th century. After destroying the state, Iran hanged its president, Qasi Muhammad, in March 1947.
*In 1981, Ayatollah Khomeini’s forces quashed an attempted revolt by the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI). In 1989, Iranian agents assassinated KDPI leader Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou in Austria. His successor,Sadegh Sharafkiandi was assassinated at a restaurant in Germany in 1992.
*There are around one million Kurds in Syria who live in separate parts of the country and are poorly organized.
*Syria's Baathist regime has denied citizenship to many Kurds and bans Kurdish cultural centers, bookshops and similar activities. A 1992 decree prohibits the registration of children with Kurdish first names.
*It has been suspected that in return for giving Turkish rebels sanctuary in Syria for many years, the PKK has kept a lid on any Kurdish unrest in the country

the life in iraq .. where no safety

The video shows the difficult daily life of Mosul residents in Zohour District due to continuous clashes between Iraqi police and resistance fighters

FOR THAT REASON USA CAME TO IRAQ

CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO CONTINUE THE FLASH

Iraq suffers triple bomb attacks

Dozens of people have been killed in three separate suicide bomb attacks in Iraq. At least six people died and 18 were wounded after a suicide bomber struck at an outdoor cafe near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

The attack occurred in the town of Tuz on Sunday, about 70km south of Kirkuk. Said Mohammed, the mayor of Tuz, said: "The toll could rise because we are still sifting through the rubble."

However, Iraqi police told Muhammad Faeq, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Arbil that 20 people were injured in the explosion.

Conflicting reportsHe also said that there were conflicting reports on the details of the explosion. The cafe was located in a religiously and ethnically mixed town of Turkmen and Shia residents. The bomber was wearing a belt filled with explosives and blew himself up at the cafe, police said.But Kurdish sources told that an explosive device planted on the side of the road near the cafe had detonated. Meanwhile in west Baghdad, at least nine people have reportedly been killed by a car bomb, followed by clashes between fighters and security forces.

Ramadan attacks Medical and security officals also said that at least 19 people were wounded.
The attack came a day after the Islamic State in Iraq, an al-Qaeda-led group, announced a new phase of attacks during Ramadan. On Saturday, a suicide car bomber killed at least 10 people and wounded 15 in southwest Baghdad as people were queueing outside the bakery in Al-Amil. A resident in the Shia neighbourhood said there was no security checkpoint nor police stationed in the neighbourhood.

At least 34 people have been killed by bomb blasts and gunfire in Iraq since the start of the holy month of Ramadan on Thursday.

SOURSW: ALHAZEERA CHANNEL