Iraq

Beirut, February 05: Iran’s supreme leader called for the end of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s rule, saying Friday that the political upheaval in the Arab world was part of an “irreversible defeat” for the United States and an “Islamic awakening” in the Middle East.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a rare appearance at Tehran’s main Friday prayer venue, compared the popular uprisings against Western-backed autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt to Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Baghdad, February 05: Iraqis are seizing on Egypt’s unrest to protest what they call corruption in their own security forces, rampant unemployment and scant electricity and water supply.

There have been small scattered demonstrations across the capital as Sunni and Shiite clerics warned in Friday prayers that poverty, oppression and corruption could spark similar uprisings in Iraq.

Sunni Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abdul-Jabar urged Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to leave office peacefully and “leave the people to decide their destiny.”

Baghdad, February 05: The State Department announced Thursday that the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs met last week with local and state law enforcement offices to discuss opportunities available in Iraq this fall. The bureau hopes to build a team of senior level and expert advisers to serve one-year missions there.

Baghdad, February 05: With Ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey warning that al-Qaeda in Iraq is “resurgent” and the current US commander General Lloyd Austin warning that the “threats to Iraq’s stability will remain in 2012,” officials are increasingly suggesting the 50,000 US troops will remain beyond 2011.

Karbala, February 05: Iraq is not immune to protests elsewhere in the Arab world because it is a democracy, and its leaders must work to fight corruption and promote social justice, clerics said in Friday sermons.

Their warnings came as protests in Egypt against President Hosni Mubarak reached an 11th day, while smaller protests have been held in Yemen and Jordan, after an uprising in Tunisia ousted that country’s longtime leader.

Baghdad, February 04: At least 20 Iraqis were killed and 62 more were wounded in the latest violence. Although these figures appear to be closer to a daily average, there were no reports from Ninewa or Diyala, which are two of the more violent provinces in Iraq. While it is possible these two areas have suddenly become very peaceful, it is more likely that attacks are going unreported or the information is not reaching the West.

Baghdad, February 04: With protests erupting across the region, one of the first protests in Iraq, in the impoverished southern city of Diwaniyah, ended in violence when Iraqi police opened fire on the crowd, wounded at least three.

Roughly 1,000 people were said to have gathered in the provincial capital, demanding increases to their food rations and improvements in the state’s crumbling power and water infrastructure.

Baghdad, January 31: Iraqis who have long suffered from high unemployment, poverty and endemic corruption — the catalysts of unrest spreading in the Arab world — called on their own government to take notice.

Many watched footage of riots and looting on the streets of Egypt, the region’s traditional powerhouse, with a sense of irony. The scenes brought back disturbing memories of similar mayhem in Iraq, but also admiration for an uprising that came from the streets rather than in the wake of a foreign invasion.

Baghdad, January 28: Anger at Iraq’s security forces boiled over Thursday after a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb beside an outdoor funeral service, killing dozens and sending residents storming into the street, some firing warning shots at the police they said had failed to protect them.

The bomb killed at least 48 people and wounded 120 in the predominately Shiite neighborhood, adding to a recent spate of attacks that have taken nearly 200 lives in the past 10 days.

Baghdad, January 28: A massive bombing in Baghdad’s Shi’ite neighborhood of Shula targeted a funeral today, killing around 80 people and wounded upwards of 100 others. The attack is the largest of what has been a growing string of major bombing attacks over the past two weeks.

In the wake of the protests angry locals took to the streets, condemning the police for failing to stop the bombing despite the fact that Shula only has one road entrance, and that is a police checkpoint. Inevitably, police opened fire on the protesters.

Baghdad, January 26: An elite security force affiliated with Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s office is holding detainees in miserable conditions for months at a time without access to lawyers or families despite Maliki’s pledge last year to rein in the unit, Iraqi officials and diplomatic sources say.

Baghdad, January 25: As Arbaeen observances culminate, the violence towards pilgrims continues. At least 29 were killed and 181 more were wounded in attacks across the country, but the deadliest occurred just outside Karbala. While most of the casualties, if not all, were Iraqi, some of the pilgrims may have been foreigners. Meanwhile, new allegations against an elite security force overseen directly by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are surfacing.

Baghdad, January 25: Two car bombs tore through parking lots packed with Shiite pilgrims Monday in an Iraqi holy city, pushing the death toll from a week of attacks to more than 170.

The uptick in violence poses a major test for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s new and somewhat shaky coalition government as followers of a powerful Shiite cleric and key ally demanded he fill key security posts.

The blasts struck Karbala as hundreds of thousands of pilgrims were massing for religious rituals marking the end of a 40-day mourning period for the Islamic sect’s most beloved saint.

Baghdad, January 25: Iraqi government officials denied accusations that the Maliki government has been holding detainees in secret prisons, some of them for years, without charges and in abusive conditions.

“It is under the control of the ministry of justice. It is my responsibility, and I deny all these accusations – they are all lies,” insisted Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim. He added that the Red Cross has visited the detention center.

Karbala (Iraq), January 24: Terrorists set off two car bombs in Iraq’s holy city of Karbala Monday, killing at least 26 mostly Shiite pilgrims and injuring nearly 200 others, security and medical officials said.

In the first attack, a car exploded in a parking lot, killing 12 and injuring 32.

A second car bomb exploded a few hours later, killing 14 and injuring at least 164.

The attacks targeted Shiite pilgrims making their way on foot to the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala, located about 100 km south of the capital Baghdad.

Karbala (Iraq), January 24:Terrorists set off two car bombs in Iraq’s holy city of Karbala Monday, killing at least 26 mostly Shiite pilgrims and injuring nearly 200 others, security and medical officials said.

In the first attack, a car exploded in a parking lot, killing 12 and injuring 32.

A second car bomb exploded a few hours later, killing 14 and injuring at least 164.

The attacks targeted Shiite pilgrims making their way on foot to the Imam Hussein shrine in Karbala, located about 100 km south of the capital Baghdad.

Tikrit (Iraq), January 18: Nearly 60 people were killed Tuesday in a suicide bombing outside a crowded police recruitment centre in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, security officials said.

“I do not know what happened. I was surprised to find myself cut and wounded in hospital,” Mohammed Abdullah, a 23-year-old man who was queuing outside the centre along with hundreds of others when the powerful blast was set off told DPA.

“The police did not take the necessary measures to protect the volunteers,” he said.

Tikrit (Iraq), January 18:At least 50 people were killed in a suicide bombing Tuesday outside a police recruitment centre in the Iraqi city of Tikrit, security sources said.

A source said the bomber blew himself up outside the centre where hundreds of young people were lined up.

Another 150 people were injured in the explosion.

Alsumaria News reported that ambulances were still carrying the injured to nearby hospitals for treatment and that all roads leading to the site of the attack were closed off.

Baghdad, January 18: A local governor in Iraq’s oil-rich north cut the electricity going to Baghdad from a power station in his province Monday because his own constituents have been left with little power this winter.

Tamim Gov. Abdul-Rahman Mustafa said residents in his province’s capital city of Kirkuk only have three hours of power each day. The failure of negotiations with Iraq’s Electricity Ministry to share the power generated at a plant in Taza, just south of Kirkuk, gave him little choice but to cut the electricity headed to Baghdad, he said.

Baghdad, January 17: Twenty years after the United States and its allies launched Operation Desert Storm to roll back Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, Iraq still owes its smaller neighbor billions in reparations and more than 1,000 people are still missing.

It was in August 1990 that Iraq invaded, declaring that Kuwait was its 19th province. The United States led a counteroffensive starting January 16, 1991.

While the era of Saddam Hussein is now part of history, the impact of the invasion he ordered is anything but.

Baghdad,January 16:At least three US soldiers have been reported killed today in Iraq, with two of them slain in an attack by an Iraqi soldier on the training center they were working at in Mosul. A third soldier was reported slain in central Iraq during “operations.”

The Mosul incident came at the Ghazlani Training Center in the south of the city, when an Iraqi soldier smuggled real bullets into a training exercise and opened fire, killing two and wounding another. He was killed by US soldiers who were running the drill.

Baghdad, January 15: Security forces are scouring southern Iraq tonight looking for 12 terror suspects who had ties with an organization under al-Qaeda in Iraq’s (AQI) umbrella, after they escaped from a Basra jail while awaiting trial.

Officials say that all of the prison guards at the fortified center were arrested, with suspicions that some of them colluded with the detainees in the escape attempt, but so far there is no indication any of the suspects has been located.

Baghdad, January 15: Protests against Vice President Joe Biden’s visit and the ongoing US military presence in general were reported in a number of cities in Iraq, with supporters of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr getting the credit for organizing many of them.

Protesters urged the US to withdraw its remaining 50,000 troops from Iraq, and urged Vice President Biden not to come back either. Biden had claimed the US withdrawal was on track in a speech with Prime Minister Maliki, but later hinted at a long term continuation of the war when speaking to US troops.

Baghdad, January 14: Iraq’s Foreign Minister, Hoshiar Zibary, has denied on Thursday the execution of Iraqi citizens in Saudi Arabia, according to the Iraqi Legislature, Quteiba al-Jibouri.

Baghdad, January 14: Despite reports that Muqtada al-Sadr, the rebellious clergyman who returned to Iraq this week after four years in Iran, has adopted a “moderate stance,” his speech at a mosque in Najaf on Saturday proved quite otherwise. He is, still, militantly anti-American, and he’s served notice on Prime Minister Maliki’s government that any deal with the United States to extend the American troop deployment in Iraq past the end of 2011 is out of the question.