An injured Iraqi man is assisted off a military transport by Jordanian officials upon arrival in Amman August 25, 2009. A Jordanian military aircraft brought 19 Iraqi officials, injured in last week's bombing attacks on the foreign ministry in Baghdad, to be treated at the King Hussein medical centre at the expense of the Jordanian government.
REUTERS/Majed Jaber (JORDAN POLITICS CONFLICT)
Iraqi ambassador in Syria Ala al-Jawadi speaks during a news conference at his office in Damascus August 25, 2009. Iraq and Syria recalled their ambassadors on Tuesday after Baghdad demanded Damascus hand over two people it says masterminded bombings in the Iraqi capital last week which killed almost 100 people. Iraq's Shi'ite-led government has blamed supporters of Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party for massive truck bombs and other attacks last Wednesday, and says it has already captured some suspects it deems responsible.
REUTERS/Khaled al-Hariri (SYRIA POLITICS)
The Americans and their allies deserve what they are getting in Iraq and in Afghanistan. I somehow believe it is the begging of the end of the US arrogant, crimial and evil empire.
On the morning of 19.08.09 six explosions rocked the heavily-protected buildings in Baghdad.Until today 21.08.09 many employees of the hated foreign ministry remain under the rubbles. But the worst damage was inflicted on Iraq foreign ministry building at the edge of the infamous US-established green zone. Headed by foreign minister, Kurdish Hoshyar Zibari, the ministry has been dominated by Kurds with many embassies’ staffs abroad refuse to speak Arabic or raise the Iraqi flag. Furthermore, the Kurdish ambassadors started to issue visas to Israelis to enter North of Iraq legally. In other words, and to the pleasure of USraelis, Iraq foreign ministry doesn’t represent Iraqi interests but those of the Kurdish war lords, Talibani and Barzani.
The next target of the resistance will be no other than the huge US embassy complex dubbed locally as (NSK) or the nest of spies and killers. The US embassy is partly occupied by Israelis although Iraq doesn’t recognise the rogue state of Israel.I hope to see the US embassy taken down brick by brick.
The Iraqi people have hoped in vain that Obama will change the nature of US operations in the country. Until today, thousands of US-paid mercenaries are carrying out dirty works inside Iraqi cities with impunity. It seems that Obama is no more than the black face of US neo-conservatives. In the UK, Tony Blair made the new Labour more conservative than the conservative party. And Obama may make the American Democratic Party more conservative than the neo-con Zionists disregarding all the consequencies.
The American project in Iraq has failed. Thanks to US occupation Iraq started to export sophisticated tactics for ddefeating invaders.
Adnan Darwash, Iraq Occupation Times
Baghdad blasts kill 95, Iraqi security criticised
19 Aug 2009 16:38:10 GMT
Source: Reuters
* Deadliest day in Iraq this year
* Follows U.S. troop withdrawal from urban centres
* Iraqi security forces acknowledge negligence
(Adds Maliki, quotes from Iraqis, defused truck bomb)
By Aseel Kami and Suadad al-Salhy
BAGHDAD, Aug 19 (Reuters) - A series of blasts in Baghdad killed 95 people and wounded 536 in Iraq's bloodiest day this year, prompting a rare admission of culpability from Iraqi security forces left to cope without U.S. help.
At least six blasts struck near government ministries and other targets at the heart of Iraq's Shi'ite-led administration, weeks after U.S. combat troops withdrew from urban centres in June, thrusting Iraq's security forces into the lead role.
"This operation shows negligence, and is considered a security breach for which Iraqi forces must take most of the blame," Major General Qassim al-Moussawi, Baghdad's security spokesman, told Iraqiya state TV.
The government said this month that most of the city's blast walls would be removed within 40 days, a sign of confidence in its security forces after U.S. combat troops withdrew from urban centres in June, and before elections due in January.
Wednesday's blasts were a rare example of a coordinated attack on heavily guarded targets.
In one blast, a massive truck bomb close to a security checkpoint leading to the heavily fortified Green Zone blew out the windows of the nearby foreign ministry, sending shards of glass through busy offices, killing dozens of people.
"The windows of the foreign ministry shattered, slaughtering the people inside. I could see ministry workers, journalists and security guards among the dead," said a distraught ministry employee who gave her name as Asia.
SECURITY REVIEW
The explosion was powerful enough to shatter some windows of Iraq's parliament building in the Green Zone. The attacks could undermine confidence in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki before the parliamentary election.
In a statement, Maliki called for a review of security plans, but added that the attacks were aimed at "raising doubts about our armed forces, which have proven themselves very capable of confronting terrorists".
Analysts and members of the public disagreed.
"They are meant to convey a message to Iraqis and the world that insurgents are still there and can block the political process," said analyst Hameed Fadhel of Baghdad University.
"Today's attacks reveal a major deficiency and weakness of the security forces. They were organised and huge," he added.
Normally busy Baghdad streets emptied, and the few people still outside poured scorn on Iraq's security forces.
"I don't think this is the work of terrorists, I think this is settling of scores by political groups ... Iraqi forces are only capable of doing routine things, without efficiency," said traffic policeman Louay Mohammed.
Labourer Haythem Adil said: "The security forces don't provide security, they just cause traffic."
No group claimed responsibility, but Moussawi said two members of al Qaeda were arrested when another car bomb was intercepted. Iraqi television later showed a truck loaded with water tankers stuffed with explosives that had been disarmed.
It was unclear if it was the same vehicle in the arrest.
Sunni Islamist groups like al Qaeda consider Shi'ites heretics, and have been blamed for a series of blasts in the last two months at mostly Shi'ite venues such as mosques both in the capital and in northern Iraq.
POWERFUL BLAST
Another truck bomb in Baghdad's Waziriya district near the finance ministry killed at least 28 people and caused widespread destruction, police said. Part of a raised highway near the building collapsed, a Reuters witness said.
"Suddenly a powerful blast shook the building and glass flew ... Most employees were wounded by the flying glass and others, including myself, suffered concussion ... I awoke with blood all over my face," said ministry worker Batoul al-Amri.
Iraqi lawmakers and other officials have accused neighbouring states of fomenting violence in Iraq, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria. Analysts say that could be a ploy to distract attention from domestic disputes and failings.
Another explosion was close enough to Reuters' offices in central Baghdad's Karrada district to burst open windows and doors. Columns of smoke could be seen rising from several sites.
The Baghdad provincial government building came under mortar attack, police said, as did the Salhiya district in central Baghdad, home to army bases and a television station.
At least one suspected mortar landed near the United Nations compound in the Green Zone, startling U.N. workers marking the sixth anniversary of the destruction of their previous Baghdad headquarters by a truck bomb which killed envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and other staff, U.N. guards said.
The U.S. military said it had no reports of mortar fire.
In Bayaa, in southern Baghdad, a blast killed two people. (Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed, Khalid al-Ansary and Reuters Television; writing by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Charles Dick)
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2 Blasts Expose Security Flaws in Heart of Iraq
Khalid Mohammed/Associated Press
Truck bombs detonated at the Foreign Ministry and the Finance Ministry left at least 95 dead and nearly 600 wounded.
By SAM DAGHER
Published: August 19, 2009
BAGHDAD — Insurgents struck at the heart of the Iraqi government on Wednesday in two huge and deadly bombings that exposed a new vulnerability after Americans ceded control for security here on June 30. Nearby American soldiers stood by helplessly — despite the needs of hundreds of wounded lying among the dead — waiting for a request for assistance from Iraqi officials that apparently never came.
“As much as we want to come, we have to wait to be asked now,” said an American officer who arrived at one site almost three hours after the blast and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters. At one blast site, American soldiers snapped pictures of the devastation before ducking out of the streets.
After weeks of escalating violence in Iraq, the powerful truck bombs on Wednesday killed at least 95 people and wounded nearly 600 at and around the Foreign and Finance Ministries in central Baghdad, assaults on symbols of government that lent an air of siege to the capital. The bombs crippled the downtown area, closed highways and two main bridges over the Tigris River, and clogged hospitals with the wounded.
The bombings, the worst since American forces handed over security responsibilities for cities to Iraq at the end of June, shook the Iraqi government’s confidence that it was ready and able to secure the nation.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki called for a reassessment of his security measures, calling the attacks “a vengeful response” to his recent, optimistic order to remove blast walls from the streets of Baghdad.
A Defense Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Mohammad al-Askari, was quoted by Reuters as telling American and Iraqi military officers: “We must face the facts. We must admit our mistakes, just as we celebrate our victories.”
And Baghdad’s security spokesman, Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, told the state-owned television station Iraqiya, according to Reuters, that attacks were “a security breach for which Iraqi forces must take most of the blame.” He said a number of security force officials were detained pending an investigation.
A senior Shiite politician went on Iraqiya to call on Mr. Maliki to fire the security and intelligence officials responsible for the areas that were attacked.
“We must punish those who made mistakes,” said the politician, Hadi al-Ameri.
The explosions, one close to the heavily fortified Green Zone and the other less than three miles away, sent plumes of smoke billowing over the capital, ripped a gaping hole in a compound wall and set cars ablaze, trapping drivers inside.
“The whole thing is just so disgusting,” the United States ambassador, Christopher R. Hill, said as he read reports from his staff about the extent of the damage while on an official visit to the northern city of Kirkuk. “They’re just psychopathic.”
Around 11 a.m., the two truck bombs struck the Finance Ministry and the Foreign Ministry within three minutes, officials said, sending heavy smoke into the sky. The first blast, near the Finance Ministry, killed at least 35 people, collapsed a main elevated highway nearby and left rubble littered with shrapnel and blood. The second, more powerful blast near the Foreign Ministry killed at least 60 people, shattered windows inside the Green Zone and shook houses throughout Baghdad.
At roughly the same time, attacks in other parts of the city, including three roadside bombings and some mortar and rocket fire, left 17 people wounded, Iraqi officials said.
Though no one claimed responsibility for the attacks, Iraqis doled out blame both to their government and to the United States for coming to Iraq in the first place.
“This country is finished,”“It’s just robbery and killing.” He cursed the United States and former President George W. Bush.said one resident, Jamil Jaber, 45, whose five-room home behind the Foreign Ministry had been flattened, crushing his 4-month-old grandson.
Since the beginning of July, bombings in northern Iraq — for which officials blamed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and an affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq— have killed at least 140 people. The attacks on Wednesday might have been a signal from these groups that they could also assault the capital.
In the attack at the Foreign Ministry, a suicide bomber stopped his truck beside the ministry compound wall, just off a busy intersection. The driver then detonated what was estimated to be two tons of explosives.
The blast left a crater 30 feet deep and 60 feet wide, and it set fire to cars and other vehicles clogging the road, trapping occupants in the inferno.
The blast shattered the front wall of the 10-story main ministry building. One body was burning in a car while a big slab of concrete from the front wall crushed to death the four people in another vehicle. Bodies were lined up on the sidewalk and covered with blankets, scraps of cardboard, even tree branches.
“This is our misery, and this is our flesh,”an Iraqi screamed.
Many people were injured at an apartment building opposite the ministry compound. A woman on the sixth floor had been slashed by a ceiling fan that fell on her in the chaos, said Tariq Qader, 35, who said he rescued her.
Another resident, Munthir al-Jaafar, walked from one of the apartments with blood streaming down his face and body from a wound in his head.
Frantic women wailed and slapped their faces as they searched for loved ones.
“We heard a huge explosion at 11 a.m., and suddenly we started to hear voices of employees screaming in pain,” a top official in the Finance Ministry said in a telephone interview after the blast there. “The whole ministry was destroyed.”
The attacks, in the heart of the capital and against crucial ministries, one led by a Kurd and another by a Shiite, appeared to carry a number of messages.
They happened two days after the commander of the United States military in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, said American forces would be deployed along with Iraqi forces and Kurdish pesh merga troops in northern Iraq to prevent Qaeda-linked militants from exploiting friction between Arabs and Kurds.
The attacks came one day after a state visit by Mr. Maliki to neighboring Syria, where he was believed to have urged that more be done to stop the flow of militants through its borders and to halt the activities of Saddam Hussein loyalists based there.
Reporting was contributed by Mohammed Hussein, Anwar J. Ali, Riyadh Mohammed and Abeer Mohammed from Baghdad, and Rod Nordland from Kirkuk, Iraq.
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Syria's Assad slams Iraq over "immoral" charges
31 Aug 2009 11:45:18 GMT
Source: Reuters
DAMASCUS, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Monday described as "immoral" Iraq's accusation that Damascus was responsible for attacks inside its territory and again asked Baghdad to produce evidence.
His remarks were the latest salvo in an escalating war of words between the two neighbours since Iraqi officials accused Syria of complicity in a spike of militant attacks in Iraq.
"When Syria is accused of killing Iraqis, while it is housing around 1.2 million Iraqis ... this is considered an immoral accusation," Assad told a joint news conference with visiting Cypriot President Demetris Christofias in Damascus.
"When Syria is accused of supporting terrorism, while it has been fighting it for decades ... this is a political accusation that follows no political logic. And when it is accused of terrorism without proof, it is outside any legal logic."
Iraq and Syria recalled their ambassadors last week after Baghdad demanded that Damascus hand over two alleged masterminds of bombings in Baghdad that killed almost 100 people, mainly at two government ministries.
On Sunday, Iraq aired a confession from a suspected al Qaeda militant who accused Syrian intelligence agents of training foreign fighters like himself in a camp before sending them to fight in Iraq.
Assad said Syria was still waiting for Iraq to send a delegation with documented evidence of the charges.
Iran has called for talks among Iraq and its neighbours in the wake of the accusations, aned Turkey's foreign minister was to visit Iraq and Syria on Monday to try to soothe relations between the two.
Iraq's Shi'ite-led government has blamed supporters of Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party for massive truck bombs and other attacks in August, and says it has already captured some suspects.
Syria and Iraq, ruled by rival wings of the Baath party, were at odds for years after Saddam came to power in 1979, but ties improved and trade surged in the late 1990s.
Tensions resurfaced after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with the U.S. and Iraqi governments accusing Syria of sheltering Saddam loyalists and letting Sunni insurgents stream into Iraq. (Writing by Nadim Ladki; editing by Andrew Roche)
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