23 Mar 2009 16:48:10 GMT
Source: Reuters
BAGHDAD, March 23 (Reuters) - The death toll from a suicide bomb attack on a funeral in northeastern Iraq's volatile Diyala province on Monday rose to 25 killed and 45 wounded, police said.
They said news of casualty numbers from the bombing of the densely packed crowd were still coming in and the toll would most likely rise.
-----------
Mar 23, 1:47 PM EDT
Bomber kills 15 at Kurdish funeral tent in Iraq
By KIM GAMEL
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/Hadi Mizban
Bomber kills 15 at Kurdish funeral tent in Iraq
BAGHDAD (AP) -- A suicide bomber struck a Kurdish funeral tent northeast of Baghdad Monday, officials said, in the deadliest of a series of attacks that killed 24 people nationwide.
One of the victims said the funeral gathering was targeted because of the close alliance the Kurds have had with the United States.
The violence came as Turkey's president made the first visit to Iraq by a Turkish head of state in more than 30 years.
The bomber detonated his explosives inside the tent as a funeral was being held for the father of a local Kurdish politician, killing at least 15 people and wounding 30 in Jalula, according to Col. Azad Issa, the director of a nearby police station. Local Kurdish official Salahuddin Kekh confirmed the attack and casualty toll.
A man who identified himself by his nickname, Abu Holman, said he was outside the tent when the blast occurred. He blamed al-Qaida in Iraq, which typically stages suicide bombings.
"Al-Qaida is targeting the Kurds because it believes that we are involved in the political process and collaborating with the Americans. There are still many al-Qaida hotbeds in our area," Abu Holman said from his hospital bed.
The blast occurred hours after Iraqi police said eight people were killed and 10 wounded by a bomb west of the capital. Another suicide bomber struck a popular market in the northern city of Tal Afar, killing a policeman and wounding eight other people, according to police.
A spate of bombings in recent weeks has raised fears that insurgents may be escalating operations as the U.S. phases out its combat role in Iraq and prepares to withdraw troops from cities by the end of June.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul urged the leadership in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region to crack down on Kurdish rebels that use bases on their territory to launch cross-border attacks into Turkey.
Turkey has staged several cross border airstrikes against rebel targets and is pressing Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government to step up efforts against the Kurdish rebels from their side.
The rebels have been fighting for autonomy in Turkey's southeast since 1984. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people.
"The time has come to remove the element that is a source of trouble," he said during a joint news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd.
"We need to engage in a joint struggle to completely eradicate terrorism," he said. "A comprehensive cooperation is required. There is no doubt that a greater part befalls on the (region) where the terrorist organization's leadership and camps are based."
Talabani said the removal of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, was in Iraq's interest as well and called on the rebels to lay down their arms.
"Either they will lay down arms, or they will leave our territory," he said.
Gul was welcomed at Baghdad International Airport by Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, and planned to meet later in his visit with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as well as Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani.
Tensions escalated last year after the rebels killed about two dozen Turkish soldiers in attacks last October.
The concerns place the United States in an awkward position with its NATO partner Turkey due to the U.S. position in Iraq.
Turkey refused to allow American troops to cross the Turkish border into Iraq during the March 2003 invasion, forcing the U.S. to rely on a single route of attack from Kuwait to the south.
But Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan has said he would be receptive to allowing U.S. troops to leave Iraq through Turkish territory if President Barack Obama's administration asks permission, CNN reported Sunday.
U.S. officials have said they may need to ask permission from Turkey and Jordan to use their territory to move out the force, currently at about 140,000.
Iraq, meanwhile, wants Turkey to allow more water to flow through dams along the Tigris River, one of the main lifelines for this largely desert Arab country.
The last Turkish president to visit Iraq was Fahri Koruturk in 1976.
The blast in Jalula, 80 miles (125 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad, was the latest to strike the city, which has a volatile mix of Sunni Arabs and Kurds in an area that has seen tensions rise over Kurdish territorial ambitions.
A suicide attack against police recruits in the city killed 25 people on Aug. 26.
Hours earlier, the Iraqi military said a bombing killed eight people and wounded 10 in the second fatal blast in the Abu Ghraib area in less than two weeks. A suicide attacker killed 33 people in Abu Ghraib on March 10.
The explosives were hidden in a pile of garbage at a bus terminal surrounded by shops and houses in the Nasir and Salaam area, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of Abu Ghraib, according to local police.
The U.S. military said a second bomb was found nearby but was detonated without incident.
Also Monday, dozens of Shiite women clad in black rallied in a central Baghdad square to demand the release of detained loved ones who have been in custody for years without charge.
The rally, organized by anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's office, comes as the U.S. military has begun complying with a security pact that requires them to release or hand over detainees to Iraqi custody.
---
Associated Press Writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Yahya Barzanji in Sulaimaniyah and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Nahjul Balagha SERMON 201
In His name
What Amir al-mu'minin said on the occasion of the burial of Sayyidatu'n- nisa' (Supreme lady) Fatimah (p.b.u.h.) while addressing the Holy Prophet at his grave.
O' Prophet of Allah, peace be upon you from me and from your daughter who has come to you and who has hastened to meet you. O' Prophet of Allah, my patience about your chosen (daughter) has been exhausted, and my power of endurance has weakened, except that I have ground for consolation in having endured the great hardship and heart-rending event of your separation. I laid you down in your grave when your last breath had passed (when your head was) between my neck and chest.
... Verily we are Allah's and verily unto Him shall we return. (Qur'an 2:156)
Now. the trust has been returned and what had been given has been taken back. As to my grief, it knows no bounds, and as to my nights. they will remain sleepless till Allah chooses for me the house in which you are now residing.
Certainly, your daughter would apprise you of the joining together of your (1) ummah (people) for oppressing her. You ask her in detail and get all the news about the position. This has happened when a long time had not elapsed and your remembrance had not disappeared. My salam (salutation) be on you both, the salam of a grief stricken not a disgusted or hateful person; for if I go away it is not because I am weary (of you), and if I stay it is not due to lack of belief in what Allah has promised the endurers.
(1). The treatment meted out to the daughter of the Prophet after his death was extremely painful and sad. Although Sayyidatu'n- nisa' Fatimah (p.b.u.h.) did not live in this world more than a few months after the death of the Prophet yet even this short period has a long tale of grief and woe (about her). In this connection, the first scene that strikes the eyes is that arrangements for the funeral rites of the Prophet had not yet been made when the contest for power started in the Saqifah of Banu Sa`idah. Naturally, their leaving the body of the Prophet (without burial) must have injured Sayyidatu'n- nisa' Fatimah's grief-stricken heart when she saw that those who had claimed love and attachment (with the Prophet) during his life became so engrossed in their machinations for power that instead of consoling his only daughter they did not even know when the Prophet was given a funeral ablution and when he was buried, and the way they condoled her was that they crowded at her house with material to set fire to it and tried to secure allegiance by force with all the display of oppression, compulsion and violence. All these excesses were with a view to so obliterate the prestigious position of this house that it might not regain its lost prestige on any occasion. With this aim in view, in order to crush her economic position, her claim for (the estate of) Fadak was turned down by dubbing it as false, the effect of which was that Sayyidatu'n- nisa' Fatimah (p.b.u.h.) made the dying will that none of them should attend her funeral
Iraq fired 62,000 accused of corruption: minister
Sun Mar 22, 4:44 pm ET
Iraq fired 62,000 accused of corruption: minister AFP/Getty Images/File – Iraq has fired 62,000 employees accused of corruption and is dismantling sectarianism among its police …
CHICAGO (AFP) – Iraq has fired 62,000 employees accused of corruption and is dismantling sectarianism among its police -- signs that it has turned a corner en route to eventual self-rule, Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani wrote in a US newspaper Sunday.
He wrote in the Chicago Tribune newspaper that the firings occurred within his Interior ministry, which employs a half-million workers.
"We've tackled corruption by firing 62,000 employees and begun to dismantle sectarianism by prohibiting all political activity by police officers and creating a force made up of all Iraqis, Shiite, Sunni and Kurd," Bolani wrote in his opinion piece in The Tribune.
"It is my hope that again the ministry will be a mirror of Iraq, only this time for a country united and at peace."
Bolani wrote that the Iraqi police service, the national police, the border patrol and other law enforcement agencies "continue to swell with new recruits, eager to maintain the stability necessary for Iraq to succeed."
He said the inroads in security mark a dramatic turnaround from the years after Saddam Hussein was deposed by US troops.
"During the first few years after Saddam Hussein's regime fell, Iraq was an unmitigated disaster. Corruption, sectarian conflict, agitation from outside forces and general mismanagement were pervasive, preventing us from rebuilding our infrastructure and returning a sense of normalcy to the country," the minister wrote.
But he said Iraq has succeeded in turning a corner in maintaining law and order. "We now have a chance to be the first workable Arab democracy," Bolani wrote.
"Challenges remain, of course, as we continue to combat militia infiltration and the death rattle of the insurgents, but momentum is on our side."
Iraq fired 62,000 accused of corruption: minister AFP/Getty Images/File – Iraq has fired 62,000 employees accused of corruption and is dismantling sectarianism among its police …
CHICAGO (AFP) – Iraq has fired 62,000 employees accused of corruption and is dismantling sectarianism among its police -- signs that it has turned a corner en route to eventual self-rule, Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani wrote in a US newspaper Sunday.
He wrote in the Chicago Tribune newspaper that the firings occurred within his Interior ministry, which employs a half-million workers.
"We've tackled corruption by firing 62,000 employees and begun to dismantle sectarianism by prohibiting all political activity by police officers and creating a force made up of all Iraqis, Shiite, Sunni and Kurd," Bolani wrote in his opinion piece in The Tribune.
"It is my hope that again the ministry will be a mirror of Iraq, only this time for a country united and at peace."
Bolani wrote that the Iraqi police service, the national police, the border patrol and other law enforcement agencies "continue to swell with new recruits, eager to maintain the stability necessary for Iraq to succeed."
He said the inroads in security mark a dramatic turnaround from the years after Saddam Hussein was deposed by US troops.
"During the first few years after Saddam Hussein's regime fell, Iraq was an unmitigated disaster. Corruption, sectarian conflict, agitation from outside forces and general mismanagement were pervasive, preventing us from rebuilding our infrastructure and returning a sense of normalcy to the country," the minister wrote.
But he said Iraq has succeeded in turning a corner in maintaining law and order. "We now have a chance to be the first workable Arab democracy," Bolani wrote.
"Challenges remain, of course, as we continue to combat militia infiltration and the death rattle of the insurgents, but momentum is on our side."
Sunday, March 22, 2009
In Iraq, Chaos Feared as U.S. Closes Prison
Ex-Inmates Reanimate Sunni, Shiite Militias
Gallery
Hundreds Released From Camp Bucca
The release of hundreds of prisoners from Camp Bucca, a U.S.-run prison in southern Iraq, has facilitated the revival of Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents in Basra, Baghdad.
washingtonpost.com readers have posted 40 comments about this item.
View All Comments »
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 22, 2009; Page A01
GARMA, Iraq -- The release of hundreds of prisoners from Camp Bucca, a U.S.-run prison in southern Iraq, has facilitated the revival of Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents in Basra, Baghdad and the borderless expanse here along the Euphrates, according to police chiefs, intelligence officials in the Interior Ministry and residents.
Although none of them predicted a return to the anarchy and sectarian carnage of 2006-2007, when scores of bodies might show up in the street on any day, officials suggested that the groups were preparing for the onset of a U.S. military withdrawal.
Their warnings make for an irony at the beginning of the end of the American presence here. As the United States dismantles Bucca, viewed by many as an appalling miscarriage of justice where prisoners were not charged or permitted to see evidence against them, freed detainees may end up swelling the ranks of a subdued insurgency.
In hardscrabble Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, some former inmates of Bucca speak of revenge. Others talk of their own conversion there: as prisoners, giving their support to militiamen loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, an anti-American cleric whose forces were routed in Baghdad and Basra last year. A sense of uncertainty reigns in the forlorn stretches around Garma, a wind-swept town as parched as it is lawless, as Sunni residents brace for the return of dozens of fighters and such men as Col. Saad Abbas Mahmoud, the police chief here, openly admit to being overwhelmed by their influx.
"These men weren't planting flowers in a garden. They weren't strolling down the street," said Mahmoud, known as Abu Quteiba to his lieutenants, who snap their heels as they enter. "This problem is both big and dangerous. And regrettably, the Iraqi government and the authorities don't know how big the problem has become."
ad_icon
Since leading the invasion of Iraq and overthrowing Saddam Hussein in April 2003, the United States has detained about 100,000 people in the country. At the height of the U.S. troop buildup, or "surge," 26,000 of those prisoners were incarcerated in Bucca, a sprawling camp near the Kuwaiti border in southern Iraq. That number has fallen to 9,600. In all, since Jan. 1, the military has released nearly 2,000 prisoners, and it plans to close the facility by summer.
In a joyous ceremony Thursday in Baghdad, 106 more prisoners were set free, escorted to the Umm al-Qura mosque, once a hotbed of opposition to the U.S. occupation. Families sobbed, shouted and ululated-(To howl, wail, or lament loudly.), as detainees grasped identity papers.
"Most of the prisoners are innocent, just like my son," said Saad Nema, gripping the hand of his 26-year-old son, Raed, who was held for 18 months. "I cried today in happiness."
Not as innocent was Mohammed Ali Mourad, whom Col. Daoud Hammoud, the deputy police chief in Fallujah, described as the driver of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the leader of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed in June 2006.
Mourad was detained after leaving Bucca, but a judge freed him, and he is believed to be running a cell in Baghdad with former prisoners. Hammoud blamed him for an attack Dec. 4 that sent two bomb-laden trucks against a police station, killing 15.
"We have information that he and his cell are behind it," said Hammoud, a former police officer under Hussein who works in a compound littered with the carcasses of BMWs, Toyotas, Opals and a Chevrolet that were deployed as car bombs.
Hammoud put the number at hundreds returning to the region around Fallujah, once the cradle of the insurgency. He estimated that they tried to arrest 10 percent of those freed and acknowledged that it takes no more than a handful of fighters to sow strife.
--
"Of course they represent a threat," he said.
A senior intelligence official at the Interior Ministry said the number was far higher and the problem more expansive. He said the "special groups" organized within Sadr's militia but believed to wield autonomy were reorganizing in Basra and, to a lesser extent, Baghdad. Perhaps more dramatic, he said, were the efforts of Sunni insurgents under the umbrella of al-Qaeda to reconstitute themselves in southern and western neighborhoods of the capital and then farther west toward Garma.
He suggested that 60 percent of detainees freed in those areas were returning to the fight. Mahmoud, the colonel in Garma, put the number in his region at 90 percent.
Holding forth behind barricades of sand-filled receptacles, Mahmoud, the Garma police chief, is a marked man. Twenty-five, he said, nodding his head, as he finished counting. That was the number of attempts on his life. The most recent were perhaps the most creative: He was delivered a Koran rigged with explosives buried in the pages between its green covers, then, less than two weeks later, his dish of dulaymiya, a mix of chicken, lamb, a slab of fat and rice, was poisoned, sending him to the hospital for 10 days. When he got out, two bombs detonated near his house in Fallujah.
"Thank God, no one was hurt," he said.
One of his brothers was kidnapped. The other was killed by a bomb last year.
"We couldn't gather together even a kilogram of his flesh," Mahmoud said.
He opened his briefcase to pull out pictures of the severed head of one suicide bomber, his eyes still open, and the disemboweled body of another.
Mahmoud oversees 3,000 men in the Sahwa, Arabic for Awakening, a U.S.-backed tribal gathering sometimes called the Sons of Iraq that helped defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq in Sunni regions. But, he said, the salary of each is only $130 a month, "not enough for cigarettes," and even then, they haven't been paid in three months. Other security forces in the region number just 500, and he said 50 percent of them had deserted.
At the same time, detainees are coming back from Bucca, Mahmoud said. His men have arrested 70 former prisoners since provincial elections Jan. 31, some of whom had turned their attention to trying to bring disgruntled Sahwa fighters back to their side.
"Please return to your faith, and we will receive you in our hearts, with open hands," read one leaflet signed by the Awakening of Muslim Youth and found in Garma. "If you don't, we will bring to you men who love death in the same way you love life."
--
One of those Mahmoud's men arrested was Salah Khdeir.
He spent seven months in Bucca after soldiers discovered four mines tucked in his truck. He returned to the prison in 2008 after he was caught burying bombs destined for a U.S. patrol. He was released this month. Five days later, he was arrested again, after a roadside bomb that police say resembled his handiwork detonated near Garma.
Innocent, Khdeir declared at the police station, shaking his head.
"I'm a peaceful man," the gaunt 22-year-old added.
"He's an expert at planting bombs," Mahmoud answered.
After Khdeir left, Mahmoud handed out a letter he said Khdeir had sent his brother.
"If you think I abandoned the jihad, I say that I have paid homage to God and with his will, I will do everything," he wrote in childish Arabic, the script barely legible.
He had signed the letter, "Salah, the roadside bomb."
There remains a clarity in Garma and parts of Baghdad among former prisoners, many of them detained at a time when the U.S. presence was undeniably an occupation and the insurgency against the Americans enjoyed popular support. For some of them, the question is not whether they want revenge but rather how cold it will be served.
In the Shiite neighborhood of al-Ameen, where Sadr's Mahdi Army still holds sway, Anwar Abbas has an unsettled score with the policeman who captured him.
"I want to kill him," he declared. "No compensation from him would be enough otherwise. He's not an Iraqi. What do I mean? He's a spy, and no one accepts a spy."
------
At first, he denied being a fighter. Kadhim Saadi, a visiting Sadr leader, winked as he did. Confidence renewed, Abbas then spoke with the force of a convert.
"If I had to choose between sacrificing my father and the Sadr trend, I'd sacrifice my father," he said. "I told my wife that I would sacrifice her and my children."
U.S. officials were long worried about Bucca effectively becoming a school for insurgents and tried to take steps to combat it. But in Abbas's section, he said, Sadr supporters were in charge. Saadi, the cleric, taught classes in jurisprudence, Arabic, Koranic recitation and even literacy.
One of the students was Saif Tuama, who had a brush with fame in July 2004 when his photo appeared in Time magazine. "Taking Back the Streets," the article read. Tuama was pictured at the forefront of a group of policemen on patrol.
Two years later, he was arrested when a friend of a friend visiting him was picked up in a raid on his house by U.S. and Iraqi forces. He ended up in Bucca for 19 months.
Pudgy, with a goatee, hints of gray over his ears, he recalled the good will of Sadr supporters in prison. When he was sick, they washed his clothes and brought him food. He studied two hours a day in the classes with Saadi.
Twenty of his friends in Bucca, he said, felt the same way.
"They keep telling you, 'You're with Sadr, you're with Sadr.' Fine, when I get out, I'm going to go ahead and join Sadr," Tuama said.
Special correspondent Zaid Sabah contributed to this report.
Abbas was released last week, after nearly two years in Bucca. His older son, 3-year-old Moqtada, didn't recognize him. "He keeps asking his mother who I am." His younger son, Muntadar, was born while he was in prison.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/gallery/090321/GAL-09Mar21-1762/captions.xml
Gallery
Hundreds Released From Camp Bucca
The release of hundreds of prisoners from Camp Bucca, a U.S.-run prison in southern Iraq, has facilitated the revival of Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents in Basra, Baghdad.
washingtonpost.com readers have posted 40 comments about this item.
View All Comments »
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 22, 2009; Page A01
GARMA, Iraq -- The release of hundreds of prisoners from Camp Bucca, a U.S.-run prison in southern Iraq, has facilitated the revival of Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents in Basra, Baghdad and the borderless expanse here along the Euphrates, according to police chiefs, intelligence officials in the Interior Ministry and residents.
Although none of them predicted a return to the anarchy and sectarian carnage of 2006-2007, when scores of bodies might show up in the street on any day, officials suggested that the groups were preparing for the onset of a U.S. military withdrawal.
Their warnings make for an irony at the beginning of the end of the American presence here. As the United States dismantles Bucca, viewed by many as an appalling miscarriage of justice where prisoners were not charged or permitted to see evidence against them, freed detainees may end up swelling the ranks of a subdued insurgency.
In hardscrabble Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, some former inmates of Bucca speak of revenge. Others talk of their own conversion there: as prisoners, giving their support to militiamen loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, an anti-American cleric whose forces were routed in Baghdad and Basra last year. A sense of uncertainty reigns in the forlorn stretches around Garma, a wind-swept town as parched as it is lawless, as Sunni residents brace for the return of dozens of fighters and such men as Col. Saad Abbas Mahmoud, the police chief here, openly admit to being overwhelmed by their influx.
"These men weren't planting flowers in a garden. They weren't strolling down the street," said Mahmoud, known as Abu Quteiba to his lieutenants, who snap their heels as they enter. "This problem is both big and dangerous. And regrettably, the Iraqi government and the authorities don't know how big the problem has become."
ad_icon
Since leading the invasion of Iraq and overthrowing Saddam Hussein in April 2003, the United States has detained about 100,000 people in the country. At the height of the U.S. troop buildup, or "surge," 26,000 of those prisoners were incarcerated in Bucca, a sprawling camp near the Kuwaiti border in southern Iraq. That number has fallen to 9,600. In all, since Jan. 1, the military has released nearly 2,000 prisoners, and it plans to close the facility by summer.
In a joyous ceremony Thursday in Baghdad, 106 more prisoners were set free, escorted to the Umm al-Qura mosque, once a hotbed of opposition to the U.S. occupation. Families sobbed, shouted and ululated-(To howl, wail, or lament loudly.), as detainees grasped identity papers.
"Most of the prisoners are innocent, just like my son," said Saad Nema, gripping the hand of his 26-year-old son, Raed, who was held for 18 months. "I cried today in happiness."
Not as innocent was Mohammed Ali Mourad, whom Col. Daoud Hammoud, the deputy police chief in Fallujah, described as the driver of Abu Musab Zarqawi, the leader of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed in June 2006.
Mourad was detained after leaving Bucca, but a judge freed him, and he is believed to be running a cell in Baghdad with former prisoners. Hammoud blamed him for an attack Dec. 4 that sent two bomb-laden trucks against a police station, killing 15.
"We have information that he and his cell are behind it," said Hammoud, a former police officer under Hussein who works in a compound littered with the carcasses of BMWs, Toyotas, Opals and a Chevrolet that were deployed as car bombs.
Hammoud put the number at hundreds returning to the region around Fallujah, once the cradle of the insurgency. He estimated that they tried to arrest 10 percent of those freed and acknowledged that it takes no more than a handful of fighters to sow strife.
--
"Of course they represent a threat," he said.
A senior intelligence official at the Interior Ministry said the number was far higher and the problem more expansive. He said the "special groups" organized within Sadr's militia but believed to wield autonomy were reorganizing in Basra and, to a lesser extent, Baghdad. Perhaps more dramatic, he said, were the efforts of Sunni insurgents under the umbrella of al-Qaeda to reconstitute themselves in southern and western neighborhoods of the capital and then farther west toward Garma.
"These regions are becoming a danger to the government," he said. "Al-Qaeda is preparing itself for the departure of the Americans. And they want to stage a revolution."
He suggested that 60 percent of detainees freed in those areas were returning to the fight. Mahmoud, the colonel in Garma, put the number in his region at 90 percent.
Holding forth behind barricades of sand-filled receptacles, Mahmoud, the Garma police chief, is a marked man. Twenty-five, he said, nodding his head, as he finished counting. That was the number of attempts on his life. The most recent were perhaps the most creative: He was delivered a Koran rigged with explosives buried in the pages between its green covers, then, less than two weeks later, his dish of dulaymiya, a mix of chicken, lamb, a slab of fat and rice, was poisoned, sending him to the hospital for 10 days. When he got out, two bombs detonated near his house in Fallujah.
"Thank God, no one was hurt," he said.
One of his brothers was kidnapped. The other was killed by a bomb last year.
"We couldn't gather together even a kilogram of his flesh," Mahmoud said.
He opened his briefcase to pull out pictures of the severed head of one suicide bomber, his eyes still open, and the disemboweled body of another.
Mahmoud oversees 3,000 men in the Sahwa, Arabic for Awakening, a U.S.-backed tribal gathering sometimes called the Sons of Iraq that helped defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq in Sunni regions. But, he said, the salary of each is only $130 a month, "not enough for cigarettes," and even then, they haven't been paid in three months. Other security forces in the region number just 500, and he said 50 percent of them had deserted.
At the same time, detainees are coming back from Bucca, Mahmoud said. His men have arrested 70 former prisoners since provincial elections Jan. 31, some of whom had turned their attention to trying to bring disgruntled Sahwa fighters back to their side.
"Please return to your faith, and we will receive you in our hearts, with open hands," read one leaflet signed by the Awakening of Muslim Youth and found in Garma. "If you don't, we will bring to you men who love death in the same way you love life."
--
One of those Mahmoud's men arrested was Salah Khdeir.
He spent seven months in Bucca after soldiers discovered four mines tucked in his truck. He returned to the prison in 2008 after he was caught burying bombs destined for a U.S. patrol. He was released this month. Five days later, he was arrested again, after a roadside bomb that police say resembled his handiwork detonated near Garma.
Innocent, Khdeir declared at the police station, shaking his head.
"I'm a peaceful man," the gaunt 22-year-old added.
"He's an expert at planting bombs," Mahmoud answered.
After Khdeir left, Mahmoud handed out a letter he said Khdeir had sent his brother.
"If you think I abandoned the jihad, I say that I have paid homage to God and with his will, I will do everything," he wrote in childish Arabic, the script barely legible.
He had signed the letter, "Salah, the roadside bomb."
There remains a clarity in Garma and parts of Baghdad among former prisoners, many of them detained at a time when the U.S. presence was undeniably an occupation and the insurgency against the Americans enjoyed popular support. For some of them, the question is not whether they want revenge but rather how cold it will be served.
In the Shiite neighborhood of al-Ameen, where Sadr's Mahdi Army still holds sway, Anwar Abbas has an unsettled score with the policeman who captured him.
"I want to kill him," he declared. "No compensation from him would be enough otherwise. He's not an Iraqi. What do I mean? He's a spy, and no one accepts a spy."
------
At first, he denied being a fighter. Kadhim Saadi, a visiting Sadr leader, winked as he did. Confidence renewed, Abbas then spoke with the force of a convert.
"If I had to choose between sacrificing my father and the Sadr trend, I'd sacrifice my father," he said. "I told my wife that I would sacrifice her and my children."
"The fight hasn't ended," Abbas said. "This is a temporary truce."
U.S. officials were long worried about Bucca effectively becoming a school for insurgents and tried to take steps to combat it. But in Abbas's section, he said, Sadr supporters were in charge. Saadi, the cleric, taught classes in jurisprudence, Arabic, Koranic recitation and even literacy.
Saadi believes he recruited 80 men during his year in Bucca.
"By God's grace, we opened our institute in an American prison," he said.
One of the students was Saif Tuama, who had a brush with fame in July 2004 when his photo appeared in Time magazine. "Taking Back the Streets," the article read. Tuama was pictured at the forefront of a group of policemen on patrol.
Two years later, he was arrested when a friend of a friend visiting him was picked up in a raid on his house by U.S. and Iraqi forces. He ended up in Bucca for 19 months.
Pudgy, with a goatee, hints of gray over his ears, he recalled the good will of Sadr supporters in prison. When he was sick, they washed his clothes and brought him food. He studied two hours a day in the classes with Saadi.
"I wasn't devout before. I didn't pray or fast. I liked girls. I liked to drink. I'm speaking with you honestly," he said. "They taught me to pray and worship God. If they hadn't taught me, I would still be living a wrong life. They're good people, fine men."
Twenty of his friends in Bucca, he said, felt the same way.
"They keep telling you, 'You're with Sadr, you're with Sadr.' Fine, when I get out, I'm going to go ahead and join Sadr," Tuama said.
Special correspondent Zaid Sabah contributed to this report.
Abbas was released last week, after nearly two years in Bucca. His older son, 3-year-old Moqtada, didn't recognize him. "He keeps asking his mother who I am." His younger son, Muntadar, was born while he was in prison.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/gallery/090321/GAL-09Mar21-1762/captions.xml
Saturday, March 21, 2009
'Prophet carpet' goes for $5.5m
The Pearl Carpet of Baroda displayed at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Doha on March 14, 2009.
The Pearl Carpet was created in the late 1860s
A carpet that was commissioned in India 150 years ago to decorate the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina has sold for nearly $5.5m at an auction in Doha.
Bidding was expected to start at about $5m but the starting price was brought down to $4.5m as there were few buyers.
The rug, known as the Pearl Carpet of Baroda, was created using an estimated two million natural seed pearls.
It is decorated with hundreds of precious stones, including diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds.
A gift
"We had to reduce the opening bid to $4.5m and the pearl carpet [eventually] sold at $5.458m," including commission and fees, news agency AFP quoted Sotheby's spokesman Habib Basha as saying.
The identity of the buyer has not been revealed as he wished to remain anonymous, Mr Basha said.
It is believed that the Pearl Carpet of Baroda was commissioned by India's wealthy Maharaja of Baroda, Gaekwar Khande Rao, as a gift to sit at the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad.
The maharaja's death meant it was never delivered and remained in India, being exhibited as a highlight of the Delhi Exhibition more than 100 years ago.
Later, it was taken by a family member to Monaco.
The tiny natural pearls, known as Basra, were harvested from the waters of the Gulf.
Created in the late 1860s, the carpet is largely red and blue, with swirling vines of flowers and three large round rosettes across its centre.
The Pearl Carpet was created in the late 1860s
A carpet that was commissioned in India 150 years ago to decorate the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina has sold for nearly $5.5m at an auction in Doha.
Bidding was expected to start at about $5m but the starting price was brought down to $4.5m as there were few buyers.
The rug, known as the Pearl Carpet of Baroda, was created using an estimated two million natural seed pearls.
It is decorated with hundreds of precious stones, including diamonds, sapphires, rubies and emeralds.
A gift
"We had to reduce the opening bid to $4.5m and the pearl carpet [eventually] sold at $5.458m," including commission and fees, news agency AFP quoted Sotheby's spokesman Habib Basha as saying.
The identity of the buyer has not been revealed as he wished to remain anonymous, Mr Basha said.
It is believed that the Pearl Carpet of Baroda was commissioned by India's wealthy Maharaja of Baroda, Gaekwar Khande Rao, as a gift to sit at the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad.
The maharaja's death meant it was never delivered and remained in India, being exhibited as a highlight of the Delhi Exhibition more than 100 years ago.
Later, it was taken by a family member to Monaco.
The tiny natural pearls, known as Basra, were harvested from the waters of the Gulf.
Created in the late 1860s, the carpet is largely red and blue, with swirling vines of flowers and three large round rosettes across its centre.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Obama makes unprecedented YouTube appeal to Iran offering a 'new beginning'
By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 9:57 AM on 20th March 2009
Last updated at 9:57 AM on 20th March 2009
See Mr Obama's appeal to Iran here
President Barack Obama has issued an unprecedented videotaped appeal to Iran offering a 'new beginning'.
In a dramatic departure from George Bush's policy of isolation towards the country, Mr Obama issued a direct message to the Iranian people, hoping to turn the page on decades of U.S. policy towards the foe.
'My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties,' Mr Obama said in the message.
Barack Obama appeared on Jay Leno's Tonight Show last night, shortly before the video was released
He released it to select Middle East broadcast outlets timed for the Iranian holiday Nowruz, celebrating the arrival of spring - and on YouTube.
The two nations have had no diplomatic ties for 28 years.
Mr Obama's predecessor George Bush famously labelled Iran, along with Syria and North Korea, as part of the 'Axis of Evil'.
Mr Obama went further than he has since taking office on January 20 in extending an olive branch to Tehran, which has been locked in bitter disputes with Washington over Iranian nuclear ambitions and support for militant Islamic groups.
See Mr Obama's appeal to Iran here
The Obama administration has expressed an openness to face-to-face diplomatic contacts with Tehran.
Reaching out directly to Iranian leaders and their people, Mr Obama said: 'This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.'
He said the United States wanted Iran to take its 'rightful place in the community of nations,' but also insisted that Tehran do its part to achieve reconciliation.
'You have that right - but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization,' Mr Obama said.
'The measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create,' he added, alluding to Iran's contested nuclear program and its missile development efforts.
To stress the seriousness of Mr Obama's overture, the White House distributed the videotape with Farsi subtitles and posted it on its website to coincide with Iranian observance of the ancient festival of Nowruz, celebrating the arrival of spring.
'I would like to speak directly to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran,' Mr Obama said in a conciliatory tone that contrasted sharply with Mr Bush's hardline approach. 'We seek the promise of a new beginning.'
Mr Obama's willingness to talk to U.S. enemies like Iran has been welcomed internationally as a departure from what many saw as Mr Bush's go-it-alone 'cowboy diplomacy' epitomized by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Though Mr Obama stopped short of specific offers, he said he was seeking 'a future with renewed exchanges among our people and greater opportunities for partnership and commerce.'
However, he acknowledged, 'This won't be reached easily.'
The United States is at loggerheads with Iran over its nuclear program, which Washington says is aimed at building atomic weapons, while Tehran insists it is for the peaceful generation of electricity.
Mr Obama has also insisted that Iran end support for groups the United States considers terrorist organizations and cease 'bellicose language' toward U.S. ally Israel.
The United States cut off diplomatic ties with Iran during the 1979-1981 hostage crisis, in which a group of militant Iranian students held 52 U.S. diplomats hostage at the American Embassy for 444 days.
Mr Obama has said the United States is prepared to extend a hand of peace to Iran if it 'unclenched its fist.' Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he is open to talks with Washington, but has demanded a fundamental change to U.S. policy in the Middle East.
In what was seen as an initial overture, the Obama administration said recently it would invite Tehran to an international conference on Afghanistan later this month. Iran has said it would consider the invitation.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Top Sunni Arab official assassinated in Baghdad
19 Mar 2009 15:14:44 GMT
Source: Reuters
BAGHDAD, March 19 (Reuters) - Militants killed a senior member of Iraq's main Sunni Arab party, the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), with a bomb planted under his car in Baghdad, the party said on Thursday.
Faysal Abdullah al-Samarai was assassinated as he drove through the predominantly Sunni Arab district of Adhamiya, northern Baghdad, late on Wednesday. He had been attending a celebration of the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad.
Samarai was an IIP deputy for a region covering half of Baghdad.
"The killing of al-Samarai represents an attempt to target Iraq's unity and cohesion. Those who made this assassination want to destroy the goodwill in the hearts of Iraqis," a statement on the IIP's website said.
The motives of those behind the attack are unclear.
At least one al Qaeda-linked Sunni Islamist group in Iraq has called for attacks on moderate Sunni politicians, an apparent attempt to end reconciliation efforts between Iraq's majority Shi'ites, minority Sunnis and other groups.
"There are still some terrorist groups that want to attack moderates to foster chaos. What astonishes us is that these groups are active now at a time that the security forces are supposed to have control," said Salim al-Jubouri, an IIP leader.
Violence in Iraq has fallen to lows rarely seen since mid-2003, but militants still retain the ability to carry out frequent gun and bomb attacks.
On March 10, a suicide bomber killed at least 28 people in an attack on tribal leaders in western Baghdad, the second major attack in the capital in three days.
Politicians are common targets for assassination in Iraq, alongside doctors, academics, police and the military. (Reporting by Waleed Ibrahim; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Charles Dick)
Source: Reuters
BAGHDAD, March 19 (Reuters) - Militants killed a senior member of Iraq's main Sunni Arab party, the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), with a bomb planted under his car in Baghdad, the party said on Thursday.
Faysal Abdullah al-Samarai was assassinated as he drove through the predominantly Sunni Arab district of Adhamiya, northern Baghdad, late on Wednesday. He had been attending a celebration of the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad.
Samarai was an IIP deputy for a region covering half of Baghdad.
"The killing of al-Samarai represents an attempt to target Iraq's unity and cohesion. Those who made this assassination want to destroy the goodwill in the hearts of Iraqis," a statement on the IIP's website said.
The motives of those behind the attack are unclear.
At least one al Qaeda-linked Sunni Islamist group in Iraq has called for attacks on moderate Sunni politicians, an apparent attempt to end reconciliation efforts between Iraq's majority Shi'ites, minority Sunnis and other groups.
"There are still some terrorist groups that want to attack moderates to foster chaos. What astonishes us is that these groups are active now at a time that the security forces are supposed to have control," said Salim al-Jubouri, an IIP leader.
Violence in Iraq has fallen to lows rarely seen since mid-2003, but militants still retain the ability to carry out frequent gun and bomb attacks.
On March 10, a suicide bomber killed at least 28 people in an attack on tribal leaders in western Baghdad, the second major attack in the capital in three days.
Politicians are common targets for assassination in Iraq, alongside doctors, academics, police and the military. (Reporting by Waleed Ibrahim; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Charles Dick)
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