Syria now a magnet for Sunni extremists

Naturally, without an American invasion.

NYT via MSNBC: "The video, posted on YouTube, is one more bit of evidence that Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists are doing their best to hijack the Syrian revolution, with a growing although still limited success that has American intelligence officials publicly concerned, and Iraqi officials next door openly alarmed.

While leaders of the Syrian political and military opposition continue to deny any role for the extremists, Al Qaeda has helped to change the nature of the conflict, injecting the weapon they perfected in Iraq — suicide bombings — into the battle against President Bashar al-Assad with growing frequency.

The evidence is mounting that Syria has become a magnet for Sunni extremists, including those operating under the banner of Al Qaeda. An important border crossing with Turkey that fell into Syrian rebels’ hands last week, Bab al-Hawa, has quickly become a jihadist congregating point."

Corruption in Iraq is visible and disgusting

'The manager of one of the conference hotels said the summit reeked of corruption. The hotel he oversaw had cost more than $20 million to renovate, but there was no way all that money had gone into the project, he said, pointing out the many imperfections. He said his company could've built an 800-room deluxe hotel in Dubai for that price.

"So where did all the money go? In the bellies!" he said with a laugh, patting his midsection for emphasis.

On social media platforms, Iraqi leaders were ripped as tasteless for serving VIP guests a dessert of dates dipped in 24-karat gold in a war-ravaged country where thousands of women were forced to sell off their gold to pay their husbands' and sons' kidnap ransoms.'

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/05/2733854_p2/iraq-unstable-sectarian-with-signs.html#storylink=cpy

Maliki defends Assad, KSA to fund Syrian rebels

'On Sunday, Maliki issued a forceful defense of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, saying his ouster would destabilize the region. On the same day, at a U.S.-backed gathering of “Friends of Syria” in Istanbul, Saudi Arabia endorsed a plan to fund and equip Syrian rebels.'

Only 10 heads of state at Arab League Summit

AP: "In a snub to Iraq, only 10 heads of state from the Arab League's 22 members attended, with the rest sending lower-level officials. Especially notable were the absences of the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and most other Gulf countries, as well Morocco and Jordan — all of them headed by Sunni monarchs who deeply distrust the close ties between Baghdad's Shiite-dominated government and their top regional rival, Iran.

...The Gulf countries also see Iraq as too soft on Syria. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have talked of arming Syria's opposition, apparently eager to bring the fall of Assad and break the Sunni-majority country out of its alliance with Iran."

Iraq is back

Many Iraqis like to think so.

Liz Sly of the WP: "Arab leaders assembled in Baghdad on Thursday for a landmark summit marked by lavish hospitality, speeches hailing Iraq’s return to the Arab fold — and a rocket explosion at the Iranian Embassy on the edge of the fortified Green Zone, where the gathering was taking place.

It was a day full of symbolism for a newly assertive Iraq, anxious to shed its reputation as the region’s outcast, a country too dangerous, too dysfunctional and too tainted by its associations with both Iran and the United States to accomplish anything so ambitious as a summit attended by Arab heads of state."

Invitees of Arab Summit mostly Sunni

'The invitees are almost all Sunni, and though many nations are not sending their heads of state, the fact that all have said they will come is considered a signal of Iraq's reacceptance into the Arab fold after more than two decades of isolation. Only Syria, which was suspended from the Arab League in November because of its government's brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, will not be there.

Arab states "are seeing Iraq rising again. It is showing independence," Zebari said. "And it is not an Iranian-controlled and -occupied country as they thought." '

Mosul is ruled by Al Qaeda

Reuters: 'Baghdad's ministers describe Iraq's crippling infrastructure problems as an opportunity to invest. Occasional explosions are dismissed as the last throes of isolated cells trying to show they are still relevant in a country where the overwhelming majority is committed to peace.

But during a visit of several days in Iraq's third largest city, security officials and residents of Mosul painted a picture far worse than commonly understood from Baghdad.

Far from being furtive and on the run, al Qaeda and its allies maintain a hold over economic and political life that shows little sign of loosening. Residents speak fearfully.

Um Qassim's family of nine are Shi'ites from the small Shabak minority, one of the many ethnic groups that share Iraq's most diverse city. They have had to abandon their home and move into two rooms across town.

"They have displaced all the Shabak from their houses to eastern Mosul. Whoever resists, they kill him or bomb his house," Um Qassim said.

As she began speaking to Reuters, her husband approached, clearly agitated: "Be careful, do not mention your real name," he said. "Keep in your mind that they can reach us anytime."

Shop owners say they are forced to pay protection money to the militants. Security officials say the fighters are raising millions of dollars per month here, which they use to fund bomb attacks across Iraq.

"They keep coming, every three months, to take $300 - $100 per month - always at the same time but not the same person," said a pharmacist, who spoke to Reuters only when his shop was empty and became silent whenever a customer entered.

"They are very organized and very polite. I cannot get rid of them. The pharmacist next door refused to pay. They planted a bomb inside his pharmacy and one of his workers lost his leg."

Many Iraqi Sunna & Shia still distrust each other

A must read in the NYT: 'In places like Al Adel, some Shiite families view the Sunni families who stayed behind as complicit partners of the violent Sunni militants who overran many mixed neighborhoods. But many Sunni families say they now feel like they are being hounded by returning Shiites who, for the first time in centuries, have the force of the government and army at their backs.

...Many Sunni families watched over houses vacated by their Shiite neighbors, but Mr. Majid believes others invited squatters and became the eyes of Sunni militants, passing along information about their Shiite neighbors."

20 bombs exploded at 13 sites in Iraq: 46 killed

LAT: "The targets of the attacks included Shiite Muslim pilgrims, Iraqi police, an army patrol, government officials and guards outside a Christian church in Baghdad."

Iraqi govt is complicit in murders

HRW: “The government has contributed to an atmosphere of fear and panic fostered by acts of violence against emos,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of claiming that the accounts are fabricated, Iraqi authorities need to set up a transparent and independent inquiry to address the crisis.”

So now Iraqi authorities are saying the accounts of murder are fabricated? How sad and embarrassing for Iraqi Shia!

Iraqi activists try to get tough on "honor killings"

On International Women's Day I was reminded that "honor killings" still exist in Iraq. Thanks Haydar for sharing.

'Near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, a father doused his three teenage daughters with boiling water and shot them because, he told a court, he suspected they were having sex. Two died.

He said he killed them to defend his honor.

Murder in Iraq can carry a death sentence but under laws that activists say are far too lenient for so-called “honor killings”, the father was jailed for just two years. Medical examinations showed the girls were virgins.

The light sentence was a result of Article 409 of Iraq’s penal code which is often used in cases of “honor killings” by men. Women’s activists in Iraq, led by the only woman in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s cabinet, Minister of State for Women’s Affairs Ibtihal al-Zaidi, are lobbying to change the law.'

Continue reading

How Israeli leaders justified attack on Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981

'On June 7, 1981, eight Israeli F-16 fighter jets, protected by six F-15 escorts, dropped 16 2,000-pound bombs on the nearly completed Osirak nuclear reactor at the Tuwaitha complex in Iraq. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Defense Minister Ariel Sharon saw the reactor as central to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s quest to build nuclear weapons, and they believed that it posed an existential threat to Israel.

The timing of the strike was justified by intelligence reports suggesting that Osirak would soon become operational. Two days later, Begin explained the raid to the public: “We chose this moment: now, not later, because later may be too late, perhaps forever. And if we stood by idly, two, three years, at the most four years, and Saddam Hussein would have produced his three, four, five bombs . . . another Holocaust would have happened in the history of the Jewish people.” '

Remembering Arab Perspectives on Iraq

On fb last night and this morning I read a comment by an Arab American (half Moroccan, half Italian, presumably living in USA) who said that Iraqis lived better under Saddam. She claimed "Iraqis had electricity and running water and all the basic needs under Saddam. Now I'm not saying I like the guy, but I am pointing out that Iraqis lived better under him. Setting foot in Iraq to "free" them was the worst thing the Americans could ever do."

I was surprised by her comment and I responded: "In general Iraq's Sunni Arabs lived better under Saddam. People who believe all Iraqis lived "better" under Saddam simply do not understand what Iraqi Shia went through for 24 miserable years. Iraqis had electricity and running water and all the basic needs under Saddam? Really? LOL! I guess the Sunni Arabs think so!"

I wanted to give her an example of how Iraqis in Basra were suffering in the 90s, so I transcribed a couple of paragraphs from Iraq Under Siege in which a Basrawi doctor was interviewed in 1996:

“Dr. Tarik Hasim Habeh, the young director of residents, had taken us through several children’s wards. Infant after infant lay wasting and skeletal in squalid conditions. We saw children suffering severe malnutrition, respiratory diseases, leukemia, and kidney disease. In one room, fourteen incubators were stacked against the wall, useless because of the lack of repair parts. The blood bank consisted of one miniature refrigerator and an ancient centrifuge.

Dr. Habeh explains that the hospital is chronically short-staffed. Doctors can’t earn enough to feed their families, sometimes making no more than $3 per month, so some work instead as taxi drivers, street vendors, or waiters. Many nurses also find it impossible to continue the work for which they were trained.”

She liked that comment and was friendly. She said she based her comment (the one about Iraqis living better under Saddam) on what her Iraqi Shia friends from college told her. Interesting. So Iraqi Shia have misinformed this woman, I thought. But most likely they were telling her that Iraqis had electricity and potable water in Baghdad before 2003. The fact is that "In the 1980s Iraq was producing around 9,000-9,500 megawatts. By 2002 it was only producing 4,075 megawatts."

The south was neglected during sanctions, and most Arabs don't understand this. They have the impression that all Iraqis lived better under Saddam. In the Arab mind, if Iraqis suffered in the 90s, it was because of US-imposed sanctions, not because of Saddam. I find this frustrating, and wanted to document a perspective that is probably shared by a majority of Arabs.

Assad dictatorship is nearing expiration

Fouad Ajami wrote another great article. I'm glad to see another Shiite condemning the Assad regime:

"Plainly, the Syrian tyranny's writ has expired. Assad has implicated his own Alawite community in a war to defend his family's reign. The ambiguity that allowed the Assad tyranny to conceal its minority, schismatic identity, to hide behind a co-opted Sunni religious class, has been torn asunder. Calls for a jihad, a holy war, against a godless lot have been made in Sunni religious circles everywhere.

Ironically, it was the Assad tyranny itself that had summoned those furies in its campaign against the American war in Iraq. It had provided transit and sanctuary for jihadists who crossed into Iraq to do battle against the Americans and the Shiites; it even released its own Islamist prisoners and dispatched them to Iraq with the promise of pardon. Now the chickens have come home to roost, and an Alawite community beyond the bounds of Islam is facing a religious war in all but name."

I remember all the Arabs, including the Angry Arab, who ridiculed and hated Fouad Ajami when he wrote so eloquently (I've quoted him many times) in support of the American effort to bring democracy to Iraq. I wonder if those Arabs still hate him.

Dozens killed across Iraq

WSJ: "A barrage of explosions and drive-by shootings killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds across Iraq on Thursday, in one of the bloodiest episodes of renewed violence in the wake of the U.S. military withdrawal from the country.

The attacks spanned six provinces, from Nineveh in the north, which borders Syria, to Babylon, south of Baghdad. They targeted security forces, local officials, busy neighborhoods, mosques and vital infrastructure such as telecommunications towers.

The capital, Baghdad, bore the brunt of the early-morning mayhem. Among the fallen were ordinary citizens, including a boy walking to school and office workers eating breakfast at a diner. By nightfall, security officials said at least 70 people had been killed and 374 wounded, with well over half of the casualties in Baghdad."

Suicide bomber kills a dozen would-be students at Baghdad police academy

'A suicide car bomber has blown himself up in front of a Baghdad police academy, killing 15 people and wounding 21 others in the deadliest attack in the Iraqi capital in weeks, security officials said.

At least seven other people were killed in attacks elsewhere in Iraq.

The suicide bomber "blew himself up at the entrance of the police academy on Palestine Street" an interior ministry official said, putting the toll at 15 dead and 21 wounded.

A police colonel confirmed the toll.

The ministry official said the assailant was at the wheel of a car rigged with explosives and that most of the victims were students applying to join the police force.'


It boggles the mind to think that there are Muslims who would volunteer to wage such war against a Shiite-led government in Baghdad, almost a decade after Iraqi Shia were empowered by elections, by Iraqi voters. Do these suicide bombers really believe they are going to heaven?

Guns used to come from Syria into Iraq

Now it's the other way around.

NYT: 'Like Iraq and Afghanistan before it, analysts say, Syria is likely to become the training ground for a new era of international conflict, and jihadists are already signing up. This weekend, Al Qaeda’s ideological leadership and, more troublingly, the more mainstream Jordanian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, called for jihadists around the world to fight Mr. Assad’s government.

Nowhere is the cross-border nature of sectarian hostilities more clear than in Iraq’s western desert, where Sunni Arabs are beginning to rally to the cause of the Syrian opposition and, in the process, perhaps strengthen their hand in dealings with an antagonistic Shiite-led national government in Baghdad.

A weapons dealer who operates in Anbar, who said he goes by the alias Ahmed al-Masri, said, “Five months ago I was told that the Syrian brothers are in need of weapons. I started to buy the weapons from the same guys that I previously sold to — the fighters of Anbar and Mosul. I used to bring them from Syria; now it’s the other way around.” '

American justice may not be superior

Today I read about American-based Human Rights Watch's call on Iraq to end executions:"Iraqi authorities executed at least 65 people in the first 40 days of 2012 for various offenses, including 14 on a single day, Human Rights Watch said Thursday."

Today I also saw this on facebook:

I used to think American justice is superior to the rest of the world. The older I get and the more I learn, the more I realize American justice may not be superior.

CPA was a "disaster"

Joel Wing posted an interesting interview with Jerry Burke, an American who was head of the New England Institute of Law Enforcement Management in 2003. Mr. Burke was asked to assess the Iraqi police force in 2003 and he found them to be in "disarray". He also described the CPA as a "disaster":

"The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was an unmitigated disaster. Many of the people in the CPA came with neo-conservative political agendas. I can't tell you how many times in military, police, and security briefings I heard the phrase, "To create a free market economy,” as one of the goals. The irony was that many CPA officials would have been for small, decentralized, states rights style government back home, but were trying to build a large, strong centralized government in Iraq. Also, many of the, I don't know what else to call them, young kids in their 20s, came with recommendations from the Heritage Foundation, and other conservative organizations. Many were just out of college or were taking a gap year to have an adventure in Baghdad. Most of them would have been doing unpaid internships if it weren't for Iraq."

The documentary No End In Sight corroborates this sad story.

Iraq would be hurt if Iran closes Hormuz

"Iraq will lose the capacity to export 1.7 million barrels of crude a day if Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz, the transit point for about two thirds of its production, an Oil Ministry spokesman said."