More Iraqis murdered by Al Qaeda

I am still astounded by the lack of Arab condemnation of the Arabs who continue to murder Iraqi Shia. The Arabs have proven time and time again that they care only when Americans kill Iraqis.

Also I find it strange that the media calls it "sectarian" violence only when Shia militias kill innocent Sunni Arabs, as they did in 2006. Are these attacks not sectarian in nature?

"A bicycle loaded with explosives killed five people and wounded 37 at a market in Mussayab, south of Baghdad, on Sunday and a bomb on a bus killed at least three more further south in Kerbala, police and health officials said.

The explosives in the first attack were stored in a water cooler attached to the bicycle, and women and children were among the dead and wounded, police said.

Mussayab, 60 km (40 miles) south of Baghdad, is home to both Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims, but the town center where the explosion took place is mostly Shi'ite.

Fifteen people were wounded in the second incident, hospital officials in the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala, 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad said. One of the dead was a police officer at a checkpoint the bus was driving toward. Some police sources put the dead at five.

The attacks bore hallmarks of Sunni Islamist insurgents such as al Qaeda, who often attack crowded, mostly Shi'ite areas, but many Iraqis also fear an increase in intra-Shi'ite rivalries ahead of a parliamentary election in January."

Update: 'The bombs Sunday, the first day of the Iraqi work week, killed both police officers and civilians and struck Sunni as well as Shiite areas.

In the deadliest of the attacks, a bomb placed on a parked motorcycle exploded near a police patrol and a crowded kabob restaurant near the southern city of Hilla, killing five people and wounding 37.

“No ambulance came at the beginning — that happens all the time,” said Habeb Alwan, 25, who said he saw the blast. “Police closed the area of the explosion and people started to fight with them because they wanted to get to the scene to check on their relatives.”

Hilla, a predominantly Shiite city about 60 miles south of Baghdad, was the site of a 2005 suicide bomb that killed at least 114 people, until then the deadliest single attack since the 2003 invasion.
Elsewhere, a magnetic bomb attached to a minibus filled with 21 passengers exploded near a checkpoint in the Karbala province, southwest of Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 12 others. Karbala, home of one of the most sacred Shiite mosques, had been relatively peaceful until a spate of attacks in the past few months.

Near Ramadi, the southwest point of Iraq’s Sunni Triangle, a car bomb and a suicide bomber wearing a belt laden with explosives killed two police officers and wounded five people. Ramadi, once one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq, has for two years been a model for progress in Iraq since tribal leaders and United States counterinsurgency forces defeated an Al-Qaeda cell. But recent attacks there have led to concern that Al-Qaeda and other insurgent forces may be regaining strength.

Sheik ali Al-Hatem, a leader of the Sunni Awakening, the group credited with bringing down violence, blamed the “deteriorating of the security situation” on the police and provincial council, saying, “There are no police here — they are just a name with no actions.”

Since September, at least eight attacks on police officers and other officials have killed more than 70 and wounded dozens more in Anbar Province, which includes Ramadi.

Also on Sunday, an improvised explosive device in Mosul province killed two Iraqi soldiers and injured a third, and four police officers were killed in two shootings there.

In October, 453 Iraqi civilians and security personnel were killed, up from a low of 379 in September but considerably below a high of 677 in April, according to the Ministry of Information. The statistics do not count deaths in the northern Kurdish region. In June, United States troops withdrew from cities and towns, handing security responsibilities to Iraqi forces.'

Dr. Mustafa Barghouti

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Transform Iraq and impact the Arab world?

'After six years of immense strife and tears and some successes, the two great Iraq imponderables remain: the degree to which Iraq's leaders are ready and able to help themselves; and the willingness of the "international community", meaning principally the US, to go the extra mile down what has been a very long road indeed.

Iraq is yesterday's story, or at least most US policymakers hope it is. Yet even now, nobody really knows how the story will finish. "Iraq continues to unnerve and tantalise," said columnist Tom Friedman. "Watching Iraqi politics is like watching a tightrope artist crossing a dangerous cavern. At every step it looks as though he is going to fall into the abyss and yet, somehow, he continues to wobble forward."

Friedman added a salutary word about priorities for wobblers in Washington and London. "Remember: transform Iraq and it will impact the whole Arab-Muslim world. Change Afghanistan and you just change Afghanistan." '

Iraq wants nuclear plant

'Iraq has expressed an interest in reviving its nuclear technology, bombed into oblivion by Israel in 1981 and the US ten years later. An Iraqi minister says Baghdad has contacted the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), based in Vienna, to seek its approval to relaunch a peaceful nuclear programme.

Even though Iraq is one of the world’s biggest oil producers, its Government says it is unable to secure the country’s electricity needs. Iraq’s first French-made reactor at Osirak was damaged by an Iranian raid in 1980 and destroyed by Israel a year later. Israel feared Saddam Hussein’s regime was trying to develop a nuclear bomb.

US aircraft demolished further nuclear facilities during the first Gulf War in 1991, and concerns over Saddam’s nuclear ambitions were one of the triggers for the second Gulf War and the US-led invasion. No weapons of mass destruction were found, as it became clear that Saddam had been bluffing about his nuclear capability.

Iraq’s new masters insist they have no intention of trying to develop nuclear bombs. “We are co-operating with the IAEA and expanding and defining areas of research where we can implement nuclear technology for peaceful means,” the Science and Technology Minister, Raid Fahmi, told the Guardian.'

America is God

From Alaa's Third Law, Oct 8, 2006: "Just listen to any standard discourse of our Arab commentators, for instance. You will hear the word America or something to do with America, in every other sentence; if not in each one. America is deified, demonized, believed to be the source of everything that is happening. My son once told me that one of his teachers (of wahabi sympathies) emphatically told his pupils in class, that it was America that caused the Tsunami that struck the shores of Asia. Ordinary American folk may not quite realize or understand this; it is rather like some of these fairy tales when some quite ordinary person finds himself crowned as King or something of the sort."

An Iraqi on Sunday's bombing: ''We don't know whether it's the political parties, al-Qaeda, neighbouring countries or the Americans,'' said Ridah Mahdi Mohammed, 41, whose nephew was run over by a vehicle speeding away from one of the bombings. The Americans were primarily to blame, he said, because ''they control everything, from the sky to the ground''.

Iraq Pundit today: 'Few seemed to react today when a group with al-Qaeda links took credit for Sunday's suicide attacks. Iraqis are so exhausted that an old man swears that bystanders spat upon the deputy speaker Khaled Attiyah as he passed by. "Curses upon you and your politicians," the man said he heard them shout. "Curses upon you and your turbaned colleagues!"

When asked how he plans to vote in the upcoming elections, the old man said it did not matter. He said, "Jesus said you want it one way, I want it another, and what matters is how God wants it to be." Okay, no problem. "If I may borrow from that saying," he said. "You want it one way, I want it another, and what matters is how America wants it to turn out." '

Sunday Bloody Sunday

"The double suicide bombing in Baghdad on Sunday was the deadliest attack in Iraq for over two years. It claimed more than 130 lives, and wounded hundreds more."

The resistance strikes again, at Iraqis of course, and our Arab brothers do not seem to be very concerned about it.

As Mish3an Jabouri dreams of unity between Iraq and Syria (but not unity with the Iraqi government), and as 3arab jarab praise Saddam and preach "resistance" from their homes in California, the "resistance" continues to mass murder Iraqis, targeting Iraqi security forces and government employees.

Well at least the "resistance" is no longer targeting markets and cafes. That is considered progress in the Arab world. Anthony Shadid (Arab American journalist) wrote: "Unlike the carnage unleashed by attacks in crowded mosques, restaurants and markets, aimed at igniting sectarian strife, these blasts appeared to rely on a distinctly political logic." I do not understand how "distinctly political logic" can result in the murder of 137 people, but I betchya the Arabs do.

From David Ignatius of the Washington Post: 'But my Iraqi friends were surprisingly upbeat about the future, even after Sunday's terrible bombings. "In every sector, Iraq is coming back to its normal mode," said one. "There is no way it will slip back," insisted the other. I wondered at their confidence on such a day, but that is part of the Iraqi toughness.

Rather than talking about the bombings, we talked politics. My friends sharply criticized the incumbent prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. But as we were debating, one turned to me with a smile: "Here we are talking about who will run the government after the elections. Could you do that in any other country in the Arab world?"

Barack Obama on the bombings: "The United States will stand with Iraq's people and government as a close friend and partner as Iraqis prepare for elections early next year, continue to take responsibility for their future, and build greater peace and opportunity," President Barack Obama said in a statement that condemned the bombings."

From our friends in Europe: "Sweden, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, said in a statement: "The presidency of the European Union condemns today's car bombs in Baghdad."

It seems that only our Arab "brothers" cannot bring themselves to condemn these bombings that target Iraqi government employees, who are after all ordinary IRAQIS.

The Arabs never ask "why does the Arab resistance attack the Iraqi government by murdering innocent Iraqis?" They do not consider what was happening in Iraq before 2003 and wonder if Baathist extremists would mass murder Iraqis in order to gain power, like they did before 2003.

The bombings apparently do not make the "Angry Arab" angry enough to condemn the Arabs who continue to mass murder Iraqis in the most horrific ways. Instead, California Professor As'ad Abu Khalil wrote recently: "So the US comes to Iraq, sets up a puppet government and tells the puppets that they now have a democracy. So the puppets believe it. I find that quite amusing."

On the same day the Angry Arab wrote about Sistani, who has repeatedly called for peace and unity between all Iraqis. The professor wrote on Friday: "He [Sistani] is one of the worst puppets in the Middle East, and will go down in history as the Cleric of Foreign Occupation. So this man says that he does not interfere in politics but recently has been making noises insisting on open electoral lists."

Incredibly the professor wrote on the same day a post about the Saudis promoting a "Saddam TV satellite channel that will air Saddam speeches and songs non-stop". So Iraqis cannot count on even an educated, respected, liberal Arab American professor who has acknowledged the sadism and criminality of Saddam, to condemn the Arab extremists who continue to mass murder Iraqis.

I suppose I should not expect ordinary Arabs and Arab Americans to condemn the mass murderers of Iraqis, after Arab nationalist poets lauded Saddam, and after Arab American academics still call it a puppet government in Baghdad while ignoring the Arab insurgency that continues to kill Iraqis 6 years after the toppling of the former dictator. I have never seen an Arab or Arab American condemn the bombers, who are obviously Arab and who have killed thousands of innocent Iraqis this year, and this has been a relatively peaceful year in Iraq compared to the sectarian violence of 2006 and 2007.

So these are our Arab "brothers". They seem to have no problem fighting "imperialism" by mass murdering Iraqis. It makes me very sad.

Update (Oct 26): On the Palestinian Pundit, where blaming America for all of Iraq's problems is quite normal, the Arab American blogger Tony posted an article by an Iraqi British "senior lecturer" at London Metropolitan University: 'the Iraqi people are still paying with their blood for the US-led invasion and occupation of their country......the Iraqi people will not freely accept a pro-US regime in Baghdad and that the "exit strategy" will inevitably result in long-term occupation, and bring only more bloodshed and destruction. Why are the Iraqi people expected to elect a disparate collection of corrupt and sectarian pro-US politicians?'

Our Lebanese Australian friend who contributes to the Palestinian Pundit and to the Angry Arabs Comments Section, quoted Juan Cole, who pointed out that "The Minister of Public Works is Riyadh Gharib, a prominent member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which is close to the clerics in Tehran. Public Works as a ministry would thus have a lot of ISCI party members as employees and it is also a huge source of political patronage. Baathists or Sunni extremists would have every reason to hit it."

But this is the part of Cole's article that interested our respected Lebanese Australian friend: "The Republican's avaricious and illegal war on Iraq destabilized the eastern Mediterranean, perhaps for decades, creating long-term challenges to US and global security of which the Baghdad blasts are very possibly only minor omens."

I guess Iraqis should have stuck it out with Saddam so that the eastern Mediterranean would remain "stable" in the eyes of Juan Cole and non-Iraqi Arabs.

Also today the Angry Arab wrote about the bombings: 'Look at this language about the bombings yesterday: "leaving a scene of carnage that raised new questions about the government’s ability to secure its most vital operations." You would not know from this sentence that the US has some 130,000 troops.'

And you would not know from any Arab "intellectual" that Arabs murdered around 150 Iraqis yesterday, including 30 Iraqi children.

Update (Oct 27): "Iraq's government pledged tighter security the day after two suicide bombings claimed at least 155 lives, including two dozen children trapped in a bus leaving a day-care center."

Mish3an Jabouri Dreams of "Suraqia"

Mish3an Jabouri, the man who starred in the Al Jazeera interview below, dreams of uniting Iraq and Syria, like Saddam and the Ba3ath dreamed long ago. He dreams of good relations between Iraq and Syria. Given that the Syrians have allowed hundreds of suicide bombers to enter Iraq via the gates of Damascus since 2003, I also "dream" of good relations between Iraq and Syria!

'Mish'an Al-Jabouri: "We support good relations between Syria and Iraq, but not between Syria and the Al-Maliki government. We support good relations between Iraq and Syria regardless of who the ruler is, because we believe that this serves the people and their interests, and that it is a positive factor.

"Personally, I believe in the philosophy and notion of 'Suraqia' – Greater Syria and Iraq. This is what I dream about. Just like some people dream of Arab unity and others of Islamic unity, I adhere to the notion of Suraqia.

"Therefore, in the days of the late president Saddam Hussein, I used to call from Syria for good Syrian-Iraqi relations, at a time when they were very bad. Back then, Al-Maliki would curse me in the newspaper he had here, and would accuse me of working for Iraqi intelligence, and of being an agent for Saddam, just because I would call for good Syrian-Iraqi relations." '