A female suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt hidden under her all-encompassing black robe at a checkpoint in Baghdad, killing at least two women and wounding five, AP quoted police as saying.
The attack occurred just after noon as women were being searched in a room before being allowed to enter a commercial street in the predominantly Sunni Amariyah neighborhood in southwest Baghdad, according to police officials.
The women attackers were waiting at one of two entrances to the Amal al-Shaabi market district, agencies reported.
29 January 2008
To My Mother (R.I.P), 6 Months Later...
"The night comes and asks me:
How the morning would come,
And how the sun would shine,
On many who have suddenly been deprived of her presence?"
How the morning would come,
And how the sun would shine,
On many who have suddenly been deprived of her presence?"
23 January 2008
BBC News Article: Iraq parliament approves new flag
Iraq's parliament has voted to change the country's flag.
The three stars that represented Saddam Hussein's Baath Party will be removed, to address the concerns of Iraqi Kurds.
They have refused to fly the flag since the fall of Saddam Hussein, saying it is too closely associated with a regime that repressed and killed their people.
The flag was also changed in 2004, when a line of script, allegedly in Saddam Hussein's own handwriting, was changed to Kufic script.
But the latest change - passed by 110 votes to 50 - is only temporary, as a design for a new flag will be sought after one year.
Agreement over the flag is another sign that the Iraqi parliament is moving forward on difficult issues, says the BBC's Jonny Dymond in Baghdad.
A measure that should allow former Baath party members to rejoin the bureaucracy and military was passed 10 days ago.
However, big obstacles to unity remain. The Iraqi parliament said on Tuesday that attempts to pass the 2008 budget had stalled, leading to fears that infrastructure projects would be delayed.
Changing times
The new flag retains the three colours of the old one - red, white and black.
But the stars that represented the ideology of the Baath party - unity, freedom and socialism - will be removed.
The Arabic inscription "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great") in green will be retained. As with the 2004-2008 version, it is written in Kufic script, making clear it is no longer in Saddam Hussein's handwriting.
Kufic is an ancient form of Arabic script that originated in what is now Iraq.
"The new flag has no signs of Saddam's regime and is a sign that change has been achieved in the country," said Humam Hamoudi, a prominent Shia politician and member of the powerful Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council party.
11 January 2008
BBC News Article: Baghdad wakes up to rare snowfall
now has fallen in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, for the first time in living memory - though it mostly melted into puddles on touching the ground.
People came out on to the streets to watch and some Iraqis said it was the first time they had seen such weather other than in films.
Snow is common in Iraq's mountainous Kurdish north but the closest thing Baghdad usually sees is hail.
Freezing night temperatures in the city are forecast for the weekend.
"I woke up and I saw snow falling, so I woke up all the family and told them to come and see the snowfall," Baghdad resident Aysar Khaled told Reuters news agency.
"Everyone in Baghdad is delighted because this is a new thing, this is the first time that it snows in Baghdad... The view is very beautiful."
Mohammed Abdul-Hussein, 63 and retired, told the Associated Press he had heard from his father when he was young that snow fell in the early 1940s on the outskirts of northern Baghdad.
"But snow falling in Baghdad in such a magnificent scene was beyond my imagination," he added.
Fawzi Karim, 40, said he had asked his 80-year-old mother, and she had never seen snow before in Iraq.
"This is so unusual, and I don't know whether or not it's a lesson from God," he added.
People came out on to the streets to watch and some Iraqis said it was the first time they had seen such weather other than in films.
Snow is common in Iraq's mountainous Kurdish north but the closest thing Baghdad usually sees is hail.
Freezing night temperatures in the city are forecast for the weekend.
"I woke up and I saw snow falling, so I woke up all the family and told them to come and see the snowfall," Baghdad resident Aysar Khaled told Reuters news agency.
"Everyone in Baghdad is delighted because this is a new thing, this is the first time that it snows in Baghdad... The view is very beautiful."
Mohammed Abdul-Hussein, 63 and retired, told the Associated Press he had heard from his father when he was young that snow fell in the early 1940s on the outskirts of northern Baghdad.
"But snow falling in Baghdad in such a magnificent scene was beyond my imagination," he added.
Fawzi Karim, 40, said he had asked his 80-year-old mother, and she had never seen snow before in Iraq.
"This is so unusual, and I don't know whether or not it's a lesson from God," he added.
guardian.co.uk Article: Snow delights residents of Baghdad
Elizabeth Stewart and agencies
Friday January 11, 2008
Guardian Unlimited
Snow fell on Baghdad today for the first time in living memory, delighting residents who declared it an omen of peace.
"It is the first time we've seen snow in Baghdad," said 60-year-old Hassan Zahar. "We've seen sleet before, but never snow. I looked at the faces of all the people, they were astonished.
"A few minutes ago, I was covered with snowflakes. In my hair, on my shoulders. I invite all the people to enjoy peace, because the snow means peace."
Murtadha Fadhil, who works for the traffic police, huddled under a balcony to keep dry, and declared the snow "a new sign of the new Iraq".
He said the phenomenon was a sign of hope and purity. "We hope Iraqis will purify their hearts and politicians will work for the prosperity of all Iraqis," he said.
For a city still under a heavy military presence, this was a snow patrol with a difference. The streets of the capital were hushed as big, thick, wet flakes fell this morning. The temperature hovered around freezing and the snow mostly melted into grey puddles when it hit the ground.
"But it was still lovely," said Mohanned Rahim, a baker: "This snow will bring pleasure to the people of Iraq. It's beautiful."
Friday January 11, 2008
Guardian Unlimited
Snow fell on Baghdad today for the first time in living memory, delighting residents who declared it an omen of peace.
"It is the first time we've seen snow in Baghdad," said 60-year-old Hassan Zahar. "We've seen sleet before, but never snow. I looked at the faces of all the people, they were astonished.
"A few minutes ago, I was covered with snowflakes. In my hair, on my shoulders. I invite all the people to enjoy peace, because the snow means peace."
Murtadha Fadhil, who works for the traffic police, huddled under a balcony to keep dry, and declared the snow "a new sign of the new Iraq".
He said the phenomenon was a sign of hope and purity. "We hope Iraqis will purify their hearts and politicians will work for the prosperity of all Iraqis," he said.
For a city still under a heavy military presence, this was a snow patrol with a difference. The streets of the capital were hushed as big, thick, wet flakes fell this morning. The temperature hovered around freezing and the snow mostly melted into grey puddles when it hit the ground.
"But it was still lovely," said Mohanned Rahim, a baker: "This snow will bring pleasure to the people of Iraq. It's beautiful."
31 December 2007
And 2007 is FiNALLY Over!
I seriously don't know what to say in the end of this year, 2007.
It was by far the worst year i have ever seen. I have lost many friends, relatives, and before all, my dear mother.
I cannot tell you how i feel, seeing this terrible year leaving us...
Hoping that 2008 is definitely better...
It was by far the worst year i have ever seen. I have lost many friends, relatives, and before all, my dear mother.
I cannot tell you how i feel, seeing this terrible year leaving us...
Hoping that 2008 is definitely better...
22 December 2007
LA Times Article: Ruthless, shadowy — and a U.S. ally
A former warrior for Saddam Hussein's army and the insurgency now helps lead the fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq.
By Ned Parker
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 22, 2007
BAGHDAD — "Abu Abed, you're a hero," the retired Shiite teacher shouted from the home she had fled last winter, when the bodies of Shiites were being dumped daily in the streets of her Amiriya neighborhood.
The fighter, wearing green camouflage and dark wraparound sunglasses, kept walking, his hand swinging a black MP-5 submachine gun.
No more than 5 feet 6, with a roll of baby fat, this Sunni Muslim gunman is an unlikely savior of Amiriya: a former intelligence officer in Saddam Hussein's army, a suspected onetime insurgent, a man who has photos of his brothers' mutilated corpses loaded in his cellphone.
To many Iraqis, Abu Abed is a Sunni warlord whose followers have spilled the blood of Shiite Muslim civilians and U.S. troops. But to the people in Amiriya, he is the man who has, with ruthless efficiency, restored order to a neighborhood where the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq held sway.
With the nation's politics deadlocked, the U.S. military has pinned its hopes for reconciliation in Iraq on the shoulders of such unknowable men. Abu Abed may have a shadowy past, and checkered present, but he has taken on extremists in his Sunni sect, and says he is willing to make peace with Iraq's Shiite-led government.
One worry for the government is that paramilitary groups such as Abu Abed's will seek to use their new relationships with the Americans to position themselves for another round of fighting with Iraq's Shiite leadership when U.S. forces have withdrawn.
"The risks are that these guys go back into an insurgency, perhaps better organized and better motivated than they were in the past, and that's what you want to avoid," said a U.S. diplomat who has helped recruit Sunni tribes and insurgents to police neighborhoods, and who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Abu Abed's pacification methods are merciless. Since he declared all-out war on the fighters who were terrorizing the neighborhood, he has killed members of Al Qaeda in Iraq, burned their hide-outs, plastered Amiriya's walls with pictures of their corpses and broken his knuckles three times hitting disloyal members of his militia or prisoners.He claims his motivations are simple.
"I have a basic principle to fight anybody who is hurting my fellow citizens," he said. "That's why I cooperated in 2004 with the Americans and started to work against Al Qaeda."
His 600-man paramilitary force, the Knights in the Land of the Two Rivers, is virtually the law in Amiriya, a district of marble-adorned villas and date palms where thousands of well-heeled Sunnis and Shiite professionals lived under Hussein. He has allowed a modicum of normality to return to the neighborhood's streets, where shops now stay open until late in the evening and no bodies have been found since August.
At least 70 Shiite families have moved back to the area in the last three months under his protection. With the government absent, people go to him with their problems, sometimes personal ones. Men have asked him for advice on erectile dysfunction, and once a newlywed bride demanded that Abu Abed grant her a divorce after her husband failed to consummate their relationship.
American commanders have called on Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Nouri Maliki, to seize upon the lull in violence to reconcile with Sunnis, many of whom had previously fought U.S. troops and the Iraqi government.
"They want to participate now, and the government has to allow them to do it," said Maj. Barry Daniels of the Army's 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, which is assigned to Amiriya. "I think if they feel they have a stake in their future, there is hope. If they do not, I am not very optimistic."
Abu Abed wants to bring his men into the Iraqi security forces, even though he is deeply suspicious of the ruling Shiite parties. In 2005, his two brothers were detained in a late-night raid by the national police force, which has been infiltrated by Shiite militias. Their mutilated bodies were found three weeks later on the Iranian border.
In the pictures on his cellphone, one brother has a nail driven through his head, the other has a hand chopped off. Abu Abed has hard feelings and lingering suspicions about government officials, but says he has no choice but to deal with them.
"I have to take jobs with the government," he said at his headquarters in a pink schoolhouse. "If I don't, there will be more people kidnapped and killed."
Abu Abed, who is in his late 30s, does not look like a former military intelligence officer except for his ramrod military posture. As he sits in his office, rap lyrics drift in from the courtyard, where his men are playing a recording of the song "P.I.M.P." by 50 Cent: "We internationally known and locally respected, / And you know you're just a P.I.M.P."
As he drags on a Gauloise and flicks red worry beads in his hands, his seemingly permanent scowl and darting brown eyes reveal little. He is a man of secrets. Not even his own men really know him.
He has met with Maliki's advisors, as well as Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih and Vice President Tariq Hashimi, but Abu Abed complains that progress has been slow.
"What have we done wrong? Aren't we fighting terrorists? Didn't we bring back Shia families? We are with the law," he said in his office, decorated with pictures of American generals.
The government has said it plans to absorb about 25% of the fighters from groups like Abu Abed's into the security forces, but it is taking its time. This week, the government approved the hiring of the first 100 men from Abu Abed's group to serve as the police force in Amiriya, but they must undergo a probationary period to prove their loyalty to the government.
"We know some Saddamists and Qaeda have tried to penetrate our security forces," said Haidar Abadi, a parliament member and Maliki confidant. "We want to prevent them from infiltrating our forces."
Abadi said he had spoken on the phone with Abu Abed and that his language sounded like an insurgent's. "A lot of them, I think, are Islamic Army. Most of them were Iraqi Baathists. To me there is a change of heart, which is good," he said, but he worried that many of the men who joined groups like Abu Abed's were the same people who terrorized Shiites.
"We are bombarded by messages from people who returned to their areas. They say the people who slaughtered them are running the checkpoints," he said.
At least $39 million has been spent equipping and paying for the paramilitary units across Iraq. The Americans expect these fighters to be absorbed into both the security forces and job-training programs.
It's been three years since Abu Abed began a double life assembling a network of informers across Baghdad that he used to feed information to the U.S. military about Al Qaeda in Iraq. He helped hunt down insurgents and what he called Iranian operatives.
By June 2006, Amiriya residents had taken on a bunker mentality, deeply suspicious of the Americans and the Shiite-led government. Some informers had noticed Abu Abed's comings and goings, and they spotted him leaving the Green Zone, the fortified area that includes Iraqi government offices and the U.S. Embassy. Soon after, someone riddled his taxi with bullets. He fled to Syria for a few months, and then reappeared in Amiriya.
After his return, he visited the mosques daily and made a public display of being with the hard-liners, but, he said, he began plotting to take down Al Qaeda in Iraq. He compiled files on its leaders.
"I tried to make some relations with Qaeda so they trusted me," he said.
Early this year, he started sending indirect messages to the U.S. military that he was ready to launch his revolt.
The rebellion erupted May 30 when Abu Abed approached the local head of Al Qaeda in Iraq in the street. He told the man, Haji Sabah, also known as the "White Lion," that the insurgent group was finished in Amiriya. Sabah's pistol jammed and Abu Abed pumped 16 bullets into his back, and then took his black Glock as a trophy. Next, he drove to a restaurant where fighters with the group gathered each morning and opened fire on them.
The insurgents retaliated with heavy machine-gun fire, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. He retreated to the Firdos mosque. His fighters had dwindled from 150 to just 15 as insurgents started to pour into Amiriya from across western Baghdad; he told his men to leave him, including his brother.
Abu Abed prepared to die. He was down to just four supporters, with three bodies in the mosque. Their enemies shelled the building with grenades. The mosque's cleric said he had no choice but to call the Americans.
When the eight U.S. Army Stryker combat vehicles arrived, the tide turned.
U.S. troops and Abu Abed's men started to hunt down their common enemy. Abu Abed wanted revenge: In June, he sent his men all over Baghdad to track down an Al Qaeda in Iraq fighter who had killed his friend.
Abu Abed defended his decision to hunt enemies outside Amiriya, an action that has been criticized by Iraqi government officials. "If I saw Osama bin Laden," he said, "would I have to ask legal cover to kill him?"
The Americans defend him and his tactics.
"Did Abu Abed get heavy-handed with some guys? I'll tell you this right now, Abu Abed personally killed some guys," said Maj. Daniels, who has fought alongside him since June. "It's a nasty business. It's war and they fought against Al Qaeda and they decided to kill the guys who were killing their families and terrorizing their community."
Abdul Razzaq Mohammed, a Shiite butcher, lived in Amiriya for 16 years before fleeing in September 2006 because Shiites were being killed. This fall, the 66-year-old decided to visit his old home when his friends assured him the neighborhood was safe. He met Abu Abed, who welcomed him back.
Mohammed visited for four days and then decided it was safe to return. He has no problem supporting the Sunni gunman: "I wish we had dozens of Abu Abeds in Iraq."
By Ned Parker
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 22, 2007
BAGHDAD — "Abu Abed, you're a hero," the retired Shiite teacher shouted from the home she had fled last winter, when the bodies of Shiites were being dumped daily in the streets of her Amiriya neighborhood.
The fighter, wearing green camouflage and dark wraparound sunglasses, kept walking, his hand swinging a black MP-5 submachine gun.
No more than 5 feet 6, with a roll of baby fat, this Sunni Muslim gunman is an unlikely savior of Amiriya: a former intelligence officer in Saddam Hussein's army, a suspected onetime insurgent, a man who has photos of his brothers' mutilated corpses loaded in his cellphone.
To many Iraqis, Abu Abed is a Sunni warlord whose followers have spilled the blood of Shiite Muslim civilians and U.S. troops. But to the people in Amiriya, he is the man who has, with ruthless efficiency, restored order to a neighborhood where the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq held sway.
With the nation's politics deadlocked, the U.S. military has pinned its hopes for reconciliation in Iraq on the shoulders of such unknowable men. Abu Abed may have a shadowy past, and checkered present, but he has taken on extremists in his Sunni sect, and says he is willing to make peace with Iraq's Shiite-led government.
One worry for the government is that paramilitary groups such as Abu Abed's will seek to use their new relationships with the Americans to position themselves for another round of fighting with Iraq's Shiite leadership when U.S. forces have withdrawn.
"The risks are that these guys go back into an insurgency, perhaps better organized and better motivated than they were in the past, and that's what you want to avoid," said a U.S. diplomat who has helped recruit Sunni tribes and insurgents to police neighborhoods, and who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Abu Abed's pacification methods are merciless. Since he declared all-out war on the fighters who were terrorizing the neighborhood, he has killed members of Al Qaeda in Iraq, burned their hide-outs, plastered Amiriya's walls with pictures of their corpses and broken his knuckles three times hitting disloyal members of his militia or prisoners.He claims his motivations are simple.
"I have a basic principle to fight anybody who is hurting my fellow citizens," he said. "That's why I cooperated in 2004 with the Americans and started to work against Al Qaeda."
His 600-man paramilitary force, the Knights in the Land of the Two Rivers, is virtually the law in Amiriya, a district of marble-adorned villas and date palms where thousands of well-heeled Sunnis and Shiite professionals lived under Hussein. He has allowed a modicum of normality to return to the neighborhood's streets, where shops now stay open until late in the evening and no bodies have been found since August.
At least 70 Shiite families have moved back to the area in the last three months under his protection. With the government absent, people go to him with their problems, sometimes personal ones. Men have asked him for advice on erectile dysfunction, and once a newlywed bride demanded that Abu Abed grant her a divorce after her husband failed to consummate their relationship.
American commanders have called on Iraq's Shiite prime minister, Nouri Maliki, to seize upon the lull in violence to reconcile with Sunnis, many of whom had previously fought U.S. troops and the Iraqi government.
"They want to participate now, and the government has to allow them to do it," said Maj. Barry Daniels of the Army's 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, which is assigned to Amiriya. "I think if they feel they have a stake in their future, there is hope. If they do not, I am not very optimistic."
Abu Abed wants to bring his men into the Iraqi security forces, even though he is deeply suspicious of the ruling Shiite parties. In 2005, his two brothers were detained in a late-night raid by the national police force, which has been infiltrated by Shiite militias. Their mutilated bodies were found three weeks later on the Iranian border.
In the pictures on his cellphone, one brother has a nail driven through his head, the other has a hand chopped off. Abu Abed has hard feelings and lingering suspicions about government officials, but says he has no choice but to deal with them.
"I have to take jobs with the government," he said at his headquarters in a pink schoolhouse. "If I don't, there will be more people kidnapped and killed."
Abu Abed, who is in his late 30s, does not look like a former military intelligence officer except for his ramrod military posture. As he sits in his office, rap lyrics drift in from the courtyard, where his men are playing a recording of the song "P.I.M.P." by 50 Cent: "We internationally known and locally respected, / And you know you're just a P.I.M.P."
As he drags on a Gauloise and flicks red worry beads in his hands, his seemingly permanent scowl and darting brown eyes reveal little. He is a man of secrets. Not even his own men really know him.
He has met with Maliki's advisors, as well as Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih and Vice President Tariq Hashimi, but Abu Abed complains that progress has been slow.
"What have we done wrong? Aren't we fighting terrorists? Didn't we bring back Shia families? We are with the law," he said in his office, decorated with pictures of American generals.
The government has said it plans to absorb about 25% of the fighters from groups like Abu Abed's into the security forces, but it is taking its time. This week, the government approved the hiring of the first 100 men from Abu Abed's group to serve as the police force in Amiriya, but they must undergo a probationary period to prove their loyalty to the government.
"We know some Saddamists and Qaeda have tried to penetrate our security forces," said Haidar Abadi, a parliament member and Maliki confidant. "We want to prevent them from infiltrating our forces."
Abadi said he had spoken on the phone with Abu Abed and that his language sounded like an insurgent's. "A lot of them, I think, are Islamic Army. Most of them were Iraqi Baathists. To me there is a change of heart, which is good," he said, but he worried that many of the men who joined groups like Abu Abed's were the same people who terrorized Shiites.
"We are bombarded by messages from people who returned to their areas. They say the people who slaughtered them are running the checkpoints," he said.
At least $39 million has been spent equipping and paying for the paramilitary units across Iraq. The Americans expect these fighters to be absorbed into both the security forces and job-training programs.
It's been three years since Abu Abed began a double life assembling a network of informers across Baghdad that he used to feed information to the U.S. military about Al Qaeda in Iraq. He helped hunt down insurgents and what he called Iranian operatives.
By June 2006, Amiriya residents had taken on a bunker mentality, deeply suspicious of the Americans and the Shiite-led government. Some informers had noticed Abu Abed's comings and goings, and they spotted him leaving the Green Zone, the fortified area that includes Iraqi government offices and the U.S. Embassy. Soon after, someone riddled his taxi with bullets. He fled to Syria for a few months, and then reappeared in Amiriya.
After his return, he visited the mosques daily and made a public display of being with the hard-liners, but, he said, he began plotting to take down Al Qaeda in Iraq. He compiled files on its leaders.
"I tried to make some relations with Qaeda so they trusted me," he said.
Early this year, he started sending indirect messages to the U.S. military that he was ready to launch his revolt.
The rebellion erupted May 30 when Abu Abed approached the local head of Al Qaeda in Iraq in the street. He told the man, Haji Sabah, also known as the "White Lion," that the insurgent group was finished in Amiriya. Sabah's pistol jammed and Abu Abed pumped 16 bullets into his back, and then took his black Glock as a trophy. Next, he drove to a restaurant where fighters with the group gathered each morning and opened fire on them.
The insurgents retaliated with heavy machine-gun fire, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. He retreated to the Firdos mosque. His fighters had dwindled from 150 to just 15 as insurgents started to pour into Amiriya from across western Baghdad; he told his men to leave him, including his brother.
Abu Abed prepared to die. He was down to just four supporters, with three bodies in the mosque. Their enemies shelled the building with grenades. The mosque's cleric said he had no choice but to call the Americans.
When the eight U.S. Army Stryker combat vehicles arrived, the tide turned.
U.S. troops and Abu Abed's men started to hunt down their common enemy. Abu Abed wanted revenge: In June, he sent his men all over Baghdad to track down an Al Qaeda in Iraq fighter who had killed his friend.
Abu Abed defended his decision to hunt enemies outside Amiriya, an action that has been criticized by Iraqi government officials. "If I saw Osama bin Laden," he said, "would I have to ask legal cover to kill him?"
The Americans defend him and his tactics.
"Did Abu Abed get heavy-handed with some guys? I'll tell you this right now, Abu Abed personally killed some guys," said Maj. Daniels, who has fought alongside him since June. "It's a nasty business. It's war and they fought against Al Qaeda and they decided to kill the guys who were killing their families and terrorizing their community."
Abdul Razzaq Mohammed, a Shiite butcher, lived in Amiriya for 16 years before fleeing in September 2006 because Shiites were being killed. This fall, the 66-year-old decided to visit his old home when his friends assured him the neighborhood was safe. He met Abu Abed, who welcomed him back.
Mohammed visited for four days and then decided it was safe to return. He has no problem supporting the Sunni gunman: "I wish we had dozens of Abu Abeds in Iraq."
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