http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/

Though the coverage fades for many, the violence continues on in Iraq. Xinhua reports bombings in Diyala Province today have claimed at least 8 lives following the bombing of a police officer Major Qaid al-Rashid's home in Tikrit. So far the only known survivor is a six-month-old infant. Police Lt Col Khalid al-Baiyati's home was also bombed leaving two family members injured (the lieutenant wasn't home during the bombing), a Samarra roadside bombing claimed the lives of 2 police officers (four people left injured) and a Baiji bombing injured one Sahwa member. Reuters raised the death toll from 8 to 11. Reuters adds a Baghdad sticky bombing injured eight Iranian pilgrims and a second Baghdad roadside bombing wounded six Iranian pilgrims. Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad roadside bombing injured two people and another one claimed the life of 1 Sahwa with four more injured and a Najaf roadside bombing targeted  the United Nations Special Representative to Iraq Ad Melkert. Alsumaria TV reports that Melkert was in Najaf to visit Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Al Sistani at his home.  Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) explains, "Mr. Melkert [. . .] is one of the few Western officials with whome Ayatollah Sistani meets. The cleric, who does not appear in public, has played an influential role in Iraq."  Ernesto Londono (Washington Post) notes the bombing claimed the life of 1 Iraqi police officer with two more injured while Ad Mlkert was not harmed.  Londono adds, "Investigators suspect that the militant Shiite group Asaib Ahl-al-Haq carried out the attack, possibly assuming that the convoy included US military officials".

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UNHCR poll indicates Iraqi refugees regret returning home

News Stories, 19 October 2010


© UNHCR/B.Heger

GENEVA, October 19 (UNHCR) – A UNHCR poll of Iraqis who have returned to Baghdad from neighbouring countries found that physical insecurity, economic hardship and a lack of basic public services has led the majority to regret their decision to return to Iraq.



UNHCR's chief spokesperson, Melissa Fleming, presenting the survey findings to journalists in Geneva on Tuesday, said it also found that 34 per cent of returnees were uncertain whether they would stay permanently in Iraq and would consider seeking asylum in neighbouring countries once again if conditions do not improve.



The survey of 2,353 Iraqis, or 537 families, who returned to the Baghdad districts of Resafa and Karkh between 2007 and 2008, was conducted by UNHCR staff from April to September this year in person and by phone. Future surveys will cover the conditions of returnees to other parts of Iraq such as Kirkuk, Mosul, Anbar and Diyala.



"During the course of these interviews, UNHCR staff were informed by returnees of numerous instances of explosions, harassment, military operations and kidnapping occurring in their areas of return," Fleming said.



Many interviewees said they were obliged to return to Iraq because they could no longer afford the high cost of living in asylum states. "In this context, UNHCR continues to remain concerned by occurrences of forcible deportations of Iraqi refugees from their countries of asylum to Iraq," the UNHCR spokesperson stressed.



The survey found that 61 per cent of those interviewed regretted returning to Iraq from their country of asylum, with 60 per cent of this number stating that this was mainly due to insecurity and personal safety concerns.



Almost 80 per cent of those that returned to Karkh and Resafa said they did not go to their original place of residence, either due to the general insecurity or because they still feared direct persecution. A total 11 per cent cited poor economic conditions and unemployment as reasons for not returning to their former homes and neighbourhoods.



Most Iraqi returnees who did not return to their original homes live with relatives, and in some cases stay with friends or have rented other accommodation. The majority, 87 per cent, said their current income was insufficient to cover their families' needs in Iraq.



One of the principal challenges for Iraqi returnees is finding regular employment. Inadequate access to public services, including health care, combined with infrequent electricity supply in many parts of the country, add to the hardship facing returnees.



A similar survey on the Syrian and Jordanian borders was released last week by UNHCR. It indicated that the majority of Iraqi refugees living in Syria and Jordan were not considering returning permanently to Iraq in the near future due to continuing political uncertainty and security instability.



"UNHCR does not envisage widescale returns to Iraq in the short term," Fleming said, adding: "While UNHCR does not promote returns to Iraq, it continues to assist refugees who voluntarily express their wish to return, in close coordination with the Iraqi authorities."



This assistance covers 100 per cent of transportation as well as a small cash grant. More than 2,960 Iraqis voluntarily returned to Iraq from neighbouring states with UNHCR help during 2007 and the first 10 months of 2008.



According to Iraqi government statistics, 18,240 Iraqi refugees returned from countries of asylum in the first eight months of this year, while 89,700 people displaced inside Iraq returned home in the same period. UNHCR is spending some US$100 million in Iraq this year to alleviate conditions of the internally displaced and to support the reintegration of destitute returnees.

AMSI:September 2010 stats

http://www.iraq-amsi.com/Portal/news.php?action=view&id=47397&9d6a2d26bb41dca7bee47fb491859922
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI) statement number 732 dated 9th October 2010
Number of official raids in Sep 2010 : 375 up and down Iraq resulting in the arrests of 1681 persons
Baghdad 322, Ninevh 296, Salah Din 260, Dhiala 259, Kirkuk 169, Anbar 142, Karbala 83, Basra 80, Babil (hilla) 25, muthana (samawa) 18, Wasit (Kut) 10, Thi Qar (Nassiriyah) 8, Najaf 5, Qaddisiya (Diwaniya)3, Missan (amarra) one arrest.

These figures are based on official figures of the Defence and intyerior ministries and do no include figures of the so called ministry of national security, offices of so called anti terrorism, arrests carried out by forces belonging to the office of prime minster, official militias such as the peshmerga, awakenings and 'unofficial' militias such as bader brigade and kurdish Assaiysh, in the kurdish areas and in the so called 'disputed territories.
http://www.iraq-amsi.com/Portal/news.php?action=view&id=47300&334fd7ba80434d6b8ed2d49dc5cefdf0


AMSI monitored 94 violations of the SOFA agreement during September 2010 by US forces. They were spotted 94 times in the streets of Iraqi towns and cities unaccompanied by Iraqi government forces

Iran's influence in Iraq: Game, set but not match to Tehran

• Michael Knights
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 17 October 2010 21.09 BST

Undertaking or supporting an attack upon Iran would simply be much harder for Iraqi politicians who relied upon Iran for protection during the last three decades of Ba'athist rule and who often made common cause with the Tehran against the Iraqi military. This is one reason why Iran has supported its Iraqi allies in their ongoing de-Ba'athification efforts and why it would prefer not to see a new, cross-sectarian nationalist bloc emerge in Iraq.
Looking forward, Iran's supporters in the Iraqi government will seek to complicate the task of negotiating a post-2011 US-Iraqi security agreement and to restrict the scale and effectiveness of American security assistance to Iraq's external security forces. Though Iranian-backed militancy in Iraq is an irritant in the two countries' relations, the al-Quds Brigades of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), responsible for operations outside Iran, will maintain its ability to target US military personnel, diplomats and private citizens in Iraq, which could act as one source of deterrence against a US or Israeli military strike on Iran - a nightmare scenario for US generals and diplomats in Iraq.

Michael Knights is a Lafer fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, specialising in the military and security affairs of Iraq, Iran, Yemen, and the Gulf Arab states.

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More journalists killed in Iraq than in 2009: IPI

AFP report (October 5^th):

 

More journalists have been killed in Iraq so far this year than in all of 2009, press watchdog IPI said.

Tahrir Kadhim Jawad, a cameraman for the al-Hurra satellite channel, was killed when a magnetic "sticky bomb" attached to his car detonated in the town of Garma, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of the capital, police in nearby Fallujah said.

"Jawad is the fifth journalist to be killed in Iraq this year, and the third to be killed there in less than a month," the Vienna-based International Press Institute (IPI) said.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20101005/twl-more-journalists-killed-in-iraq-than-3cd7efd.html

From the New York Times

In Iraq, New Leadership but Same Reality

NY Times reports (October 1^st): The sound of explosions from the Green Zone across the river is a familiar sound to anyone in Baghdad. In the bad old days you could set your morning alarm clock by the pre-dawn barrage. But since 2008 you could go for months without hearing the “Duck and Cover” tannoy.

A powerful cocktail of factors is behind the general fall in violence since 2007: the Sunni Awakening; the American troop surge; war fatigue; Sunni reconciliation to the electoral process; the growth of Iraq’s security forces and a sustained campaign to arrest and kill Shiite death squads.

But the rockets are back now, with Shiite militias the suspects. American commanders say that there were about 60 attacks on the airport and Green Zone in July and August, and 23 in September.

http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/in-iraq-new-leadership-but-same-reality/?ref=world

Some stories in the media this week

US Businessman: Blackwater Paid Me to Buy Steroids and Weapons on Black Market

The Nation reports (September 23^rd): A Texas businessman who has worked extensively in Iraq claims that Blackwater paid him to purchase steroids and other drugs for its operatives in Baghdad, as well as more than 100 AK47s and massive amounts of ammunition on Baghdad's black market. Howard Lowry, who worked in Iraq from 2003-2009, also claims that he personally attended Blackwater parties where company personnel had large amounts of cocaine and blocks of hashish and would run around naked. At some of these parties, Lowry alleges, Blackwater operatives would randomly fire automatic weapons from their balconies into buildings full of Iraqi civilians. Lowry described the events as a "frat party gone wild" where "drug use was rampant."

Lowry made his statements in a deposition on September 10 as part of a whistleblower lawsuit brought by two former Blackwater employees. The suit was filed in 2008 by former employees Brad and Melan Davis. They allege that Blackwater tried to bill the US government for a prostitute for its men in Afghanistan and for strippers in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/154977/us-businessman-blackwater-paid-me-buy-steroids-and-weapons-black-market-its-shooters

Abuse and torture rife in Iraqi prisons

The Guardian reports (September 23^rd): Up to 30,000 prisoners, including many veterans of the US detention system, remain detained without rights in Iraq and are frequently tortured, or abused, according to a report by Amnesty International.

The study has found that the human rights situation remains dire in Iraq, with arbitrary arrests and secret detention common, as well as a lack of accountability throughout the security forces.

The abuses are systemic, the report claims, with alleged victims having little redress or access to trial — in many cases for longer than two years.

The allegations were released on Monday in a report titled New Order, Same Abuses; Unlawful Detentions and Torture in Iraq.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/23/iraq-prisons-and-probation

Iraqi journalists face daily threat

The National reports (September 25^th): After the Iraqi journalist Riyad Assariyeh was assassinated this month, his family advised other reporters to stay away from the traditional three-day funeral wake, fearing the gathering would present an easy target for militants.

It is a sign of just how vulnerable Iraqi journalists now feel that many of them took the advice, paying respect to their fallen colleague on the first day of mourning and not returning.

Assariyeh’s murder in Baghdad on September 7, and the killing one day later in Mosul of another reporter are part of an increasingly dangerous battle for control over information, that has seen insurgents and government institutions working to suppress the media, journalists and analysts say.

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100926/FOREIGN/100929728/1002