Six Killed, 10 Bodies Found - Quiet Capital Because of Curfew
Good morning,
Though the capital was quiet because of the curfew, six people were killed in scattered violence around the country, including an Iraqi working as an interpreter for the U.S. military in an area about 60 miles south of Baghdad, authorities said.
In addition, Baghdad police found 10 bodies in Baghdad, apparently victims of sectarian death squads. Two other bodies were turned in to the morgue in Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad.
The U.S. military has forecast a surge in violence during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began about a week ago. A senior U.S. military official said the first week of Ramadan was the worst for suicide bombings since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Speaking on Al-Arabiya TV on Saturday morning, Interior Ministry official Hussein Ali Kemal said the move was to "prevent the security situation from deteriorating."
"That was done due to intelligence information that indicates the intentions of the terrorists to commit terrorist acts against civilians, therefore it is a measure for maintaining the safety and security of the people," he said.
He added, however, that the information was that there was a threat that an attack "might occur against places of worship and shopping centers during Ramadan."
On Saturday, U.S. Embassy in Baghdad spokesman Lou Fintor declined to comment on reports that American officials have warned Iraqi leaders that they might have to curtail aid to the Shiite-controlled Interior Ministry because of human rights violations.
According to The New York Times, the focus centers on allegations of abuse and torture at an Interior Ministry prison in Baghdad known as Site 4.
The curfew also came shortly after a relative of the new presiding judge in Saddam Hussein's genocide trial was shot and killed in Baghdad, an attack condemned by the country's top prosecutor as an attempt to force the trial to be moved out of Iraq.
Prosecutor General Jaafar al-Mousawi said the attack on a car carrying the judge's brother-in-law and nephew, the latest in a string of violence linked to proceedings against the former Iraqi leader, would not stop the court from moving ahead. During Saddam's first trial, three defense lawyers were killed, and a fourth fled the country in fear for his life.
It was unclear whether Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa's relatives were targeted because of his role in the trial, or if the shooting was just another of the sectarian attacks that have been plaguing Baghdad.
Have a nice day.
10 Bodies Found, Several Killed, Including Brother in Law of Saddams Judge
Good afternoon,
As we get closer to mid-term elections, it is becoming more and more difficult to find news on the daily killings which occur in Iraq. Media is unfortunately putting this information into the backseat right now, so I really have to scrub aruond to find recaps of the daily bloodshed. Violence continues to be on the rise, unfortunately it is not at the forefront of our news any more. Republicans are doing all that they can to shift the attention from the very unpopular "War in Iraq" to the more popular and fear provoking "Global war against terrorism" to try to boost their numbers for the US elections. This, in addition to, mysteriously dropping gas/oil prices, may help keep the republican party in power.
I will continue to report what I can find.
Here is today's report:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - The brother-in-law of the new judge presiding at Saddam Hussein's genocide trial was killed and his nephew was wounded in a shooting Friday in Baghdad, the latest deadly violence linked to proceedings against the former Iraqi leader.
The judge's brother-in-law, Kadhim Abdul-Hussein, was fatally shot, and his son, Karrar, was wounded by unidentified assailants, police 1st Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.
It was not immediately clear whether they were targeted because they were related to Judge Mohammed Oreibi al-Khalifa, a Shiite Muslim who took over the Saddam trial last week, or if it was another of the sectarian attacks that have been plaguing Baghdad
In a further sign of sectarian violence, authorities found 10 bodies bearing signs of torture, apparently victims of death squads.
Police said the corpses of seven men and one woman were all found in east Baghdad neighborhoods, blindfolded with their hands and legs bound. Two more corpses, riddled with bullets and also bound, were pulled from the Tigris River in Suwayrah, 25 miles south of Baghdad. They showed signs of torture, said Maamoun al-Ajili, an official with the Kut morgue.
U.S. commanders said there has been a spike in sectarian violence in Iraq _ particularly in the capital _ since the start of Ramadan, which Sunnis started observing on Sept. 23 and Shiites two days later.
Separately, the commander of U.S. forces in Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's volatile western Anbar province, said the insurgency can be beaten but probably not until after U.S. troops leave the country.
"An insurgency is a very difficult thing to defeat in a finite period of time. It takes a lot of persistence _ perseverance is the actual term that we like to use," Army Col. Sean B. MacFarland, commander of 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division, said in a video-teleconference with reporters at the Pentagon.
"Who knows how long this is going to actually last?" he added. "But if we get the level of violence down to a point where the Iraqi security forces are more than capable of dealing with it, the insurgency's days will eventually come to an end. And they will come to an end at the hands of the Iraqis, who, by definition, will always be perceived as more legitimate than an external force like our own."
MacFarland's brigade is fighting in Ramadi, where the insurgency has become so entrenched and feared by residents that the city has no Iraqi mayor. Recently, however, the tide has begun to turn against al-Qaida in Iraq, which has become the dominant anti-government force, the colonel said.
"It's a situation that's beginning to spiral in our favor," he said.
In the troubled city of Baquoba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, three bodies were discovered in a house and weapons were found in a mosque, Provincial police chief Maj. Ghassan al-Bawi said.
Sixty suspected insurgents were taken into custody in the operation conducted by the Iraqi army and police, he said.
A traffic policeman was killed and two civilians injured in a bombing in downtown Baghdad, police said. Insurgents used what is becoming an increasingly common technique _ detonating one bomb to attract attention, then detonating a second bomb when people came to look, police 1st Lt. Mohammed Khayun said.
In Anah, about 160 miles northwest of the capital, two Iraqi soldiers were killed and another two injured when a roadside bomb hit their convoy.
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Screen Capture - Bush Whacked
20,000 Iraqi Civilians Died In Attacks So Far This Year. Violence Has Killed About 6,600 Iraqis During July
Good Morning,
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Violence killed nearly 6,600 Iraqi civilians during July and August, while more than 8,000 were wounded, according to a report released Wednesday by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq.
More than 20,600 Iraqi civilians have died in attacks so far this year, according to UNAMI.
The carnage included a string of execution-style slayings, mortar and rocket attacks as well as suicide bombings apparently targeting civilians.
Most of the killings detailed in the report released Wednesday happened in Baghdad.
The data was based on information provided by Iraq's Ministry of Health and the Baghdad morgue.
The report said a reduction in casualties in Baghdad between July and August may reflect "a degree of improved security" as a result of Operation Together Forward -- a security clampdown conducted by U.S. and Iraqi forces in several city neighborhoods.
There were 2,884 civilians killed in Baghdad in July. In August, 2,222 people were killed, according to the report.
Last month, the U.S. military reported a dramatic drop in the number of murders, but it has since said that its figures did not include people killed by bombs, mortars or other mass attacks. (Full story)
The new U.N. report came on a day of suicide attacks, bombings and the discovery of more bodies -- as well as the first day of the school year for Iraq's children.(Full Story)
More violence
A suicide car bomber targeted the house of a tribal leader in Samarra Wednesday afternoon, killing eight people -- including a child -- and wounding 28, police said.
Earlier Wednesday, a suicide truck bomber detonated his explosives at the entrance of an Iraqi police base Wednesday, killing four police officers and wounding 11 more in Dora, a southern neighborhood in Baghdad, Iraqi emergency police said.
In addition, three civilians were wounded.
A mortar attack in northeast Baghdad Wednesday also wounded four civilians, police said.
Across the capital, police said they found 35 unidentified bodies in the 24-hour period ending at 6 a.m. Wednesday.
Police said they have found 227 bodies throughout the city in the past seven days.
In addition, a U.S. soldier assigned to Multi-National Division-Baghdad was killed Wednesday morning in northeastern Baghdad by small arms fire, the U.S. military said. With the death, 2,689 U.S. military personnel, including seven American civilian contractors, have died in the Iraq war.
A U.S. military spokesman pointed to a spike in murders and executions in Baghdad during the past week and said it fits a pattern generally seen before the holy month of Ramadan, which begins this weekend.
"That's obviously of great concern to everyone and something that's being looked at carefully," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said Wednesday.
Attacks against American troops have also gone up since the call by al Qaeda in Iraq's leader, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, to target U.S. forces, The Associated Press quoted Caldwell as saying.
Near the northern city of Mosul, a double bombing killed 21 people, AP reported.
A bomb in a parked car detonated Tuesday night near an Iraqi army base in Sharqat, about 45 miles from Mosul, police told the AP. A suicide bomber then set off his explosives as a crowd gathered.
The AP said 50 people were wounded in the bombings.
The violence Wednesday followed a similarly deadly day Tuesday when a rocket attack on a Shiite neighborhood in southern Baghdad killed 10 people and wounded 19 Tuesday, police told the AP.
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At Least 41 Die In Iraq Violence
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BAGHDAD, Iraq - Bombers and gunmen killed at least 41 people and wounded dozens across Iraq on Monday, while parliament leaders again put off debate on legislation that some Iraqis fear could threaten the country's unity and bring even more violence.
The U.S. military relinquished control of a second Iraqi army division as Iraqi officials prepared to further tighten security ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when insurgent attacks tend to spike.
In a positive development for Iraq's leaders, predominantly Sunni Arab tribes in a volatile western province have joined to fight insurgents in the region and want the government and the U.S.-led coalition to supply them with weapons, a tribal leader said.
Tribal leaders and clerics in Ramadi, capital of violent Anbar province, met last week and set up a force of about 20,000 men "ready to purge the city of these infidels," Sheik Fassal al-Guood, a tribal leader from Ramadi, told The Associated Press.
"People are fed up with the acts of those criminals who take Islam as a cover for their crimes," he said. "The situation in the province is unbearable, the city is abandoned, most of the families have fled the city and all services are poor."
An indication of the situation came Monday when two suicide car bombers attacked a police station in Ramadi, killing at least two police officers and wounding 26 people, the Interior Ministry and U.S. military said. Al-Arabiya and al-Jazeera television put the death toll much higher, saying 13 people were killed.
A suicide bomber also struck in Tal Afar, a city 260 miles northwest of Baghdad that has seen much insurgent activity in the past, killing at least 20 people and wounding 17. Bombings and shootings in and around Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of the capital, killed 12 people.
At least six more people died in other incidents around Iraq, and authorities found at least five bodies, including two women, that probably were victims of the sectarian reprisal killings being waged between Shiite and Sunni Arabs.
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27+ Killed 80 Wounded
Good Morning,
A series of bombings and mortar attacks - including two suicide bombings in the northern city of Kirkuk, killed at least 27 people and wounded another 80 Sunday.
A suicide truck bomb exploded in the morning in the center of Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, killing 18 and wounding 55, said police Brig. Sarhat Qadir. A few hours later, a suicide car bomb rammed into a joint U.S.-Iraqi army patrol in the south of the city, killing at least three bystanders and wounding eight others, Qadir said.
He said there were also casualties among the soldiers, but would not provide further details.
A series of near simultaneous mortar and bomb attacks in Fallujah, 65 kilometers (40 miles) west of Baghdad, killed four people and wounded 10 in the center of the city.
In the truck suicide bombing in Kirkuk, a gunman sitting beside the bomber opened fire on civilians before the truck exploded near the city's criminal court and the headquarters of two main Kurdish political parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Qadir said.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is run by Iraq's President Jalal Talabani, while the president of Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, runs the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
Barzani recently angered many in Baghdad when he ordered the Iraqi national flag to be replaced with the Kurdish banner on all government buildings in the autonomous Kurdish region in the north. Kirkuk is located just outside the autonomous region. His decision Sept. 1 led to an outcry, particularly among Sunni Arab lawmakers who fear that Kurds are pushing for secession under the nation's new federal system.
In separate attacks in Kirkuk, a roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol in the south of the city, killing two civilians and wounding four, while another roadside bomb also targeting a police patrol in another part of the city wounded three civilians, Qadir said.
In Fallujah, a roadside bomb detonated in the center of the city, followed a few minutes later by a car bomb attack and a blast from an explosives-rigged motorcycle in separate areas of the city. All three attacks targeted police patrols, said police Lt. Mohammed Ismail.
The attacks killed a total of four people, including two policemen, and wounded 10 others, including four policemen, he said. He would not provide details of which attack the casualties resulted from.
Shortly afterward, a mortar round hit the area of a U.S. and Iraqi police base in the center of the city, and clashes erupted between gunmen and police nearby. Another mortar fell in an Iraqi army base in western Fallujah but did not cause any casualties, Ismail said.
U.S. military authorities used loudspeakers to announce a vehicle ban in the city.
Violence across Iraq has killed hundreds of people in recent weeks.
In Baghdad, the bloodshed has escalated sharply in the past week, with more than 180 people killed since Wednesday - either slain by bombs and gunfire or tortured and shot before being dumped on city streets or in rivers, a hallmark of reprisal killings being waged between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
On Sunday, the bullet-riddled bodies of four unidentified men were found in separate neighborhoods in east Baghdad. All were blindfolded and had their hands and legs tied, said police Maj. Mahir Hamad Mussa.
Another two bodies were found in the Tigris river in central Baghdad. Both had been shot, and one had been decapitated, said police 1st Lt. Ahmed Mohammed Ali.
In the city of Kut, 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad, a blindfolded and bound body was taken to the morgue after being found dumped in a river, said morgue official Maamoun Ajeel.
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A Picture Speaks 1,000 Words
30 Bodies Found
Good Morning,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Police found 30 bodies bearing signs of torture Friday, the latest in a wave of sectarian killings sweeping the Iraqi capital despite a monthlong security operation.
A U.S. Marine was killed Friday in Anbar province, and an American soldier was killed Thursday evening by a roadside bomb northwest of Baghdad, the military said. The soldier was the fifth to have died on Thursday, making it a particularly bloody day for U.S. forces.
In central Baghdad, a gunman opened fire from the top of an abandoned building in a Sunni Arab neighborhood, killing an Iraqi civilian and wounding five others, said police Lt. Ahmed Mohammed Ali.
Violence has intensified over the past two days, with more than 130 people either killed by attacks or their bodies found dumped in the streets of Baghdad. All the bodies found Friday had signs of torture, and one that washed up on the banks of the Tigris River had been dismembered.
A spokesman for a prominent Sunni Arab political party was shot and killed by gunmen, said a party official who did not want to be identified because he fears for his life.
Sheik Muhanad al-Gharairi was a spokesman for the Conference of People of Iraq, a Sunni Arab party headed by Adnan al-Dulaimi. He was also an imam at a mosque in Baghdad and was on his way to conduct prayers at a different mosque in Garma, 19 miles outside of Baghdad when he was killed.
Both the U.S. government and military have said sectarian killings and violence are surging around Iraq, although the military said attacks have been limited to parts of Baghdad not yet included in a security offensive that began on Aug. 7.
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65 Bodies Found + 30 People Killed by Car Bombs, Mortar Attacks and Shootings. An Average of 51 People/Day Died In Violent Attacks In Baghdad 08/06
Good Morning
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Police found the bodies of 65 men who had been tortured, shot and dumped, most around Baghdad, while car bombs, mortar attacks and shootings killed at least 39 people around Iraq and injured dozens more.
Two U.S. soldiers were killed, one by an attack in restive Anbar province Monday, and the other Tuesday by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad, the U.S. military command said.
Police said 60 of the bodies were found overnight around Baghdad, with the majority dumped in predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhoods, police said. Another five were found floating down the Tigris river in Suwayrah, 25 miles south of the capital.
The bodies were bound, bore signs of torture and had been shot, said police 1st Lt. Thayer. Such killings are usually the work of death squads _ both Sunni Arab and Shiite _ who kidnap people and often torture them with power drills or beat them badly before shooting them.
Forty-five of the victims were discovered in predominantly Sunni Arab parts of western Baghdad, and 15 were found in mostly Shiite areas of eastern Baghdad.
In the capital, a car bomb killed at least 19 people and wounded more than 62 after it detonated in a large square used mostly as a parking lot near the main headquarters of Baghdad's traffic police department, police said. At least two of the dead were traffic police officers.
In eastern Baghdad, a bomb in a parked car exploded next to a passing Iraqi police patrol in the Zayona neighborhood, killing 8 people and wounding 17, police said. At least 3 of the dead and 7 of the wounded were police officers.
Two mortar shells landed on al-Rashad police station in southeastern Baghdad, killing a policeman and wounding two others, police said. Another two policemen were killed when two mortar rounds landed near their station in Baghdad's eastern neighborhood of Mashtal. Three others were injured.
In the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, two pedestrians were killed and two others injured, apparently in the crossfire between U.S. troops and unidentified gunmen in the city's main market, police said.
Baghdad has been the focus of most of Iraq's violence, and thousands of U.S. and Iraqi forces are taking part in a security crackdown. An average of 51 people a day died violently last month in the capital, according to the Iraqi Health Ministry.
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24 Killed
Good Afternoon,
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Violence killed at least two dozen people across Iraq on Tuesday, including six who died when a car bomb blew up in western Baghdad.
The attack also wounded 18 people in Mansour, an upscale neighborhood that has been the scene of repeated bombings and kidnappings.
Northeast of the capital, at least four people were killed and two dozen wounded when a roadside bomb exploded next to a market in the town of Middadiyah.
And in the northern city of Mosul, gunmen attacked and killed four Kurds and injured another, said Ahmed Abdul-Aziz, a doctor at Jumhouri Hospital.
Police in the Anbar province capital of Ramadi, meanwhile, reported that three people were killed in an explosion in the city west of Baghdad.
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17+ Killed, 50+ Wounded
Good Morning,
As Iraq was given the military rains from the US, violence continued in the hours before the handover Thursday. Six bomb attacks targeting police patrols in Baghdad killed at least 17 people and wounded more than 50.
A suicide car bomb targeting a police patrol outside a gas station near the Elouya Hospital in central Baghdad killed 10 people, including four policemen, and wounded 21, police said.
Another suicide car bombing in Taiyran Square in the center of the city killed three policemen and wounded 15, the prime minister's office said. Police initially reported two civilians and two policemen were killed.
Two suicide car bombs exploded near al-Nidaa Mosque in northern Baghdad, the prime minister's office said. Nobody was hurt in the first, but the second killed three civilians and wounded 12.
Another suicide car bomb in Taiyran Square in the center of the city killed two civilians and two police special forces members, and wounded 13 people, police said.
In western Baghdad, a roadside bombing in Qahtan Square near Yarmouk hospital wounded four people, including a policeman, Mahmoud said. Elsewhere, in the upscale district of Mansour, a roadside bomb explosion killed a man and injured his daughter and another person, police said.
On Wednesday night, gunmen kidnapped the nephew of Iraq's parliament speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, in Baghdad, was kidnapped, an interior ministry official said.
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33 Killed Across Iraq, 29 Bodies Found
Good Afternoon,
Today, two bombs targeting an Iraqi army patrol exploded in northern Baghdad within minutes at a busy intersection, killing at least nine people and wounding 39 others, police said. Two of the dead and eight of the wounded were Iraqi soldiers, police said. 29 Bodies were also found.
In northeastern Baghdad, gunmen opened fire on a procession of pilgrims heading to the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Baghdad, killing one person and wounding two.
Tens of thousands of people are expected in Karbala on Saturday to observe Shaaban, a religious celebration. Many of the pilgrims travel to the city on foot. State television said a vehicle curfew had been imposed in Karbala from Wednesday night until the end of the celebration.
Mortar attacks in residential areas in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, killed three people: a 2-year-old child in the Khan Bani Saad area and two people in Muqdadiyah, 60 miles north of Baghdad, police said.
A dispute over Iraq's flag also showed no signs of abating.
Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish region, angered many in Baghdad with his decision last week to replace the Iraqi national flag with the Kurdish banner. The Kurdish region has been gaining more autonomy since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, a worrying development to many Iraqi leaders, especially Sunni Arabs.
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35 Bullet Riddled Bodies Found, Soccer Star Kidnapped
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BAGHDAD, Iraq - A popular Iraqi soccer star was kidnapped and 35 bullet-riddled bodies were found in Iraq on Monday, a day after Iraqi officials touted the capture of al-Qaida in Iraq's No. 2 leader as a move to reduce violence in the country.
The U.S. military announced the deaths of five more American troops, including a soldier who was killed by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad on Monday.
A roadside bomb also killed two British soldiers and seriously wounded a third in Ad Dayr, north of the southern city of Basra, British military spokesman Maj. Charlie Burbridge said.
Authorities found 33 bodies of people who had been shot to death, all showing signs of torture, dumped around several neighborhoods in Baghdad, police said. The bodies, all of men, were blindfolded and their feet and hands were tied.
In Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, police found another two bodies dumped on a highway. Both had been shot in the head and chest, said Maamoun Ajil al-Robaiei from the morgue at Kut hospital.
Elsewhere in the capital, Ghanim Ghudayer, 22, considered one of the best players in Baghdad's Air Force Club, was abducted Sunday evening by unknown assailants, some who were wearing military uniforms, police said.
The head of the Air Force Club, Samir Kadhim, said the player, who also was on Iraq's Olympic team, had planned to leave for Syria in two or three days to join a new team there. Iraqi sports officials and athletes have frequently faced threats, kidnappings and killings.
At least two people also were killed and six were wounded in and around Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, in shootings and bomb attacks.
Have a nice day.
16 Killed, 24 Wounded
Good morning,
Here is the voilence reported by police on Sunday:
_ An overnight mortar attack east of the capital killed six people, including two children, and wounded 15.
_ A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol in eastern Baghdad killed two policemen and a civilian and wounded three policemen.
_ Gunmen killed two policemen in a civilian car and wounded a third in Baqouba.
_ A car bomb also killed three people in Baqouba.
_ A civilian was gunned down and killed in a drive-by shooting in Amarah, 200 miles southeast of Baghdad.
_ A suicide car bomb struck a police patrol in the northern city of Mosul, killing two policemen and wounding five people.
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Hundreds Of Iraqis Killed This Week
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BAGHDAD, Iraq - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met with Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric Saturday to discuss the country's deteriorating security situation, while attacks killed 13 Pakistani and Indian pilgrims south of the capital and three bombings left six people dead.
Al-Maliki met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, the cleric's office said. In July, al-Sistani was credited with restraining the Shiite community from widespread retaliation against minority Sunnis following horrific attacks on Shiite civilians.
"If the government does not do its duty in imposing security and order to the people and protecting them, it will give a chance to other powers to do this duty and this a very dangerous matter," al-Sistani's office quoted him as saying.
The meeting came two days after a barrage of coordinated attacks across mainly Shiite eastern Baghdad killed 64 people and wounded 286. Hundreds of Iraqis have been killed in violence this week, despite a massive security operation in the capital involving an extra 12,000 Iraqi and U.S. troops that has targeted some of Baghdad's most problematic neighborhoods.
Have a nice day.
