Civil unrest continues to escalate in Iraq

Compiled by Josh Ferguson

Feb. 2 (AGR) -- Prospects of continued civil unrest in Iraq grew stronger this week, as suicide bombers launched what is considered to be the bloodiest attack yet on Kurdish party offices, resulting in 57 confirmed deaths and over 230 injuries.

Two suicide bombers with explosives strapped to their bodies launched devastating attacks on Kurdish leaders celebrating the Islamic feast of Eid al-Adha (The Feast of Sacrifice) in the northern city of Arbil, 200 miles north of Baghdad .

The Irbil attackers slipped into the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) along with hundreds of well-wishers gathering for the Muslim holiday. Kurdish television said both bombers were dressed as Muslim clerics. The bombers went unnoticed because event guards were not searching people entering the buildings because crowds of guests are traditionally received during the holiday.

Leaders of both parties, whose militias fought alongside US soldiers during the invasion of Iraq last year, were receiving hundreds of visitors to mark the start of the four-day holiday when the blasts went off. Among the dead were Irbil’s regional governor Akram Mintik, the deputy governor and his two sons, and the KDP Deputy Prime Minister Sami Abdul Rahman, as well as ministers in the Kurdish administration. The PUK’s military commander also was killed. Neither party’s top leader - Jalal Talabani of the PUK and Massoud Barzani of the KDP - was in Irbil when the attacks occurred.

Arab terrorist organizations al-Qaida and Ansar al-Islam are among those suspected to be behind the attacks. However, neither group has of yet claimed responsibility for the bombings. “It could be any of a number of foreign terrorist groups operating in Iraq,’’ said US Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, coalition deputy chief of staff for operations.

US administrator L. Paul Bremer pledged to work with Iraqi security forces to capture those behind Sunday’s bombings. The attackers “are seeking to halt Iraq’s progress on the path to sovereignty and democracy,’’ Bremer said in a statement.

No matter who was behind them, the blasts may heighten tensions between the Kurds and Sunni Arabs. Iraqi Kurds, some 15 percent of the population, are the third largest Iraqi community and the only one to be largely in favor of the US occupation. However, disputes over the establishment of an autonomous Kurdish Federation in northern Iraq have raised concerns over the American restructuring of the country. The opposition is composed of various Arab groups, including Turkey, an important US ally in the restructuring of middle eastern political structures.

On Jan. 29, US Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz made important gestures to Turkey by addressing these concerns. One such gesture was a claim that the US would soon entirely remove a militant Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), from northern Iraq.

Underlining that the PKK is a terrorist organization and that Turkey has long suffered from this organization, Wolfowitz noted that the PKK will no longer remain in the area.

The terrorist group, known until 2002 as the PKK and then as the Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress announced last November that it was dissolving to be replaced by a broader body, called KONGRA-GEL that would seek a peaceful solution with Turkey. Turkey and the United States had rejected the move, claiming it was a mere name change. “We won’t let them behave as a different organization by changing their name,” stated Wolfowitz.

Wolfowitz also promised Turkey that no Kurdish-based federation will be established in Iraq.

When asked whether the US shared Turkish concerns over recent claims by Iraqi Kurdish leaders on establishment of an ethnicity-based federation, Wolfowitz said that a federation system is inevitable for Iraq especially when the history of Iraq is considered, adding that such a federation should be based on administrative and geographical lines, not along ethnic elements.

Wolfowitz made a statement to the Turkish media saying that by denying the Kurds their autonomy as an ethnic federation, “We can participate in Iraq’s liberation process, which is the most important project of this century and in the world at the moment. If we can achieve this goal by working together, I assure you not only will the damage be repaired, but also all existing damage will be completely removed.”

The statement by Wolfowitz was made only one week after a verbal report by the CIA strongly warning the White House that Iraq may be on a path to civil war. The CIA officers’ bleak assessment was delivered to Washington this week, said agency officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the classified information involved. One major issue addressed in the report was the Kurdish demand for autonomy and shares of oil revenue.

“They think that if they don’t get what they want now, they’ll probably never get it,” said one intelligence officer. “[The Kurds] feel they’ve been betrayed by the United States before.”

The warning also echoed growing fears that Iraq’s Shiite majority, which has until now grudgingly accepted the US occupation, could turn to violence if its demands for direct elections are spurned.

These dire scenarios were discussed at meetings by Bush, his top national security aides, and the chief US administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, said a senior administration official, who requested anonymity. Another senior official said the concerns over a possible civil war weren’t confined to the CIA but are “broadly held within the government.” Officials are scrambling to save the US exit strategy after concluding that Iraq’s most powerful Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al Husseini al Sistani, is unlikely to drop his demand for elections for an interim assembly that would choose an interim government by June 30.

The US-led administration in Baghdad has said it is impractical to hold direct elections so soon, because there is no fair electoral roll, voter registration, or constituency boundaries. It has instead proposed a system of selection and indirect elections. Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, is slated to send a team to Iraq to determine the plausibility of direct elections being held in the summer. Annan has already written to Sistani telling him he believes it would not be possible to hold elections by the summer. The cleric has indicated he may accept a compromise, as long as it has the sanction of the UN.

Sistani’s representatives, however, have expressed expectations of widespread civil disobedience and violence if elections are deemed impossible. “They know what will happen if they do not listen to us,” said Sabah al Khazali, a religious scholar who joined last week’s demonstrations. “They know this is a warning.”

In an interview last week, a top cleric in Najaf appeared to confirm these fears of potential civil war. “Everything has its own time, but we are saying that we don’t accept the occupiers getting involved with the Iraqis’ affairs,” said Sheikh Ali Najafi, whose father is one of the four most senior clerics. “I don’t trust the Americans — not even for one blink.”

This mindset is one which is steadily growing among Iraqis discontented by the American occupation. Though Shiites, Sunnis, and ethnic minorities are rivals in the new Iraq, many residents said the recent call for elections could draw disparate groups together. Small groups of Sunnis joined massive Shiite protests last week, demanding that US administrators grant Sistani’s demands for general elections.

“If Sistani called for revolution, I would sacrifice my life for the good of my country,” said Hamdiya al Niemi, a 27-year-old street vendor.

Yaser al Hamdani, a 28-year-old whose great-uncle fought in the 1920 revolution against British occupation, said he too would take part in a rebellion. “Of course I would join,” Hamdani said. “There would be bloodshed along the way, but sacrifice is important for success.”

Sources: Knight Ridder, IPS, Turkish Daily News, AP, the Guardian, BBC, Independent (UK)

Hundreds killed in daily air raids on Darfur villages

Tine, Chad, Jan. 29 — Daily bombing raids on villages in Darfur, western Sudan, are killing hundreds of civilians and causing thousands more to flee across the border into neighboring Chad only to find themselves part of a spiraling humanitarian crisis.

“Between 50 and 100 are arriving every day from Tine [Sudan] and the surrounding villages,” Barout Margui Sawa, a local official in charge of the refugees in Tine Chad, told IRIN. “The Antonov planes circle every night from 1:00 to 2:00 GMT. They drop bombs on the Sudanese side, so people are scared.”

Since Jan. 9, Antonov aircraft were dropping bombs every day across the border in Sudan, circling over Chadian airspace above the border town of Tine Chad, said Abubakar Mohammed Chaib of the Chadian Red Cross. Before that, the aircraft had been coming only every second or third day. “They [the refugees] are coming because of the aircraft bombing. There is nowhere safe in Sudan,” he said. On Dec. 29, two bombs had been dropped on the Chadian side of the border, inside Tine, he added.

Since July, local authorities estimate that 35,000 people have fled on foot, donkeys, and camels into Tine Chad, which is separated from neighboring Tine Sudan only by a dry watercourse, or wadi. The entire population of Tine Sudan of about 6,000 has fled, with only a few crossing back and forth across the border to collect animals or belongings.

By Tuesday, an estimated 7,000 people were camped with their meager belongings in the wadi between the two towns, with nothing in this desert region but bramble, straw, and bits of plastic or cloth to shelter under. The remaining thousands - reportedly including many of the families of Darfur’s two rebel groups, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) - are camped in makeshift huts in and around the town.

On Wednesday, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) -- which has so far been unable to confirm the numbers of arrivals -- began counting and registering the refugees in preparation for delivering food and blankets. So far, UNHCR estimates that over 100,000 people have fled into Chad from fighting, militia attacks and bombing raids, and are now scattered along the 600-km border between the two countries.

But the daily threat of aircraft overhead an the sound and smoke from the bombs -- steel drums full of explosives -- being dropped nearby is scaring many of them away, according to Nuria Serra, a field coordinator with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). She said an increasing number were fleeing inland from the border town, as the crisis in Tine heightened by the day.

Staff in the only hospital in the area, run by MSF, treat between 75 and 150 patients a day, mostly men with war wounds. On Tuesday by 11:30am, 54 had already arrived for treatment.

An MSF doctor, Louis Karudji, who performs amputations, removes shrapnel and stitches up perforated intestines in an operating tent, said he had been “overwhelmed” by the numbers of wounded. On the night of Jan. 20-21 he had worked until 6:00am the next day to treat 23 new arrivals with war injuries.

Meanwhile, many of the wounded in the hospital told IRIN that the bombing campaign in Darfur was targeting innocent civilians. Harun Uthman, a man from a village outside Nyala, southern Darfur, said he had been at home on Jan. 15 when an aircraft circling overhead dropped its bombs. “I lost six men and two girls in my family, my father, my brothers, my grandparents, my wife, and my son.”

Bakhit Abdullah Khamis, whose leg had been amputated from the knee at the MSF hospital, said a bomb had been dropped on his village outside Karnoi on Jan. 19. “I was at the well with my cows when the plane came. There were eight of us, four are dead.”

Ibrahim Da’ud Djimet, lying next to him on the MSF tent floor, said: “We’re farmers with our herds. If there are rebels, they’re not in the villages, they’re in the bush. If the government wants the rebels, I don’t know why they bomb the villages.”

However, a haggard old woman, Ambakar Khatir Sa’id, who had traveled 30 miles to arrive in Tine, Chad on Monday evening, admitted that her four sons had been rebels. “The aircraft bombed us. My two oldest sons were killed, one was taken prisoner by the government, the other is still in Sudan,” she said.

Local people in Tine Chad, who, like many of Darfur’s rebels and refugees, are ethnic Zaghawah, have been helping out with food and shelter, but they say time is running out. “People organized themselves so they could provide food for the refugees, but a lot more are arriving now. The population is overwhelmed, they can’t keep providing food,” said a local official.

Robbie Tomson, a consultant with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told journalists that the refugees were “among the toughest people on earth,” but that they were reaching the end of their coping skills. “These people survive and forage in the bush where you and I wouldn’t last two minutes,” he said.

The JEM rebels, who control areas around Tine Sudan, say they are ready to negotiate with the Sudanese government, but only if international monitors are present at peace talks and are allowed to monitor a ceasefire, a JEM spokesman, Abu Bakr Hamid Nur, told IRIN.

The Sudanese government had negotiated a ceasefire with the region’s second main rebel group, the SLA, but it broke down in mid-December after only three months, after which fighting escalated.

Both rebel groups say they are fighting for political and economic equality. JEM was demanding a dialogue with the Sudanese government in order to reach a political settlement, similar to the talks in Kenya sponsored by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development between the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army, said Abu Bakr Hamid. “We want a dialogue on how to rule Sudan. But they think they can defeat us militarily.”

He added that the movement was in ongoing talks with the SLA to form a single armed movement. “We are fighting together in the field, and we are going to unite politically,” he said.

Source : IRIN

Bush yields to ‘independent’ WMD inquiry

By David Teather

New York, Feb. 2 — President George Bush has bowed to mounting pressure and agreed to order an independent investigation into why the intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction appears to have been so flawed, according to reports last night. The commission of inquiry will also study intelligence gathered on al-Qaida and weapons proliferation, senior White House officials said.

“The president wants a broad, bipartisan and independent review of our intelligence, particularly relating to weapons of mass destruction and counter-proliferation efforts,” an official told Reuters.

The decision represents a remarkable about face by Bush’s administration, which had, until now, resisted calls for an investigation until the completion of the search for weapons.

A panel of “distinguished citizens who have served their country in the past” will lead the inquiry, modeled on the Warren commission, a 10-month investigation which re-examined the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The White House has yet to set a time limit for the inquiry, the findings of which are likely to have a big impact on the presidential campaign.

Members of Congress from both parties had been pressing for an independent inquiry. But the sense of urgency intensified last week when the former chief US weapons inspector, David Kay, said the stockpiles probably did not exist and offered the blunt public testimony that “we were almost all wrong” about Iraq’s arms programs.

Yesterday’s announcement was welcomed by senior Republican Senator Trent Lott, a key member of the Senate intelligence committee, told CNN: “I’m not a fan of commissions, generally speaking, but in this case, there’s no question that there was an intelligence failure, in some form or another. What I want to know is, what happened? Why wasn’t it more reliable, why wasn’t it more accurate? And, more importantly, what are we going to do about it?”

The decision by Bush appeared to be an attempt to take control of what could become a dangerous sore on his re-election campaign if left to fester. Backing an inquiry deflects claims that the administration is evading difficult questions, and by getting involved in the creation of the panel, instead of leaving it to Congress, the White House could also have a say in the parameters of the investigation.

Former weapons inspector David Albright said the government could use the commission to deflect blame for the failure to find weapons of mass destruction.

“The bottom line for them [the Bush administration] is to delay the day of reckoning about their use of the weapons of mass destruction information,” Albright said. “David Kay can blame the CIA and say ‘Oh, I made all these comments based on what I heard from the intelligence community.’ President Bush can’t do that. He’s the boss.”

The US media had also been drawing comparisons between Tony Blair’s cooperation with the Hutton inquiry and what the New York Times called Bush’s “spin and evade” approach.

Despotism

The White House has yet to close the book on finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but it has been shifting its position and is no longer adamant they will be found. More emphasis has been put on the despotism of Saddam Hussein as a justification for his removal.

At the end of last week Bush offered his first admission that prewar intelligence might have been faulty when he said he wanted to “know the facts” about the gathering of information.

Earlier, the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, admitted that Washington had not found what it had expected in Iraq. “I think that what we have is evidence that there are differences between what we knew going in and what we found on the ground,” she said.

Even last week, though, the White House was maintaining that any independent inquiry should be stayed until the completion of the work of the Iraq Survey Group, something that could take between six months and a year.

The investigation could prove damaging for Bush’s election campaign if the results are published before voting on Nov. 2, and if they implicate the administration.

Democrats have argued that intelligence on the weapons program in Iraq was exaggerated to justify the invasion. That view was recently given weight by the former treasury secretary Paul O’Neill, who claimed in a book that Bush had decided to oust Saddam before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

In his testimony before the Senate armed services committee, Kay, who resigned 10 days ago, backed an outside inquiry. He said he thought the Bush administration had been misled by its intelligence sources, and warned yesterday that flawed intelligence on Iraq had weakened the case for a policy of pre-emption.

“If you cannot rely on good, accurate intelligence that is credible to the American people and to others abroad, you certainly cannot have a policy of pre-emption,” Kay said.

Senator Joseph Biden, a Democrat, agreed. “America’s credibility’s at stake,” he told CNN. “This isn’t about politics anymore.”

Others, though, have questioned the pressure from policymakers on intelligence agencies to support the case for war.

Six separate panels, including the House of Representatives and Senate intelligence committees, are already working on investigations into the prewar intelligence. The Senate committee is scheduled to be the first to publish its findings, in March.

Source: The Gaurdian (UK)