Violence intensifies in Iraq as UN warns of civil war

Compiled by Greg White

Feb. 17 (AGR) — Violent attacks including two suicide bombings that killed over 100 Iraqis in the past week increased fears of a widespread conflict. The UN special envoy to Iraq warned of “very serious dangers” of civil war.

On Feb. 10 a suicide bomber drove a pick-up truck into the entrance of a police station in the town of Iskandiriya, south of Baghdad. The explosion killed 55 Iraqis, most of whom were waiting outside. The compound, which housed not only the police station but also the local court and the mayor’s office, was unusually crowded because it was the second day for those wishing to apply for jobs in the police to register.

The following day a car bomber blew himself up outside an army recruitment base in Baghdad, killing at least 47 people and wounding dozens more. Witnesses described how the bomber drove a white Oldsmobile saloon car into a crowd of hundreds of volunteers waiting outside the entrance to the base in western Baghdad.

US authorities in Iraq sought to blame al-Qaida loyalists and foreign militants for the recent suicide attacks. The US claimed - in an apparent leak to The New York Times -- that it had intercepted a message from a Jordianian believed to be in Iraq asking al-Qaida for help in fomenting a civil war between Iraqi Sunnis and Shias. British security and intelligence agencies have in the past criticized the US for jumping to conclusions about links between insurgents and al-Qaida. So far very few of the thousands of suspects detained by the Americans in Iraq have been foreigners.

The US military has been organizing the reconstruction of the Iraqi security forces. The police force has neared its planned goal of 71,000 members. The Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, in charge of internal security, has about 21,000 members and is planned to reach 92,000. The army is recruiting a force of 40,000 soldiers. The police and the ICDC are viewed by the insurgents as collaborators with the US-led occupiers. Nearly 250 Iraqis have been killed in bombings in the first six weeks of the year.

In attack in Fallujah on Feb 14, gunmen launched a coordinated, two-pronged assault, pinning down civil defense forces while another group stormed the police station and freed nearly 100 prisoners. The attack killed 23 Iraqis, most of whom were police. Up to 70 gunmen attacked the police station with machineguns, hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades. The few police present had only small weapons. Rebels launched the attack after sealing off the area with checkpoints and warning merchants not to open their shops. “The American army watched but did not help,” said Qais Jameel, a wounded policeman.

A senior US officer said it appeared all the attackers wounded or killed in the raid in Fallujah were Iraqis, despite initial reports that foreigners including Lebanese and Iranians were involved. “This was something put together by people with knowledge of small-unit tactics,” the officer told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity. “This would not be the same tactics that al-Qaida would employ. These are military tactics. It points to former military members.”

Two days before the assault on the police station in Fallujah, a convoy of US soldiers which included General John Abizaid, head of the US Central Command, was ambushed as it arrived at the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps building there. Three rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the convoy from rooftops nearby and gunfire was directed towards the soldiers. Neither General Abizaid or any American soldiers were hurt in the incident. It was not immediately clear if the insurgents knew of the general’s visit. If they did it would indicate a possibly serious breach of security.

There were numerous other attacks on American forces throughout Iraq. Two US soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in western Baghdad on the night of Feb. 11, and a US military policeman was killed and two others were wounded when a bomb struck a patrol near the Abu Gharib district on the outskirts of Baghdad Feb. 12, the US military said. US soldiers fended off an attack by gunmen Saturday against their base in Muqdadiyah, 50 miles northeast of Baghdad. Ten attackers were killed, witnesses said. Two US convoys were attacked less than a mile apart in Baghdad on Feb. 15, and US soldiers in one of the attacks opened fire, killing an Iraqi driving nearby and wounding six others, witnesses and hospital officials said.

A confidential report prepared by the US-led administration in Iraq says that the attacks by insurgents in the country have escalated sharply, prompting fears of what it terms Iraq’s “Balkanization.” The report diverges from public statements by US officials who claim that security in the country is improving.

According to the report, “January national review of Iraq,” strikes against international and non-governmental organizations increased from 19 to 26 in January. It said that high-intensity attacks involving mortars and explosives grew by 103 percent from 316 in December to 642 in January; attacks, including drive-by shootings and rock-throwing, soared by 186 per cent from 182 in December. It also recorded an average of eight attacks a day in Baghdad alone, up from four a day in September, and a total of 11 attacks on coalition aircraft. Rebel attacks against US troops in February have increased to between 20 and 24 a day, rising from 18 per day in January. A total of 372 American soldiers have been killed in combat since US-led forces invaded Iraq last March.

The sharp escalation of violence in the past week came as the UN special envoy traveled to Iraq to assess the situation and discuss the feasibility of early elections with the Iraqi Governing Council and the country’s leading Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani. Sistani has led calls for elections to be held by June 30 this year - when the US occupying powers are due to hand power back to the Iraqis.

Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN envoy, said that power should still be handed over to the Iraqis this summer as planned, but that there would not be time to hold “credible elections” before then. He said more steps needed to be taken before a ballot, including the writing of an electoral law. “We are in agreement with the Sayyid [Sistani] that these elections should be prepared well and should take place in the best possible conditions so that it would bring the results which the Sayyid wants, and the people of Iraq and the UN.”

Brahimi distanced himself from the controversial US plan of a series of regional caucus meetings, hinting that it would have to be drastically rewritten or shelved. Although Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has had his demands for early elections resisted, Brahimi said the revered Shiite cleric seemed to accept that there was not enough time for polls in the next three and a half months.

Despite his relative optimism regarding the electoral process in Iraq, the UN envoy gave the first public warning of the risk of civil war at a time when the insurgency bombing campaign has intensified. Brahimi appealed to Iraqis to beware of “very, very serious dangers” of civil war.

Sources: Agence France-Presse, Al-Jazeera, Associated Press, the Guardian, Independent/ (UK), New York Times, Reuters

Death of Aborigine teen sparks riots in Sydney

Complied by Liz Allen

Feb. 18 (AGR) — On the night of Sunday, Feb, 15 unparalleled rioting broke out in inner-city Sydney, Australia. The riots were sparked by the death of an Aboriginal teenager who was impaled on a metal railing after allegedly being chased by police. Police say patrolling officers merely passed by the boy who then sped off, losing control of his bike.

Senior Aboriginal leaders on Monday condemned the violence, the worst civil unrest in Australia’s largest city for at least a decade, but said the riot reflected a wider issue — the alienation of black Australia.

Three inquiries are to be held into 17-year-old Thomas Hickey’s death and the subsequent violence. Aboriginal youths pelted police with bricks, bottles and petrol bombs during nine hours of street battles in Redfern, a neighborhood with a history of volatile community relations. Forty officers were injured and eight were hospitalized.

In the overnight rioting, about 100 attackers set fire to Redfern railway station, torched cars and smashed windows. The hospitalized police officers mostly suffered broken bones while one was knocked out after being hit by a flying brick.

Television images showed young men surrounding a police patrol car and slamming bricks into it from close range. It was not clear if there were officers in the car at the time.

The trouble began at 7:30pm, and police were unprepared. The 150 rioters pelted 200 riot police with Molotov cocktails, stones and bottles. Rioters wheeled out eight large garbage bins filled with broken paving stones, and had also stockpiled beer bottles in tubs. Order was not restored until just before dawn.

There was no immediate word on injuries to rioters, only five people have been reported arrested.

Burnt-out cars were removed yesterday and the broken glass and rocks swept up, but Redfern - a couple of miles from the city center and Opera House - was still seething with rage and resentment. Rodney Murray, a long-term resident, said: “We want an eye for an eye. If they kill our people, this is how we’re going to fight back. The police strip-search kids on the street. I’ve got five boys and one girl, and they get harassed all the time.”

Local people claim that Thomas Hickey, known as T J, flew off his bicycle after it was rammed by a police car that was pursuing him on Saturday. He landed on a railing, and was impaled through the neck and chest. He died in hospital on Sunday. Police deny chasing him, although they say they did pass him while out on patrol. They described his death as a “freak” accident. In a community that lost faith in the criminal justice system long ago, such protestations cut little ice.

Redfern is plastered with posters bearing the photographs of three police officers and the words “child murderers.” “It’s got to stop, the way they treat our kids,” Thomas’s mother, Gail Hickey said. “They treat our kids like dogs ... they manhandle them.”

The suburb is infamous for its slum housing, chronic street crime and high unemployment. One desolate area, known as “the Block,” a small grid of ruined terraced houses with broken windows and graffiti-covered walls, is a virtual no-go zone for police and non-locals. The Block has been the focus of Aboriginal activism for three decades, and the scene of confrontations between black youths and police. Many of the original residents refuse to move to allow their homes to be demolished.

In response to the events, state opposition leader John Brogden said he would knock down The Block if he were in power. “I’d bring the bulldozers in because I think allowing this to happen every couple of years, which is what’s going to happen, will never fix the problem.”

On the Block, emotions boiled over at a rally on Feb. 16. About 300 people held a minute’s silence. Speaker after speaker railed against racism and injustice. Isabel Coe, a veteran Aboriginal activist, told the crowd: “They’ve been brutalizing us for years, and now they’ve started on our children. When is it going to end? Why are we still treated like rubbish; like aliens?”

Lyall Munro, another prominent activist, applauded the rioters. “A brave stance was taken here last night,” he said. “The police got the response that was long overdue in this country.”

“Last night’s display of violence is an extreme example of the extent of the alienation felt by some Aboriginal kids and the manifestation of the difficult relationships in the area.” Australia’s 400,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders make up two percent of

Australia’s 20 million population. Aborigines remain the nation’s most disadvantaged group, dying 20 years younger than other Australians with far higher rates of imprisonment, unemployment, welfare dependency, domestic violence and alcoholism.

Most live in remote communities in Australia’s outback, with smaller groups in squalid accommodation on the fringes of regional towns. Very few live in major cities. Black Australia calls the arrival of white settlers in 1788 “the invasion.” Thousands were massacred by white settlers or evicted from their ancestral lands. And Aboriginal leaders say racism in Australia has dictated their lives ever since.

Sources: BBC, Independent (UK), Indymedia UK

Same sex marriage licenses continue in San Francisco

Compiled by Josh Ferguson

Feb. 18 (AGR) -- On Feb. 17, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced that the city would continue issuing gender-neutral marriage licenses, following two separate hearings in which state judges refused to immediately end the practice.

Although not currently sanctioned by California law, the city of San Francisco has been issuing the licenses since Thursday, Feb. 12. From that day until Tuesday, Feb. 17, over 2,600 same-sex couples from more than twenty states received licenses allowing them to be legally married. City officials said 172 couples were married on Tuesday alone, a pace that could bring the total number who have taken vows promising to be “spouses for life” to over 3,000 by Feb. 20.

The court hearings were conducted in response to legal claims made by conservative groups stating that Newsom is violating California state law by issuing the licenses.

“What the mayor and his cronies have attempted to do is short-circuit the legal process by being both judge and jury themselves,” said Benjamin Bull, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, an anti-gay-marriage group.

In a brief submitted for one of feb. 17 court hearings, lawyers for one of the groups seeking to block gay weddings said Newsom was in blatant violation of state law when he ordered marriage licenses for gay couples. The groups claim that the city is acting in violation of Proposition 22, a 2000 ballot initiative that says the state will recognize only marriages between a man and woman as valid.

Newsom has argued that the equal protection clause of the California constitution makes denying marriage licenses to gay couples illegal. The state constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The city’s lawyers have added that local government agencies or officials are not barred from advancing their own interpretations of the state constitution. They also claim the plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that continuing to issue licenses for same-sex couples would cause the irreparable harm necessary to obtain a court stay.

Rather than issue an immediate stay, as groups had requested, one state judge agreed to hold an official hearing on the matter on Mar. 20th. The other judge issued a “cease and desist” order on the licenses, but added that should the city decide to continue, it must then return to court on Mar. 29th to formally present the legal grounds on which the licensing is believed to be based.

The nonbinding order frustrated conservative groups who had petitioned the state for a stop to the licenses.

On Feb. 17, one group took its request for a restraining order to an appellate court in San Francisco, saying it had no choice but “to ask them to uphold California state law since Judge Quidachay is choosing not to act.”

In addition to blocking San Francisco from sanctioning more same-sex unions, some groups are also seeking to have the marriages already recorded declared null and void.

The issue has drawn criticism from several conservative politicians, including California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“Californians spoke on the issue of same-sex marriage when they overwhelmingly approved California’s law that defines marriage as being between a man and a woman,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement. “I support that law and encourage San Francisco officials to obey that law. The courts should act quickly to resolve this matter.”

President George W. Bush has also made a statement on the matter, although he has not yet taken any further steps toward making the question one involving the federal Constitution.

“I have watched carefully what’s happening in San Francisco, where licenses were being issued, even though the law states otherwise,” Bush said. “I have consistently stated that I’ll support law to protect marriage between a man and a woman. Obviously these events are influencing my decision.”

It was Bush’s recent threats of backing a constitutional amendment illegalizing same-sex marriage that helped to initiate the actions of Mayor Newsom.

He didn’t answer directly when asked whether he is any closer to endorsing a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages, as conservative groups say the White House has assured them Bush will do.