At least 105 killed in nationwide protests in Iraq

Updated October 8:  More than  hundred people have been killed so far in the protests in several Iraqi cities. The number of 105 was cited by the Iraqi Humna Rights Observatory. The army has admitted that it used ''excessive force;''. The Iraqi president, Barham Salih, condemned the attacks on portesteres (and the media) and urged the security forces to respect the rights of the protesters.
In Iraq the internet is still cut off. Prime minister Abdul Mahdi has ordered the military forces to be replaced by federal police units. Also he ordered the intelligence service to open an inquiry. (End of Update)
An indefinite curfew has been imposed October 2 in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and southern cities after two days of anti-government protests descended into violence and left at least 13 people dead and hundreds more injured. On Thursday morning, riot police fired in the air to disperse hundreds of protesters angry at high unemployment gathered at Tahrir Square in central Baghdad in defiance of the curfew.
"We slept here so the police don't take the place," one demonstrator told AFP news agency before being pushed back by the police.
Since erupting in Baghdad on Tuesday, the protests have spread to other cities in the country's south, posing a challenge to Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi's one-year-old government. Curfews were also imposed in the holy city of Najaf and in Nassiriyah on Wednesday after security forces fired on protesters who demand end to rampant power cuts, water shortages and state corruption.

Iraq launches offensive against Kirkuk

 Iraqi army verhicles in the oilfields of Kirkuk. (Reuters)

Iraqi forces have launched a major offensive over several fronts aimed at retaking the Kurdish-held city of Kirkuk, allegedly causing "lots of casualties" in fighting south of the city.
The federal army, backed by Shia militias, said theiy seized control of the city's international airport, in addition to an oil field, the strategic K1 military base and the Tuz Khurmatu district southeast of Kirkuk on Monday.
Kurdish forces known as the Peshmerga were digging in at the edge of the airport after withdrawing from their positions outside the northern city.
Hundreds of armed Kurdish residents were taking up positions inside the city anticipating an attack.
Residents of the multi-ethnic city, home to about a million Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen and Christians, stayed inside and reported hearing sporadic booms they said sounded like shelling and rocket fire.
The Kurdistan Region Security Council said in a statement that the Peshmerga destroyed at least five Humvee armoured vehicles being used by the state-sanctioned militias following the attack south of the city.

Jalal Talabani 1933 - 2017

Jalal Talabani, former Iraqi president and Kurdish politician, has died in Germany aged 84. He was Iraq's president from 2005 to 2014 and a key figure in Iraqi Kurdistan, where voters last week overwhelmingly backed independence in a controversial referendum. A family member said Talabani's health had taken a turn for the worse and he been transported to Germany, along with his wife and two children, before the referendum.
Talabani's death, following a decades-old struggle for Kurdish statehood, came after Iraq's Kurds voted 92.7 percent to split from Iraq in the September 25 referendum.
Talabani was an avuncular politician and a skilled negotiator, who spent years building bridges between the country's divided factions, despite his efforts for Kurdish independence.

HRW: Iraqi Kurds destroy Arab homes and even villages in areas retaken from IS

 Human Rights Watch (HRW) notes that Iraqi Kurdisch peshmerga forces destroyed houses belonging to Arabs in areas the retook from IS in North Iraq / Kurdistan. It ought not to surprise anybody, after Iraq under Saddam for so many years sent Arabs northward with the intention to ''arabize'' Kurdish regions. But it still is disappointing. And of course totally illegal.  
The 80-page HRW report, “Marked With An ‘X’: Iraqi Kurdish Forces’ Destruction of Villages, Homes in Conflict with ISIS,”looked at destruction of homes between September 2014 and May 2016 in disputed areas of Kirkuk and Nineveh governorates, areas nominally under Iraqi government jurisdiction but under Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) control. The destruction, which took place after KRG Peshmerga forces routed Islamic State (also known as ISIS) fighters, targeted Arab homes while leaving Kurdish homes intact. KRG leaders have maintained that these are historically Kurdish areas that they intend to incorporate into the Kurdistan region.

Iraqi Shi'a militias abused and killed more Sunni civilians than previously acknowledged

Shi’ite militias in Iraq detained, tortured and abused far more Sunni civilians during the American-backed capture of the town of Falluja in June than U.S. officials have publicly acknowledged, Reuters has found.
More than 700 Sunni men and boys are still missing more than two months after the Islamic State stronghold fell. The abuses occurred despite U.S. efforts to restrict the militias' role in the operation, including threatening to withdraw American air support, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.
The U.S. efforts had little effect. Shi’ite militias did not pull back from Falluja, participated in looting there and now vow to defy any American effort to limit their role in coming operations against Islamic State.
All told, militia fighters killed at least 66 Sunni males and abused at least 1,500 others fleeing the Falluja area, according to interviews with more than 20 survivors, tribal leaders, Iraqi politicians and Western diplomats.
They said men were shot, beaten with rubber hoses and in several cases beheaded. Their accounts were supported by a Reuters review of an investigation by local Iraqi authorities and video testimony and photographs of survivors taken immediately after their release.

IS kills at least 250 with truck bomb in Baghdad

Update: The death toll has reached 250 on Wednesday. It is the deadliest attack since the Americn invasion of 2003. the minister of the Interior has offred to resign.
 Anger is growing in Baghdad over the government's failure to protect civilians, after a devastating bombing in a crowded commercial area in the Iraqi capital killed more than 200 people, including many children.
The powerful explosion early on Sunday came near the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when the streets were filled with young people and families out after sunset. The death toll from the blast in Karada, a predominantly Shia neighbourhood in central Baghdad, rose to over 200 on Monday morning, as the bodies of more victims were pulled from the rubble.Hundreds were wounded when a lorry packed with explosives blew up in a busy shopping street filled with people after they had broken their fast.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (IS or ISIL)group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement circulated by its supporters online. The group, which has claimed numerous deadly bombings in mainly Shia areas of Baghdad, alleged that a suicide bomber targeted a crowd of Shia Muslims.

Iraq retakes most of Falluja

Iraqi government vehicles in the centre of Falluja. (AP). 

Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced Friday that Iraqi forces have retaken most of Fallujah from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (IS, Daesh). However operations are still under way to flush out the armed group's remaining fighters in the city.
The government lost control of Fallujah in 2014, months before Daesh took Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, and other large parts of the country. "We promised you the liberation of Fallujah and we retook it. Our security forces control the city except for small pockets that need to be cleared within the coming hours," Abadi said in a brief address on state TV. "Fallujah has returned to the nation and Mosul is the next battle," Abadi also said on Twitter. "Daesh will be defeated," he added.
Earlier on Friday, Iraqi forces said they had entered the centre of Fallujah, nearly four weeks after the start of a US-backed offensive to retake the city 50km west of the capital, Baghdad. They took the government compound and the Iraqi flag is now raised on top of the building, symbolising government control

Crisis continues in Baghdad

Moqtada al-Sadr during hiss ''sit in''. (Reuters)

Hundreds rallied in central Baghdad on Sunday in support of powerful Shi'ite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who has threatened to call mass protests if the prime minister fails to name a new cabinet to fight corruption by Tuesday. People in Tahrir Square on Sunday said many more would join them if Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi did not select a government mainly made up of technical experts to tackle what they see as widespread graft and mismanagement.
"Yes, yes to Iraq; no, no to corruption," they chanted, carrying Iraqi flags.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's presented on 31 March a list of new ministers in keeping with a deadline set by the legislature earlier in the week, which was underscored by a ''sit in'' in the Green Zone by Moqtada al-Sadr personally. The list was made up of independent professionals who he hoped could free their ministries from the grip of dominant political groups that have built their influence and wealth on a system of patronage put in place since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

ISIS kills 35 in Iraq and about 30 in Libya

 
Ethiopian Christians are marched on a Libyan beach to be decapitated  by ISIS (Photo AP, see also below)

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has killed at least 35 people in two separate mass killings in Iraq, according to local sources. The sources told Al Jazeera that the armed group, which controls large swathes of territory in western and northern Iraq, killed 24 of its Sunni critics in Kirkuk province, including seven elders from several different tribes. The men were said to be vocal opponents of the armed group, but were not allied to the government in Baghdad.
In a separate incident, the armed group posted pictures online on Monday purporting to show the killings of 11 men believed to be Shia fighters from the Popular Mobilisation Forces that formed after a call by Shia leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to fight ISIL.

Looting in Tikrit was symptom of deep animosity between Sunni tribes

 
 Building set ablaze by unknown assailants in Tikrit after it had been retaken by the Popular Mobilisation Troops. (Photo Reuters).

Arson and looting incidents in Tikrit after the Iraqi army recaptured the city last week from fighters with the Islamic State (IS) have highlighted the deep divisions between Sunni tribes that supported IS and Sunni tribes that opposed it, fAl-Jazeera English reported.
Hundreds of homes and stores in Tikrit were set ablaze after they were looted by unidentified people last week. Tikrit is one of the biggest Iraqi cities dominated by Sunni Muslims. It was seized by IS last summer.

"Many of the houses were destroyed by air strikes or artillery shelling by our troops. But the deliberate burning of the other houses and stores began when the troops of the Salahuddin local police got into the city. They were targeting the properties of Daesh members and their collaborators," an officer of the Popular Mobilisation Troops told Al-Jazeera.

New York Times: Many of Saddam's former men now have positions in IS

President George W. Bush in December 2004 awarded the Presidential Freedom Medal to L. Paul Bremer III. Bremer had ben the highest American in Command in occupied Iraq. During his term he disbanded the regular Iraqi army and removed thousands of Baath-members from their positions. lateron many of them were recruited by Al-Qaeda.   

The New York Times (and The Indepeint) carry an article about the army of the Islamic State (IS/Daesh)  being ''stuffed'' with former Baathist allies of Saddam Hussein: 
 When Abu Hamza, a former Syrian rebel, agreed to join Isis, he did so assuming he would become a part of the group’s promised Islamist utopia, which has lured foreign jihadists from around the globe.
Instead, he found himself being supervised by an Iraqi emir and receiving orders from shadowy Iraqis who moved in and out of the battlefield in Syria. When Abu Hamza disagreed with fellow commanders at an "Islamic State" meeting last year, he said, he was placed under arrest on the orders of a masked Iraqi man who had sat silently through the proceedings, listening and taking notes.
Abu Hamza, who became the group’s ruler in a small community in Syria, never discovered the Iraqis’ real identities, which were cloaked by code names or simply not revealed. All of the men, however, were former Iraqi officers who had served under Saddam Hussein, including the masked man, who had once worked for an Iraqi intelligence agency and now belonged to the Islamic State’s own shadowy security service, he said.
(For the rest of the article click here)

Iraqi army recaptures most of Tikrit

Tikrit

Iraqi government forces have made major advances against Islamic State (IS) militants in Tikrit, officials say.Army officials claimed on Tuesday that as much of 75% of the city had been recaptured, including the city centre and government headquarters, but not yet the palace of formere president Saddam Hussein.
There are about 3,000 Iraqi soldiers and police fighting to liberate the city, with support from about 20,000 Iran-backed Shia militias, known collectively as the Popular Mobilisation units, as well as local tribesman and residents. The Shia militias eralier said that theu=y would boycot fighting as long as the US was carrying out air strikes. Some of the militias, though, appear to have reversed this decision.
IS militants seized Tiqrit last summer. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Twitter that Tikrit, which was Saddam Hussein's hometown, had been "liberated" from IS occupation, but reports said fighting for large parts of the city was ongoing.

IS destroys Assyrian statues in Mosul

 

The Islamic State (IS) group has released a video showing the destruction of statues in Iraq. The video shows statues being smashed using sledgehammers in what appears to be a museum in the city of Mosul.
Statues are also shown being destroyed reportedly at an archaeological site known as the Nergal Gate.
One of the militants in the video describes the artefacts as "false idols" and seeks to justify their destruction in religious terms.
In the video released via IS social media sites, black-clad men push over statues, smash them with sledgehammers and use a pneumatic drill to destroy the rubble.
The video shows a black-clad man drilling through and pulling apart what appears to be a stone winged-bull Assyrian protective deity that dates back to the 9th Century BC.

Mass graves of Yazidis found in northern Iraq

One of the mass graves. This one is near Khansour village, west of Sinuse.

The remains of 23 men from Iraq's Yazidi religious minority were found when a mass grave was excavated in northern Iraq, an official said on Saturday. It is the latest evidence of atrocities committed in areas held by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group to emerge since Kurdish forces pushed the jihadists back.
Meanwhile, the parents of an American hostage who ISIS claimed had been killed in a US-led coalition air strike have said they are "hopeful" she is still alive.
A team acting on a tip-off from a resident opened the mass grave near the village of Bardiyan on Friday, said Fuad Othman, a spokesman for the Kurdish regional government. Othman said those killed had been shot, and some had their hands bound.

Past year 2014 deadliest year in Iraq for civilians

Inhabitants of Mosul fleeing to Kurdistan after IS took the city, June 2014. (Photo AP)

Violence in Iraq in 2014 killed at least 12,282 civilians, making it the deadliest year since the sectarian bloodshed of 2006-07, the United Nations said in a statement.
The majority of the deaths - nearly 8,500 - occurred during the second half of the year following the expansion of the Sunni Muslim Islamic State insurgency in June out of Anbar province leading to widespread clashes with security forces.
    “Yet again, the Iraqi ordinary citizen continues to suffer from violence and terrorism ... This is a very sad state of affairs,” said Nickolay Mladenov, head of the U.N. political mission in Iraq, in a statement released on Thursday.
Islamic State fighters still control roughly a third of Iraq. The army and Shi'ite and Kurdish militia continue to battle the insurgents.
The figures show that violence has not abated since 2013 when 7,818 civilians were killed, the U.N. said. The bloodshed remains below the levels seen in 2006 and 2007 when sectarian Shi'ite-Sunni killings reached their peak.

Iranian official confirms airstrikes on IS in Iraq

A senior Iranian official has confirmed his country carried out air strikes in neighboring Iraq against Islamic State fighters at the request of Iraqi authorities, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported.
It quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Ebrahim Rahimpour as saying the strikes were not coordinated with the United States, which is also waging an air campaign against the radical Sunni Muslim militants who control large parts of north and west Iraq
The purpose of the strikes was "the defense of the interests of our friends in Iraq", the newspaper quoted Rahimpour as saying in an interview in London.
"We did not have any coordination with the Americans. We have coordinated only with the Iraqi government," he said. "In general, every military operation to help the Iraqi government is according to their requests."

Iraqi parliament approves new government

Haider al-Abadi enters the parliament. (Photo AP)

Iraq's parliament approved a new government headed by Haider al-Abadi as prime minister on Monday night, in a bid to rescue Iraq from collapse, with sectarianism and Arab-Kurdish tensions on the rise.
Abadi, a Shi'ite Islamist, included members of Iraq's Shi'ite majority and its Kurdish and Sunni minorities in his cabinet as he started his uphill task to unify the country after this summer's devastating loss of territory across northernto Islamic State fighters.
Adel Abdel Mehdi from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq was named oil minister while Ibrahim Jafaari, a former premier, was named foreign minister. Rowsch Shaways, a Kurd, was named finance minister. No interior or defense minister was named but Abadi pledged to do so within a week, bringing the cabinet to 37 posts. Abadi's deputy prime ministers are Hoshiyar Zebari, a Kurd and Iraq's only post-Saddam Hussein foreign minister, Saleh Mutlaq, a secular Sunni Muslim who served in the same position in the last government, and Baha Arraji, a Shi'ite Islamist and former lawmaker.

HRW: IS execute three times more people in Tikrit than previously thought

Still from an IS video. The man between the lines is Ali, one of HRW´s witnesses. 
 
Human Rights Watch has found new evidence that the Islamic State (IS) in Tikrit after it seized the city in June 2014, in fact carried out three times more executions than earlier was estimated. Information from a survivor and analysis of videos and satellite imagery has confirmed the existence of three more mass execution sites, bringing the total to five, and the number of dead to between 560 and 770 men, all or most of them apparently captured Iraqi army soldiers.
Islamic State fighters took control of Tikrit on June 11. The next day it claimed to have executed 1,700 “Shi’a members of the army,” posting videos of hundreds of captured men in civilian clothes, who it claimed had surrendered at the nearby Iraqi Speicher military base.
Photos later posted on social media showed IS fighters loading captives in civilian clothes onto trucks and forcing them to lie in three shallow trenches with their hands bound. Some images showed masked gunmen firing weapons at these men.
Based on an analysis of satellite imagery and photographs available at the time, Human Rights Watch concluded on June 27 that two of the trenches were in a field about 100 meters north of the Water Palace in Tikrit. The location of the third trench was not identified.After analyzing a recently released Islamic State video of the execution of detainees and satellite imagery, Human Rights Watch has identified three new execution sites from that period, with an additional death toll of between 285 and 440. The locations of two of the sites have been precisely identified based on the imagery and witness evidence, while the location of the third site remains approximate based on the account of a survivor.

Iraqi Kurds retake another town form IS a day after Amerli was freed

 
The shaded area is territory held by IS. (Map Daily Mail)

Iraqi Kurdish forces and Shiite militiamen retook the town of Sulaiman Bek from militants on Monday, removing a key stronghold they have held for over 11 weeks, officials said. Fighting to retake the village of Yankaja, also located in Salaheddin province, northeast of Baghdad, is ongoing.  Sulaiman Bek is located near Amerli, where thousands of mainly Shiite Turkmen civilians were trapped by a jihadist. Iraqi forces backed by thousands of volunteers on Sunday broke this siege the Islamic State.
Thousands of Kurdish Peshmerga forces also took part in the operation on Saturday to lift the IS-imposed blockade of the town, which is located about 180 km north of Baghdad. Iraqi planes have been targeting the militants positions since the forces started mobilizing against the extremists there.The residents of the town are facing a shortage of food and water and the humanitarian condition has been described as dire. UN had earlier warned that Shia Turkmen residents of the volatile town who are besieged by the IS could be massacred if urgent action was not taken to rescue them.

Iraqi tv: Pershmerga's retook Mosul dam

Kurdish fighters at the town of Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul. (AFP)

Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Iraqi counter-terrorism forces have pushed Islamic State militants out of Mosul dam, Iraqi state television reported on Monday. The television station quoted Lieutenant-General Qasim Atta, a military spokesman, as saying the forces were backed by a joint air patrol. He did not give details. An independent verification was not immediately possible.
A Twitter account belonging to a media organization that supports the Islamic State said the dam was still under the group's full control. The Peshmergas started an offensive on Saturday to take control of the country’s largest dam at Mosul, which has been in IS hands for over a week. The peshmerga's were helped bu U.S. airstrikes. US Central Command in Washington said the air strikes targeted Islamist militants near the dam and the Kurdish capital Arbil. “The nine air strikes conducted thus far destroyed or damaged four armoured personnel carriers, seven armed vehicles, two Humvees and an armoured vehicle,” it said in a statement, adding: “All aircraft exited the strike areas safely.”