Baghdad stadium to shelter Iraqis fleeing Sadr City danger
Story Highlights
Official says 400 families at most have left Sadr City neighborhood
He denies reports people ordered out, says they're rumors spread by "gangs"
Former insurgent, now in U.S.-backed group, injured in suicide bombing
At least 13 killed in incidents including car bombing in Baghdad on Thursday
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/08/iraq.main/index.html
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A top official in Baghdad said the capital's biggest stadium is one of three locations being prepared for residents fleeing Baghdad's Sadr City, where Iraqi and U.S. forces have been fighting Shiite militants for weeks.
An Iraqi mother and daughter walk near a checkpoint at the entrance to Baghdad's Sadr City on Wednesday.
Tahseen al-Sheikhly, the civilian spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, said no more than 400 families have fled the war-torn neighborhood so far. There have been reports that thousands of people have fled.
Al-Sheikhly discounted reports that soldiers have been using loudspeakers to tell people to leave. He said "criminal gangs" are spreading the rumor to generate fears among the populace that a big strike is being prepared by security forces. He said gangs are trying to generate hatred of security forces by distributing a "fabricated" video of coalition forces assaulting a woman.
Those families that are leaving, he said, are residents who have been cooperating with security forces, families of security forces who have been threatened, and people who have been "held hostage by the criminal gangs."
He said one man left after he protested to insurgents that they were planting a roadside bomb too close to his house and the insurgents told him to leave the area.
Click on link http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/08/iraq.main/index.html to read full CNN story.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
CNN REPORTS: BAGHDAD STADIUM USED TO SHELTER SADR CITY RESIDENTS FLEEING EMBATTLED CITY
IRAQ: THE "DISGRACE" HAS TO STOP!!!! (WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO OF WOUNDED IRAQI CHILDREN)
The Iraq War has been a dismal failure for the United States and has turned the United States into the most HATED country in the entire world....and when you look at this video you will know why.
None of this had to happen but trigger happy President George W. Bush and his draft-dodging Vice President Dick Cheney, sold the American public a pack of LIES that Iraq was a threat to the United States.
Now FIVE YEARS later, over 4,100 young Americans have been KILLED and another 30,000 lay wounded at military hospitals, and in IRAQ the pain of the war is written on the faces of the young children who were caught in the middle of the Bush/Cheney folly of LIES.
In this GRAPHIC VIDEO the images of the innocent children of IRAQ are captured in scenes that should be shown over and over again on American television, but American television is owned by corporations who have subsidiaries making big bucks off the war so the media in the United States has pulled down the curtain on covering the IRAQ WAR.
WE WON'T AND THAT IS WHY WE PRESENT THIS VIDEO FOR REAL AMERICANS TO WATCH AND NOT THE CHICKENHAWKS WHO THINK WAR IS A VIDEO GAME:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xa-7D8Mal4
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
VIDEO: WHY THE IRAQ WAR COSTS $720 MILLION A DAY
Senator Byron Dorgan, D-North Dakota, explains how the military in Iraq received towels with the KBR logo embroidered on the towels because that is what someone inside the Pentagon wanted. KBR, as most people know, was a subsidiary of Haliburton, the firm which Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO for before joining George W. Bush on the Republican ticket.
In this VIDEO, Sen. Dorgan talks about the "deal" KBR made with the Pentagon for the towels for our military with the KBR logo embroidered into them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX1IqCYmSZw
GRAPHIC VIDEO: THE IRAQ WAR YOU WON'T SEE ON THE NEWS
The mainstream media in the United States has put the Iraq War on the back burner and no longer feel the story of the war is worth covering.
THIS IS THE ONLY WAR THAT IS NOT BEING COVERED BY THE MEDIA IN THE UNITED STATES.....AND FOR THAT REASON WE BRING OUR READERS THE TRUE IMAGES FROM THE IRAQ WAR THAT NEVER MAKE IT TO THE NEWS.
This graphic video is just one of many we will be presenting because we feel the people of the United States have been given the shaft by the mainstream press who wanted this war in the worst way, but when the images of the war started to roll in the press turned their back on the war.
WE WON'T AND THAT IS WHY WE ARE PRESENTING THIS VIDEO AS GRAPHIC AS IT IS, BUT THAT IS WAR.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF1hv4227o
IRAQ WAR MUSIC VIDEO--LISTEN TO THE CHILDREN!!! (WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES)
All the reasons why the United States invaded and occupied Iraq have been proven to be nothing but LIES, and this is what the Bush administration has left in their wake of invading and occupying Iraq. The children---the innocent children---of Iraq are the ones who have suffered the most from the United States invasion of their country.
Sleep well, Mr. President.
Sleep well, Mr. Vice President.
This is what you have done. I doubt if you or any of your right wing chickenhawks have the guts to look at this video, but here it is for the people who care about what the Bush administration and the United States has done to the children of Iraq.
WARNING: THIS VIDEO IS VERY GRAPHIC.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9rc39iQ6Bs
US WALLS OFF PARTS OF BAGHDAD
Compares Walled Baghdad Neighborhoods To American Gated Communties
Filed Under: Iraq
By Ali at 9:58 pm
http://thinkprogress.org/?tag=Iraq
Max Boot Compares Walled Baghdad Neighborhoods To American Gated Communties»
Today, Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Max Boot continued to cheerlead for the “success” of the surge in Iraq in an online debate. Boot insisted that Iraq has met two-thirds of the original 18 benchmarks, that the government’s offensive in Basra was successful, and that the so-called Sons of Iraq will always remain loyal to the Shiite-controlled Iraqi state.
Boot concluded by conceding that there are walls separating Sunni neighborhoods from Shia, but dismissed the fact by stating simply that “there are walls around many gated communities in the U.S. too”:
It’s true that there are walls around Dora and other Baghdad neighborhoods. … But then there are walls around many gated communities in the U.S. too. The walls per se are not evidence of reconciliation, I’ll grant you that. But nor are they evidence that reconciliation is impossible. They are one of the important security measures implemented in the past year that is reducing violence and making possible political progress—which is real, whether you admit it or not.
There is a world of difference between American gated communities — where at least 7 million families have chosen to live — and the walls that divide Baghdad.
The policy, begun last April, of walling off neighboring communities with a “12-foot high, three mile long wall” is hardly the benign trend Boot describes.
The move was widely condemned by the Iraqi press, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a halt to its construction almost immediately. As one Iraqi put it, “This will make the whole district a prison.”
Despite what Iraq war hawks are willing to admit, the surge has transformed Baghdad into an ethnically-cleansed and religiously divided city that bears little resemblance to its former character.
BAGHDAD'S ACUTE WATER SHORTAGE-ANOTHER CASUALTY OF WAR
Iraq, U.S. move to avert Baghdad water shortage
By Tim Cocks 1 hour, 26 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080508/wl_nm/iraq_water_dc
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Baghdad's crumbling roads, burst sewage pipes and chronic water shortages are casualties of war that get little attention amid the daily litany of gunfights, bombs and bloodletting in Iraq.
As summer approaches, the city is facing an acute shortage of drinking water despite the efforts of officials like Sadiq Shumari, its director of water services.
Temperatures are set to reach 50 Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) and demand for the precious commodity will outstrip supply.
"We have a huge task to rehabilitate the water system, which has been neglected for decades, but it's a challenge with such poor security," Shumari told Reuters on a trip to the eastern neighborhood of New Baghdad, one of the city's poorest.
"Insecurity is a problem, but what doesn't get as noticed is how it hinders the provision of services which the people need to live," he said, before two loud blasts nearby sent him and some U.S. troops running for cover inside a building.
Lying far to the east of the Tigris River as it snakes through Baghdad's more upmarket districts, the dusty, overcrowded streets of New Baghdad are visibly poor.
Children in torn clothes play in the dirt, next to festering piles of trash and opaque puddles of stagnant water.
A man wearing a traditional long, white robe sits on a brick outside his house listening to an old battery-powered radio.
Next to him, a child attempts to negotiate a path between a ditch full of foul-smelling rainwater and a manmade mountain of polythene bags, Coke cans, plastic bottles and cigarette packets.
Even the services in Sadr City, a notoriously deprived slum to the north of New Baghdad and home to 2 million people -- where U.S. and Iraqi forces are battling Shi'ite militiamen loyal to populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr -- are more reliable than here.
Click on link to read more...
IRAQ'S FOREIGN MINISTER TELLS US TO STOP ACCUSING AND START TALKING TO IRAN
Iraq asks U.S., Iran to stop accusing and start talking
By Leila Fadel McClatchy Newspapers
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/
BAGHDAD — After months of stalled talks between the United States and Iran, the Iraqi government said it was time for the two nations to stop trading accusations and come to the table.Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said that his government had proposed four dates to the United States and Iran for tri-lateral talks, but has stopped making suggestions and doesn't expect the talks to resume anytime soon.
The United States has accused Iran of supplying weapons that are being used to attack U.S. troops and civilians, while Iran has charged the United States with unnecessarily bombing the Shiite population in Baghdad. » read more
UPDATE ON CONFIRMED LIST OF US DEATHS IN IRAQ
U.S. Confirmed Deaths Reported Deaths: 4073
Confirmed Deaths: 4067
Pending Confirmation: 6 DoD Confirmation List
Latest Coalition Fatalities (Click on "BLUE" for more details)
05/07/08 MNF: Soldier attacked by enemy force in Anbar Province
A Multi-National Force - West Soldier was killed in action against an enemy force while on patrol in Anbar Province May 6.
05/06/08 MNF: MND-N soldiers attacked in Ninewah Province
A Multi-National Division – North soldier was killed from wounds sustained in an insurgent attack against the soldier’s patrol in Ninewah Province May 6. One soldier was also wounded in the attack and was taken to a Coalition force.
05/05/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualty
Pvt. Corey L. Hicks, 22, of Glendale, Ariz., died May 2 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team...
ATTACKS BY US FORCES ON SADR CITY SEND RESIDENTS FLEEING
Entire sections of Baghdad's embattled Sadr City district have been left nearly abandoned by civilians fleeing a U.S.-led showdown with Shiite militias and seeking aid after facing shortages of food and medicine, humanitarian groups said Wednesday
Aid groups: Humanitarian woes grow in Baghdad's Sadr City By BRADLEY BROOKS, Associated Press Writer 42 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080507/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
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The reports by the agencies, including the U.N. children's fund, add to the individual accounts by civilians pouring out of the Sadr City area as clashes intensify.
U.S. forces have increased air power and armored patrols in the attempt to cripple Shiite militia influence in Sadr City, a slum of 2.5 million people that serves as the Baghdad base for the Mahdi Army led by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
The battles started in late March after the Iraqi government opened a crackdown on militias and armed gangs in the southern city of Basra, including some groups Washington says have links to Iran.
Claire Hajaj, a UNICEF spokeswoman based in Jordan, said up to 150,000 people — including 75,000 children — were isolated in sections of Sadr City "cordoned off by military forces."
She said about 6,000 people have been forced to flee their homes and that some areas of southeastern Sadr City were virtually abandoned.
The U.S. military is trying to weaken the militia grip in the slum and disrupt rocket and mortar strikes from Sadr City on the U.S.-protected Green Zone, which includes the U.S. Embassy and key Iraqi government offices.
There is more by clicking on link above.
75 RETIRED MILITARY OFFICERS WERE INVOLVED IN PENTAGON WAR PROPAGANDA ON TV
Propaganda Documents Go Online, but Will the TV Networks Ever Report this Scandal?
Submitted by John Stauber on Tue, 05/06/2008 - 13:53.
http://www.prwatch.org/node/7299
Eight thousand pages of documents related to the Pentagon's illegal propaganda campaign, known as the Pentagon military analyst program, are now online for the world to see, although in a format that makes it impossible to easily search them and therefore difficult to read and dissect. This trove includes the documents pried out of the Pentagon by David Barstow and used as the basis for his stunning investigation that appeared in the New York Times on April 20, 2008.
The Pentagon program, which clearly violated US law against covert government propaganda, embedded more than 75 retired military officers -- most of them with financial ties to war contractors -- into the TV networks as "message surrogates" for the Bush Administration. To date, every major commercial TV network has failed to report this story, covering up their complicity and keeping the existence of this scandal from their audiences.
News of the Pentagon's online posting of the documents came from Joe Trento of the National Security News Service, who notes that NSNS provided the New York Times "limited information about a military office early in the reporting process."
Here is the official Pentagon website with the 8,000 pages of documents, the most interesting and revealing of them previously secret and only available to the Pentagon and the New York Times:
http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/milanalysts/
More than two weeks after the New York Times reported on the Penatgon's military analyst program to sell controversial policies such as the invasion of Iraq, the broadcast television news outlets implicated in the program are hoping to tough out the scandal by refusing to report it. Recently Media Matters of America (MMA) reported that, according to a search of the Nexis database, "the three major broadcast networks -- ABC, CBS, and NBC -- have still not mentioned the report at all."
The Pew Excellence in Journalism project has a chart showing that " there was virtually no mainstream media follow up to The Times’ expose" with the only national TV coverage being the introduction segment and live debate featuring CMD's John Stauber on the PBS NewsHour.
Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro and three dozen colleagues have sent a letter to the Department of Defense Inspector General calling for an investigation of this "propaganda campaign aimed at deliberately misleading the American public."
PENTAGON: NO NEW TROOPS FOR AFGHANISTAN WITHOUT DEEPER CUTS IN IRAQ FORCES
No US troop increase in Afghanistan without deeper cuts in Iraq: Pentagon
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/No_US_troop_increase_in_Afghanistan_without_deeper_cuts_in_Iraq_Pentagon_999.html
by Staff WritersWashington (AFP) May 6, 2008The Pentagon said Tuesday that any sizeable increase in much-needed US forces in Afghanistan will depend on deeper troop cuts in Iraq than currently planned.
Military commanders, worried about a persistent and growing Taliban challenge, have said they require up to three more brigades, or about 10,000 troops, to fill gaps in a NATO-led force in Afghanistan.
But Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell made clear that relief in Afghanistan can only come from Iraq, where US forces now find themselves embroiled in a bloody struggle with Shiite militias.
"We really have to get down in Iraq below 15 brigade combat teams for us to consider adding multiple additional brigades to Afghanistan," Morrell told reporters.
"So, not until we get to that point can we even consider that prospect," he said.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates had said after a summit of NATO leaders in Bucharest last month that he expects the United States to make a significant addition of its forces in Afghanistan next year.
DEATH OF 2 SOLDIERS RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT MRAP VEHICLE
2 soldiers' deaths in Iraq raise doubts about MRAP vehicle
By Nancy A. Youssef McClatchy Newspapers
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/35931.html
WASHINGTON — The deaths of two U.S. soldiers in western Baghdad last week have sparked concerns that Iraqi insurgents have developed a new weapon capable of striking what the U.S. military considers its most explosive-resistant vehicle.
The soldiers were riding in a Mine Resistant Ambush Protective vehicle, known as an MRAP, when an explosion sent a blast of super-heated metal through the MRAP's armor and into the vehicle, killing them both.
Their deaths brought to eight the number of American troops killed while riding in an MRAP, which was developed and deployed to Iraq last year after years of acrimony over light armor on the Army's workhorse vehicle, the Humvee.
The military has praised the vehicles for saving hundreds of lives, saying they could withstand the IEDs, or improvised explosive devices, which have been the biggest killers of Americans in Iraq. The Pentagon has set aside $5.4 billion to acquire 4,000 MRAPs at more than $1 million each, making the MRAP the Defense Department's third largest acquisition program, behind missile defense and the Joint Strike Fighter.
But last Wednesday's attack has shown that the MRAPs are vulnerable to an especially potent form of IED known as an EFP, for explosively formed penetrator, which fires a superheated cone of metal through the vehicle's armor.
Click on link to read full story.
NEW YORK TIMES REPORTS: ATTEMPTED KILLINGS INCITE VIOLENCE IN IRAQ
BAGHDAD — Scattered violence struck areas of Baghdad as well as parts of central and northern Iraq on Tuesday, as a trickle of families began to leave Sadr City to escape bombings, and Iraqi security forces raided a hospital suspected of treating militia forces.
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/world/middleeast/07iraq.html?_r=1&ref=worldspecial&oref=slogin
In Baghdad, there were clashes in Abu Dshir, a mostly Shiite neighborhood on the city’s southern edge. The tensions were between the Mahdi Army, loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, and the National Police. Three civilians were killed and nine were wounded in the fighting. The area had been one of the most violent until late last summer, when it quieted down and the militia put away its weapons.
Prompting the clashes were the attempted assassinations of two dignitaries in Abu Dshir — one a leader in the local Badr Organization, a group linked to the Shiite cleric Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a rival of Mr. Sadr’s who runs the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, and the other the neighborhood’s imam. Although both men survived, the episodes set off fighting between factions loyal to Mr. Hakim and those loyal to Mr. Sadr, said Sayyid Malik Abadi, , the head of Abu Dshir’s security committee.
Two mortar shells exploded Tuesday morning in the Baghdad municipal building, killing three civilians and wounding 15 people. And a rocket landed in Al Mansour University College, wounding five students, according to an official at the Interior Ministry who asked not to be quoted because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
Insurgents often fire mortar shells and rockets toward the Green Zone, headquarters of the Iraqi government and American Embassy, but their misses often harm civilians.
In the Shaula neighborhood, a Sadrist stronghold in western Baghdad, Iraqi forces captured several dozen police officers who were believed to be aiding militia fighters. Some of the officers were captured in a local hospital, which was believed to have been caring for militia fighters, according to a deputy of Qassim Atta, the military spokesman for the Baghdad security plan.
Families have begun to leave Sadr City over the past several days, trickling into the grounds of a sports stadium in Baladiat, which is on the western edge of Sadr City.
The families, who lived near the front lines of the fighting and the wall being built by the American military to partition the neighborhood, said they had fled because their children were terrified of the bombing.
As many as 1,500 families are expected to go to the area in the next few days, said Abu Wa’il, the informal mayor of the refugees who live in the area. Some came as recently as two days ago and others have been there for several years, squatting in abandoned buildings. The army will provide tents for the refugees, he said, but there appeared to be no latrines and it seemed doubtful that there would be enough water to supply so many families.
In Tikrit, a car bomb exploded in midafternoon, killing two civilians and wounding 26 people, including four policemen. A curfew was in effect on Tuesday evening.
In Nineveh, an American soldier died after his patrol was attacked on Tuesday, the military said in a statement. In a separate incident in the province, Sunni extremists killed three Iraqi women and wounded two others in an attack on Monday, according to a statement from the American military. The local police said the extremists were members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the statement said.
CNN REPORTS: 3,500 US TROOPS TO HEAD HOME FROM IRAQ
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A "surge" brigade deployed to Iraq last year is heading back to the United States, the U.S. military said.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/06/iraq.main/index.html
About 3,500 soldiers from the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team will go back to Fort Benning, Georgia, over the next few weeks. It is the third surge brigade to leave Iraq, as planned, and two more are scheduled to leave by the end of July.
The U.S. troop increase in 2007, referred to as the surge, was designed to take on the insurgency in and around Baghdad and provide stability for Iraqi politicians to develop legislation and reach accommodation on key national issues.
"The continued drawdown of surge brigades demonstrates continued progress in Iraq," said Gen. Dan Allyn, chief of staff of Multi-National Corps - Iraq.
The troops went to Iraq in March 2007 to fight insurgents near Baghdad, east of the Diyala River.
The soldiers improved security, captured more than 600 insurgents, found many weapons, helped lower the number of attacks, assisted merchants in reopening shops and aided the local government authorities, the military said.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
BREAKING NEWS: 2 US SOLDERS KILLED, INJURED IN IRAQ
2 U.S. soldiers killed, injured in Ninewa
Baghdad - Voices of Iraq
Tuesday , 06 /05 /2008 Time 10:13:51
http://www.aswataliraq.info/look/english/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrArticle=78464&NrIssue=2&NrSection=1
Baghdad, May 6, (VOI) - One U.S. soldier was killed and another one was injured when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off near their vehicle in the northern Iraqi province of Ninewa, the U.S. army in Iraq said on Tuesday
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“A Multi-National Division – North soldier was killed from wounds sustained in an insurgent attack against the soldier’s patrol in Ninewa Province May 6,” according to a U.S. army statement received by Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).“One soldier was also wounded in the attack and was taken to a Coalition force hospital for treatment,” it added.The death, reaching seven this month, brings the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq since the beginning of military operations in March 2003 to 4072 .Of this number, 52 were killed in April, thus becoming the deadliest month for U.S. forces since September, during which 65 were killed.
Thirty-eight soldiers were killed in March, 29 in February and 40 in January 2008.December 2007 saw the death of 23, the month with the second lowest number of U.S. fatalities after February 2004 during which 20 soldiers were killed.November 2004, which witnessed fierce battles between U.S. forces and armed groups in Falluja city, Anbar province, remains the month that witnessed the highest U.S. death toll with 137.April 2004 comes second with 135, followed by May 2007 during which 126 U.S. soldiers were killed.
US CASUALTIES AND SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL VIOLENCE SWEEPS IRAQ
The mainstream media is totally swept up in the race for POTUS, and the Iraq war and US casualties are no longer on the media radar screen. Nobody in the media cares that there 160,000 young Americans in Iraq and 30,000 in Afghanistan. The media treats our brave young Americans like they were garbage. IMO, there is nothing worse in the history of the United States than the current crop of owners, editors and reporters who make up the mainstream media. Hopefully someday there will be a military draft and every single one of the media who shunned the brave men and women in Iraq will have one of their own little darlings in camo gear and prowling a street or alley in Baghdad.
Editorial comment by BILL CORCORAN, editor of CORKSPHERE
War News for Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Casualty Reports:Spec. Clay Henson, now 21, of Tuscaloosa was injured on Wednesday in a sneak attack on his convoy that also killed one soldier and injured another. Speaking from his hospital room at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., on Monday, Henson said he remembers everything about the blast that occurred minutes after his convoy departed on a mission from a base in northern Iraq.'We just pulled out of our base and we got hit,' said Henson, who attended Paul W. Bryant High School. 'We were just driving along and all of a sudden, boom — the front of the truck was on fire.' Dazed from the blast and aware of a high-pitched squeal in his ear, Henson did not know that a quarter-inch piece of shrapnel had embedded itself into his brain. His only indication, he said, was that he was bleeding from his head.
MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Multi-National Division - North soldier during an insurgent attack in Ninewah Province on Tuesday, May 6th. One other soldier were wounded in the attack.
The Canadian Press is reporting the death of a Canadian ISAF soldier in a gun battle in the Pashmul area, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan on Tuesday, May 6th. One other soldier was wounded in the attack.
VIOLENCE IS SWEEPING ACROSS IRAQ. HERE IS WHAT HAPPENED IN IRAQ ON TUESDAY.
Reported Security incidents:Baghdad:#1: Iraqi security forces killed 10 militants, arrested 131 others and seized a quantity of weapons during two days of operations in Shula district, northwestern Baghdad, an Iraqi security force spokesman said.#2: On Tuesday, Iraqi officials said at least another four people were killed and 12 wounded in overnight clashes in Sadr City.#3: U.S. and Iraqi troops fought militants in a Shiite neighborhood on Tuesday, killing three people and wounding nine others, an Interior Ministry source said. The troops clashed in the morning with Mahdi Army militiamen who were armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine-guns in the Abu Dsheer neighborhood.Around 9am, clashes took place in Abu Desheer between gunmen and police commandos .Three people were killed (including a female student) and nine others were injured.#4: Iraqi soldiers closed down a hospital suspected of treating Shi'ite militiamen in a Baghdad stronghold of cleric Moqtada al -Sadr's Mehdi Army, Iraqi security officials said on Tuesday. The soldiers also raided the Mohammed-Bakr Hakim hospital, arresting 35 workers, including orderlies and cleaners, and forced its closure, said hospital head Dr. Yassin al-Rikabi. "We don't have any staff to receive patients," Rikabi told Reuters, adding that patients had been transferred to another hospital. "At 9 a.m. on Monday around 40 soldiers and their officers stormed the hospital. They gathered all the staff in one place. They beat some people, including me," he said.#5: Around 1 pm two mortar shells hit the Baghdad municipality building at Khulani intersection (downtown Baghdad) .Three employees were killed and 15 were injured (including four guards).Two mortar bombs killed three people and wounded 10 others, including four officers from the Facility Protection Services, which guards government buildings and infrastructure, near Baghdad's municipal headquarters, police said.#6: Around 1:10 pm, a Katyusha missile hit Mansour College at Andalus intersection (downtown Baghdad). Five people were injured, including a female student.#7: Around 1:30pm, two mortar shells hit Shalchiya neighborhood (north Baghdad).twelve people were injured including 5 policemen.#8: Gunmen killed Ayad Hamza, the deputy director of Nahrain University in charge of sciences, and wounded his two sons in a drive-by shooting on Sunday in Mansour district, western Baghdad, an Education Ministry spokeswoman said.#9: Around 5pm, a katyusha missile hit a house near Sarafiyah bridge on the Risafa bank. Five people were injured.#10: Police found three dead bodies in Baghdad neighborhoods today: two were found in Risafa bank (east Baghdad);1 was found in Ubeidi and 1 was found in Shaab .While 1 was found in Hurriyah in Karkh bank(north west Baghdad).Diyala Prv:#1: Suspected Al-Qaeda operatives kidnapped a pro-US tribal chief and family members in a village north of Baghdad on Tuesday, police said. Gunmen grabbed Ibrahim Abdullah al-Mujamai, his wife, their daughter-in-law and a grandchild in a village in the restive province of Diyala, said a local police official who declined to be named. He said the chieftain from the al-Mujamai tribe had been arranging for a Sunni militia group to protect his village against Al-Qaeda attacks and to support American forces deployed in the country.#2: Unidentified gunmen kidnapped a policeman in Jalawlaa district, Diala, on Tuesday, a local police official said."The policeman was kidnapped on the main road linking the district of Qurrat Tabbah to Jalawlaa, northeast of Baaquba, and led him to an unknown place," Maj. Ahmed Khalifa al-Qassab, the Jalawlaa police chief, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq.#3: Around 3pm, a roadside bomb targeted Sahwa members at Al-Wijahiyah (12 miles east Baquba).One member was killed and another was injured in that incident.Tikrit:#1: A car bomb attack killed two people and wounded 28 in Tikrit, the hometown of the late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, local officials said.Kirkuk:#1: A roadside bomb killed one policeman and wounded seven others on Monday in Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.Mosul:#1: A group of armed men opened fire at an Iraqi police patrol on Monday evening, prompting the policemen to fire back, killing two gunmen in al-Nour neighborhood, eastern Mosul," Brig. Khaled Abdul-Sattar, the official spokesman for the Ninewa security operations command, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq.#2: Meanwhile, the same source said another armed group attacked a police patrol in al-Mansour neighborhood, southern Mosul, killing two policemen and wounding one civilian near the attack site.#3: Separately, the U.S. military said in a statement Tuesday that a brothel in northern Iraq was attacked the day before. The Americans blamed the attack on al-Qaida insurgents, but local police did not speculate on who carried out the killings. Iraqi police said the attack in Mosul killed three prostitutes and wounded two others.#4: Around 4:30pm, a roadside bomb exploded at Al-Noor neighborhood downtown Mosul city. One policeman was killed in that incident.#5: Two militants accidentally blew themselves up trying to place a bomb on a road south of Mosul, police said.#6: A roadside bomb hit an Iraqi army patrol, killing one soldier and wounding two in western Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.Afghanistan:#1: A bomb struck a minivan taking Afghan police trainers to work in Afghanistan Tuesday wounding five people, police said. The bomb, fixed to a bicycle, was apparently remotely detonated to blow up as the van passed in the southern city of Kandahar, police Colonel Noor Khan told AFP at the site of the blast. The three police officers in the vehicle were wounded but the driver was unhurt, Khan said. Two passers-by were also injured, including a woman.#2: In a new operation Monday to "degrade militant anti-government operations", coalition troops killed several militants and detained one near the border with Pakistan in the eastern province of Nangarhar, the force said. The soldiers had gone to the area to look for a Taliban fighter suspected of helping foreign militants to operate in Afghanistan, it said. "During the course of the operation, several armed militants were killed when they fired on Coalition forces."#3: A suicide bomber riding a rickshaw attacked a police checkpoint in Pakistan's northwest Tuesday. Police said the suicide attacker rode up to the checkpoint on a bridge in the garrison town of Bannu. He detonated his explosives when officers signaled him to stop, said Dar Ali, the Bannu district police chief. The army said two civilians and one policeman were killed. Police said four of their officers were wounded.#4: gunmen fired on officers guarding a bank in Pakistan's northwest Tuesday. The gunmen struck in Matta, a former militant stronghold in the scenic Swat Valley, where troops were deployed to repel the spread of Islamic militancy from the border region last year. Humayun Khan, a police official in Matta, said several gunmen approached a bank in the town on foot early Tuesday and shot to death two officers standing guard.
IRAQI CITIZENS FLEE BAGHDAD AS VIOLENCE ESCALATES
The capitol of Iraq, Baghdad, has come under heavy fire from US forces and return fire from militias and the the people caught in the middle are the residents of Baghdad who are fleeing the city in great numbers.
Iraqi civilians flee fighting in Baghdad militia stronghold
By SELCAN HACAOGLU, Associated Press Writer 35 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080506/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
BAGHDAD - A rocket slammed into Baghdad's city hall and another hit a downtown park Tuesday as more frightened civilians fled a Shiite militia stronghold where U.S.-led forces are locked in fierce street battles.
The American push in the Sadr City district — launched after an Iraqi government crackdown on armed Shiite groups began in late March — is trying to weaken the militia grip in a key corner of Baghdad and disrupt rocket and mortar strikes on the U.S.-protected Green Zone.
But fresh salvos of rockets from militants arced over the city, wounding at least 16 people and drawing U.S. retaliation that escalated civilian panic and flight to safer areas.
"WAR MADE EASY" PENTAGON PUNDITS ON CABLE NEWS HAWK THE WAR
VIDEO REVEALS HOW CNN WENT ABOUT USING MILITARY ANALYSTS COACHED BY THE PENTAGON, SEE VIDEO HERE: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050608B.shtml
By Norman Solomon t r u t h o u t Perspective Tuesday 06 May 2008
When The New York Times published its explosive "Pentagon Pundits" story on April 20, the result was a wave of criticism directed at the Defense Department for manipulating TV news coverage of the Iraq war. Critics also faulted the networks for failing to scrutinize the conflicts of interest of the "military analysts" who went on the air. Many of those retired military officers were being coached by the Pentagon to mislead the public, and many had personal financial stakes in corporations with major Pentagon contracts.
Routinely lost in the current uproar is the extent to which media managers have gone out of their way to suck up to the Pentagon. Top network executive Eason Jordan - who ran CNN's news operation during the invasion of Iraq - is a case in point. He repeatedly asked the Pentagon for approval of the "military analysts" who were under consideration for on-air roles.
The documentary film "War Made Easy," based on my book of the same name, shows the pervasive and long-running partnership between key news outlets and high-ranking warmakers in Washington. This video excerpt from the movie puts the "Pentagon Pundits" story in a broad and chilling context.
Years later, some news outlets like to critique the previous media spin for war. It's part of what amounts to a repetition compulsion disorder - which includes participating in the corrupted process and then critiquing it long after the damage has been done.
Unfortunately, when the next agenda-setting for war gets underway, as is now the case for Iran, the mainline news reporting slides into a very similar mode of parroting official sources. It's not hard to point the finger backwards and acknowledge misdeeds in the past. As Mark Twain said long ago: "It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times."
From the "War Made Easy" transcript:
SEAN PENN [narrator]: CNN's use of retired generals as supposedly independent experts reinforced a decidedly military mindset, even as serious questions remained about the wisdom and necessity of going to war.
NORMAN SOLOMON: Often journalists blame the government for the failure of the journalists themselves to do independent reporting. But nobody forced the major networks like CNN to do so much commentary from retired generals and admirals and all the rest of it. You had a top CNN official named Eason Jordan going on the air of his network and boasting that he had visited the Pentagon with a list of possible military commentators, and he asked officials at the Defense Department whether that was a good list of people to hire.
EASON JORDAN [speaking on CNN]: Oh, I think it's important to have experts explain the war and to describe the military hardware, describe the tactics, talk about the strategy behind the conflict. I went to the Pentagon myself several times before the war started and met with important people there and said, for instance, at CNN, here are the generals we're thinking of retaining to advise us on the air and off about the war, and we got a big thumbs up on all of them. That was important.
NORMAN SOLOMON: It wasn't even something to hide, ultimately. It was something to say to the American people on its own network, "See, we're team players. We may be the news media, but we're on the same side and the same page as the Pentagon." And that really runs directly counter to the idea of an independent press, and that suggests that we have some deep patterns of media avoidance when the US is involved in a war based on lies.
SHARP RISE IN SUICIDE ATTACKS BY WOMEN IN IRAQ LIKELY
US expert says Iraqi women use suicide attacks as protest against loss of their men, society, country.
By Karin Zeitvogel - WASHINGTON
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=25731
As many women carried out suicide attacks in Iraq so far this year as in the five previous years combined, and attacks by women are expected to spike again in the coming months, a US terrorism expert said Monday.
"Between January and April, there were 12 suicide attacks by women in Iraq. That marks an exponential increase," Farhana Ali, a US international policy analyst of Pakistani origin, said after a symposium on terrorism at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in Washington.
Twelve women carried out suicide attacks in Iraq in the first few months of this year compared with 11 between 2003 and 2007, according to Ali.
"So long as this conflict continues, you will see greater instability in Iraq and women will be greatly victimized -- you will see more women in Iraq choose suicide terrorism in the next few months," she predicted, adding that she had warned US officials and policy makers of the threat since 2005.
"It's only in the past two months that we have given serious attention to this issue. Why? Because female attackers in Iraq are hurting our efforts for peace and stability in that country," she said.
Ali, who worked as an adviser to the US government before joining the private sector as an international policy analyst, blamed the rise in female suicide bombers largely on the marginalization of Iraqi women since the US invasion in 2003.
"Iraqi women, slowly, over the course of the conflict have been marginalized," she said.
"They were at the forefront of their society. They were in the Iraqi cabinet, in government, in NGOs. We stripped them of those opportunities.
"Many have left but those who stayed behind are also victims of rape and torture and kidnapping. So they are being victimized twice," she said.
"Women use attacks as a protest. In Iraq, they are protesting at the loss of their men, the loss of their society and the loss of their country," said Ali.
In a presentation given to several hundred mental healthcare practitioners and a handful of reporters at the American Psychiatric Association meeting, which runs until Thursday, Ali warned that US soldiers face a cultural barrier in detecting women bombers.
"A marine officer coming back from Fallujah said to me: 'How are we supposed to detect these women if we are taught before we are deployed to not even look at them?'" she explained.
Some Iraqi women may have been coerced into carrying out suicide attacks, but the greater danger comes from those who choose to blow themselves up, said Ali.
"Iraq is a country of widows ... when women are vulnerable and have to protect themselves and play the role of the man and woman of the household, they are easily exploitable," she said.
"But we can't assume that all Iraqi women suicide attackers are exploited and recruited. We have to ask how many women are doing this because they want to -- that's the more serious question."
Ali suggested ways of dissuading Iraqi women from carrying out suicide attacks, including empowering more women and forging US-Iraqi alliances with them.
"If you want to gain entrance into female jihadi organisations, you need female case officers. You need female police officers. You need women in Iraqi law enforcement," she said.
"Most US commanders see Iraq as a very male society, and our military is creating alliances with tribes," said Ali, adding that she has warned since 2005 of the dangers posed by women suicide attackers.
"But women are half of any society, and so we have to nurture the women if we are to have a stable society," she added.
Some 19,000 psychiatrists and other health practitioners are expected to attend the American Psychiatric Association meeting, where the psychological traumas of war and school violence are high on the agenda of items to be discussed.
FRANK RICH OF THE NY TIMES SAYS AMERICANS ARE TURNED OFF TO THE WAR
New York Times columnist Frank Rich was a guest on one of the weekend cable news shows and the topic came up about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Rich, who has long been against the war in Iraq, made a startling statement.
He said you can hear people all across the United States switching to another channel when one of the cable news stations bring up anything about the Iraq war.
Rich didn't mention it, but I have heard other op/ed writers and pundits say there is "Iraq Fatigue" with Americans.
After five plus years and 4,062 American deaths and another 30,000 severely wounded, the American public is just tired of hearing about the Iraq war.
I for one don't believe for a nanosecond Americans want a victory in Iraq. To begin with, what is a victory in Iraq going to look like? This is not like other wars where one side signs a surrender. Our troops are fighting various militias and they don't speak for each other. So one militia group might give up, but that would only leave scores of others to continue the fight.
The history of Iraq dates back 1,300 years and the only time in the 1 300 years there has not been tribal war going on was when Saddam Hussein was in power. For better or worse, Saddam Hussein held the country together.
Now we have 160,000 troops in Iraq, and many of them are on their third and fourth rotation to the war torn country.
Nothing is getting better and the "surge" has been a dismal failure because only one province, Anbar, has shown any stability and that had NOTHING to do with the US military, but instead the various tribal chiefs getting together and deciding to run Al Qaeda out of their province.
The Iraq Army is at best a ragtag unit made up of people who for the most part don't want to fight their "brothers" and so you see huge defections like the 1,000 who refused to fight recently in Basra.
The Iraqi government is at best a government in name only. They haven't accomplished a single thing since getting elected four years ago. Baghdad still suffers from lack of water and electricity and there are still hundreds if not thousands of Iraqi civilians trying to escape to Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
The once proud Iraqi health care system is in shambles. Most of the best doctors have fled the country to save their families from the continuing violence.
The oil that was supposed to go to pay for the war has never materialized and the United States is paying $5.4 MILLION dollars every hour on the war effort.
Frank Rich may be right when he says the American public is turned off to the war, but I blame the media as much for that as I do anything else. The mainstream media gave up reporting on the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war a year of more ago.
Only when something really big happens like the recent shelling of the Green Zone does the media ever mention the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan anymore.
They used to call the Korean War "the forgotten war," but IMO the new "forgotten war" is the Iraq war and its sister the Afghanistan war.
The only people who can't forget there is a war going on are our brave young men and women who every single day go out on patrols still facing IEDs, RPG attacks and an Iraq civilian population that doesn't want the United States in their country anymore.
We started this blog six months ago in hopes of bringing to readers the events from Iraq and Afghanistan the media deems are no longer newsworthy.
We have heard from many veterans and families of veterans and that is what keeps us going.
We hope to be able to continue bringing our readers the very latest events from Iraq and Afghanistan. That is the very least we can do for all those brave young Americans stuck in this quagmire and for the most part forgotten except for their families here in the United States.
Editorial comment by BILL CORCORAN, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/ and a former Cpl. (E-4) in the United States Army Combat Engineers and a Korean War veteran.
NEWSVINE: DIARIES SHOW SADDAM FEARED GETTING AIDS IN PRISON
CAIRO — Saddam Hussein feared catching AIDS or other diseases during his U.S.-supervised captivity, a leading Arab newspaper said Monday in publishing excerpts of his prison writings.
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2008/05/05/1470441-diaries-show-saddam-feared-getting-aids-in-prison
The London-based Al-Hayat said the comments came in portions of Saddam's prison diaries that it obtained from U.S. authorities. The U.S. military confirmed some of the late Iraqi leader's writings had been released.
When Saddam found out his U.S. military guards were also using his laundry line to dry clothes, he wrote that he demanded they stop, according to the excerpts.
"I explained to them that they are young and they could have young people's diseases," Saddam wrote. "My main concern was to not catch a venereal disease, an HIV disease, in this place." He said some soldiers ignored his request.
A U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, Maj. Matthew Morgan, declined to describe the writings as a formal diary, but said the former Iraqi president produced thousands of pages of writing while in custody.
Monday, May 5, 2008
CITIZENS FOR LEGIT GOV REPORTS: IRAQ OCCUPATION COSTS US WHOPPING $5.54 MILLION AN HOUR
President George W. Bush last week asked Congress to approve $ 70 billion in funding for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the U.S. fiscal year 2009, which begins on October 1, 2008.
By Kaleem Omar
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=167952
The Iraq war has already cost U.S. taxpayers more than $ 500 billion dollars, and there is still no end in sight to the U.S.’s utterly illegal occupation of Iraq.
According to congressional analysts, the eventual total cost of the Iraq war and the occupation could be as high as $ 1.5 trillion – that’s $ 1,500 billion.
Click on link above for full report or from Citizens for a Legitimate Government at http://www.legitgov.org/
NEW VIDEO: US FORCES BRING DEATH TO IRAQI SADR CITY CIVILIANS
Baghdad's Sadr City death toll mounts
10 people killed on Sunday; over 925 killed since al-Maliki's offensives began in March
Monday May 5th, 2008
SEE THE REAL NEWS VIDEO HERE: http://therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1443&thisview=item
In continuing violence in Baghdad's Sadr City, 10 people, including two children were killed on Sunday. Over the past 5 weeks, the US military and Iraqi forces have been cracking down on the Mahdi army militia in this densely populated neighborhood. Since the offensive's inception, over 925 have been killed, and 2,600 have been wounded.
Transcript:VOICEOVER: Ten people, including two children, were killed in Baghdad's Sadr City on Sunday as the US military and Iraqi forces continue cracking down on the Mahdi Army militia.
Since Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki's offensives against the militia began five weeks ago, over 925 people have been killed and 2,600 wounded. The Mahdi Army is led by popular Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who last year declared a ceasefire that is largely credited with reducing sectarian violence in Iraq.
REUTERS REPORTS: IRAN SAYS TALKS WITH US MEANINGLESS: IRAN SAYS US MASSACRED HUNDREDS OF IRAQIS
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran on Monday dismissed any prospect of new talks with the United States on Iraq, accusing U.S.-led forces on Monday of a "massacre" of the Iraqi people.
Iran says new talks with U.S. on Iraq meaninglessMon May 5, 2008 11:26am EDT
By Hossein Jaseb
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL0528762620080505
The two foes last year held three rounds of ground-breaking discussions in Baghdad, easing a diplomatic freeze of almost three decades, but Iraqi officials have expressed frustration that a fourth round has failed to get off the ground.
Iraq says it does not want its soil to become a battleground for a proxy war between the United States and Iran, which are also at loggerheads over Iran's disputed nuclear program.
"Right now, what we observe in Iraq is a massacre of the Iraqi nation by the occupying forces," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a news conference.
"Concerning this situation, talks with America will have no results and will be meaningless."
Hosseini did not elaborate, but U.S. forces have been fighting daily battles with militiamen loyal to anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad for several weeks.
BREAKING WAR NEWS AND US CASUALTY REPORTS FOR MONDAY
War News for Monday, May 05, 2008
Casualty Reports:
Cpl. Steven Kiernan, 20, lost his left foot and right leg below the knee after he was injured by an explosive device while on ground patrol in Fallujah at 11 a.m., according to his family. He also suffered shrapnel wounds.He was transported to Baghdad for medical treatment. He was critically injured in Iraq on Sunday (5-4-08)
Baghdad:#1: Iraqi health officials on Monday said 41 people, including women and children, have been wounded since Sunday in the militia stronghold of Sadr City, mostly in clashes.
#2: The military confirmed Monday that two Iraqi civilians were wounded in a Hellfire missile attack late Sunday in Baghdad's southwestern Aamel neighborhood and were evacuated to a military hospital.
#3: Clashes erupted before noon Monday in the militia stronghold of Shula and heavy gunfire could be heard. Apache attack helicopters circled the center of Shula and U.S. armored vehicles blocked entrances into the neighborhood, an Associated Press photographer witnessed.
#4: Earlier Monday, U.S. soldiers called for air support after coming under fire from a rocket propelled grenade and small arms in Kazimiyah district. More than one hour later, one militant was killed with 40 mm cannon rounds from an AC-130 gunship, the military said.
#5: In other violence on Monday, an Abrams tank fired a 120 mm round from its cannon, killing two militants who attacked a U.S. patrol with a roadside bomb between the militia strongholds of New Baghdad and Sadr City, the military said.At around 1:00 am on Monday, two more militiamen were killed after a roadside bomb struck a US military vehicle in the district, Stover said.
#6: The U.S. military killed six other militants in separate clashes on Sunday. In Aamel, an attack aircraft fired three Hellfire missiles at Shiite extremists who opened fire from a building, killing three of them, the military said Monday.Five people were killed including three members of one family (parents and their child) and eight others were wounded when the American forces bombed Amil neighborhood in west Baghdad. The US military said in an e-mailed statement that the American soldiers responded to an attack from one of the buildings, killing three insurgents.
#7: A roadside bomb wounded two soldiers on patrol on the northwestern outskirts of Baghdad on Sunday, police said.
#8: A roadside bomb wounded three people, including two children, in eastern Baghdad's Zayouna district on Sunday, police said.
#9: A mortar bomb wounded five people on Sunday in Ghadir district in eastern Baghdad, police said.
#10: The Iraqi army killed six militants and detained 149 others in separate incidents across the country over the past 24 hours, the Defence Ministry said in a statement.
#11: Two policemen were wounded when gunmen opened fire targeting a police patrol in Bab al Sheikh neighborhood in downtown Baghdad on Sunday evening.
Diyala Prv:#1: Three soldiers were wounded in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast that targeted their vehicle near the village of Qurrat Tabbah, northeast of Baaquba an Iraqi army source said. “An IED went off on Monday near a patrol of the Iraqi army’s 32nd Brigade on the main road between the villages of Qurrat Tabbah and Lahib, injuring three personnel,” Maj. Kamran Ali told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq.Seven Iraqi soldiers were wounded in a roadside bomb that targeted their patrol in Qara Tabba area around 12:00 p.m.
#2: An IED blast had ripped through an area near Qurrat Tabbah earlier on Monday, wounding two civilians.
#3: Gunmen kidnapped three truck drivers while they were coming from Khanaqin town towards Qara Tabba area, 93 miles northeast of Baquba city on Monday morning.Balad Ruz:#1: Three policemen were wounded in a roadside bomb explosion that targeted their patrol in Baladroz town 28 miles east of Baquba around 11:15 a.m.
Basra:#1: Militants fired two rockets at a water treatment plant in Basra, 550 km (340 miles) south of Baghdad, but failed to cause any damage, the British military in Basra said.Shatt al-Arab waterway :
#1: The Iranian Coast Guard shot dead two Iraqi fishermen and wounded another on Sunday in the Shatt al-Arab waterway in southern Iraq, police in the port city of Basra said. It was not clear why they had opened fire, but in previous incidents, the Coast Guard shot at fishermen who entered Iranian territorial waters, the police said.
Kirkuk:#1: A roadside bomb blast killed one policeman and wounded five others when it hit their patrol in central Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police and hospital sources said.One policeman was killed and seven others wounded on Monday when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off near their patrol in central Kirkuk, police said. A police patrol was the target of an IED attack near the al-Matar street, central Kirkuk, as one policeman was killed and seven others injured,” a security source, who declined to have his name mentioned, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq.
Mosul:#1: Meanwhile, the same source said, an IED went off near a military patrol in the western Mosul area of Badosh, causing severe damage to a patrol vehicle but left no casualties.
#2: Gunmen stormed an apartment and shot dead three women and wounded two others in northern Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
Afghanistan:#1: A contracted helicopter made an emergency landing in Konar province after coming under fire from insurgents. The helicopter made a landing at an ISAF base, in central Konar, after taking machine-gun fire from an unknown number of insurgents. The aircrew inspected the aircraft and found one bullet hole that did minor damage to the helicopter. No one aboard the contracted helicopter was injured and repairs are underway to get the helicopter operational.
#2: Four children and three policemen were killed in the Afghan capital Kabul on Monday by two accidental munitions blasts, the Interior Ministry said. One of the blasts happened as children knocked the munition against a rock in a residential area that was the scene of bitter fighting between rival Afghan factions in the 1990s, it said. The other blast was caused after a rocket fell from the hands of a policeman in the main anti-drugs force base in Kabul, the ministry said in statement.A policeman dropped a rocket-propelled grenade that exploded as his unit set off from Kabul on Monday on an opium poppy eradication mission north of the city, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary. One policeman was killed and at least eight were wounded, said Dr. Ahmad Zia Aftali, chief of the hospital where the injured were taken for treatment. However, Khodadad, a policeman who goes by one name and witnessed the blast, said more than 15 were hurt.
Also Monday, three children died and two others were wounded when an old artillery shell they were playing with exploded, Bashary said. Another police official, Sayed Ekramudin, said two civilians were killed and 13 others wounded in an explosion Sunday at a refuse dump in the city's northern outskirts. Ekramudin said a truck had hit a buried explosive.
CARTOON: THE WRIGHT DISTRACTION AT THE WRONG TIME. WILL SOMEBODY TELL THE MEDIA WE ARE AT WAR
Would somebody let the mainstream media in the United States know we are still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tune into FOX NEWS, MSNBC and CNN and all you get is non-stop coverage of the Obama/Hillary races for POTUS.
In fact, for months the media in the United States has given the cold shoulder to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would take a monumental event for the three cable news outlets to break their non-stop reporting on politics to cover anything that is happening in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
We still have 160,000 troops deployed to Iraq and 30,000 deployed to Afghanistan, but you would never know it by watching FOX NEWS, MSNBC or CNN. They don't care.
Apparently all the moguls at the cable news stations feel wearing an American flag lapel pin is all they have to do to show their support for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Instead, the media, especially FOX NEWS, have gone totally off the rails rehashing the Rev. Jeremiah Wriight comments and how it will impact on the Barak Obama campaign.
This Mike Luckovich cartoon sums up EXACTLY how the media is looking at events that really are important to the American public:
http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/20080505_the_wright_distraction_at_the_wrong_time/
US MILITARY KILLS 6 SADR CITY CIVILIANS INCLUDING WOMEN AND CHILDREN
The slaughter of Iraqi women and children by the US military continued on Monday as six Sadr City civilians were killed by US troops. Included in the deaths were women and children.
US kills 6 Sadr City residents Mon, 05 May 2008 12:33:12
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=54384§ionid=351020201
US military operations have left at least 6 Iraqi civilians dead and 40 wounded including women and children in Baghdad's Sadr City. Iraqi security and medical officials confirmed the civilians were killed and injured during 12 hours of intense US operations overnight that ended at 8 a.m.
(5:00 GMT) on Monday. The US military was not immediately available for comment. Since March 25, Sadr City has been a target of US military attacks and the populated slum area has frequently been pounded by US aircraft or artillery, leading to heavy loss of civilian life.
IRAQ OFFICIAL SAYS NO CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE IRAN IS SUPPLYING MILITIAS WITH ARMS
There seems to be a difference of opinion between the Bush administration and Iraqi officials when it comes to whether Iran is supplying militias inside of Iraq with arms.
The Bush administration, who want desperately some reason to launch an attack on Iran, have been saying for weeks that Iran is supplying militias in Iraq with weapons.
Iraqi officials say there is no proof it is true.
Iraqi official says Iran arms evidence not conclusive
Iraqi official says no conclusive evidence on some Iran arms to militias
SAMEER N. YACOUBAP News
May 04, 2008 13:10 EST
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=154536
A top Iraqi official said Sunday there was no conclusive evidence that Shiite extremists have been directly supplied with some Iranian arms as alleged by the United States.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said Iraq does not want trouble with any country, "especially Iran."
Al-Dabbagh was commenting on talks this week in Tehran between an Iraqi delegation and Iranian authorities aimed at halting suspected Iranian aid to some Shiite militias.
Asked about reports that some rockets made in 2007 or 2008 and seized in raids against militias were directly supplied by Iran, al-Dabbagh replied: "There is no conclusive evidence."
The U.S. accuses Iran of financing and training Shiite militants in Iraq and of funneling lethal weapons into the country. Iranian officials have denied the allegations.
IT WASN'T LIKE THIS WHEN SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS IN CHARGE OF IRAQ
The rot gnawing away at Baghdad's innards
Before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Al-Batawin's main thoroughfare Al-Sadun Street bustled with restaurants, hotels, upmarket stores and -- most famously -- medical centres.
Today just a scattering of businesses still bother to open their doors, residential blocks stand empty, and those buildings that are occupied have few tenants willing to risk living above the first floor.
by Bryan Pearson Sun May 4, 7:11 PM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080504/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestbaghdadbuildings
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Its traditional wooden-balconied Shanasheel houses in ruins, other buildings crumbling and muddied streets reeking of rubbish, Al-Batawin neighbourhood in the centre of Baghdad is an abject picture of just how far the rot has set in to the once-proud Iraqi capital.
Electricity is supplied only sporadically and water in a trickle, and there are no other services to speak of, so it makes no sense to live too far from the ground in what is now a rapidly eroding urban wasteland.
Most Iraqis know Al-Sadun Street for its medical centres and pharmacies. Many travelled from afar and waited in long queues to see a doctor. And after the consultation there were some 200 pharmacies within a few blocks ready to fill the prescriptions.
Not any more. The 2003 invasion and the sectarian violence it subsequently spawned changed all that. Today most of the doctors have left and just 20 pharmacies remain.
"Before 2003 you could hardly move here, there were so many people coming to see the doctors," said 65-year-old Hussein Abdel Hussein, a wizened bony man with bulging eyes and calloused hands who is caretaker in Al-Janabi Building, once the most famous medical centre but now the most derelict.
"Patients came from all over Iraq. There were so many people we often had to warn people to look after their property because there were thieves about," said Hussein, his voice heavy with nostalgia and too many cigarettes.
Today the thieves no longer bother, and Hussein saves his wheezing breath.
"There are now only seven doctors left and each of them sees only two or three patients a day," said the caretaker who lives in the building with his son -- Al-Janabi's only full-time tenants.
Doctors these days open their doors for only a few hours in the afternoon. With no electricity and few patients, there is little point in hanging about after dark.
Click on link to read full story.
