Monday, April 15, 2013

Iraq slammed by violence


It's always interesting to see what gets the western press active regarding Iraq.  Yesterday, at least 15 people died and at least twenty were injured -- one of the acts of violence was "a corpse bomb" -- a police officer's corpse was stuffed with explosives.  And not a batted eye.

Today appears to be different.  Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) counts 24 attacks, 25 dead and "more than 170" injured.  Al Jazeera adds, "Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Baghdad, Waleed Ibrahim, said both Shia and Sunni neighbourhoods were targeted in the spate of attacks to hit the city." AP observes, "They were unusually broad in scope, striking not just Baghdad but also the western Sunni city of Fallujah, the ethnically contested oil-rich city of Kirkuk and towns in the predominantly Shiite south. Other attacks struck north of the capital, including the former al-Qaida stronghold of Baqouba and Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit." Kareem Raheem (Reuters) notes, "Ten years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, al Qaeda is regaining ground, especially in the western desert close to Syria's border. Islamic State of Iraq says it has joined forces with al-Nusra Front rebels fighting in Syria."   All Iraq News notes that provincial candidate Talib Abdul Karim's Mosul home was bombed.  And the attacks targeted protesters.  National Iraqi News Agency reports Hudhaifah Siddeeq, cousin of the Anbar protesters spokesperson Shiekh Saeed Allafi, was killed today by a sticky bombing in Ramadi and 2 members of the protection detail for Shaeikh Saeed Allafi were killed in another Ramadi sticky bombing. 


As violence slams Iraq, All Iraq News reports Speaker of Parliament Osama al-Nujaifi condemned the violcne and declared that "this security breakdown is expected because of [Nouri al-]Maliki's tensed policies and his engaging in targeting his opponents and preparing the malicious files to topple them."

The attacks follow last Saturday's early voting and come before this Saturday's regular voting -- for 12 of Iraq's 18 provinces.  Al Jazeera notes, "The credibility of the April 20 vote has been drawn into question as 14 election hopefuls have been murdered and just 12 of the country's 18 provinces will be taking part."



From Saturday:

 Today, All Iraq News notes, Electoral Commission member Kadhim al-Zubaei declared that each polling station also has a complaint box.  Dropping back to Tuesday's snapshot:


  
Still on the political, from the April 2nd snapshot, "Alsumaria reports that Salah al-Obeidi, spokesperson for the Sadr bloc, declared today that pressure is  being put upon police and military recruits to get them to vote for Nouri's State of Law slate."  Al Rafidayn reports today that Ammar al-Hakim, leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, has also called out the efforts to pressure police and army to vote for a specific list of candidate (Al Rafidayn notes that al-Hakim avoided naming the list in question).  




Wael Grace and Mohammad Sabah (Al Mada) report allegations have already emerged of voter fraud and others problems including that some forces are discovering their names are not on the voter rolls.  Movement leader and cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's parliamentary bloc states that they have video proof of security service officers forcing those serving under them to participate and to vote for one party.  Kitabat adds that observers saw officers pressuring recruits to vote for Nouri al-Maliki's candidates in Karbala. 

Kitabat offers these hard numbers: 8143 candidates running for 378 seats in the 12 provinces holding elections. Security and military personnel voted in 14 provinces.



Today All Iraq News reports that MP Jawad al-Jouburi told the press that security forces were pressured to vote for Nouri's State of Law and that Nouri spoke for one hour pressuring them to vote for his slate.     al-Jouburi is with Moqtada al-Sadr's Parliamentary bloc.





Bonnie notes that Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Safety Net Scissorhands" went up last night.  On this week's Law and Disorder Radio,  an hour long program that airs Monday mornings at 9:00 a.m. EST on WBAI and around the country throughout the week, hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Michael S. Smith and Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights) topics addressed include an update on Russell Maroon Shoatz of the Black Liberation Army (Bret Grote provides an update), with attorney Andrea Costello they discuss the morning after pill and we get to hear some of the documentary It Was Genocide: Armenian Survivor Stories.



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