Suadad al-Salhy (Reuters) reports, "Militants shot down a helicopter on Saturday and briefly occupied a town, in an escalating turf war with Iraq's government that has killed at least 25 people in two days, police said." Karma is the town and 4 people were in the helicopter, all died.
That wasn't the only violence today.
All Iraq News notes 2 female corpses were discovered dumped in Basra. National Iraqi News Agency reports an armed battle in Mosul left 1 Iraqi soldier dead and another injured, an Aldhiloiyah roadside bombing killed 1 person, an al-Qaim battle left 2 rebels dead, a Baiji battle left 4 police officer dead and six more injured, an Um Najem bombing claimed 4 lives, an al-Siniya armed battle left 5 police members dead and two more injured, a mortar attack on a Baiji police station left 1 police member dead and three more injured, a roadside bombing east of Tikrit left 1 person dead and another injured, an armed battle northeast of Baquba left 2 police members dead and four more injured -- updated to 4 dead and eight injured, a Baghdad roadside bombing (Jameelah area) left one person injured, a suicide car bomber took his own life west of Ramadi and the lives of 5 Iraqi soldiers with seventeen more left injured, an armed battle in Sulaiman Bek left 4 Daash dead, Baghdad Operations Command killed 1 suspect, 1 Iraqi soldier was shot dead in Kirkuk, and "Army forces stationed around Falluja pounded with heavy artillery and tanks" leaving 5 people dead ("including two children") and five more injured.
5 dead from the military shelling Falluja. As WG Dunlop reports that "Iraq announces 72 hour truce in Falluja." (Link is an AFP story, Al Jazeera's just gotten really bad about crediting outlets. They offer "Agencies." Here you'll see the same exact story credited to AFP. Dunlop is the author of the story.)
How does AFP do that? Report a 72 hour truce and 'forget' or 'not notice' that the military is still shelling Falluja -- that five pepole were killed, two of which were children?
Press TV offers video of the false claim.
Why do any of them get out of bed. If they're just going to type up government claims and present them as fact, why even get dressed?
KUNA at least puts a time on it -- the 72 hours ends at 6:00 am Monday.
So despite yesterday's announcement that Iraqi forces were in control of Sulaiman Bek, that wasn't true (again) as the violence demonstrates. And now Karma appears to have fallen.
Falluja, Ramadi, Sulaiman Bek (which isn't even in Anbar) and Karma.
Nouri's seven week assault has been a complete failure and only demonstrated how loose his grasp actually is.
And today All Iraq News notes, "The chairman of the military council of Anbar, Ali Hatim al-Sulaiman, fled of Anbar to unknown destination."
Nouri should wrap up the assault for his own image -- the longer it lasts, the more weak he's revealed to be.
In a repeat of last Saturday, there's major news in Iraq that the western media can't find. Maybe late Sunday like last week?
All Iraq News quotes a statement issued by the al-Ahrar bloc: "We will participate in the next elections in three different slates and we aim at winning the PM post to achieve our national programme."
That's news.
If you're not getting how that's news, you may not know that Ahrar is also known as the liberal bloc in some coverage. But mainly, in western media, it's referred to as the Sadr bloc.
Moqtada al-Sadr's bloc.
The following community sites -- plus NPR, Susan's On the Edge, Guardian, Tavis Smiley, Jake Tapper, On the Wilder Side, Antiwar.com and Pacifica Evening News:
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
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