Like the violence, Nouri refuses to budge. Nouri and his State of Law coalition also continue to struggle with the truth. Hamza Mustafa (Asharq Al-Awsat) reports:
Despite filling two key positions in recent weeks, Iraqi politicians appeared no closer to naming a new prime minister or government on Thursday, after Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court denied claims by current Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition that it had been formally tasked with forming a new government.
Federal Supreme Court spokesman Abdul Sattar Al-Biraqdar told Asharq Al-Awsat: “The Federal Supreme Court has not issued any decision in this regard. The State of Law coalition’s claims are not true.”
“The Supreme Court has not met for two weeks and if the Court was going to issue any decision, it would be via an official spokesperson. These claims are part of conflicts between politicians, and have nothing to do with the Supreme Court,” he added.
Earlier this week, State of Law coalition MP Hussein Al-Maliki issued a statement claiming that the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court had formally tasked Prime Minister Maliki with forming a new government.
Thug Nouri and his supporters can't stop lying. And for those who will insist, "Nouri didn't lie!," yes, he did. He's prime minister of Iraq and a member of his coalition is publicly spewing lies and Nouri doesn't reject them? Nouri who appears on Iraqi television every Wednesday to attack his political rivals can't make the time to reject the lies?
He's always been a thug, never an honest broker.
In other news, Mohammed Tawfeeq (CNN) reports on the apparent bombing of a Sunni mosque which apparently destroyed Jonah's tomb:
The holy site is thought
to be the burial place of the prophet Jonah, who was swallowed by a
whale or fish in both the Islamic and Judeo-Christian traditions.
Militants belonging to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, planted explosives around the tomb and detonated the explosion remotely Thursday, civil defense officials there told CNN.
NINA notes:
In a statement issued today Mottahidoon said : " With hearts rupturing of pain, and eyes full of blood of the terrible scene of blowing up the shrine and mosque of the Prophet Yunus peace be upon him, the Mosalion the whole world with them farewell a memorial combining history, civilization and sacred values, that is what it means the sublime edifice of Prophet Yunus peace be upon him which is located on Talit-Tawbah / hill of repentance/ in the left side of the city of Mosul.
Mottahidoon is the political party of Osama al-Nujaifi who was the Speaker of Parliament from 2010 until this month. Mosul, of course, is where Iraqi Christians have most recently been targeted. Alex McClintock and Scott Spark (Religion and Ethics Report, Australia's ABC Radio -- link is text and audio) report:
‘It's a very difficult time, Mosul is empty of Christians,’ says Father Andrzej Halemba, Middle East coordinator for Aid to the Church in Need. ‘Two thousand years of beautiful history, where the Christians and Muslims for centuries had helped each other, but now it’s the end of Christianity in Mosul. It's dreadful news.’
Christians were reportedly given a choice by ISIS militants: convert to Islam, pay an undisclosed tribute to their new rulers or be ‘put to the sword’. Up to 30,000 elected to flee to safer Kurdish-controlled areas, mainly on foot and often without access to fresh water. According to Father Halemba, even more radical Sunni clerics are arriving from the Gulf states, and they are urging militants to cut off water to Christian villages. Appalling photos of decapitated Muslims and actual crucifixions of Christians in ISIS controlled areas are emerging on social media today.
‘They lost everything,’ he says. ‘They lost houses, they lost cars, they lost property, they lost money, they lost mobiles: whatever they had.’
Vatican Radio notes that Islamic leaders outside of Iraq have not remained silent either:
The most explicit condemnation came from Iyad Ameen Madani, the Secretary General for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the group representing 57 countries, and 1.4 billion Muslims.
In a statement, he officially denounced the "forced deportation under the threat of execution” of Christians, calling it a "crime that cannot be tolerated.” The Secretary General also distanced Islam from the actions of the militant group known as ISIS, saying they "have nothing to do with Islam and its principles that call for justice, kindness, fairness, freedom of faith and coexistence.”
Silence was elsewhere for many months. Jonathan S. Landay (McClatchy Newspapers) reports:
Like the rest of the world, the U.S. government appeared to have been taken aback last month when Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, fell to an offensive by jihadis of the Islamic State that triggered the collapse of five Iraqi army divisions and carried the extremists to the threshold of Baghdad.
A review of the record shows, however, that the Obama administration wasn’t surprised at all.
We'll probably touch on that in the snapshot today -- it pertains to Brett McGurk and his two Congressional appearances.
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