Monday, March 16, 2015

The eradication passed as 'liberation'

Barbara Plett Usher (BBC News -- link is video) interviews Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal today:


Prince Turki al-Faisal:  Iran is already a disruptive player in various scenes in the Arab world -- whether in Yemen, in Syria and Iraq, in Lebanon, in Palestine, in Bahrain.  And so ending the fear of Iran developing weapons of mass destruction is not going to be the end of the troubles that we're having with Iran.

Barbara Plett Usher:  Speaking of those troubles, the Americans seem to be accepting Iranian backing for the Iraqi ground forces fighting ISIS.  Is there an alternative?

Prince Turki al-Faisal:  There is.  The Iraqi people. There is a record of that, of course, when al Qaeda was the main enemy during the occupation of Iraq.  It was the Arab tribes -- Sunni tribes --  that managed to get rid of al Qaeda so that's where it should be going.

Barbara Plett Usher:  But do you think more should be done to get Iran out of the picture in terms of the fight against ISIS.

Prince Turki al-Faisal: Now it seems that Iran is expanding its occupation of Iraq. And that is unacceptable.

We'll go into the above in the snapshot but, for now, we'll just note the remarks without comment.


In Iraq the violence continues, corpses are discovered in mass graves, etc.

Haider al-Abadi became prime minister in August and has still accomplished nothing in terms of a political solution -- one Barack declared was necessary.


All Iraq News notes the National Guard.

Remember that?

A force that would allow Sunnis to patrol Sunni areas, Shi'ites to do Shi'ite areas . . .  (The Peshmerga neither needs nor wants help from Baghdad in patrolling the KRG.)


This idea was tossed around in the summer and the White House endorsed it and the State Dept's Brett McGurk hugs it like a teddy bear.

Where is it now?

Still not passed.

But, hey, it may be read in today's session of Parliament.

Still not voted on.

But read out loud.


BBC News report on Tikrit:

Poster-sized pictures of Saddam that once covered it have been replaced with Shia militia flags and pictures of militia leaders, including Iranian General Qassem Soleimani who advises the Shia militias.
Militia leaders said IS put up a strong fight for the village, and left many bombs and booby-traps behind, says BBC Middle East correspondent Jim Muir.

But there will be suspicions among many in Iraq's Sunni community that the tomb was deliberately destroyed by the Shia militias, he says.


While the eradication of Tirkit appears stalled (it's not a liberation of the city, it's an attempt to obliterate the Sunnis and the region's history -- ISIS and Shi'ite thugs, different sides of the same coin), Tian Shaohui (Xinhua) reports:

Kurdish fighters on Monday recaptured three villages near Kirkuk from Islamic State (IS) militants, a Kurdish security source told Xinhua.
About 20 IS militants and three Kurdish fighters were killed in the battles to seize the villages of Wihda, Saad and Khalid, near the town of Daquoq, some 40 km south of Kirkuk, capital city of the province with the same name, the source said on condition of anonymity.

IANS covers the claims here.

What's interesting is that there are no posters of Barzani.

Isn't that what's done?

It's what Baghdad's doing.

Destroying areas and calling it 'liberation' as they rush to post posters of Iranians and others.

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