Month: August 2008

BAQUBA — Residents of Baquba deny police claims that kidnappings are now a matter of the past. “There are fewer people disappearing, but it continues,” a trader who asked to be referred to as Abu Ali told IPS. “All of us know that several people are still being kidnapped every week.” A local sheikh, speaking

FALLUJAH — Fallujah is quiet these days. After all the fighting and destruction of 2004, U.S. and Iraqi forces call this success. Many residents are not so sure. Fallujah, 60km west of Baghdad, produced some of the strongest resistance yet to U.S. forces and their Iraqi collaborators. These forces led two severe assaults on the

BAQUBA — A military operation said to target al-Qaeda has ended up targeting Sunni Muslims instead, creating new sectarian tensions. A U.S.-backed security operation launched last month has only targeted cities with majority Sunni populations such as Buhriz, Tahreer, Qatoon, Mafraq, and Hay in Diyala province, north of Baghdad. The operation has drawn more than

BAQUBA — The surprise removal of the Diyala police chief has brought new hope of a more secure future. The decision by members of the ruling council of Diyala governorate to discharge provincial police chief Ghanim al-Quraishi brought celebrations in its wake. In Baquba, 40 km northeast of Baghdad, and capital of Diyala province, Quraishi

BAQUBA — Haider returned from Iran recently, with enough money to pay for his wedding and a new car. He was trained to join Badr, the armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Many more come where he recently came from. Badr is being trained ostensibly to defend

BAGHDAD — Living from one crisis to another, without electricity or freedom to move under a collapse of security, massive numbers of Iraqi students are failing their exams. “It is a natural result of what is going on in Iraq under this U.S. occupation that so many Iraqi students failed the high school exams,” Mahmood

BAQUBA — The crisis over electricity failure grows as summer temperatures climb and a drought plagues Iraq. It is a crisis Iran is using to help Iraqis where the U.S. has failed. The average house in Baquba, capital of Diyala province north of Baghdad, has less than 12 hours of electricity a day. “I cannot

BAQUBA — A massive military operation in Diyala province has underscored the military and political gains by the Sahwa militia, despite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s earlier attempts to thwart them. Maliki has now apparently come around to involving the Sahwa rather than opposing them. The Sahwa are the ‘Awakening Forces’ created and paid by the