Iraq

[RTH10260]

[raison de arizona]

Hmm, interesting.

Extradition bid certified for Phoenix man accused in Iraq killings

A judge certified the Iraqi government's extradition request for a Phoenix driving school owner on charges that he participated in the killings of two police officers 15 years ago in the Iraqi city of Fallujah as the leader of an al-Qaida group.

The ruling Friday sends Ali Yousif Ahmed Al-Nouri's extradition decision to Washington to decide.

The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed it has no record of having ever before extradited anyone to Iraq under a decades-old a U.S.-Iraq treaty.

The judge concluded there was probable cause that Ahmed participated in the killings. Ahmed denied involvement in the killings and being a member of a terror group.

https://www.abc15.com/news/national/ext ... q-killings

[RTH10260]

‘Honour’ killing of YouTube star sparks outrage in Iraq
Politicians and human rights groups demand justice for Tiba al-Ali after father’s confession

Agence France-Presse in Baghdad
Fri 3 Feb 2023 21.27 GMT

The death of a young YouTube star at the hands of her father has sparked outrage in Iraq, as so-called “honour” killings continue in the conservative country.

Tiba al-Ali, 22, was killed by her father on 31 January in the southern province of Diwaniya, interior ministry spokesperson Saad Maan said on Twitter on Friday.

Police had attempted to mediate between Ali – who lived in Turkey and was visiting Iraq – and her relatives to “resolve the family dispute in a definitive manner”, Maan said.

Ali’s father was reported to have been unhappy about her decision to live alone in Turkey.

Maan said that after the police’s initial encounter with the family “we were surprised the next day … with the news of her killing at the hands of her father, as he admitted in his initial confessions”.

He did not give further details on the nature of the dispute.

Ali had gained a following on YouTube, where she posted videos of her daily life and in which her fiance often appeared.

A police source speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity meanwhile confirmed that the “dispute” dated back several years.

She had travelled to Turkey with her family in 2017, but she refused to return home with them and stayed in the country and lived there since, the police source said.

Her death has sparked uproar among Iraqis on social media, who have called for protests in Baghdad on Sunday to demand justice in response to her death.

“Women in our societies are hostage to backward customs due to the absence of legal deterrents and government measures – which currently are not commensurate with the size of domestic violence crimes,” wrote veteran politician Ala Talabani on Twitter.





https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... ge-in-iraq

[RTH10260]

Based on the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq there will be several war reviews and reviews on the aftermath in Iraq appearing.



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[RTH10260]

‘The US army destroyed our lives’: five Iraqis on the war that changed the Middle East
Survivors tell of the devastating impact of the US-led invasion 20 years on

Emma Graham-Harrison and Salim Habib
Sun 19 Mar 2023 11.00 GMT

Twenty years ago today the US and the UK invaded Iraq in a disastrous military mission based on flawed intelligence, months of lying to the world, and a casual disregard for international law.

The invasion would lead to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, decades of civil war and vicious sectarian violence in Iraq, and the rise of the Islamic State militant group. Incubated in a US prison camp, IS was directed and staffed in part by former members and officers of the Saddam-era Ba’ath party.

In a pattern that would be repeated again and again over the following two decades of the “war on terror”, the US and its allies, including the United Kingdom, assumed that overwhelming technical and military superiority was all they needed to control a distant nation and its people.

A “shock and awe” bombing campaign showcasing that military power launched the invasion, and ground troops moved into Iraq the next day, 20 March. Saddam was soon on the run, and in early April, Baghdad was formally occupied.

On 1 May, US president George Bush set up a theatrical spectacle on an aircraft carrier, flying in to announce “mission accomplished”. America had ended “major combat operations” in Iraq.

It was a speech that betrayed American arrogance, ignorance and disdain about realities on the ground in Iraq, where decades of bloodshed were only just beginning.




https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... iddle-east

[Dave from down under]

1M of 25M population of Australia protested against the war of aggression

https://theconversation.com/iraq-war-20 ... ate-200075

Two decades ago, Australia joined the US-led “coalition of the willing” that staged a major military intervention in Iraq.

To justify the war, leaders like US President George W. Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard argued that Iraq had developed weapons of mass destruction and was harbouring terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. Neither could be tolerated in a post-9/11 world.

However, when evidence for Iraq’s weapons program or links to terrorism failed to emerge, the coalition partners were forced to re-frame the war. The goals were threefold:

to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and bring peace to the Iraqi people

to replace the autocratic Baathist regime with a democratic government

to transform Iraq into a prosperous state governed by a free-market economy.

Twenty years on, the legacy of the war still looms large in Iraq. Despite the enormous human and financial costs, the coalition abjectly failed to achieve its central goals. Today, Iraq is not more peaceful, democratic or prosperous than it was in 2003.

[Foggy]

Yeah, the biggest foreign policy goof in American history. Our biggest embassy in the world is in Baghdad, to show how Iraq is our most important international partner.

I'm glad I protested in 2003, with Numbah One Son. We marched against the war in Raleigh.

"We have guided missiles and misguided men."

[Suranis]

If you have 12 minutes to spare today, listen to the resignation speech of Robin Cook on the eve of the war vote, March 2003.

[RTH10260]

‘My questions are turned into a weapon to kill me’: the deadly war against Iraq’s journalists
At least 282 journalists have been killed in Iraq in the past 20 years, with many only able to work in exile

Zainab Almashat
Wed 22 Mar 2023 09.00 GMT

Agrenade was thrown into the central Baghdad offices of the Iraqi television network UTV last month. It failed to explode, but the attack is typical of the relentless assault on journalists in Iraq over the past two decades.

The target of the attack was believed to be Adnan Altia, the host of a political talkshow who has criticised the unrestrained use of arms in Iraq. “My questions don’t aim to provoke politicians but to ask them to justify,” he says. “But they’re quickly turned into a weapon to kill me in many different ways.”

Altia had already been forced into exile by previous threats against him and his family and now lives in Turkey, working as a journalist for Iraqi channels, including UTV, which has offices in the country.

The 2005 Iraqi constitution established freedom of expression and freedom of the press, followed by a later law to protect journalists. But far from facilitating a free and independent press, post-invasion Iraq has produced a partisan and sectarian media landscape in which violence against journalists has increased.



https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... sts-killed

[MN-Skeptic]

I'm glad I protested in 2003, with Numbah One Son. We marched against the war in Raleigh.

I guess I missed the Raleigh War.

[RTH10260]

portraits of the leading war proponents of the time in the article

From Bush to Blix: what happened to the key figures in the Iraq war?
The ex-president is a painter, his VP an avid fly fisher, while Tony Blair has built a property empire. They appear unrepentant

Julian Borger in Washington
Thu 23 Mar 2023 10.00 GMT


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... e-they-now

[RTH10260]

Mona Chalabi’s datablog: Iraq war leukemia rates worse than after Hiroshima bombing
Bombing of Falluja preceded 2,200% increase in leukemia rates, as well as 1,260% increase in childhood cancer

Mona Chalabi
Mon 3 Apr 2023 06.00 BST

The US assault on Iraq that began 20 years ago has left a toxic legacy worse than that of the Hiroshima bombing, according to a study that looked at cancer rates and infant mortality.

After the bombing in Japan, the rates of leukemia among those living closest to the detonation increased by a devastating 660%, about 12 to 13 years after the bomb (which is when radiation levels peaked). In Falluja, leukemia rates increased by 2,200% in a much shorter space of time, averaged just five to 10 years after the bombings. Anecdotally, doctors in Iraq began reporting a big increase in cancer rates as well as congenital anomalies (commonly referred to as “birth defects”) after the US began bombing the country. The research, led by Dr Christopher Busby while he was at the University of Ulster, showed that the doctors’ observations were backed up by data.

In addition to the huge increase in leukemia, Busby and his colleagues found a 1,260% increase in rates of childhood cancer in Falluja after the US bombing as well as a 740% increase in brain tumors. They also found evidence that Iraqis had been exposed to radiation, as infant mortality rates were 820% higher than in neighboring Kuwait.




https://www.theguardian.com/news/databl ... emia-rates

[raison de arizona]

Biden orders strikes on Iranian group in Iraq after three US service members wounded

President Biden ordered strikes on three locations in Iraq after three U.S. service members were wounded, one critically, in an attack early Christmas morning credited to a militia group backed by Iran.

In a statement Monday, National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said Biden directed the strikes against three facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups, which claimed credit for the initial attack against U.S. personnel.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administra ... s-wounded/

IMG_6792.jpeg (285.74 KiB) Viewed 1562 times

[RTH10260]

US launches strikes in Iraq on militia groups backed by Iran
Pentagon calls attacks ‘necessary and proportionate’, after US personnel were injured in a weekend attack in Iraq

Guardian staff and agencies
Wed 24 Jan 2024 07.33 CET

The US has carried out strikes in Iraq against three facilities linked to Iran-backed militia, the Pentagon has said, after a weekend attack on an Iraqi airbase that wounded US forces.

“US military forces conducted necessary and proportionate strikes on three facilities used by the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia group and other Iran-affiliated groups in Iraq,” the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said in a statement.

“These precision strikes are in direct response to a series of escalatory attacks against US and Coalition personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-sponsored militias,” Austin added.

On Saturday, four US personnel suffered traumatic brain injuries after Iraq’s Ain al-Asad airbase was hit by multiple ballistic missiles and rockets fired by Iranian-backed militants from inside Iraq.



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/ ... ad-airbase

[RTH10260]

Iraq Sentences ISIS Leader’s Wife to Death Over Crimes Against Yazidis
The woman was found guilty of helping the terrorist group detain and enslave women and girls of the Yazidi religious minority.

By Lynsey Chutel and Eve Sampson
July 11, 2024

A court in Iraq has sentenced to death one of the wives of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the slain Islamic State leader, for involvement in crimes against the Yazidi religious minority, the country’s judiciary said on Wednesday.

Ten years after the Islamic State massacred entire Yazidi communities, Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council said that one of Mr. al-Baghdadi’s wives had been found guilty of working with the Islamic State, or ISIS, to kidnap and detain Yazidi women.

While the council did not name her, a senior Iraqi official identified the woman as Asma Mohammed, Mr. al-Baghdadi’s first wife.

When ISIS captured about one-third of Iraq and large swaths of territory in neighboring Syria in 2014, the terrorist group’s fighters swept through the Sinjar region of northern Iraq, the Yazidis’ ancestral home, killing more than 10,000 members of the religious minority and capturing 6,000 others in a campaign that the United Nations has deemed a genocide.

Ms. Mohammed was captured several years ago by Turkish forces in a part of Syria controlled by Turkey and transferred to Iraqi custody in January, according to the Iraqi official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.

Her adult daughter and another of Mr. al-Baghdadi’s wives were tried with her. Both women, the official said, were sentenced to life in prison for their roles in ISIS.



https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/11/worl ... -wife.html