[Kabar-indonesia] LAT: Deaths Across Iraq Show a Nation of Many Wars with U.S. in Middle

[Joyo at aol.com]

also: NYT: ‘We Will Not Recognize Israel,’ Palestinian Premier Affirms 

The Los Angeles Times
October 7, 2006

Deaths Across Iraq Show It Is a Nation 
of Many Wars, With U.S. in the Middle

By Solomon Moore and Louise Roug, Times Staff Writers

BAGHDAD -- Consider a recent day -- an average 24 hours in Iraq.

Here in the capital, the bodies of eight young men were found chained 
together, stripped of identification papers, shot and dumped in a parking lot, the 
first of 20 corpses found in the city that day.

In northern Iraq, a man detonated a bomb vest amid a group of women, children 
and men lining up for cooking oil, killing himself and 21 others. In the 
south, police found the bullet-torn body of a senior anti-terrorism official. And 
in Al Anbar province, in the west, a car smashed into a line of police 
recruits and exploded, killing 13 by fire and shrapnel.

In all, at least 57 people died and 17 were injured in the violence that day, 
Sept. 18.

They were all killed in the same country, but not in the same war. The 
fighting in Iraq is not a single conflict, but an overlapping set of conflicts, 
fought on multiple battlegrounds, with different combatants. Increasingly, 
American troops are caught between the competing forces.

In western Iraq's deserts, Sunni Arab insurgent groups, some homegrown and 
others dominated by foreign fighters, attack Iraqi government forces and the 
U.S. troops who back them up. In Baghdad and surrounding provinces, Sunni and 
Shiite fighters attack each other and their rivals' civilians in a burgeoning 
civil war that U.S. troops have tried to quell.

In southern Iraq, the Shiites dominate. But they are divided, with rival 
militias fighting over oil and commerce. And in the north of the country, Arabs 
and Kurds battle for control.

Often during the last three years, the U.S. military has shifted troops to 
try to tamp down one of these conflicts, only to see another escalate. Now, many 
American officials worry that with the proliferation of armed actors in 
Iraq's multiple conflicts, the original U.S. counterinsurgency mission has become 
something else — an operation aimed at quelling civil war, which is a much more 
ambiguous and politically fraught objective.

American troops find themselves in the crossfire, caught among foreign 
militants, Sunni Muslim nationalist rebels, Shiite Muslim militiamen and other armed 
groups — all fighting each other.

"It's a very complex situation," said Maj. Gen. Thomas R. Turner, commander 
of the Army's 101st Airborne Division. "Sometimes it's difficult to figure out 
where the violence is coming from."

West Desert Insurgency

Al Anbar province houses the conflict most familiar to Americans and most 
costly to U.S. troops — Marines and Iraqi insurgents, battling in the country's 
vast western desert.

The insurgents, almost all Sunni Arabs, are a mix of groups, some made up 
primarily of Iraqis, others heavily composed of foreign fighters drawn to the 
battle against the U.S. occupation. In addition to American troops, they target 
Iraqi forces and Sunnis who are suspected of cooperating with the government.

Barely a week passes without the U.S. military sending out several terse 
death notices from Al Anbar.

Attacks against U.S. forces have climbed 27% in Al Anbar since last year, 
according to the U.S. Marine Corps. American attempts to reduce the toll by 
turning over security duties there to Iraqi forces have met with little success. 
Marines say there are 5,000 Iraqi police officers and 13,000 Iraqi soldiers in 
the province, but that the Iraqi forces remain fragile and unable to sustain 
themselves. Half the Iraqi soldiers are on leave at any given time, and many 
don't return to duty. In May, desertion rates in some Iraqi units reached 40%.

In August, threats from insurgents led half of Fallouja's police force to 
stay home for days, a U.S. general said. And Fallouja at least has a police 
force. Other strategic cities, including Haditha, Hit and Ramadi, remain virtually 
lawless.

Meanwhile, Al Qaeda in Iraq, the best known of the insurgent groups, 
continues to make inroads in the province, consolidating and expanding its reach. Al 
Qaeda in Iraq was led by Abu Musab Zarqawi until U.S. forces killed him in 
June. American officials had hoped Zarqawi's death would severely disrupt the 
group, but that does not appear to have happened.

"Al Qaeda has murdered, intimidated, co-opted or paid off all the local 
national insurgent groups," said Marine Lt. Col. Bryan Salas, a military spokesman 
in Fallouja. "They run an organized criminal enterprise that has its tentacles 
in everything from black-market gasoline sales to extortion of police and 
government paychecks. Al Qaeda provides the leadership and organization for this 
loose association of organized criminals."

In addition to the deaths of U.S. troops, the conflict has taken a toll on Al 
Anbar's residents, many of whom have fled. Those who stay are at constant 
risk.

Among the police recruits killed in Ramadi recently was Faiz Mohamad Ali. In 
an interview, his brother described Ali as an art institute graduate, painter 
and optimist.

Ali attempted to join the police after failing to find a market for his 
paintings, said the brother, who asked not be identified for fear insurgents would 
track him down.

"Four days before he got killed, we were chatting about Iraq. He was 
enthusiastic and went on talking about how everybody should take part in building this 
country," Ali's brother said. "I remember him talking about how he could 
serve Iraq as a painter: 'My paintings are talking about Iraq in my own way,' he 
said. 'The new, shiny Iraq.' "

Militia-Plagued Capital

While the Sunni Arab insurgency is blamed for much of the violence in Al 
Anbar province, in Baghdad, Shiite militias carry out the majority of killings, 
according to most U.S. officials. Sunnis account for most of the victims.

The capital, with its 6 million residents, is home to about a fourth of 
Iraq's population. It is the nation's administrative center and among its most 
religiously and ethnically diverse cities. This year, it has also been a sectarian 
killing field.

The United Nations reported that 2,884 people were killed in Baghdad in July, 
the highest monthly death toll since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. In August, 
2,222 people were killed and in September, 1,980 — the decline probably due to 
increased patrols in the capital.

In addition to the thousands killed, hundreds of thousands of residents of 
Baghdad and the provinces immediately around it have fled their homes. Shiites 
and Sunnis have abandoned mixed neighborhoods in favor of others offering more 
homogeneous populations.

In recent weeks, Diyala, a province with about 1 million residents just north 
of Baghdad, has been particularly violent.

On Sept. 18, police in Baqubah, the provincial capital, reported that gunmen 
had assassinated the Sunni mayor of the nearby village of Udayem, making the 
official one of hundreds of people killed in the province in recent weeks. It 
remains unclear why the mayor was targeted or who killed him.

Internal Shiite Warfare

Until recently, southern Iraq seemed relatively peaceful. Now, Shiites, who 
dominate the region, have splintered into factions that feud over oil 
resources, smuggling proceeds, political power and religious authority. Violence 
remains smaller in scale than in the capital, but it is increasing.

Virtually all the south's political and religious institutions are divided 
among four Shiite groups: the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, 
the largest Shiite party in the country; followers of Muqtada Sadr, the radical 
cleric who has called for the U.S. to pull out its troops; and two smaller 
parties, the Islamic Dawa Party and Al Fadila al Islamiya. Because each of the 
warring local parties is affiliated with Iraq's governing Shiite alliance, local 
disputes often spread to the highest reaches of society, threatening national 
stability.

Huge amounts of money are at stake in the fighting. The southern city of 
Basra, Iraq's second-largest, controls vast oil reserves and the nation's only 
seaport, making it a vital trailhead for billions of dollars of imports and 
exports — much of them smuggled. The Shiite parties there compete for illicit 
profits, many Iraqi analysts say.

The struggles in some cases have flared into open war. In August, in the town 
of Diwaniya, militiamen loyal to Sadr squared off against government troops 
infiltrated by the Badr organization, the militia loyal to the Supreme Council 
for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The resulting battle left 40 dead, including a 
dozen troops who ran out of ammunition and were executed by Sadr's loyalists. 
That same month in Karbala, Sadr's fighters fought supporters of competing 
Shiite cleric Mahmoud Hassani.

Shiite political parties are also using assassinations to knock off opponents 
in advance of upcoming provincial elections.

"There are clashes among parties and militias at various levels, and by the 
time the provincial council elections come, there will be bloody conflicts in 
Basra," an Iraqi intelligence official said.

U.S. and British military officials are moving ahead with plans to withdraw 
troops from the south, saying the area has stabilized enough for Iraqi troops 
to handle. Whether that assessment is accurate is unclear. After British troops 
handed over a base in Maysan province, militiamen vandalized it and stripped 
it bare as Iraqi troops looked on. American forces plan to withdraw from Najaf 
by November, said Lt. Col. Michael Hilliard, the commander of Forward 
Operating Base Duke near Najaf.

These withdrawals are designed to turn security over to the Iraqi government 
but seem likely to further empower the militias.

"We have no authority in our cities because the clerics and religious powers 
are controlling the area," Gov. Aqeel Kharzali of Najaf province said Sept. 18 
at a conference of Iraqi police and southern politicians.

"This is evident when a policeman tries to confront a militia without a 
fatwa. Our police in Diwaniya and Karbala are marginalized, and we have no 
authority to fire renegade officers aligned with the militias."

Kurdish-Arab Clashes

The same day Kharzali spoke, gunmen driving a BMW attacked guards at an oil 
pipeline near Kirkuk, in northern Iraq. In Mosul, four police officers were 
ambushed and shot to death.

The main players and political stakes in Kirkuk and Mosul are similar: Both 
cities have mixed Kurdish and Arab populations battling for local control.

During ousted President Saddam Hussein's rule, the government pursued a 
policy of 'Arabization' in the north. More than 100,000 Kurds were exiled from the 
Kirkuk area alone.

Iraq's constitution calls for a census that will define the voting districts 
for a referendum on Kirkuk's fate — whether it will be annexed to Kurdistan or 
to Arab-dominated Tamim province. In Kirkuk and Mosul, Kurdish politicians 
have been accused of trying to gerrymander yet-to-be-scheduled provincial votes. 
Arabs and Kurds accuse each other of politically motivated killings.

Kirkuk is the biggest prize because the city and its environs contain about 
40% of Iraq's oil reserves.

About 40% of the area's residents are Kurds, including many who have returned 
since the 2003 invasion. Approximately one-third of Kirkuk's residents are 
Arabs, many of whom arrived in the city during Hussein's reign. Turkmens 
constitute about 20% of the regional population. The two smaller groups have 
sometimes joined forces to resist Kurdish control, but have also battled each another.

Car bomb attacks in Kirkuk have tripled in the last year, and roadside 
bombings have doubled, according to U.S. military officials who provided trend lines 
but not actual numbers of such assaults.

Assassinations have also increased, with attackers focusing on politicians 
and police. Explosions in August targeted a courthouse and Kurdish political 
offices affiliated with President Jalal Talabani's party, the Patriotic Union of 
Kurdistan.

Mosul has none of Kirkuk's oil wealth, but it remains a trouble spot because 
of its Sunni extremist element. In the wake of the U.S. siege of Fallouja in 
2004, fleeing rebels made Mosul their haven. When American troops retook Mosul, 
insurgent forces fled to Tall Afar. U.S. troops retook the latter city in 
September 2005 in a large-scale assault, but rebels remain deeply rooted in all 
three cities.

Until March of this year, most attacks in the Mosul area targeted U.S.-led 
forces, but by April, there were almost as many assaults against Iraqi security 
forces as against the Americans. There was also an increase in attacks against 
civilians, according to the U.S. military.

Despite the violence, the number of U.S.-led troops in Iraq's six northern 
provinces has been reduced from 31,000 to 21,000.

Alla Eid, a 26-year-old student at Mosul University, said the city has been 
taken hostage by clashing insurgents and U.S. forces. "We are living like 
cavemen. We eat and go to work or school every morning, and then life ends before 
sunset," she said. After dark, Mosul "turns into a city of ghosts."


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--
solomon.moore at latimes.com

Times special correspondents Ali Windawi in Kirkuk and Saad Fakhrildeen in 
Najaf and correspondents in Baghdad, Mosul, Ramadi, Fallouja, Diwaniya and 
Baqubah and in Kuwait contributed to this report.

--------------------------------------------

The New York Times
October 7, 2006

‘We Will Not Recognize Israel,’ Palestinian Premier Affirms 

By GREG MYRE

JERUSALEM, Oct. 6 -- In a defiant speech delivered to a teeming crowd of 
Hamas supporters, the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniya, insisted on 
Friday that his Hamas movement would not recognize Israel despite the cutoff in 
Western aid that has strangled his government.

“I tell you with all honesty, we will not recognize Israel, we will not 
recognize Israel, we will not recognize Israel,” Mr. Haniya said to thunderous 
applause from tens of thousands of supporters, many waving green Hamas flags, at 
the Yarmouk soccer stadium in Gaza City.

Mr. Haniya’s remarks appeared to be aimed at the Palestinian Authority 
president, Mahmoud Abbas, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who met Wednesday 
in the West Bank. At that time, Mr. Abbas declared that talks between his 
secular Fatah movement and Hamas on a Palestinian unity government had broken 
down, and that the political stalemate could not go on indefinitely. 

Mr. Abbas says there is a need for a new Palestinian government that will 
recognize Israel and deal with it. He also indicated that he was prepared to 
invoke his presidential powers and dismiss the current government, which is 
dominated by Hamas, the radical Islamic movement.

Less than a month ago, on Sept. 11, Mr. Abbas and Mr. Haniya agreed in 
principle to form a unity government in an effort to find a way out of the worsening 
political and economic crisis facing the Palestinians. The goal was to bring 
Fatah and other political factions into the government. And the hope was that 
this would persuade Israel, the United States and the European Union to resume 
the flow of money that had been cut off when Hamas assumed power. 

Without that aid the Palestinian Authority has been unable to pay salaries, 
provide services or govern in any meaningful way.

But the blunt public remarks by Mr. Abbas on Wednesday and Mr. Haniya on 
Friday reflected what seems to be an increasingly bitter power struggle that could 
dim the prospects for a compromise. 

Still, Mr. Haniya called on Mr. Abbas, who works in the West Bank city of 
Ramallah, to return to Gaza to resume talks on a broad-based government. “Come 
down to Gaza to protect our people and declare our commitment to a national 
unity government,” Mr. Haniya said. 

But Mr. Abbas has given no indication that he plans to accept the invitation 
any time soon. Mr. Haniya and other senior Hamas officials are based in Gaza, 
and Israel does not permit them to travel to the West Bank. 

During the lengthy speech on a sweltering afternoon, Mr. Haniya appeared on 
the verge of collapse at one point and could not continue his remarks. 
Bodyguards rushed to physically support him and whisked him off the stage. During the 
Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Mr. Haniya, like many Muslims, observes a 
dawn-to-dusk fast, which apparently caused his weakness.

He re-emerged about 10 minutes later and continued. “Our bodies may get 
tired, but our souls will not,” Mr. Haniya said as the crowd roared.

The United States and the European Union are demanding that the Palestinian 
government recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept previous 
Israeli-Palestinian accords.

In negotiations, Fatah and Hamas have sought a formula under which a new 
government would accept such positions, though Hamas as a political party would 
not be forced to endorse them. But Hamas has repeatedly rejected the Western 
demands, and Fatah leaders say they see no rationale for joining a unity 
government that will continue to be ostracized by the Western countries and much of 
the international community.

Israel, which is withholding more than $50 million a month in taxes and 
customs duties it collects for the Palestinians, refuses to deal with the Hamas 
government. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he is willing to meet with Mr. Abbas, 
but stresses that there is no prospect for progress until the Palestinians 
release an Israeli soldier seized by Palestinian militants and taken to Gaza on 
June 25.

Mr. Haniya, meanwhile, said that the Palestinians faced an “unethical and 
unjust siege led by the United States administration,” and that “many parties, 
internal and external, colluded in an attempt to force us to surrender.” He 
noted that even Arab governments had not invited him to visit, aside from Qatar.

The Fatah-Hamas friction boiled over into street fighting in Gaza on Sunday 
and Monday, leaving 10 Palestinians dead and more than 100 wounded in some of 
the worst internal fighting in recent years. The violence has subsided, but the 
tension remains.

Taghreed El-Khodary contributed reporting from Gaza.

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