Iraq Watch: October 31, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A massive suicide suicide car bomb in the southern, predominately Shiite city of Basra late Monday killed at least 20 people and wounded more than 40 others.

The blast occurred around 8:30 p.m. in the busy Algiers district of the port city where people were enjoying the evening after breaking the daylong fast observed by Muslims during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The suicide bomber apparently targeted a passing Iraqi police patrol.

Elsewhere, seven U.S. service members were killed in three separate roadside bombings over the past two days the U.S. military announced on Monday. Four Task Force Baghdad soldiers were killed by an IED southwest of Baghdad on Monday while two other soldiers assigned to the 29th Brigade Combat Team died in a roadside bombing early this morning. Separately, a Marine was killed in an IED attack near Al Amiriyah on Sunday.

In other violence Monday, two Iraqi soldiers were killed and four injured in a roadside bombing near the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, west of Baghdad. Two other Iraqi soldiers died in an insurgent mortar attack in Baquba, 40 miles north of the capital.

Also, the U.S. military announced that it had bombed a suspected insurgent safe house in the city of Karabilah, near the Syrian border on Monday. The military added that a 'senior' al-Qaida in Iraq leader was believed to be in the house at the time of the air strikes.

However, residents of the Sunni city said many of the killed and wounded were civilians.

A taxi driver interviewed by the Washington Post who went to the bomb site stated, "If the killed were only Zarqawi's men, we would say it is a war and they had the right to do it, but this time, the Americans killed many Iraqis to get Qaeda fighters."

Another citizen of Karbilah angrily told the Associated Press, "At least 20 innocent people were killed by the U.S. warplanes. Why are the Americans killing families? Where are the insurgents? We don't see democracy. We just see destruction."

Iraq Watch: October 29, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Violence struck the small predoinately Shiite town of Huweder, northeast of Baghdad, on Saturday. A bomb hidden in a truck exploded as people were heading to a nearby mosque for evening prayes and preparing to break the daylong fast, or Siyam, observed during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

At least 26 civilians were killed and another 34 wounded in the sectarian blast.

"We ask the terrorists and the so-called mujahedeen: The people who were killed, what did they do?" cried army Capt. Ahmed Jassim.

Elsewhere Saturday, three U.S. soldiers were killed today in two separate attacks the U.S. military announced. Two Task Force Baghdad soldiers died in a IED attack in southern Baghdad. A Task Force Liberty soldier was killed and four others wounded in a mine blast southwest of Bayji.

In other violence, Mikhail Eros, the deputy director general for oil wells, was assassinated in front of his home on Saturday in the volatile oil-rich city of Kikkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad. Also in Kirkuk, two Iraqi policemen were killed and three more were injured in a roadside bombing.

In Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of the capital, insurgents fired on an Iraqi army checkpoint sparking a firefight that left at least three Iraqi soldiers and three militants dead. An additional seven Iraqi soldiers were wounded in the gun-battle.

Iraq Watch: October 27, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A clash between Shiite militiamen and Sunni rebels in Nahrawan, 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, left at least 19 people dead on Thursday.

The fighting broke out when members of the Mahdi army, loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, stormed a house where a fellow al-Sadr supporter was reportedly being held captive by Sunni insurgents. After freeing the hostage the Shiite militiman were attempting to leave the religiously-mixed town when they were ambushed. The insuing firefight killed at least 17 Mahdi army members as well as two Iraqi policemen. Dozens more were wounded in the sectarian battle.

Meanwhile, three U.S. soldiers were killed in separate incidents yesterday in Iraq the U.S. military announced on Thursday. Two soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing in eastern Baghdad. Another U.S. service member died and four more were wounded in an IED and small-arms fire attack yesterday around 11:15 a.m. near Ashraf, north of Baghdad.

Elsewhere Thursday, Lt. Colonel Mahdi Hussein was killed by gunmen in Baghdad's southern Dora district. A similar drive-by shooting killed another police colonel in the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

An early-morning suicide car bombing in the capital left at least one Iraqi dead and nearly ten others injured. In Baquba, nort of Baghdad, two Iraqi policemen were killed in separate incidents.

In political developments, ahead of Friday's deadline to submit coalitions and parties for December's parliamentary elections, the powerful Shiite political group which dominated the nations elections in January agreed to run together again. The United Iraqi Alliance, which includes the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Dawa Party among others, received over 48% of the votes in Iraq's January 30 national assembly elections.

The amount of political success the bloc will have in the upcoming December elections is still uncertain, however, with word that the group's principal supporter Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani - the most revered Shiite religious figure in Iraq - will not give his personal endorsement to the party as he had previously. Senior aids to al-Sistani say the Iranian-born cleric is upset with the performance of the current Shiite-led Iraqi government.

Iraq Watch: October 26, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Following the release of voting results and subsequent ratification of Iraq's draft constitution three major Sunni political parties - Iraqi Islamic Party, Iraqi National Dialogue, and the General Conference for the People of Iraq - on Wednesday announced the creation of a joint alliance to combat the current Shiite and Kurdish domination of the Iraqi political spectrum.

The Iraqi Accord, as it is being called, will work as a political bloc for Iraq's minority Sunnis in an effort to contest the forthcoming December elections, which will be held to determine Iraq's parliament.

Another influential Sunni group, the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), criticized the newly-passed constitution on Wednesday claiming the charter "benefit[s] the occupiers and those who collaborate with them." Further, the organization announced that it will no longer support or take part in any political process in Iraq.

In violence on Wednesday, Nabil Yasir al Musawi, the top accountant for Iraq's Ministry of Culture, was killed along with his driver outside of his Baghdad home.

Elsewhere, the bodies of four people were discovered 140 miles northeast of Baghdad near Haditha. Three of the men were identified as members of the Iraqi army. All four men were bound, gagged, and shot to death.

In Ramadi, five Iraqi policemen were killed when insurgents opened fire on them and in the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, three Iraqi policemen were killed and two others wounded in a roadside bombing.

Meanwhile, a U.S. soldier was killed in a vehicle accident at Camp Bucca yesterday the U.S. military announced on Wednesday.

Also, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's insurgent group, al-Qaida in Iraq, announced that it had abducted two Moroccan embassy employees. The two men - Abderrahim Boualam and Abdelkrim el Mouhafidi - reportedly went missing Thursday while driving back from Amman, Jordan where they had gone to pick up their pay checks.

Iraq Watch: October 25, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - On the same day that Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission announced that the draft constitution voted on during the October 15 national referendum passed the U.S. military announced that the death toll among U.S. service members since the start of 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' in March 2003 has reached the grim mark of 2,000.

The draft constitution passed despite the charter being rejected in two Sunni-dominated provinces. Al-Anbar and Salahuddin provinces voted down the constitution with a 96% and 81% 'no' vote respectively.

For Sunnis to have nullified the draft constitution they would have had to garnered a two-thirds 'no' vote in three of Iraq's 18 provinces. Although Nineveh province voted against the charter, with a 55% 'no' vote, it did not reach the two-thirds opposition needed to reject the document leaving the minority Sunnis one province short of rejecting the draft constitution.

Overall, the country voted 79% to 21% to approve the controversial document. Voter turnout nationwide was 63%, up from 60% in the January elections when Sunnis largely boycotted the political process.

Almost immediately after the voting statistics were released several prominent Sunni leaders rejected the results calling the entire process 'fraudulent' and a 'farce'.

Hussein al-Falluji, a Sunni politician who was on the constitutional drafting committe, told Reuters, "We all know that this referendum was fraud conducted by an electoral commission that is not independent. It is controlled by the occupying Americans and it should step down before elections in December."

In further violence in Iraq on Tuesday, a suicide car bomber exploded his vehicle outside a government ministry building in the predominately Kurdush city of Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad. At least 12 people were killed in the explosion.

The attack was claimed by the terrorist group al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

In the capital city of Baghdad, four roadisde bombs and a series of shootings killed at least six people, including five Iraqi security forces, and injured nearly 45 others.

Elsewhere, the bodies of eight Iraqi border guards were discovered some 155 miles west of Karbala, near the Saudi Arabian border, on Tuesday. All eight men were found blindfolded, bound, and shot to death.

Iraq Watch: October 24, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three massive, nearly simultaneous car bombs rocked downtown Baghdad Monday evening killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens more in a coordinated attack.

The blasts targeted the Palestine and Sheraton hotels, which are home to many foreign journalists in Iraq. The Associated Press, which has a bureau in the Palestine, caught the three explosions on video. The bombings were also captured on nearby security cameras.

The first suicide bomber struck at 5:21 p.m. along the famous Firdous Square next to the compounds concrete blast walls leveling a large section of the structure.

At 5:23 p.m. a second suicide bomber blew up his vehicle near the 14th Ramadan mosque on the opposite side of the square after apparently failing to breach the highly fortified complex located across the Tigris river from the 'Green Zone'.

The third suicide bomber, driving a cement truck loaded with explosives, was able to penetrate the hotels security fortress before detonating his vehicle at 5:25 p.m. The truck appeared to detonate prematurely after being engaged by Iraqi and American forces guarding the hotels. As one security source in Iraq put it, "If the cement truck driven by a suicide bomber had not been stopped in time by the guards who opened fire, it would have totally devastated the Sheraton."

The blasts, which could be felt for miles, sent up massive clouds of smoke over the city's early-evening skyline.

Separately, a series of roadside bombings and drive-by shootings on Monday left at least two Iraqi security forces, three municipal workers, and four civilians dead in Baghdad.

Also in the capital city, Iraqi police found the bodies of eight unidentified people. The five men and three women were all discovered handcuffed and shot to death.

In Musayyib, about 40 miles south of Baghdad, insurgents killed 12 Iraqi construction workers who were in the process of building a police station in the city.

Meanwhile, two employees of Morocco's embassy in Iraq have gone missing according to AFP. The two disappeared while traveling on the road between Baghdad and Amman, Jordan.

Also Monday, the U.S. military announced the death of a U.S. Marine who was killed yesterday by small-arms fire during combat operations in Ramadi.

In northern Iraq, militants launched mortars at oil and gas pipelines west of Kirkuk causing considerable damage according to officilals from Iraq's Northern Oil Company.

Iraq Watch: October 18, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - As the Iraqi Electoral Commission continued to count and record ballots from Saturday's national referendum the country also prepared for the start of former dictator Saddam Hussein's trial scheduled to begin on Wednesday.

Due to irregularities discovered in the voting results from certain provinces a complete audit is being conducted to insure correct results. The audit, however, will delay the announcment of the official results from the referendum until at least the end of the week.

The draft constitution appears to have received enough "yes" votes to pass although two key provinces, Ninevah and Diyala, are included in the audit. Some Sunni leaders in the two crucial provinces, where Sunni's hold a slight majority, have raised accusations of voter fraud and ballot stuffing.

The nation's minority Sunni's appear to have gotten a two-thirds "no" vote in the provinces of Anbar and Salahuddin. In order to officialy reject the proposed draft constitution Sunni's needed to receive a two-thirds "no" vote in three of Iraq's 18 provinces.

A day before the monumental trial is slated to start one of Saddam's defense lawyers, Khalil al-Duleimi, announced he would ask for a three-month adjournment during the initial phase of the former Iraqi leaders trail tomorrow.

The first charge Saddam Hussein is set to face is the relatively little-known alleged massacre of Shiite's from Dujail in 1982. Hundreds of Shiite's from the small town north of Baghdad were apprehended, imprisoned and/or executed following an assassination attempt against Hussein on a visit he made there is July of 1982. The attempt on the former dictator's life was believed to have been orchestrated by the Shiite Dawa Party.

Seven other people are also being charged in connection with the Dujail incident and are scheduled to appear in court along with Saddam on Wednesday. They include former Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan and Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, Saddam's half-brother and former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service or Mukhabarat.

In violence on Tuesday, Ayed Abdul Ghani, a top advisor to Iraq's industry minister and prominent Suni politician Osama al-Najafi, was ambushed and killed by insurgents while driving to work in eastern Baghdad at around 7:45 a.m. this morning.

Elsewhere, the deputy governor of the volatile al-Anbar province, Talib al- Dulaimi, was assassinated along with one of his bodyguards in Ramadi, 68 miles west of the capital, according to Reuters.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced the deaths of three U.S. service members on Tuesday. Two Marines were killed by small-arms fire yesterday near Ar Rutbah while conducting combat operations. The other soldier, assigned to Task Force Freedom, was also killed by small-arms fire in the northern city of Mosul early this morning.

Also, the executed bodies of six members of the Mahdi army (loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr), who disappeared some 14 days ago, were found in a small pond near Balad, north of Baghdad. Three other bodies were discovered around the capital city on Tuesday.

Iraq Watch: October 14, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - On the eve of Iraq's crucial nation-wide referendum - which begins at 8:00 a.m. local time Saturday - on the proposed draft constitution a major blackout encompassed the capital city leaving Baghdad almost completely in the dark.

According to an Iraqi Electorial Ministry spokesman, major power lines between the northern towns of Kirkuk and Beiji, which feed into the greater Baghdad area, were sabotaged by insurgents Friday evening.

Blackouts in Baghdad and other cities throughout the country are a common occurence and inconvience in present-day Iraq due to an insufficient, out-of-date electrical grid and the countries high demand but power outages on this massive of a scale are rare.

Iraq Watch: October 13, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Voting on Iraq's draft constitution has finally begun with Iraqi detainees, of all people, getting things started.

At least 18,000 unprosecuted inmates at some 17 detention facilities throughout Iraq, including the notorious Abu Ghraib, began the voting process early on Thursday.

Official voting in the national referndum gets under way on Saturday although the four-day national holiday surrounding the vote began today along with the implementation of extra security measures.

Temporary blast walls and razor wire were installed at some polling places and civilian vehicles were banned in cities and towns throughout the war-torn nation in an effort to deter anticipated insurgent attacks.

The draft charter's chances of passing increased greatly late last night with word of the compromise agreed upon by Iraqi lawmakers.

Sunni groups appear to be split on the constitution and the newly added ammendments aimed at appeasing them. Although most Sunni groups announced they would still push for a "no" vote on the charter, at least one moderate Sunni group, the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), reversed their earlier stance and advised their followers to vote in support of the draft constitution when they went to the polls.

The draft constitution would be rejected or nullified if a simple two-thirds of voters in three of Iraq's 18 provinces voted against it. Although the previously impowered Sunni's are an overall minority - forming only about 20 percent of the nations total population - they are the majority sect in at least four of the governorates.

Sunni's largely boycoted the January 30 elections leaving them with only 17 lawmakers in Iraq's 275-member parliament.

In violence on Thursday, two Iraqi policemen were killed in a car bombing in the northern city of Kirkuk while two Iraqi civilians died in a separate roadside bombing in Mosul, also north of the capital.

Elsewhere, the secretary general of the Independent Turkmen Movement, Kana'an Shakir, was kidnapped along with Hashim Ali, an official in the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF) and nine of their bodyguards late Wednesday night south of Kirkuk near Udaim.

Also, the U.S. military announced the death of a U.S. soldier who was killed Thursday by an IED while on a combat patrol near Ad Dujayl.

Iraq Watch: October 7, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - As Iraqi electoral officials began handing out copies of the proposed draft constitution ahead of the nation's planned October 15 national referendum the U.S. military continued multiple military offenses in western Iraq aimed at quelling Sunni-led insurgent violence there ahead of the crucial vote.

Iraqi's immediate reaction to the newly released draft charter - as with so many things in present-day Iraq - was mixed. One western Baghdad shopkeeper commented, "Some people are excited to take it. Others are refusing to touch it."

As the six-day-old 'Operation Iron Fist' winded down on Friday the U.S. military announced the start of two additional separate offenses: 'Operation Mountaineers' and 'Operation Saratoga'.

More than 50 suspected militants have been reported killed in the ongoing military operations.

Meanwhile the U.S. military also announced the deaths of six U.S. Marines on Friday, two of whom were killed by a roadside bomb yesterday near al-Qaim while participating in 'Operation Iron Fist'. The other four Marines died in a separate IED attack yesterday near al-Karmah.

The six deaths announced Friday brings the number of U.S. military personal killed since the beginning of the Iraq war to 1,950 according to an Associated Press count.

Elsewhere Friday, or yaum al-jum`a in Arabic, the Iraqi Interior Ministry announced the discovery of 22 bodies found in the town of Badrah, near the Iranian border. The 22 men, 21 of whom were believed to be Sunni, were abducted from Baghdad in late-August by men wearing Iraqi police uniforms according to the victims relatives.

The bodies were found handcuffed, bound, and shot in the head. Separately, two more unidentified bodies were discovered in Baghdad on Friday.

Also, at least five Iraqi soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing and clashes with militants in the former insurgent bastion of Fallujah, 30 miles west of the capital.

In the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk, two Iraqi policemen were killed and eight other people wounded in an insurgent car bombing.

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Terrorism expert Evan F. Kohlmann of GlobalTerrorAlert.com recently updated his al-Qaida in Iraq leadership chart (PDF).

The chart is the most comprehensive source of information about the chain of command structure for Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's terrorist group, al-Qaida in Iraq, currently available to the general public.

Iraq Watch: October 6, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - With voting on the nation's proposed draft constitution in a national referendum on October 15 just nine days away violence continues to plague Iraq.

A suicide bomber boarded a minibus carrying Iraqi police recruits Thursday afternoon and detonated his explosives killing at least 10 people and wounding 11 others. The explosion occurred as the bus passed a police checkpoint near the Iraqi Oil Ministry in northeastern Baghdad.

A separate car bomb early Thursday in the capital targeting a convoy of private security vehicles killed three Iraqi's and wounded six others.

About 20 miles south of the capital a roadside bomb killed five Iraqi police and injured two others.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced the death of an American soldier who was killed by a roadside bomb early this morning while conducting combat operations in northern Baghdad.

Five Iraqi Oil Ministry security guards were killed and three wounded near Uthaim, just south of Kirkuk, when their vehicle was ambushed by militants. Also near Kikruk, insurgents killed a former Iraqi police colonel along with his one-year-old daughter.

Iraq Watch: October 5, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's National Assembly voted on Wednesday to reverse the controversial changes it had recently made to the rules for next week's national referendum.

On a vote of 119 to 28 (only a little more than half of the 275 member legislative body participated) the Iraqi Parliament agreed to go back to the original format which states that the draft constitution can be rejected by a simple two-thirds "no" vote in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces.

On Sunday, Iraqi parliament tweeked the original rules stating that two-thirds of registered voters must cast a "no" vote in three of the provinces for the draft constitution to be officialy rejected. This change caused an uproar from Iraq's minority Sunnis who largely oppose the constitution. On Tuesday, Sunni officials publicy threatened to boycott the political voting process altogether.

Late Wednesday, south of Baghdad, a bomb exploded near the entrance of the Shiite Husseiniyat Ibn al-Nama mosque as worshipers were gathering for evening prayers on the first day of Ramadan. At least 25 Iraqis were killed and 87 injured in the explosion, which also destroyed a large part of the mosque, in Hillah, 60 miles south of the capital.

Elsewhere Wednesday, U.S. and Iraqi forces continued their counter-insurgency sweep of small predominately Sunni towns located along the Euphrates River in the vast al-Anbar province as part of operation's 'Iron Fist' and 'River Gate'.

The San Francisco Chroncile's Anna Badkhen is embedded with the U.S. marines of Lima Company participating in operatin Iron Fist near the Syrian border and provide's a good recap of recent events.