Category: Iraq

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

FALLUJAH, — A tense security situation in this volatile city has worsened after some policemen found bombs planted on the roofs of their houses. Astonishing attacks have been launched against police leaders during the past weeks in Fallujah, 69 km west of Baghdad, after reports of the U.S. and Iraqi government’s plans to raid active

BAGHDAD — Welcomed at first after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, most NGOs have run into scepticism and mistrust. Few remain to help. Hundreds of local and foreign NGOs became active in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, after decades of restrictions under the regime of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

FALLUJAH — U.S. and Iraqi forces are preparing another siege of Fallujah under the pretext of combating “terror”, residents and officials say. Located 69 km west of Baghdad, the city that suffered two devastating U.S. attacks in 2004 has watched security degrade over recent months.

FALLUJAH — Security has collapsed again in Fallujah, despite U.S. military claims. Local militias supported by U.S. forces claim to have “cleansed” the city, 70 km to the west of Baghdad, of all insurgency. But the sudden resignation of the city’s chief of police, Colonel Fayssal al-Zoba’i, has appeared as one recent sign of growing

SAN FRANCISCO — U.S. journalist Zoriah (who publishes only under that name) says he was censored by the U.S. military in the Iraqi city of Fallujah after photographing Marines who died in a suicide bombing. On Jun. 26, a suicide bomber attacked a city council meeting in Fallujah, 69 kms west of Baghdad, between local

BAQUBA — Iraqis seem divided on who they would like to see as the next U.S. president, but few believe that either will end the occupation. “The U.S administration has committed a big mistake in Iraq,” Adil Ibrahim, a local physician in Baquba, capital city of Diyala province, located 40 km northeast of Bagdhdad, told