Obama Sending Troops Back Into Iraq

I know what he said and what the ma$$ media reported, but.... 

"The United States has ruled out sending its troops back in, but.... Obama on Thursday said that he was weighing whether to reengage the US military in Iraq.... While Obama said he would offer some help [but] not include troops, it was unclear from Obama’s remarks what he might be prepared to do militarily.... Administration officials said the options included airstrikes by warplanes or drones, improved intelligence sharing, and deploying small numbers of Special Forces." 

That SURE LOOKS LIKE TROOPS to ME!

Beyond the lie, their is one school of thought out there that says this is a complete set-up (here's another beneficiary), part of a plan to ensnare Iran while advancing the New World Order/PNAC/whatever you wanna call it agenda. They even give you a MAP, and they seem to be backed up by the Biden plan that is again being touted (look at the trio of neo-con experts they turn to for analysis). What you have to ask is who benefits? It doesn't cost a pretty Penny to find it out. 

The second school of thought says people's revolt, popular revolution, Iran just made a brilliant move, and the USraeli project is collapsing, although I have often found the initial diagnosis there superficial and shallow, sorry to say. May change tune a week from now, but I do my own thinking and I'm guess I'm a bad poisoner of the well now. 

I know AmeriKa is supposed to be helping them (while dragging Iran in), but it is not like the United States has never played both $ide$; in fact, it is a more common occurrence than you would think. Global power masters like to have all the contingencies covered. Doesn't mean the plans are foolproof, but they have a way of tricking people into it anyway. Who knows what the HELL is going on in Iraq?

So, how to reconcile? 

We refer to the agenda-pushing interest and amount of print coverage as well as the kind of coverage and jwho it is coming from:

"Iraqi cleric’s call fuels fear of sectarian war" by Alissa J. Rubin, Suadad Al-Salhy and Rick Gladstone | New York Times   June 14, 2014 

If you are going to get agenda-pushing propaganda why not get the best?

BAGHDAD — The specter of sectarian war and partition of Iraq grew Friday as the country’s top Shi’ite cleric implored his followers to take up arms against an insurgent army of marauding Sunni extremist militants who have captured broad stretches of northern territory this week in a sweep toward Baghdad.

The exhortation by the cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, came as President Obama told the Iraqis they need to resolve the crisis themselves and vowed not to redeploy US forces in Iraq, a country where nearly 4,500 American soldiers lost their lives and the United States spent more than $1 trillion in an eight-year war that Obama had repeatedly said was history when the last troops left in 2011.

Oh-kay. Keep reading.

While Obama said he would offer some help, it would not include troops, and he asserted that “we’re not going to allow ourselves to be dragged back into a situation in which, while we’re there, we’re keeping a lid on things.”

Heeding the call to arms by Sistani, Shi’ite volunteers rushed to the front lines, reinforcing defenses of the holy city of Samarra 70 miles north of Baghdad, and helping thwart attacks by Sunni fighters of the radical Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in some smaller cities to the east. The confrontations suggested Shi’ites and Sunnis would once again engage in open conflict for control of Iraq, as they did during the height of the US-led occupation that ousted Saddam Hussein.

Yeah, about the alleged sectarianism....

That struggle between the sects has also helped shape the civil war in neighboring Syria and threatened to further destabilize the Middle East.

That's been the Jewish war narrative as brought to me by my newspaper anyway. I no longer believe it.

While it was unclear from Obama’s remarks what he might be prepared to do militarily to help the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, administration officials said the options included airstrikes by warplanes or drones, improved intelligence sharing, and deploying small numbers of Special Forces.

But we won't call them troops.

The United States has considerable military power deployed in the region, with 35,000 troops in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and neighboring gulf nations.

Related: Kuwaiti leader denies corruption claims

Also see: Globe Shows Saudi Arabia MERSy 

A lot of silence in general regarding that nation in my agenda-pushing paper, certainly much less than it's neighbors Syria, Iraq, Iran, etc. Related allies, not  so much.

In addition, the United States has an array of ships there, as well as the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush with an accompanying Navy cruiser in the northern Arabian Sea. Two Navy destroyers from the Bush strike group have moved into the Persian Gulf, a Defense Department official said.

Readying them for an ATTACK on IRAN? 

Will we see another USS Liberty incident soon? 

The Bush strike group?

The sharp deterioration in Iraq represents a significant security issue to the United States and Iran, adversaries in a range of disputes, including the Syria conflict. Both were seeking ways to help avoid a collapse in the government of Maliki, a Shi’ite whose marginalization of Sunnis and other sects has been blamed by some critics for the dysfunction that has steadily worsened in Iraq since the US departure.

Well, maybe they could find a way to work together with Iran. 

Of course, the source of the paragraph and its idiocy tell you something else entirely. It is the U.S. behind the destabilization and yet they want to keep Maliki from collapsing?

For Iran’s Shi’ite leaders, the Iraq crisis represents a direct Sunni militant threat on their doorstep.

I'll bet the U.S. is actually happy about that.

The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, General Qassim Suleimani, an architect of military strategy who has helped President Bashar Assad of Syria in his war against Sunni radicals, arrived in Baghdad this week and has been reviewing how Iraq’s Shi’ite militias are prepared to defend Baghdad and other areas.

“The mobilization of the Shia militias, and Qassim Suleimani’s presence, is a very good indication of how seriously they’re taking this,” Hayder al-Khoei, an associate fellow at the London-based Chatham House research group, said in an interview with Iranwire, a website run by expatriate Iranian journalists. But reports that Iran had sent hundreds of Quds fighters into Iraq were not confirmed.

These are neo-con and former Shah outfits, folks! That is who my newspaper turns to for expert insight, analysis, advice, and perspective. 

As for Iran fighters entering, why would they not confirm that when WRH tells me it's true? What's up with that?

Even with their shared interests in a stable Iraq, there was no overt sign of cooperation or communication between the United States and Iran on the crisis. Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, told reporters Friday that “we are not talking to the Iranians about Iraq.”

Have to say that because it would piss off Israel, right? I mean, I know how mad they got when they found out Obama went behind their back on the Iran and Palestinian unity deals.

Thousands of Iraqi Shi’ites responded to the call by Sistani, 83, a respected figure among Iraq’s rival sects, whose statements carry particular weight among the Shi’ite majority. The statement, read by his representative during Friday prayer, said it was “the legal and national responsibility of whoever can hold a weapon to hold it to defend the country, the citizens and the holy sites.”

The representative of Sistani, Sheikh Abdul Mehdi al-Karbalaie, spoke in Karbala, a southern city regarded by Shi’ites as one of Iraq’s holiest. The sheikh said volunteers “must fill the gaps within the security forces.”

The statement stopped short of calling for a general armed response to the incursion led by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which has emerged as one of the most potent opposition forces in the Syrian civil war and which now controls large areas of both Syria and northern Iraq.

ISIS, ISIL, it's all about regime change!

[SEE:  There Is No “Al-Qaeda In Iraq,” Only An Official Cover Story for US Army Covert Actions] -- NATO’S ISIS–Creating Justification for WWIII

Related: Qatar and Saudi Arabia Reportedly Funding and Sponsoring ISIS 

Which they warned they would way back in 2006 were Iraq allowed to go Shi'ite.

Volunteers began to appear at the southern gate to Baghdad, which leads to the predominantly Shi’ite south of the country, within an hour after Karbalaie broadcast Sistani’s call.

For the first time since the Sunni insurgents routed the government security forces Tuesday in Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, their southward advance appeared to stall. The insurgents fanned out Friday to the east of the Tigris River and at least temporarily seized two towns near the Iranian border, Sadiyah and Jalawla. 

OH, NO!! This is an INTELLIGENCE AGENCY EVENT AFTER ALL and TOTAL PROPAGANDA!!

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NEXT DAY UPDATE: Rebel advance toward Baghdad stalls for 2d day 

That confirms that is once more an agenda-pushing contrivance! 

"The rebel juggernaut has stalled, and no indication that they were seeking to push into Baghdad proper! Baghdadi fell silent! The territory essentially reconstitutes what the US military, during its war here, called the Sunni Triangle! There did not appear to be any decisive engagements between the insurgents and the Iraqi military, and there was no clear evidence to support a claim by an Iraqi general on Saturday that the Iraqi army had rolled the militants back in on those towns." 

This was another Nigeria. An excuse to get deeper involved.

"Islamist militants unveil rules as they expand area of control; Strict guidelines posted; threat of execution looms" by Caroline Alexander | Bloomberg News   June 14, 2014

LONDON — The Islamist militants who swept into Mosul had a simple message for residents of the northern Iraqi city: The path to a caliphate comes with clear rules. Lots of them.

No smoking, drinking, or drugs; prayer times should be respected. Women must stay indoors, or, if they have to go out, then respectable, baggy clothes are a must. Thieves will have their hands amputated. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria posted the guidelines Thursday on websites used by jihadist groups.

Then the NSA KNOWS WHERE THEY ARE! Go get 'em!

To cement its message, it hung the group’s black banner from a Mosul bridge and uploaded videos to the Internet showing what happens to ‘‘anyone who insists on apostasy’’: execution.

Is this REALLY SOMETHING that WINS OVER a PEOPLE or is OF THEM? 

No, it is a HALLMARK of INTELLIGENCE AGENCY HIT SQUADS!

Sunni fighters belonging to the Islamic State captured Mosul, the north’s biggest city, on Tuesday as government troops fled. They advanced on Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit and moved south toward Samarra, a city holy to Shi’ites, just 75 miles from Baghdad. They celebrated each advance with videos bearing their logo and Twitter postings. 

I'm sorry, folks, I want to believe this is a rebellion against the Empire, but this is starting to stink.

‘‘Through their use of media, the propagation of their message, and their explicit and gory operations, they create a real intimidatory factor,’’ said Matthew Henman, head of IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre in London. ‘‘From videos and releases, it’s clear how violent and brutal [the Islamic State] is. As groups go in that part of the world, it’s the most extreme.’’

The guerrilla movement, which has also been battling Bashar Assad’s forces as a combatant in Syria’s civil war, took Iraq’s western town of Fallujah in January.

Yeah, isn't it interesting that after Assad put down the insurgency and won election in a landslide the AmeriKan-backed Al-CIA-Duh starts raising hell in Iraq?

Its new conquests, which IHS says were likely abetted by Sunni factions of Hussein’s former Ba’athist regime and tribal groups, create an arc of territory under the Islamic State control or influence that extends across international borders — from near Syria’s northern city of Aleppo to the outskirts of Baghdad.

That is SUCH a LAUGH, and it is OFFENSIVELY INSULTING that the propaganda pre$$ would OFFER THAT ONCE AGAIN! 

And they WONDER why I HAVE NO RESPECT for them?

The outfit that morphed into the Islamic State was established shortly after the 2003 US-led invasion that ousted Hussein.

OMG, the shit shoveling is furious.

Under the leadership of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, it pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda three years later. In April 2013, the group expanded its focus to include Syria, modifying its name to reflect those bolder ambitions.

See: Al-Zarqawi Video Is A Pentagon Propaganda Psy-Op

It all is; these guys are ghosts whose corpses, fictitious or not, are constantly dragged out of the grave and paraded in front of the American people who can't make sense of it because they are confused by the names.

The group’s extreme brutality contributed to its falling out with Al Qaeda, which cut ties earlier this year, Henman said in a phone interview Friday. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who leads the Al Qaeda core, had warned in a statement that the Islamic State should rein itself in.

But they are taking land and winning people over!

The plea was rejected. The group has carried out crucifixions in Syria, stoned a couple to death for adultery, and executed a mentally ill man for blasphemy, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which uses a network of activists living in the country’s war zone.

The Islamic State and its thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria, many of them foreign nationals, is now led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi with a $10 million US bounty on his head.

Related: IRAQ CONSPIRACY; AL BAGHDADI WORKS FOR MOSSAD-CIA?

 "Al-CIA-Duh" Leadership Spat

How many times do we have to kill him or is he going to change his name again?

With the capture of Mosul, he came closer to achieving his goal of a caliphate that would reshape the Middle East.

See: Al-CIA-Duh Caliphate

They are calling him the new bin Laden!

The group’s firepower will be strengthened by the equipment it has access to after seizing army bases in Mosul, cash from the city’s banks, and the release of 2,500 fighters from local jails, Eurasia Group, a New York-based political risk analyst, said by e-mail Wednesday.

Good thing the offensive has stalled.

‘‘It’s only been with the seizure of Mosul that international attention has been brought back to Iraq, where violence has been claiming the lives of 40 to 50 people each day, mostly civilians,’’ said Henman of IHS. ‘‘Its immediate objective is to drag Iraq back to civil war to facilitate the establishment of an Islamic state in Syria.’’

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Related: Terrorist training in Mideast a growing fear

They are screwing it all to the Syria!

"Eastern Syrian city is under siege" by Bassem Mroue | Associated Press   June 14, 2014

BEIRUT — The Al Qaeda-breakaway Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has prevented food and medical supplies from reaching some neighborhoods in an eastern Syrian city and has ceased some of its operations in Syria while waiting for weapons to arrive from neighboring Iraq, activists said Friday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the siege is mostly on rebel-held neighborhoods of Deir el-Zour. It said an offensive by the Islamic State in eastern Syria against rival Islamist rebel factions has killed more than 640 people and uprooted at least 130,000 since the end of April.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria’s campaign in the oil-rich Deir el-Zour province appears aimed at linking the large expanse of territory under its control in northern and eastern Syria with areas it has captured in neighboring Iraq. It seized that country’s second-largest city of Mosul and other areas earlier this week in a lightning advance toward Baghdad.

Do I really need to read anymore? We all $ee what this is.

The Observatory’s chief, Rami Abdurrahman, told the Associated Press that most operations by the Islamic State in Syria appear to have been suspended until weapons arrive from Iraq, where its fighters captured large amounts of ammunition, arms, and vehicles.

Abdurrahman said Islamic State fighters have not fought major battles for the past two days except for some skirmishes in the northern province of Aleppo. He added that some Humvees apparently seized in Iraq have already appeared in the northern Syrian town of Manbij, which is under the control of the Islamic State.

The group, which is largely composed of foreign jihadists, has made significant headway in Syria over the past six weeks, seizing towns and villages in heavy fighting against the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front and other Islamist rebel groups.

Devouring themselves and helping Assad?

The Islamic State recently captured a bridge on the Euphrates River that was the main entrance to rebel-held parts of Deir el-Zour, which is contested by the rebels and government forces, the Observatory said.

An activist based in Deir el-Zour, who goes by the name of Abu Abdullah, said via Skype that some food is being smuggled into the city by boat. He added that food prices have already started rising.

‘‘A humanitarian crisis is beginning in the city,’’ Abu Abdullah said. 

Being initiated by the Al-CIA-Duhs, whoever they are??

The Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, said the Islamic State is preventing vehicles from entering or leaving the neighborhoods, which are home to 25,000 people.

‘‘Some residents have informed activists with the Observatory that there is food only to keep residents inside the city alive,’’ it said.

The Observatory and Abu Abdullah said Nusra Front fighters crossed the border crossing point of al-Bukamal into the Iraqi town of Qaim on Thursday and captured five Humvees and three armored personnel carriers after Iraqi troops abandoned their positions on the border. They said that the vehicles were brought into Syria.

Abdurrahman added that Syrian government helicopter gunships destroyed one of the armored personnel carriers Friday in al-Bukamal that is near Deir el-sour.

So the U.S. is now on the same side with the.... Assad?

Syrian government forces and rebels have besieged several areas over the course of the three-year civil war in a bid to starve out their opponents, a tactic that has been condemned by the United Nations and human rights groups.

Unless it is Israel doing it to Palestine.

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Let's work our way back:

"Obama weighs US role in Iraq" by Matt Viser and Bryan Bender | Globe Staff   June 13, 2014

WASHINGTON — As Sunni militants marched toward Baghdad, President Obama on Thursday said that he was weighing whether to reengage the US military in Iraq more than two years after troops withdrew from the war-torn nation.

With a swift collapse of US-trained security forces leading to the seizure of several cities in northern Iraq, the president said his national security team was working “around the clock” to determine the US role in what he described as an “emergency situation.”

“Iraq is going to need more help. It’s going to need more help from us, and it’s going to need more help from the international community,” Obama said, responding to a question during a meeting with Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia. “I don’t rule out anything, because we do have a stake in making sure that these jihadists are not getting a permanent foothold in either Iraq or Syria, for that matter.”

Then why did you fund, train, arm, and send them there?

A White House spokesman later stressed that Obama was referring to action such as strikes by drones or manned aircraft and was not considering sending US ground troops.

Then he's a liar.

Republicans blamed Obama. “Now they’ve taken control of Mosul, they’re 100 miles from Baghdad, and what’s the president doing?” said House Speaker John Boehner. “Taking a nap.”

Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, said the Obama administration pulled troops out too early from Iraq and that “history will judge this president’s leadership with the scorn and disdain that it deserves.”

With a spot right next to Bush.

He called on Obama’s national security team to resign, and he also called on Obama to reconsider his decision to pull troops out of Afghanistan.

Check, check!!! 

This SELF-CREATED CRISIS also available to argue for STAY in AFGHANISTAN!

The possibility that Obama might have to apply US force in Iraq has put him in a position he worked for years to avoid. An early cornerstone of his political career was his opposition to the Iraq war, a conflict that was launched by the George W. Bush administration on the now-discredited claim that Saddam Hussein’s regime had weapons of mass destruction.

That's a nice way of the pre$$ addressing their complicity and collaboration regarding those lies they blared on front pages everywhere.  

Of course, doing so discredited them and nothing they have done since has won back any trust.

Nearly 4,500 US troops were killed in the Iraq conflict, which cost US taxpayers more than $1 trillion. The last military troops left Iraq in December 2011.

The lives, the money, all mostly forgotten by the ma$$ media.

“I was elected to end wars, not to start them,” Obama said last year.

And since we have had Ukraine, Syria, Libya, expansion in Africa. 

What a sphincter!

Iraq has been shattered in recent days as insurgents swarmed across a porous Syrian border, seizing Mosul and Tikrit and bearing down on Baghdad. Some 701 civilians were killed this month, including 117 on Wednesday, according to Iraq Body Count, an organization that has tracked civilian deaths in Iraq since 2003.

How many dead Iraqis since 2003? 

Must be getting close to 3 million by now.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has asked for help from the US, including shipments of weapons and US-led airstrikes. The New York Times reported that Maliki had asked the Obama administration to consider carrying out airstrikes against extremist staging areas, but had so far been rebuffed by the White House. 

I think we all know why!

The administration made no announcements about what military assistance might be supplied by the United States, but did say that an additional $12.8 million was being provided for food, shelter, and medicine for a rapidly growing population of displaced people.

For something they have started and something we should have stayed out of from the start, plus we have austerity at home. 

A real sphincter, that Obama.

Secretary of State John Kerry said the administration is “deeply concerned about what is happening in Iraq, and we are not concerned and waiting. We are providing assistance. We are in direct touch with Prime Minister Maliki, with the leaders at the top level. I’ve just completed phone calls now with people in Iraq.”

Vice President Joe Biden spoke on Thursday morning with Maliki and expressed solidarity with the Iraqi government, according to the White House, but it is unclear whether he pledged military support. The State Department confirmed Thursday evening that US citizens in Iraq who are under contract to that country’s government were being relocated due to security concerns.

Of course, U.S. leaders would never lie to a leader of another country.

The group leading the attacks is called the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which was first known as Al Qaeda in Iraq. The group, also called ISIS, was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian of Palestinian descent, after the US-led invasion to topple Hussein in 2003. 

ISIL?

During the height of the Iraq War, the group’s ranks flourished from recruits who flocked from across the Middle East and North Africa and who were drawn from Iraq’s disaffected Sunni Muslim minority.

Zarqawi swore obedience to Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2004 and proceeded to wage a bloody campaign against US troops and Iraq’s Shia Muslim majority, setting off a civil war. One of their most gruesome calling cards were videotaped beheadings. They also attacked Shia shrines.

This is garbage propaganda.

Zarqawi was killed in a US airstrike in 2006 and the group was severely weakened by the US-led “surge” of military forces initiated in 2007, in part by reducing its popular support by paying off tribal leaders in the so-called “Sunni Triangle” north and west of Baghdad.

But the group survived the US withdrawal in 2011 and it has since expanded, drawing strength and weapons from the neighboring civil war in Syria, where opposition forces that have been fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad.

In January, the ISIS forces took control of a large swath of Anbar province in Western Iraq. In recent days, as the US-trained Iraqi army and police have fled their posts, ISIS forces have consolidated their gains in areas of northern Iraq.

The ISIS fighters have been blamed for some of the worst violence in Iraq in years, including some 8,000 civilian deaths in 2013 alone, according to a report by the Council on Foreign Relations.

Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel who helped oversee the US strategy in Iraq, said the Al Qaeda-linked force has been able to take advantage of missteps made by the Iraqi government led by Maliki, who represents the country’s Shia majority and has also established close ties with the government in neighboring Iran.

“The Maliki government is scrambling,” said Mansoor, a professor of history at Ohio State University. “They created this mess in the first place by very authoritarian and sectarian policies, which alienated large segments of the Iraqi people. . . . Now they are paying the price.”

Am I supposed to believe this guy?

Zalmay Khalilzad, who served as US ambassador to Iraq from 2005 to 2007, said the Syrian war has had a “polarizing effect” on Iraq.

Maliki’s government has sent Shia militias to fight on behalf of Assad — and thus against some of the ISIS forces trying to topple him. Maliki’s government also has allowed Iran to rearm the Syrian regime via Iraqi airspace.

Yeah, and that REALLY PISSED AmeriKa off!

“The civil war [in Syria] and the failure to deal with it has encouraged this extremist movement, including foreign fighters coming in,” Khalilzad said.

At home, many Americans are exhausted with war and many politicians have misgivings about the idea of returning to Iraq.

Well, the FIRST PART is the ONE PHRASE of TRUTH in this whole thing, except for the part about the war because I was told by my government and its mouthpiece media the war in Iraq was over. The second highlight is bullshit, imho.

Senator Edward J. Markey the Massachusetts Democrat, was among those who spoke cautiously.

“We have to be flexible in our response to the unfolding situation,” he said, “but we can’t repeat the mistakes of the last decade and send ground troops back to Iraq.”

He won't be getting my vote this fall.

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"Kurds send forces to Iraq city as insurgents seize others; Militants press toward Baghdad as crisis worsens" by Tim Arango, Suadad al-Salhy and Rick Gladstone | New York Times   June 13, 2014

IRBIL, Iraq — Kurdish forces exploited the mayhem convulsing Iraq on Thursday to seize complete control of the strategic northern oil city of Kirkuk as government troops fled in the face of advancing Sunni militants.

The Kurds are cagey.

The insurgents pressed their advance southward toward Baghdad, warning officials of occupied Mosul to renounce allegiance to the central government and threatening to destroy religious shrines sacred to all Shi’ites.

AHA! The hallmark of false flag operations!

At the same time, militias of Iraq’s Shi’ite majority rushed to fill the vacuum left by the abrupt disintegration in the government’s security forces, vowing to confront the Sunni militants, defend Baghdad, and protect other threatened cities including Samarra, 70 miles north of the capital. Thousands of volunteers were reported mobilizing.

“We hope that all the Shi’ite groups will come together and move as one man to protect Baghdad and the other Shi’ite areas,” said Abu Mujahid, one of the militia leaders.

Sadrist?

The Sunni militants, many aligned with the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria as well as loyalists to the old Saddam Hussein government swept from power by the US-led invasion a decade ago, have confronted the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki with its worst crisis and threatened to plunge Iraq into a full-blown sectarian war.

Ooooh! 

See: Occupation Iraq: Divide and Conquer

Jwho would want to do that?

They routed government forces from the city of Mosul, Saddam’s home city of Tikrit and smaller cities closer to Baghdad this week in a lightning advance. The disarray in Maliki’s military, with many soldiers deserting and surrendering their US-made weapons and gear to the Sunni militants, has further compounded the crisis.

The swift capture of Mosul by militants, many of them from across the border in Syria, has underscored how the conflicts in Syria and Iraq have fused into a widening regional insurgency that jihadist militants have cast as the precursor to establishing an Islamic caliphate.

What CRAP! NOT a people's revolt!

There were reports late Thursday that units of Iraq’s air force had conducted intense strikes on western areas of Tikrit to drive out the Sunni militants, but there was no word on whether the effort had succeeded.

Earlier, a Sunni militant leader contacted in Tikrit said representatives of all the insurgent factions, including members of Saddam’s tribe, had met privately there to formulate a plan for governing their newly won slice of northern Iraq and seek to reassure residents of Mosul, the country’s second-largest city, that they could return to their homes and jobs. Tens of thousands of Mosul residents fled Tuesday. 

Just follow those rules or get your hands cut off!

Some residents who remained in Mosul reported Thursday that militants used mosque loudspeakers and leaflets to invite all soldiers, police officers and other government loyalists to go to the mosques and renounce their allegiance to the Baghdad authorities or face death.

But return to your homes and jobs, yup.

The occupiers also banned sales of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes and ordered women to stay home.

 Hmmmm. Interesting word choice.

“The apostates who served at the army and police and the other services, we tell them that the door of repentance is open for who ever wants it,” the occupiers said in the leaflets. “But who insists on apostasy he will be killed.”

People's revolt? This is FOREIGN-INSPIRED SHIT!

Leaders of Iraq’s Kurds, who have carved out their own autonomous enclave in northern Iraq, said their forces had taken full control of Kirkuk, as government troops abandoned their posts there.

 That I believe. Kurds are tough f***ers.

“The army disappeared,” said Najmaldin Karim, the governor of Kirkuk.

Unlike the Iraqi army, the Kurdish forces, known as pesh merga, are disciplined and loyal to their leaders and their cause: autonomy and eventual independence for a Kurdish state. With its oil riches, Kirkuk has long been at the center of a political and economic dispute between Kurds and successive Arab governments in Baghdad.

Iran’s state-run news media reported earlier this week that the country had strengthened its forces along the Iraq border and suspended all pilgrim visas into Iraq but had received no request from Iraq for military help.

It's a TRAP!

Russia expressed alarm Thursday over the crisis, and Interfax news agency quoted Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov as saying: “We warned long ago that the adventurism the Americans and the British started there would not end well.”

I'll bet they are!

The Sunni insurgents, flush with success, bragged that they would advance to Baghdad and press into the Shi’ite-dominated south, home to the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf, among the holiest of Shi'ite Islam.

And they have STALLED TODAY! How convenient!

In a recording posted on militant websites, an insurgent spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, exhorted followers to march toward Baghdad and beyond because they “have an account to settle,” according to the Associated Press.

Uh-huh.

The spokesman was also quoted as saying that a high-ranking insurgent commander known variously as Adnan Ismail Najm or Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Bilawi al-Anbari had died in the offensive.

According to Adnani, the commander had worked closely with the Jordanian-born former leader of Al Qaueda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed by US troops in 2006.

The militant commanders are said to include Ba’athist military officers from the Saddam era, including Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a former vice president and one of the few prominent Baathists to evade capture during the US-led occupation.

Related: Key Saddam aide 'died of cancer' 

Dead man talking!

Douri took time Thursday afternoon to visit the former dictator’s grave in the town of Awja, about 3 miles from Tikrit, a militant leader said.

Oh, well, who could doubt? 

What next, Saddam is still alive and directing this?

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"Grave dangers are ahead in Iraq" by Daniel Benjamin |    June 13, 2014

The news from Iraq has been so bad for so long, it has become difficult to distinguish the merely depressing from the genuinely disastrous. But the fall of Mosul, the country’s second largest city, to jihadist forces this week provided a shock well above and beyond the quotidian misery — one that looks like a turning point, or even an end point, for post-Saddam Iraq.

Now looming is the specter of a rump Iraq: a Shiite dominated core in the east and south of the country. As the state weakens, the northern Kurdish region may come to the aid of the central government against the rebels on its doorsteps. But over the long term, the Kurdish Regional Government will likely try to slip the noose of Iraq’s Sunni-Shia conflict. Word Thursday that Kurdish peshmerga had seized Kirkuk, the oil-rich northern city that has been a point of dispute since 2003, suggests that the dissolution of the Iraqi state could come soon.

No less transfixing is the view to the west, where now a vast ungoverned space yawns, starting from Falluja and reaching into the Syrian heartland. The almost century-old border drawn by European imperialists between the countries has disappeared. The new region — called by some, depending on where they sit, Sunnistan or the Emirate — is a black hole of extremism that threatens states in every direction.

Lesson number one of foreign policy in the 21st century ought to be: Allow no states to fail, ungoverned spaces to emerge, or terrorist safe havens to be established. But that is easier said than done. Avoiding the current mess would have required a different prime minister than the Shiite Nouri al-Maliki, who has missed every opportunity to govern inclusively and address the grievances of the country’s Sunni and Kurdish minorities.

Even with Maliki, Iraq might have limped along for a time, but the Syrian civil war hastened the crisis. The radicalization among Syria’s Sunni Muslims, stoked by conflict and supporters in the Persian Gulf, who see in the possible fall of the Iranian-backed regime of Bashar Assad payback for the Shia ascension in Iraq, has nourished monsters — Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, which toppled Mosul and is, amazingly, too extreme even for Al Qaeda’s leaders in Pakistan.

Both groups were born in Iraq, spawned by the rebellion against the US occupation. The irony that Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s home town, is now under the control of jihadists, verges on inexpressible. George W. Bush and team toppled Saddam to break a non-existent alliance with Al Qaeda, though Saddam was precisely the kind of secular Arab despot that Osama bin Laden despised. Now, where once there were no jihadists, Al Qaeda’s offspring sweep all before them.

Whether Iraq survives as a state is an open question. But other consequences of the current mess will raise anxieties in many capitals in the West and the Arab world before that issue is resolved.

The first is that ISIL will reap real gains in money and arms from the conquest of Mosul, a city of almost 2 million that is the capital of Iraq’s northern oil belt. Those resources will assist ISIL in pressing ahead in Iraq and Syria. Any successes ISIL scores will help it draw recruits, especially from abroad.

It’s difficult to say how these factors will shape the terrorist threat to the United States and its allies. We shouldn’t fall for the belief that all change will spell inevitable doom. If the recent past is any indication, the jihadists of Sunnistan will compete and butcher one another as ISIL and Jabhat al Nusra have in the recent past. But it would also be foolish to think that the churn in the region will all turn inward, or that extremists and sectarians will be magically consumed by their hatred.

What can be done? After 13 years of war, no one in Washington — rightly — will contemplate putting US boots back on the ground. The Obama administration will continue to provide Maliki with arms, now that his forces are again accepting help from the United States. For the future, it will require real imagination and effort to contain the demons now proliferating in the eastern reaches of the Fertile Crescent — at a moment when Americans would most like to look away.

Daniel Benjamin served as ambassador-at-large and coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department from 2009 to 2012. He is now director of Dartmouth’s John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding.

Thus we discount the entire column as being nothing but agenda-pushing propaganda and lies, a la Nick Burns.

--more--"

"Sunni militants bear down on Baghdad; Hundreds of thousands flee; groups believed to join forces" by Suadad Al-Salhy and Tim Arango | New York Times   June 12, 2014

BAGHDAD — Sunni militants consolidated and extended their control Wednesday over northern Iraq, seizing Tikrit, the hometown of Saddam Hussein, threatening the strategic oil refining town of Baiji, and pushing south toward Baghdad, their ultimate target, Iraqi sources said.

As the dimensions of the assault began to become clear, it was evident that a number of militant groups had joined forces, including Baathist military commanders from the Saddam era, whose goal is to rout the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. One of the Baathists, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, was a top military commander and a vice president in the Saddam government and one of the few prominent Baathists to evade capture by the Americans throughout the occupation.

Will you blame me if I start bailing out on this propaganda?

“These groups were unified by the same goal, which is getting rid of this sectarian government, ending this corrupt army, and negotiating to form the Sunni Region,” said Abu Karam, a senior Baathist leader and a former high-ranking army officer, who said planning for the offensive had begun two years ago. “The decisive battle will be in northern Baghdad. These groups will not stop in Tikrit and will keep moving toward Baghdad.”

The sudden successes of the militant forces sent hundreds of thousands of people running, some literally, from the fresh outbursts of violence, panicked leaders in Turkey and Syria, and revived memories of bloody US struggles to wrest the same places — Mosul and Tikrit — from jihadist fighters a decade ago.

Just what the Middle East needs, a fresh refugee crisis. And Turkey the NATO tool can go to hell.

By late Wednesday, the Sunni militants, many aligned with the radical Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, were battling loyalist forces at the northern entrance to the city of Samarra, about 70 miles north of Baghdad. The city is known for a sacred Shi’ite shrine that was bombed in 2006, during the height of the US-led occupation, touching off a sectarian civil war between the Sunni minority and Shi’ite majority.

See: Islam's 9/11 

Another false flag.

Militant commanders were reportedly threatening to destroy the shrine if its defenders refused to lay down their arms, while hundreds of Shi’ite fighters were said to be heading north from Baghdad to confront the attackers.

As Iraqi government forces crumbled before the assault, there was speculation that they might have been ordered by their superiors to give up without a fight.

This is really reaching the point of laughable absurdity.

One local commander in Salahuddin province, where Tikrit is located, said in an interview Wednesday: “We received phone calls from high-ranking commanders asking us to give up. I questioned them on this, and they said, ‘This is an order.’ ”

How do you know it was them on the other line? Could have been a crank call!

Residents of Tikrit reported remarkable displays of soldiers handing over their weapons and uniforms peacefully to militants who ordinarily would have been expected to kill government soldiers on the spot.

Maliki, a Shi’ite, himself suggested the possibility of a disloyal military in his exhortations Tuesday for citizens to take up arms against the Sunni insurgents.

Who knows what to make of this considering the source?

As the central government declared a 10 p.m. curfew in the capital and surrounding towns, an influential Iraqi Shi’ite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, called for the formation of a special force to defend religious sites in Iraq.

First I have seen of him in a while.

The authorities in neighboring Iran, which is predominantly Shi’ite, canceled all visas and flights for pilgrims to Baghdad and intensified security on the Iran-Iraq border, Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Shi’ite militia leaders said that at least four brigades, each with between 2,500 and 3,000 fighters, had been hastily assembled and equipped in recent weeks by the Shi’ite political parties to protect Baghdad and the political process in Iraq. They identified the outfits as the Kataibe Brigade, the Assaib Brigade, the Imam al-Sadr Brigade, and the armed wing of the Badr Organization.

The remarkably rapid advance of the Sunni militants, who Tuesday seized the northern city of Mosul as Iraqi forces fled or surrendered, reflects the spillover of the Sunni insurgency in Syria and the inability of Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government to pacify the country after US forces departed in 2011 after eight years of war and occupation.

Then you better BRING 'EM BACK IN!

Word of the latest militant advance came as a UN agency reported that 500,000 people had fled Mosul — Iraq’s second-largest city, with a population of about 2 million. The International Organization for Migration, based in Geneva, said the civilians had mainly fled on foot because the militants would not let them use vehicles and had taken control of the airport. Roughly the same number were displaced from Anbar province in western Iraq as the militants gained ground there, the organization said.

The Obama administration, which has expressed alarm about the events in Iraq and has offered the government unspecified support, sharpened a longstanding travel warning to Americans on Wednesday about the risks of visiting the country.

Yuh-huh. 

You can stop it with the act now; we know it is Al-CIA-Duh behind this.

--more--"

"Insurgents overrun Iraq army, seize key northern city" by Suadad Al-Salhy and Tim Arango | New York Times   June 11, 2014

BAGHDAD — Sunni militants spilling over the border from Syria seized control Tuesday of the northern city of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest, in the most stunning success yet in a rapidly widening insurgency that threatens to drag the region into war.

And jwho would love that?

Having consolidated control over Sunni-dominated Nineveh province, armed gunmen were heading on the main road to Baghdad, Iraqi officials said, and had already taken over parts of Salahuddin province. Thousands of civilians fled south toward Baghdad and east toward the autonomous region of Kurdistan, where security is maintained by a fiercely loyal army, the peshmerga.

The Iraqi army apparently crumbled in the face of the militant assault, as soldiers dropped their weapons, shed their uniforms for civilian clothes, and blended in with the fleeing masses. The militants freed thousands of prisoners and took over military bases, police stations, banks, and provincial headquarters, before raising the black flag of the jihadi group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant over public buildings. The bodies of soldiers, police officers, and civilians lay scattered in the streets. 

We will see how long this "takeover" lasts.

“They took control of everything, and they are everywhere,” said one soldier who fled the city, and gave only his first name, Haidar.

The swift capture of large areas of the city by militants aligned with the jihadi group represented a climactic moment on a long trajectory of Iraq’s unraveling since the withdrawal of US forces at the end of 2011.

PFFFT!

The rising insurgency in Iraq seemed likely to add to the foreign policy woes of the Obama administration, which has faced sharp criticism for its swap of five Taliban officers for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl and now must answer questions about the death of five Americans by friendly fire in Afghanistan on Monday night.

Related: 

Hagel Hammered by House Over Bergdahl Deal
Bergdahl Deal Backfiring on Obama 

Things based on lies usually do!

Critics have long warned that America’s withdrawal of troops from Iraq, without leaving even a token force, invited an insurgent revival. The apparent role of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Tuesday’s attack helps vindicate those, among them the former ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, who have called for arming more moderate groups in the Syrian conflict.

That would be Robert Ford, the guy behind the Salvador Option and the SALVADOR OPTION II?! 

Now you know where the gangs of gunmen are coming from!

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered a state of emergency for the entire country and called on friendly governments for help, without mentioning the United States specifically.

In Washington, the State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said in a statement that the United States was “deeply concerned about the events that have transpired in Mosul,” and that the Obama administration supported a “strong, coordinated response to push back this aggression.” The statement said the administration would provide “all appropriate assistance to the government of Iraq” and called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant “not only a threat to the stability of Iraq, but a threat to the entire region.”

OH!

Mosul was the last major urban area to be pacified by American troops and, when they left, the United States contended that Iraq was on the path to peace and democracy.

NOT!

Even as insurgents consolidated control of Mosul and surrounding Nineveh province on Tuesday, they looked to other targets. They cut off a portion of the main highway that links the city with Baghdad, the capital, and secured villages near Kirkuk, a major city that is in dispute between Arabs and Kurds, according to security officials.

For more than six months, the militants have maintained control of Fallujah, in Iraq’s Sunni-Arab Anbar province, a city where hundreds of Americans died trying to crush an insurgency. While Fallujah carries symbolic importance to the United States, the seizure of Mosul, a city of 1.4 million with a mix of ethnicities, sects, and religions, is more ominous for the stability of Iraq.

“It’s a shock,” said James Jeffrey, a former US ambassador to Iraq. “It’s extremely serious. It’s far more serious than Fallujah.”

Mosul is a transportation hub for goods coming from Turkey and elsewhere. An important oil pipeline is nearby, carrying nearly 15 percent of the country’s oil flow to a port on the Turkish coast.

Readers.... !?!

The chaos in Mosul also illustrated how the violence in Iraq has increasingly merged with the civil war in Syria, as extremists now operate on both sides of the porous border. On Tuesday, local officials claimed that many of the fighters were jihadists who had come from the lawless frontier that divides Iraq and Syria, a region where they have increasingly operated with impunity even as President Bashar Assad has reclaimed ground lost to the insurgents elsewhere in Syria.

Osama al-Nujaifi, the Iraqi Parliament speaker, a Sunni from Mosul, called the fighting a “foreign invasion of Iraq, carried out by terrorist groups from different countries.”

That is true!

The rout in Mosul was a humiliating defeat for Iraq’s security forces, led by Maliki and his Shi’ite-dominated government and equipped and trained by the United States at a cost of billions.

That it is! What a waste!

As the insurgency has gained strength over the last year, Maliki has been criticized for pursuing security policies that alienated ordinary Sunnis, such as sweeps that rounded up hundreds of men, innocent and guilty alike, and the arrest of the wives of suspected militants.

Referring to the security forces in Mosul, Jeffrey, now a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said, “they had lost the support of the people because they had a sectarian policy, and I saw it with my own eyes.”

And just jwho is the Washington Institute for Near East Policy?

--more--"

It is a war-promoting paper through and through, right down to its experts. Couldn't find anyone else at all, NYT?

"Bombings aimed at Kurds, other attacks in Iraq kill 40" by Sameer N. Yacoub | Associated Press   June 10, 2014

BAGHDAD — A double bombing tore through Kurdish political party offices in northern Iraq in the deadliest of a series of attacks nationwide that killed at least 33 people, officials said. It was the second such assault in as many days.

Nobody claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack. But an Al Qaeda splinter group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility for the previous double bombing Sunday against Patriotic Union of Kurdistan offices in Jalula, northwest of Baghdad, killing 19 people.

Strange how the Globe did not report that.

The group said in an online statement that the bombings in Jalula were in response to the detention of Muslim women by authorities in the self-rule Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

Yeah, you guys are real defenders of women, right.

Iraq is grappling with its worst surge in violence since the sectarian bloodletting of 2006 and 2007, when the country was pushed to the brink of civil war despite the presence of tens of thousands of US troops. The Americans withdrew at the end of 2011.

Monday’s attack took place in the town of Tuz Khormato, about 130 miles north of Baghdad, when a suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden truck into a checkpoint leading up to the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the nearby Kurdistan Communist Party.

Mayor Shalal Abdoul said another truck bomb exploded, presumably detonated by remote control, as people rushed to the scene of the first attack. The blasts killed 22 people, wounded as many as 150, and destroyed several houses and cars, he said.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan is one of the main parties governing the Kurdish region in northern Iraq and maintains offices in other areas that are heavily dominated by the ethnic minority. It is the party of Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is composed of Sunni insurgents who stage frequent high-profile bombings aimed at derailing the Shi’ite-dominated government and its Kurdish allies.

Attacks have spiked as Islamic State and other insurgents have strengthened their control over parts of Iraq’s western Anbar province and exploited widespread Sunni anger over alleged mistreatment by the government.

Also Monday, gunmen opened fire on a security checkpoint in the town of Kanaan, about 50 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing four soldiers and two police officers, police said.

And in the Iraqi capital, gunmen killed a real estate agent when they sprayed his office with bullets in a western neighborhood, police said. A bomb blast also killed a government employee in eastern Baghdad, police said.

Police also said a bomb on a boat destroyed a Euphrates River bridge linking a road between the Anbar city of Fallujah and southeastern Baghdad. No casualties were reported.

Shortly before sunset, a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden tanker truck into the gate of a military unit in the northern city of Mosul, killing three soldiers and wounding 15, police said.

At night, a car bomb exploded in a square in Baghdad’s eastern Shi’ite district of Sadr City, killing four people and wounding nine others. Minutes later, two separate bomb attacks in two districts in Baghdad killed three people and wounded seven, according to officials.

Medical officials confirmed the casualties for all attacks. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

Meanwhile, the head of Anbar’s provincial council, Sabah al-Karhout, said 15 Anbar University staff members were still missing after a brazen attack by gunmen who stormed a campus building on Saturday.

The situation has largely been brought under control, but Karhout told reporters Monday university authorities have said about 15 staffers are still missing, probably held by a group of gunmen in a campus building.

They seem to have been forgotten then (if it ever even happened).

--more--"

"Militants attack university in Iraq, bomb blasts kill 52; US troops gone, nation fighting on several fronts" by Sameer N. Yacoub | Associated Press   June 08, 2014

BAGHDAD — A series of car bombs exploded across Iraq’s capital Saturday night, killing at least 52 people in a day of violence that also saw militants storm a university in the country’s restive Anbar province and take dozens hostage, authorities said.

The attacks in Baghdad largely focused on Shi’ite neighborhoods, underscoring the sectarian violence now striking at Iraq years after a similar wave nearly tore the country apart after the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Now with US troops gone, Iraq is fighting on fronts across the country, and separate clashes in the northern city of Mosul on Saturday killed 21 police officers and 38 militants, officials said.

The first Baghdad attack took place Saturday night in the capital’s western Baiyaa district, killing nine people and wounding 22, police said.

Later, seven car bombs in different parts of Baghdad killed at least 41 people and wounded 62, police said. A roadside bomb in western Baghdad also killed two people and wounded six, police said.

All the attacks happened in a one-hour period and largely targeted commercial streets in Shi’ite neighborhoods, authorities said.

Hospital officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

The day began with militants killing three police officers on guard at the gates of Anbar University, a police and a military official said. Islamic extremists and other antigovernment militias have held parts of Anbar’s nearby provincial capital of Ramadi and the city of Fallujah since December amid rising tensions between Sunni Muslims and the Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad.

The gunmen detained dozens of students inside a university dorm during their attack, the officials said. Sabah Karhout, the head of Anbar’s provincial council, told journalists that hundreds of students were inside the university compound when the attack started at the school. Anbar University says it has more than 10,000 students, making it one of the country’s largest.

Ahmed al-Mehamdi, a student who was taken hostage, said he awoke to the crackle of gunfire, looked out the window and saw armed men dressed in black running across the campus. Minutes later, the gunmen entered the dormitory and ordered everybody to stay in their rooms while taking others away, he said.

The Shi’ite students at the school were terrified, Mehamdi said, as the gunmen identified themselves as belonging to an Al Qaeda splinter group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Will ISIL fight ISIS?

The Sunni terror group, fighting in Syria with other rebels trying to topple President Bashar Assad, is known for massive, bloody attacks in Iraq as well often targeting Shi’ites that they view as heretics.

Then CIA-Duh don't work with Shi'ites!

The Islamic State did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack on the school.

Huh?

Several hours later, gunmen left the university under unclear circumstances.

Are you sure? I was told above they were still at school!

Students then boarded buses provided by the local government to flee the school, though gunfire erupted as security forces attacked retreating militants, police said.

?????

‘‘We thank God that this crisis ended almost peacefully and no student was hurt as far as I know,’’ Mehamdi said.

I was told the next day 15 were still being held! This isn't another Nigeria, is it?

Security officials said authorities wanted to wait for bomb disposal experts before entering any building on campus out of fears that the fleeing gunmen planted explosives. Government forces also came under sniper fire, officials said.

‘‘Not a single student or a university staff member was hurt during the raid. All of them went home and their ordeal is over,’’ Karhout said. 

I checked the dates on my stories from the propaganda pre$$, and oh man!

Meanwhile in Mosul, clashes continued Saturday for a second day between security forces and Sunni militants trying to seize neighborhoods there. Police and morgue officials said that fighting since dawn Saturday killed 21 police officers and 38 militants.

Al Qaeda-linked fighters and their allies seized Fallujah and parts of Ramadi in late December after authorities dismantled a protest camp of Sunnis angry at what they consider their second-class treatment by the Shi’ite-led government.

See: Iraq's Sunnis Protests

Fearful of starting violence, security forces withdrew from the area, allowing militants to seize the cities.

In April 2013, a similar dismantling of a Sunni protest camp in Hawija sparked violent clashes and set off the current upsurge in killing.

Whatever.

--more--"

Sure looks like a divide and conquer strategy to me. 

The clincher for me was seeing the Globe advising that the "Obama administration should use this opportunity as a chance to regain some leverage in Iraq and steer Maliki in a different direction."

In other words, what is happening now has been months in the making and even longer in the planning, a pre-determined agenda now once again being advanced. 

Looking more and more like the U.S. lost the war, doesn't it?

As for this next section I really am sorry because I did not realize I had not been around to Iraq for so long. I'll pick up where I left off, more or less. If it is any consolation at all, I did take the time to read these even if not fully reporting in a timely fashion.

November 2013:

Dozens killed in attacks on Shi’ites in Iraq

27 dead, worst was in Baquba. 

"A truck bomb tore through an outdoor vegetable market in northeastern Iraq, the deadliest of a series of attacks Thursday that killed at least 48 people, officials said. The explosion in the town of Sadiyah, some 90 miles northeast of Baghdad, is the latest in a wave of attacks that has swept across Iraq since April."

 "Attacks across Iraq, including a suicide bombing at a Sunni funeral, killed at least 36 Wednesday, authorities said. Eight corpses were found in the Sunni-dominated Arab Jabour district, a police officer said. All of the dead suffered gunshot wounds. Authorities found another five corpses in a vacant lot in a residential area of the capital’s predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Shula, the officer said. Shortly after sunset, 11 mourners were killed and 25 others were wounded when a suicide bomber set off his explosive belt inside a tent where the Sunni funeral was being held in Baghdad’s western suburbs of Abu Ghraib, said police and hospital officials. The other attacks ranged from a home invasion to a drive-by shooting to a complex assault on a police station involving a suicide bomber, a mortar strike, and a team of gunmen."

"Three car bombs exploded at outdoor markets and on a street full of shops near Iraq’s capital, one of a series of attacks across the country that killed at least 29 people Thursday, officials said."

"Men dressed as Iraqi soldiers abducted 18 Sunnis, whose bullet-ridden corpses turned up in farmland near Baghdad, authorities said Friday, a grim reminder of the worst days of sectarian killings that plagued Iraq after the US invasion. Police said officers later discovered the beheaded corpses of three men in Baghdad’s eastern suburbs, their hands tied behind their backs, part of attacks that killed 25 others Friday."

December 2013:

Bombings kill 40 in and around Baghdad

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday’s attacks, but insurgent groups frequently target civilians in cafes and public areas of Shi’ite neighborhoods in an attempt to undermine confidence in the Shi’ite-led government and stir up Iraq’s already simmering sectarian tensions."

25 prisoners escape jail in Baghdad

Escaped or were set free? 

I'm told it was an "inside job" in some sort of perverse insult considering the source. 

And soon after?

Series of attacks kills 12 in Baghdad

"Wave of attacks in Iraq leaves at least 65 dead; Shi’ites targeted during bloodiest day in two months" by Sameer N. Yacoub |  Associated Press, December 17, 2013

BAGHDAD — A double car bombing and a shooting killed 34 Shi’ite Muslims on pilgrimage in Iraq on Monday, the deadliest attacks in a wave of violence across the country that left at least 65 people dead. It was the bloodiest day of violence in Iraq in nearly two months.

Police officials said the worst attack took place Monday night in the southern Baghdad suburb of al-Rasheed, when two car bombs struck a group of Shi’ites walking to the holy city of Karbala, Twenty-three pilgrims were killed and 55 wounded.

Hundreds of thousands of Shi’ite pilgrims are making their way to the city to commemorate Arbaeen, the end of 40 days of mourning after the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammed. Millions of Iraqi and people from other Muslim countries visit for the religious event, which has been marred by violence in the past.

Earlier in the day, gunmen opened fire on a bus in Mosul that was carrying Shi’ites also traveling to Karbala, killing 11 and wounding eight. Mosul is about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Police said the worshipers in the Mosul attack were pulled out of their bus and shot to death on the road.

Sunni Muslim insurgents in Iraq frequently attack Shi’ites, whom they consider infidels. Usually, Shi’ite marches to holy cities are poorly protected by Iraqi security forces.

In other violence Monday, a group of suicide bombers launched a brazen attack on a police station in the town of Beiji, a former insurgent stronghold 155 miles north of Baghdad, where a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into the main gate of the town police station.

That explosion paved the way for three other suicide bombers to storm inside and blow themselves up in the building, a police officer said. Eight police officers were killed while five were wounded in the attack, he said.

Later in the morning, several bombings hit different parts of Baghdad and northern Iraq, police said.

In southeastern Baghdad, a parked car bomb ripped through a parking lot, killing six civilians and wounding 12.

Another parked car bomb went off in the central Salhia neighborhood near the heavily fortified green zone where key government offices and foreign embassies are located. That attack killed five civilians and wounded 14.

Four civilians were killed and 11 were wounded when a parked car bomb exploded at an outdoor market in Baghdad’s central Sadriyah neighborhood. A bomb went off near a bus station in the nearby al-Nahda area, killing three people and wounding seven. Another bomb in the eastern suburb of Hussainiyah killed one civilian and wounded seven.

Two other civilians were killed and seven wounded in a car bomb blast in the southeastern suburb of Jisr Diyala.

In the northern city of Tikrit, some 80 miles north of Baghdad, three suicide bombers set off their explosives belts in a bid to break into the building of the city council. Two civilians were killed in that attack and seven were wounded.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but insurgent groups, mainly Al Qaeda and other Sunni militants, frequently target civilians in cafes and public areas, Shi’ites, as well as members of the Iraqi security forces, in an attempt to undermine confidence in the Shi’ite-led government and stir up Iraq’s already simmering sectarian tensions.

Wow, deja vu.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media.

At least 288 people have died in attacks across the country this month, according to an Associated Press count. Monday was the deadliest day of attacks since Oct. 27, when 71 people were killed.

Monday’s bombings were the latest episode in a wave of violence that has roiled Iraq since a security crackdown in April on a protest camp in a northern Sunni town.

In a separate development, a leading Shi’ite Muslim cleric widely followed by Iraqi militants issued the first public religious edict permitting Shi’ites to fight in Syria’s civil war alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces.

The fatwa by Iran-based Grand Ayatollah Kazim al-Haeri, one of the mentors of radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, comes as thousands of Shi’ite fighters mostly from Iraq and Lebanon play a major role in the battles.

The call will probably increase the sectarian tones of the Syrian war, which pits overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim rebels against members of Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam. The situation has worsened with the influx of thousands of Shi’ite and Sunni foreign fighters.

There is your cover for killing again.

--more--"

"A string of attacks across Iraq left 17 people dead on Saturday, including a top general, a colonel, and five soldiers who all died during a raid on an Al Qaeda hideout. Police said Army Major General Mohammed al-Karawi was killed when a booby-trapped hideout in Rutba in volatile Anbar province was stormed (AP)."

Attacks across Iraq kill at least 26

TV station back on the air yet?

Christmas Day bombings in Iraq’s capital kill 37

Targeting Christians on Christmas Day? 

Over 8,000 dead this past year and over 440 this month?

UN decries attack on refugees in Iraq

Why the U.N. is defending Iranian terrorists is beyond me.

Protest camp in Iraqi city removed

That's in Sunni Ramadi, and Happy New Year, Iraqis -- as the "Qaeda gunmen fan out" and swarm the cities with an insurgency that was never extinguished.

January 2014:

Resolving to cut through all the propaganda this New Year!

"The Iraqi government has reportedly used airstrikes, from Russian helicopters the government recently bought."

Aaaah! Another reason the U.S. is unhappy with Maliki!

"The Iraqi military tried to dislodge al-Qaida militants in Sunni-dominated Anbar province Sunday, unleashing airstrikes and besieging the regional capital in fighting that killed at least 34 people, officials said. A series of bombs in Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, meanwhile, killed at least 20 people. Ramadi was a stronghold of Sunni insurgents during the U.S. war. Al-Qaida militants largely took both cities over last week and have been fending off incursions by government forces there since. ISIL is also one of the strongest rebel units in neighboring Syria, where it has imposed a strict version of Islamic law in territories it holds in the civil war raging there. It also has kidnapped and killed dozens of people it deems critical of its rule. The recent gains by the insurgents have been a blow to the Shiite-led government — as sectarian violence has escalated since the U.S. withdrawal. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington was ‘‘very, very concerned’’ by the fighting but would not send in American troops." 

Your boss says otherwise.

Kerry vows help for Iraq in battle with militants

"Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday, ‘‘This is a fight that is bigger than just Iraq,’’ Kerry said Sunday. ‘‘The rise of these terrorists in the region, and particularly in Syria and through the fighting in Syria, is part of what is unleashing this instability in the rest of the region.’’

Then why did the U.S. support the terrorist rebels all this time, Kohn? So there would be an excuse to expand the Jew World Order? 

Now it becomes clear, the invasion of Iraq was also about establishing an "Al-CIA-Duh" base in the heart of the Middle East! It is no coincidence that Iraq is blowing up as Assad is defeating the terrorists in Syria. 

And now the U.S. is helping Iraq by providing missiles to fight the "insurgency." 

Who benefits again?

‘‘The thousands of brave Americans who fought, shed their blood, and lost their friends to bring peace to Fallujah and Iraq are now left to wonder whether these sacrifices were in vain,’’ Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in a statement Saturday."

Same guys who showed up to argue Israel's side of the Palestine dispute, and I actually agree with them here. Every single American life was wasted on lies, but at least defense contractors were made rich and Israel got what it wanted. Judge by tho$e mea$ures, all the looting and lies were worth it. 

Btw, the "Bush surge" ultimately failed, John.

Iraq forces kill 25 militants amid fierce fighting

Fallujah tribal chiefs warn of showdown

U.N. pleading about besieged areas and humanitarian crises?! 

Seen this before, so many times! 

Iraq is waiting to mount offensive against Al Qaeda

Worried about civilian casualties, are they? 

Fallujah violence wanes in standoff

Things are simmering down, so....

"International observers have warned of shortages of food, fuel, and other necessities, particularly in Fallujah. United Nations records show that more than 11,000 families have been uprooted by the fighting."

"A series of car bomb attacks and clashes between security forces and militants around and north of Baghdad killed at least 21 civilians, officials said Sunday, amid an ongoing standoff between Iraqi forces and Al Qaeda-linked militants west of the Iraqi capital. The deadliest blast occurred at a bustling bus station in central Baghdad."

Ongoing standoff, 'eh?

Attacks centered in Baghdad kill at least 19; Iranian diplomat visits amid sharp rise in violence

Getting sucked in and sticky bomb stuck they are. 

Meanwhile, the U.N. is boo-boo-hooing about refugees again.

Militants urge Iraqis to join fight

Or we will cut your heads off! 

Handing out leaflets, huh? That's more a U.S shtick. 

"A suicide bomber attacked a gathering of an anti-Al Qaeda militia, and security forces battled extremists in Iraq’s contested Anbar province Friday. In all, at least five people were killed, officials said."

"Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who heads the Al Qaeda group in Iraq, urged Iraqi Sunni Muslims to join the militants in an audio message posted on militant websites Sunday." 

Then the NSA knows where he is.

Al Qaeda group wields vast firepower, Iraq says

Arrested terrorists in Iraq reveal its ties with Saudi Arabia

Yeah, we know it is them and Qatar; they warned Bush years ago they would do this if it went Shiite, and it was all a set-up. It's the PNAC PLAN being followed to a T!

UN warns of rising violence in Iraq

Bombings kill 15 people across Iraq

Attacks leave 11 dead in Baghdad

February 2014:

"The United Nations said Saturday that at least 733 Iraqis were killed during violence in January, even when leaving out casualties from an embattled western province. The figures issued Saturday by the U.N.’s mission to Iraq show 618 civilians and 115 members of the security forces were killed in January. But the UNAMI statement excluded deaths from ongoing fighting in Anbar, due to problems in verifying the ‘‘status of those killed.’’ The figures also leave out insurgent deaths (AP)."

There is more, but that was the brief I received upon a Sunday.

"A new series of car bombings in and around Baghdad on Monday killed at least 23 people, officials said, as Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government grapples with a stubborn Sunni extremist-led insurgency in the western Anbar province. A car bomb went off near the local council building, followed by another at a nearby outdoor market. In Baghdad, an explosives-laden car ripped through a commercial area. A bomb attached to a minibus exploded in Baghdad. After nightfall, a car bomb went off near an outdoor market. Police also found four bodies dumped in the street of the capital. Also on Monday, a Defense Ministry statement said military operations overnight in Ramadi killed 57 militants."

Explosions rock Iraqi capital, killing at least 34

Attacks kill 7 in Iraq, including politician

Sadr's guy; don't want him taking over, never did. He's an Iraqi nationalist and has sent fighters to help Sunnis in Fallujah in the past.

"A group of Sunni militants attending a suicide bombing training class at a camp north of Baghdad were killed Monday when their commander unwittingly conducted a demonstration with a belt that was packed with explosives, army and police officials said. The militants belonged to a group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL. In other violence in Iraq, in Baghdad, a doctor was found dead with bullet wounds in his head and chest two days after he was kidnapped from his house, medical officials said." 

At least he didn't get a visit from the DEA.

"The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is an extremist group that recently broke with Al Qaeda. It has tried to position itself as the champion of Iraqi Sunnis angry at the government over what they see as efforts to marginalize them. Iraqi citizens have long been accustomed to daily attacks on public markets, mosques, funerals, and even children’s soccer games, so for them the story of the fumbling militants was seen as a form of poetic justice, especially coming amid a protracted surge of violence led by the terrorist group."

That's ISIL, folks! 

How sad that Iraqi citizens have become "accustomed" to the hell the U.S. unleashed.

"ISIL, showed how the group has moved beyond Anbar province, west of Baghdad, where it controls Fallujah and parts of Ramadi, and has extended its reach into territories throughout the country. On Tuesday, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant extremists drove up to the army unit, which had been deployed to secure an oil pipeline that links Iraq and Turkey, in SUVs, bent on slaughter. They beheaded five soldiers, shot nine dead, and hanged one on a wall, torturing him to death, the officials said." 

Definitely U.S. trained.

Multiple Iraq attacks kill at least 10  

It's bicycle and motorcycle bombs now!

"Bombs kill 31, injure 70 in Baghdad. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but all three bore the hallmarks of Sunni insurgents who frequently use car bombs and suicide attacks in their bid to undermine confidence in the Shi’ite-led government." 

We got the narrative!

March 2014

"The United Nations said Saturday that violence across Iraq in February killed 703 people, a death toll higher than the year before as the country faces a rising wave of militant attacks rivaling the sectarian bloodshed that followed the US-led invasion. The figures issued by the UN’s mission to Iraq is close to January’s death toll of 733, showing that a surge of violence that began 10 months ago with a government crackdown on a Sunni protest camp is not receding. Meanwhile, attacks Saturday killed at least five and wounded 14, authorities said. Last year, 8,868 people [were] killed."

"Bombings targeting shoppers across central Iraq and clashes near the militant-held city of Fallujah killed at least 42 people Thursday, authorities said. No one claimed responsibility. The bombings began in the afternoon, mostly with car bombs. They bore the hallmarks of Al Qaeda and other Sunni insurgents, who use car bombs and suicide attacks in a bid to undermine confidence in the Shi’ite-led government." 

We got the narrative!

"Bombings kill 15 in Baghdad area" Associated Press   March 19, 2014

BAGHDAD — A series of bombings targeting commercial streets and security forces in Baghdad and its surroundings killed 15 people on Tuesday, officials said.

Police officials said a car bomb also went off near shops in the Shi’ite holy city of Karbala in the afternoon, killing three people and wounding 16. Karbala is 50 miles south of Baghdad.

And ISIS is coming from the north, right?

Also, police said a car bomb killed one person in the town of Hafriyah, just south of Baghdad. Minutes later, another car bomb exploded near a bus stop in the same town, killing two people and wounding five.

In southern Baghdad, a car bomb targeting a security checkpoint killed two policemen and wounded nine. In northern Baghdad, a roadside bomb explosion killed one person and wounded three others in the Shaab neighborhood, according to police.

Separately, two car bombs near a falafel restaurant and a bus stop in Hilla city killed three people and wounded 13 others.

Hillah, a Shi’ite-dominated city, is located about 60 miles south of Baghdad.

At night, a car bomb exploded in a commercial street in Baghdad’s western district of Ghazaliyah, killing three people and wounding five others, said police.

Hospital medics confirmed the casualty figures. All officers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but they bore the hallmarks of an Al Qaeda breakaway group that frequently uses car bombs and suicide attacks to target public areas and members of security forces in their bid to undermine confidence in the government."

We got the narrative!

"A wave of attacks across Iraq on Tuesday killed at least 29 people, mostly members of the security forces, while a Sunni lawmaker escaped an assassination attempt, officials said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but they bore the hallmarks of an Al Qaeda breakaway group that frequently uses car bombs and suicide attacks to target public areas and members of security forces in their bid to undermine confidence in the government."

We got the narrative!

"A series of attacks in Iraq, including a shooting at a security checkpoint and a suicide car bomb, killed 16 people and destroyed a bridge on Sunday, officials said. Fierce clashes pitting government security forces and allied Sunni tribal militias against an insurgent coalition have been raging in Anbar province since late December. Violence has escalated in Iraq during the past year, with 2013 seeing the country’s highest death toll since the worst of the country’s sectarian bloodletting began to subside in 2007, according to United Nations figures." 

Suicide bombers spraying bullets while bombing an outdoor market.

April 2014:

Parliamentary election campaign starts in Iraq

"Fighting between Iraqi government troops and Al Qaeda-inspired militants killed 40 gunmen and an army officer Thursday near Baghdad, authorities said, as attacks elsewhere in the country left five people dead ahead of elections this month."

Car bombs mostly.

"An explosion at a booby-trapped house, ensuing clashes with militants, and a roadside bombing killed 18 soldiers Saturday, authorities said. The blast happened Saturday afternoon when a group of soldiers searched a farmhouse in Garma, police said. Minutes later, gunmen opened fire on arriving soldiers (AP)."

"Attacks across Iraq kill at least 15" Associated Press   April 07, 2014

BAGHDAD — Gunmen near Iraq’s capital kidnapped and later shot to death six men, the deadliest of a series of attacks Sunday that killed at least 15 people across the country, authorities said.

The gunmen broke into the homes at dawn. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the slayings and the motive behind the killing was unclear.

Since when?

Shi’ite militiamen could be seeking revenge for the ongoing Sunni insurgent attacks against Shi’ite neighborhoods.

Militants with Al Qaeda’s local branch targets Sunnis in attacks as well, or it could be a personal vendetta.

However, the slayings come amid escalating sectarian violence in Iraq, which last year saw its highest death toll since the worst of such killings in 2007, according to the United Nations.

In November, 18 Sunnis kidnapped by men in Iraqi army uniforms were found dead, just days after police found the corpses of 13 men all killed by close-range gunshots to the head.

Since late December, Iraq’s minority Sunnis have been protesting what they perceive as discrimination and tough antiterrorism measures against them by the Shi’ite-led government.

Now some call for Shi’ites to create armed “popular committees,” attached in some form to the regular security forces.

The idea raises the specter of some of Iraq’s darkest years following the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led regime, paving the way for long-repressed majority Shi’ites to seize power.

They won rigged elections that were crowed about by the U.S. at the time!

--more--"

Car bombs leave 34 dead in Iraq

High-ranking Iraqi official escapes assassination attempt

Same old story.

Then, out of nowhere is news about Abu Ghraib -- you know, the place where "US soldiers had tortured detainees [and] galvanized Iraqis’ anger toward their occupiers, and probably forever tainted the legacy of the United States’ war in Iraq" -- is going to close, but not really! Those Iraqis are torturing people, dammit! What's a waterboarding Amerikan government to do!

And then, just as fast, it disappears again.

10 Iraqi soldiers killed in assault

16 die in series of bomb attacks

Attacks leave at least 18 dead in Iraq

Bombs, attacks kill at least 33 in Iraq

As Iraqis prepare to "head to the polls on April 30 — the first major vote in Iraq since the US military withdrawal in 2011."

Attack on Shi’ite campaign rally kills 31 in Iraq

Bombs at markets, police kill 24 people in Iraq

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, which bore the hallmarks of Al Qaeda-inspired Sunni militants seeking to undermine the Shi’ite-led government’s efforts to maintain security across the country ahead of Wednesday’s polling.

We got the narrative!

"Iraq gears up for bitter, bloody election battle" by Loveday Morris | Washington Post   April 29, 2014

BAGHDAD — As the country prepares for its first elections since the withdrawal of US troops, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s political rivals accuse him of stoking sectarian divides and dismantling its hard-fought democracy.

No party is expected to win a majority in Iraq’s parliamentary election on Wednesday, the first since the final US troops pulled out of the country 2½ years ago, leaving the results difficult to forecast.

On Monday, militants targeted polling stations across much of Iraq as soldiers and security forces cast ballots two days ahead of the general election. The attacks killed nearly 50 people, including about 25 who died in a suicide bomb attack in the Kurdish town of Khanaqin in the turbulent Diyala province, officials said.

The wave of attacks was an apparent attempt to derail the balloting process and discourage the rest of the country’s 22 million registered voters from going to the polls Wednesday.

The unpredictability of Iraqi politics was underlined in the last elections four years ago, when the political bloc that won the greatest share of the vote lost the premiership to Maliki in the political horse-trading that followed.

Most observers agree on two things, however: Maliki is unlikely to give up without a bitter fight, and he has unrivaled power and resources behind him to help him cling on.

Since he took power eight years ago, in the country’s first elections after the US invasion, his critics have accused him of centralizing power.

After the last elections, in 2010, Maliki took on the roles of minister of defense, interior, and national security — positions he still holds. He also is head of the armed forces.

A law passed by Parliament that would have prevented him from running for a third term was overturned by the courts last year. The judicial system is under his influence, rights groups say. Meanwhile, rival parties accuse him of sidelining their candidates from the elections.

‘‘This is not what we promised the Iraqi people. This is not why we fought Saddam,’’ said Ayad Allawi, a secular Sunni who won the largest proportion of the vote in 2010. ‘‘This is not why allied forces lost lives.’’

He's a US flunky! 

I wonder what Ahmed Chalabi doing is doing these days?

But even if Maliki wins the largest proportion of the vote, building alliances to form a government may be a hard task. In his years in office, he has caused friction, including among fellow Shi’ites.

--more--"

Time to vote.

May 2014:

Iraq holds parliamentary election

And the results?  

"In Washington, the results are likely to be viewed as a worrisome sign for Iraq, as many top US officials were hoping to see Maliki leave."

What more do you need to know? 

But we are in there helping him because he's a puppet, blah, blah, blah! 

The U.S wanted Ayad Allawi! Maliki no longer useful!

"A series of bombings in Iraq killed 19 people Saturday, a day after army shelling killed 11 civilians and gunmen in the militant-held city of Fallujah, authorities said. Police said the deadliest attack happened when a suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden truck into a checkpoint in Dujail. Six security personnel and a civilian were killed (AP)."

Insurgents kill 20 troops in Iraq barracks

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the barracks attack. But, it mirrored a February attack claimed by Al Qaeda-breakaway group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

We got the narrative!

"Militants unleashed a wave of car bombings in Iraq on Tuesday, killing at least 34 people and sending thick black smoke into the Baghdad skies in a show of force meant to intimidate the majority Shi’ites as they marked what is meant to be a joyous holiday for their sect. An Al-Qaeda spinoff group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility for the attacks, adding that they were in retaliation for military operations being carried out by government forces in Fallujah. All of Tuesday’s blasts were caused by explosives-laden vehicles parked in public areas."

June 2014:

"UN says Iraq violence killed 799 people in May" Associated Press   June 02, 2014

BAGHDAD — Violence has claimed the lives of 799 Iraqis in May, the highest monthly death toll this year, the United Nations said Sunday, underlining the daunting challenges the government faces as it struggles to contain a surge in sectarian violence.

The figures issued by the UN mission to Iraq put last month’s civilian death toll at 603, with 196 security forces killed. The mission added that 1,409 Iraqis, including 1,108 civilians, were wounded. The previous month’s death toll stood at 750, making April the second-deadliest month of the year.

The worst-hit city was the capital Baghdad, with 315 people killed. The northern province of Ninevah came in second with 113, followed by nearby Salahuddin province with 94.

The figures exclude deaths in embattled Anbar province, where militants have controlled parts of the provincial capital Ramadi and nearby Fallujah since December.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a powerful Al Qaeda spinoff that also operates in neighboring Syria, has intensified its attacks across Iraq as political rivals work to form a new government following parliamentary elections on April 30.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s bloc emerged as the biggest winner, securing 92 seats in the 328-member Parliament, but it failed to gain the majority needed to govern alone. ‘‘I strongly deplore the sustained level of violence and terrorist acts that continues rocking the country,’’ the UN special representative in Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov, said in the statement.

--more--"

Bombings across Iraq leave 25 dead

You could see the case coming for intervention in the rising death toll. 

That's the case of propaganda they are throwing at you to get you to go along with reinvading Iraq, American. 

Hey, why not? It's was fun the first time around, right?