OCTOBER 2005

IRAQ - U.S.MASSACRE AND THEN...VENGEANCE; A CYCLE THAT MUST BE BROKEN

Thousands displaced from Talafar by fighting

Report, IRIN, 12 September 2005

BAGHDAD, 11 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Thousands of families are fleeing the northern Iraqi city of Talafar, aid workers confirmed, as Coalition forces conduct a military operation against insurgents.

According to the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS), the situation is critical and hundreds of families are moving day and night to temporary camps donated and prepared by the aid organisation.

“We need urgently supplies because we have already run out,” Ferdous al-Abadi, spokeswoman for the IRCS, said.

Heavy bombardment and artillery by gun-ship helicopters as well as street fighting could be seen in the al-Saray area of the city, Iraqi officials said.

The operation in the city, some 80 km east of Mosul city, and near the Syrian border, started on 10 September.

With a population of more than 250,000 residents, some 50,000 families, the city had received information that the operation may continue for a long period and that people should leave within 72 hours from the start of the operation.

Talafar, one of the largest cities inside Ninewa governorate, has witnessed insecurity for the last 18 months due to insurgency that security forces are now trying to quell.

The IRCS called on international humanitarian organisations to help overcome a shortage of medicine and essential materials caused by the unexpected and tragic stampede in a Baghdad district last week.

Food cans, emergency first aid kits, blood bags, body bags, blankets, bed sheets, and stretchers, painkillers and anaesthetics are desperately needed, al-Abadi said.

Based on the last humanitarian report on 10 September, the IRCS said nearly 3,000 families were already displaced in the area between Mosul and Talafar in a village called Abu Maria (Al-Nakhwa).

The camp is 20 km east of Talafar and has a capacity for 500 families only, but the number is expected to increase to 5,000 families.

The camp at present has 40 toilets, 20 water tanks (with a capacity of 1,000 – 1,500 litres each) as well as a medical centre for first aid and emergency procedures.

“The IRCS will be able to provide relief items for 25,000 families when supported by other cooperating organisations, but we need assistance soon and we expect more than 20, 000 families to flee the city in the coming 48 hours,” al-Abadi added.

A few cases of diarrhoea in children were reported in the camps, Ministry of Health officials said, maintaining that they would give full assistance for those who have left the city in search of a more secure place.

A relief convoy was sent to the city on Saturday morning, but according to staff from the IRCS, it was not enough to serve the needs of the population.



This Item is Delivered to the "Asia-English" Service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.

Vengeance... Scores killed in Baghdad attacks

Hundreds killed and wounded in a series of bomb attacks and shootings across Iraq.

In the worst incident, at least 112 people were killed and some 160 injured when a car bomb exploded in Baghdad's mainly Shia district of Kadhimiya.

During the night, gunmen killed 17 men in the nearby town of Taji after dragging them from their homes.

In a statement on a website, the Iraqui group said it acted after US and Iraqi forces attacked insurgents in the northern town of Talafar.

Wednesday became one of the deadliest days in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003.

Tal Afar: Crackdown in the Sunni Heartland  

By Mike Whitney

Al-Jazeerah, September 14, 2005

The siege of Tal Afar follows a familiar pattern of brutal American incursions into densely populated areas under the pretense of fighting terrorism. It is a ritual that is repeated endlessly despite the dismal results. The Pentagon seems to prefer these grand displays of military strength to anything that might produce a political solution. It brings to mind the old saw, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again; expecting a different result.” This appears to be the guiding principle of the Defense Dept. with Tal Afar serving as the most recent example.

In the present case, a city of 250,000 has been almost entirely evacuated following weeks of artillery bombardment, aerial bombing raids, downed power-lines and water-system, and house-to-house searches.

Ho-hum. Such paltry events never even reach the front page of American newspapers where the ceremony of American suffering is the only topic of interest.

The remaining occupants of the city have reported the killing and maiming of innocent women and children, the use of chemical weapons, and the predictable destruction of Mosques and holy sites. In Tal Afar the Pentagon’s “Hearts and Minds” program seems to be running at high-gear.

There was no doubt that Donald Rumsfeld would use the cover of Hurricane Katrina to mount a massive attack in Iraq, and he didn’t disappoint. The military conducted a 10,000 man invasion only to find that the city had been abandoned and that the Iraqi resistance had slipped away without incident. Not one foreign fighter was captured during the siege despite claims that the city was a haven for foreign terrorists.

Colonel Greg Reilly told Al Jazeera that the resistance “went into hiding, avoiding us. That’s why there’s no fighting….They are not putting up a fight”.

Did O’Reilly really expect the poorly-armed resistance to march into battle against Abrams tanks, helicopter gun-ships, and F-18s? The resistance applied classic guerilla tactics and “melted away” before they were confronted by the greater force leaving the Marines with nothing to show for their effort except a few random prisoners. Nevertheless, this hasn’t persuaded the Pentagon to modify their plans of savaging the
remaining cities in the Sunni heartland. They still cling to the vain hope that increasing the violence will quash the resistance.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Al Jaafari has shown a surprising enthusiasm for the Rumsfeld’s blitzkrieg against the Sunnis. He gave the siege of Tal Afar his personal blessing and said that the hostilities were being conducted “on his orders”. He also announced that he was contributing thousands of newly-graduated Iraqi soldiers to the war-effort, even though his decision is bound to be unpopular among the Iraqi public. Al-Jaafari has now put himself in the same position as his predecessor, Iyad Allawi, who lost all credibility when he authorized the invasion of Falluja.

This shows the shortsightedness of the current plan. If Rumsfeld wants to pass off al-Jaafari as a viable political candidate, he must appear to be independent of American influence. By endorsing the attack on Tal Afar, al-Jaafari looks like just another American stooge carrying water for the occupation. Ultimately, this will undermine his legitimacy and disrupt the plan to create a credible “Arab façade” to disguise the administrations intentions.

There’s very little to discuss about the botched siege of Tal Afar. The assault follows the same basic blueprint of jack-boot tactics we’ve seen in similar acts of American aggression. Tens of thousands of lives were disrupted and possibly ruined through forced evacuation, massive property damage has been sustained throughout the city, the mayor resigned in protest of the invasion, the public is more polarized than ever, 152 people were killed in the bombing with countless others detained indefinitely, the resistance fighters escaped unscathed, and the Red Cross reports that the offensive has created a humanitarian crisis that is beyond their limited resources.

In other words, the entire operation was an utter failure. The media has kept Tal Afar off the front page and framed the debacle as another crucial step in liberating Iraq from the disparate forces of terrorism.

What nonsense. Apart from the conspicuous immorality of the action, the stupidity is almost too hard to bear. Tar Afar is simply a duplication of the same failed policy we have seen over and over again for the last two years.

Has anyone in the Pentagon ever read Che Guevara or any of the other classic tomes of guerrilla warfare?

Why are the same futile policies being replicated day by day when we already know that they are doomed to failure?

Is the fog of hubris so thick at the Defense Dept that they believe that the assault on Tal Afar accomplished anything?

Rumsfeld’s simian theories of warfare have proved to be the greatest boon to the burgeoning Iraqi resistance. Like all headstrong amateurs he soldiers-on; ignoring adversity or experience, determined to demonstrate the wisdom of his own narrow vision. Regrettably, that vision is comprised of nothing more than ever-increasing levels of violence erratically extended across the region.

There’s nothing more dangerous than a well-armed dilettante who is convinced of his own genius. Tal Afar leaves no doubt about that.



BAGHDAD, 21 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Nearly 1,500 displaced Iraqi families have returned to the northern city of Talafar after Coalition forces ended an operation to rout insurgents hiding there, but the returnees said dozens of their homes had been totally destroyed. The Iraq Red Crescent Society (IRCS) said on Tuesday that despite the returns, thousands of displaced people were still living in camps surviving on aid from various humanitarian organisations.

One of the main IRCS camps near the city, which is located just 60 km from the Syrian border, was half-empty. The camp, with 750 tents, housed 3,000 families at the height of the recent fighting.
"We don't have full information on what returnees are finding there [in Talafar]. Our efforts are now to address the difficulties of those still displaced in camps and villages around Talafar," Ferdous al-Abadi, spokesperson for the IRCS, said. Some residents complained that some operations were still ongoing – making the city insecure. "My husband was killed inside Talafar a week ago. Today I went to check our house and see if everything was still there. I cannot stay there and [so I] returned to this camp because at least there is security here," said Samira Muhammad, 42, a tearful mother of four. The fighting has also disrupted the school year, which has now been delayed across the city. Checkpoints remain and returning residents were subjected to heavy security checks.

Up to 5,000 families fled their homes in Talafar when fighting between Coalition forces and insurgents started earlier this month. "We are talking 20-25,000 people," Jette Soerensen, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva (ICRC), told IRIN on Saturday. The displaced families took refuge in surrounding towns and villages – some with friends or relatives. Others, however, were living in abandoned villages or small camps, with no access to such basic items as food, water or bedding, the IRCS said.

On Tuesday, the IRCS said some 2,000 displaced families are still living with relatives in the city of Mosul, some 400 km from the capital, Baghdad. In the area of Ayadhyia, a village 10 km north of Talafar, some 350 are camped while another 450 families are in the village of Sheikh Ibrahim. IRCS said Shi’ites from Talafar had chosen a temporary camp in the city of Kerbala, some 184 km from the capital. Various agencies and NGOs including the United Nations children’s fund, World Health Organization, the ICRC, Emirates and Turkish Red Crescent Societies have been distributing blankets, food parcels, medicines and other essential needs to the displaced people.

Since the fighting started, no humanitarian organisations have been authorised to enter the city. The IRCS said it had now been allowed to send its disaster team to Talafar on 23 September to make a detailed study of the situation."They have been delaying our entrance inside Talafar to prevent [us from seeing] the reality and destruction that the city has suffered during this fighting, even the death toll has not been reported yet," al-Abadi added.The ICRC called for more assistance to humanitarian organisations assisting the displaced families. It urged those involved in the fighting "to respect the basic rules of international humanitarian law that are applicable in Iraq".

Up to 3,800 United States forces and 5,000 Iraqi troops took part in the operation in which 153 terrorists have been killed and 187 captured, US officials said, denying there were civilian casualties.
However, Surkassi Ahmed, a doctor at the local hospital, said there had been civilian casualties. "We have received cases of deaths of women, children and the elderly in our hospital," he noted.

This Item is Delivered to the "Asia-English" Service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: IRIN@ocha.unon.org or Web: http://www.irinnews.org. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by commercial sites requires written IRIN permission.

"The combination of US government owned ammo plants and those of US commercial producers together cannot make bullets as fast as US troops are firing them. The Bush administration has had to turn to foreign producers such as Israel Military Industries. Think about that. Hollowed out US industry cannot produce enough ammunition to defeat a 20,000 man insurgency. !!!"