[A-List] Iraq Occupation Continues To Unravel

[Rick Rozoff <r_rozoff@xxxxxxxxx>]

1) Iraqi Oil Cut Off As Sabotaged Pipeline Blazes
2) Baghdad Power Plant In Flames
3) Red Cross: 70-90% Of Iraqi Prisoners 'Arrested By
Mistake'; Ill-Treatment Widespread
4) Britiah Troops Killed Iraqi Civilians, Including
Eight-Year-Old Girl: Report
5) Catalogue Of Shame
6) Iraq: Dutch Troops Attacked, One Killed
7) Three Killed In Northern Iraq Bomb Blast
8) Southern Iraq: Bulgaria Base Attacked Again
9) Russian Specialist Killed, Two Taken Hostage;
Russia Prepares To Pull All Citizens
10) Shiite Cleric Threatens To Launch 'Broad New
Offensive' Aganst US Forces
11) Spanish Troops Turn On US Allies
12) Honduran Troops Begin Iraq Withdrawal


1)
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/10/1084041339762.html

Sydney Morning Herald
May 11, 2004

Oil cut off as sabotaged pipeline blazes
May 11, 2004


Baghdad: Iraq has halted oil exports from its vital
southern terminals after saboteurs blew up a pipeline
feeding them.

Only two weeks earlier US-led forces had foiled
suicide boat attacks on tankers at the terminal.

A spokesman for the US Army Corps of Engineers, Steve
Wright, said the pipeline was still ablaze at the tip
of the Faw Peninsula after the weekend attack.

In continuing violence early yesterday, 16 suspected
members of the Mehdi Army of the rebel preacher
Moqtada al-Sadr were killed in eight running battles
in the Baghdad Shiite slum of Sadr City, a US military
officer said.

"The likelihood of them being Sadr militia fighters is
high," the officer said.

Their deaths followed the killing of 19 Mehdi fighters
in the neighbourhood on Sunday.

Also early yesterday, US aircraft bombed Sadr's
offices in Sadr City. Witnesses said a huge orange
burst of flame rose high in the air as at least one
bomb fell on the single-storey building and virtually
destroyed it.

US forces had earlier raided the Sadr City office and
arrested two people. A military spokesman said one of
them was said to be a Mehdi Army financier.

The raid was part of a stepped-up military campaign
against an uprising launched by Sadr a month ago.
Yesterday, a senior aide to Sadr, Qais al-Khazali,
said Sadr had ordered his militia to spread their
battle against US troops across Iraq.

In other violence, a police official said gunmen
killed a South African, an Iraqi and a New Zealander
in a drive-by shooting in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk
yesterday.

The foreigners were engineers and the Iraqi was their
driver, the official said.

The South African Foreign Ministry also confirmed
yesterday that another of its nationals had died in
Iraq, the sixth to be killed since the invasion began.


The Arabic television station Al-Jazeera yesterday
aired a video tape it said was from an unknown Iraqi
group that vowed to kidnap and kill Arab and foreign
workers - especially Kuwaitis - in the southern city
of Basra.

The tape showed a group of masked men, some holding
automatic rifles, and one man reading a statement.

Violence in Basra, which is near Iraq's southern
border with Kuwait, has intensified in recent weeks
since the US led forces began their crackdown on
Sadr's militia. Hundreds of his Mehdi Army fighters
fought running battles with British troops in Basra on
Saturday after suffering heavy losses in other Shiite
cities.

In another development, a US Marines convoy entered
Falluja for the first time in more than a month
yesterday. It was a test for the shaky truce that has
been negotiated with insurgents in Iraq's most
rebellious town, observers said.

Marines, accompanied by Iraqi security forces
entrusted with eventually taking over security,
arrived without incident at the mayor's office in the
town centre in their armoured vehicles and Humvees.

But the calm in Falluja has not eased the fears of
Iraqi security forces, who are afraid that they will
suffer the fate of hundreds of their comrades who have
been killed by insurgents for co-operating with the
Americans.

US forces laid siege to Falluja last month after four
American contractors were killed and mutilated in the
town.

Hundreds of Iraqis, many of them civilians, died when
marines launched attacks.

Reuters, Agence France-Presse
------------------------------------------------------
2)
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/11/1084041348339.html

Reuters
May 11, 2004

Iraq power plant in flames


Smoke and flames rose from a Baghdad electricity plant
on Monday but it was not clear whether saboteurs
started the fire or it was an accident.

Thick tongues of flame and plumes of black smoke rose
from the plant in the western district of Ameriya as
fire engines arrived to attempt to extinguish the
blaze which officials said had caused significant
damage.

Police at the scene said without elaborating the plant
had been sabotaged, but employees said the fire had
broken out after a power cable apparently snapped and
fell on the station.

Insurgents fighting the US-led occupation have
targeted Iraq's power production facilities and oil
export pipelines to undermine postwar reconstruction
efforts.

Faris al-Bayati, a senior official of the security
division of Iraq's electricity facilities, said an
explosion had been heard just before the fire erupted
and that the blaze had damaged cables and coils.

An adjacent sub-station was shut down after the fire
erupted.

Oil exports slowed at Iraq's main southern terminal on
Monday after a sabotage attack on a southern pipeline.

------------------------------------------------------
3)
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1083180400050&p=1012571727172


Financial Times
May 11, 2004


Most Iraqi detainees 'arrested by mistake'
By Frances Williams in Geneva



Coalition military intelligence officers believed
70-90 per cent of Iraqi detainees were "arrested by
mistake", according to a leaked Red Cross report on
prisoner abuse, further details of which were
disclosed on Monday.

The confidential report, given to the US and British
governments in February but covering events in March
to November last year, describes a pattern of
indiscriminate arrests involving destruction of
property and brutal behaviour towards suspects and
their families.

Ill-treatment during capture was frequent and
"appeared to go beyond the reasonable, legitimate and
proportional use of force", the report said. Such
behaviour "seemed to reflect a usual modus operandi by
certain CF [coalition forces] battle groups".

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on
Friday it had repeatedly, throughout last year, drawn
these and other violations of international
humanitarian law to the attention of the coalition
forces and the prison authorities in Iraq.

In February, a consolidated report summarising the
ICRC's interventions was sent to the US and UK
governments. A month earlier, Jakob Kellenberger, ICRC
president, had raised the issue of prisoner abuse in
Iraq when he saw Colin Powell, US secretary of state,
Condoleezza Rice, US national security adviser, and
Paul Wolfowitz, US deputy defence secretary, on a
visit to Washington.

The report, published in full on Monday by the Wall
Street Journal, said arrests tended to follow a
pattern. "Arresting authorities entered houses usually
after dark, breaking down doors, waking up residents
roughly, yelling orders, forcing family members into
one room under military guard while searching the rest
of the house and further breaking doors, cabinets and
other property.

"Sometimes they arrested all adult males present in a
house, including elderly, handicapped or sick people.
Treatment often included pushing people around,
insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and
kicking and striking with rifles."

The report said some coalition military intelligence
officers estimated that "between 70 per cent and 90
per cent of the persons deprived of their liberty in
Iraq had been arrested by mistake".

Pierre Krähenbühl, ICRC's operations director, said on
Friday that he was "disturbed" to see the report made
public, noting that confidentiality was a vital
element of the ICRC's work that enabled it to gain
access to hundreds of thousands of detainees around
the world. Last year ICRC representatives visited more
than 460,000 detainees in nearly 80 countries,
including 13,000 in Iraq. The Wall Street Journal
stated on Friday that the leak did not come from the
ICRC.

Mr Krähenbühl said the ICRC faced a "terrible dilemma"
in Iraq and elsewhere over its consistent policy not
to talk about what it sees in its visits to the
prisons.

However, the agency had decided not to speak out
unless it was clear that its recommendations were
having no effect.
------------------------------------------------------
4)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/11/uiraq.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/05/11/ixportaltop.html

The Telegraph (Britain)
May 11, 2004

British soldier 'shot eight-year-old Iraqi girl'



The Army is facing further allegations about its
conduct in Iraq in a report that claims British troops
have shot and killed civilians, including an
eight-year-old girl, when they were under no apparent
threat.

British soldiers guard a burning pipeline in Basra
Amnesty International said "many" of the killings had
not been investigated, while inquiries mounted by the
Royal Military Police have been "secretive" with
families given little or no information about their
progress.

The allegations will add to the pressure on Geoff
Hoon, the Defence Secretary, who yesterday told the
Commons that ministers had not been shown a Red Cross
report highlighting concerns about treatment of
detainees in Iraq until the allegations surfaced in
the press.

Kate Allen, Amnesty's UK director, called for the
introduction of independent, civilian-led inquiries
into incidents involving Iraqi civilians.

"Killings by UK forces, in situations where they
should not be using lethal force, are examined in
secrecy and behind closed doors," she said.

"Instead of the Army deciding whether to investigate
itself when civilians are killed, there must be a
full, impartial and civilian-led investigation into
all allegations of killings by UK troops."

Amnesty's report details the case of eight-year-old
Hanan Saleh Matrud, who was reportedly shot by a
soldier of B Company of the 1 Bn of the King's
Regiment in August last year.

An eye-witness told Amnesty's researchers that, rather
than being hit accidentally by a warning shot as the
Army has said, Hanan was killed when a soldier aimed
at her and fired a shot from around 60 metres.
------------------------------------------------------
5)
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/15778.html

The Herald (Scotland)
May 11, 2004

Catalogue of shame



The report outlines the alleged methods of
ill-treatment used by military intelligence in a
"systematic way" to gain confessions or extract
information from so-called high-value detainees.

Hooding, sometimes involving two bags that caused
breathing difficulties, could last up to four days.
The practice was also used "in conjunction with
beatings" to increase anxiety.

Handcuffing with flexi-cuffs, sometimes made so tight,
they caused skin lesions and nerve damage.

Beatings with pistols, rifles, fists, and feet.

Threats of ill-treatment, reprisals against a
prisoner's relatives, imminent execution or transfer
to Guantanamo Bay.

Being stripped naked for several days while held in
solitary confinement in a completely darkened cell.

Sleep, food and water deprivation.

Humiliation, including being paraded naked or
sometimes with women's underwear placed on their heads
in front of laughing guards.

Being forced to remain for prolonged periods in stress
positions such as standing with arms lifted.

Being chained naked to the bars of their cells over a
number of days for several hours each time.

Prolonged exposure while hooded to loud music or noise
and to the 50 degree heat of the midday sun.

Mock executions.

Having water poured over detainees' legs with electric
shocks administered.

At Camp Cropper, during a hunger strike unrest broke
out and one inmate suffered a gunshot wound. During a
demonstration, six inmates were wounded and during an
attempted escape three people were wounded, one of
whom later died.

At Abu Ghraib, during unrest seven people were wounded
and one killed. An investigation later concluded the
shooting was justified as the lives of the guards were
deemed to have been under threat. During a riot, four
prisoners were shot dead.

At Camp Bucca, a prisoner supposedly throwing stones
was shot dead by a guard. The authorities regarded it
as a "justifiable shooting", but the Red Cross insists
there was no serious threat.
------------------------------------------------------
6)
http://www.rnw.nl/news/news.html#4004732

Radio Netherlands
May 10, 2004


Attack kills Dutch soldier in Iraq

The Japanese press agency Kyodo reports that a group
of Dutch soldiers have been attacked in the town of As
Samawah in south Iraq. One soldier was apparently
killed and another slightly injured when a grenade was
thrown from a bike or car. The report is said to be
based on Iraqi security sources.

As Samawah is the capital of the southern Iraqi
province of al-Muthanna where about 1250 Dutch
soldiers are based.
------------------------------------------------------
7)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/11/uround.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/05/11/ixportaltop.html

The Telegraph
May 11, 2004

Three die in Kirkuk bomb blast


A bomb explosion in a crowded market in the northern
Iraq city of Kirkuk has killed three people and
wounded more than 20.

Iraqi police said the attack occurred in the early
morning when the market was packed with shoppers.

Shirko Shakir, the commander of Kirkuk's police, said
five people had been seriously wounded in the blast.

It is believed that the bomb, which brought down
cables and set some of the market stalls on fire was
hidden near a road close to the market.

There have been frequent attacks on Kurdish police and
political forces in the region. On Monday a Russian
worker was killed and two others taken hostage when
their car was ambushed near Baghdad.

Russia's foreign ministry said the workers, from the
engineering company Interenergoservis, had been
travelling between Baghdad and Latifiya when the
attack occurred.

The company had eight workers briefly kidnapped in
Baghdad last month and said it is now considering
withdrawing all of its staff from Iraq.

Russia airlifted more than 300 of its workers and
those from other ex-Soviet countries out of Iraq last
month following a spate of kidnappings.
------------------------------------------------------
8)
http://www.bgnewsnet.com/story.php?sid=4963

Bulgarian News Network
May 11, 2004

Rebels Fire Rocket Launcher at Bulgarian Post in Iraq


SOFIA - Iraqi rebels fired Tuesday a rocket launcher
at a Bulgarian army post in the city of Karbala
causing no injuries, the ministry of defense in Sofia
reported.

The attack happened at 1:30 a.m. (2230 GMT) at the
Karbala mayoralty, which is guarded by Bulgarian
troops, the ministry said.

A Bulgarian infantry battalion of some 450 troops
serves within a 9,500-strong coalition force under
Polish command in central southern Iraq.
------------------------------------------------------
9)
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=798271&PageNum=0

Itar-Tass (Russia)
May 11, 2004

Russia specialist killed, two taken hostage in Iraq



MOSCOW - A Russian specialist has been killed and two
have been take hostage in Iraq.

The victims are associates of Russia?s company
Interenergoservis.

An Iraqi militia took hostage eight specialists of the
company on April 9, but freed them shortly.

Most of Interenergoservice workers then refused to be
evacuated.

Interenergoservis is considering full evacuation of
its staff, the company?s director of international
projects Yevgeny Loginov told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.

He said Interenergoservis? workers came under a fire
attack when they were riding to Baghdad from Al
Mussajw railway station.

An informed source told Itar-Tass that ?Russian
authorities have recommended to all citizens of Russia
working under contracts in Iraq to return to the
homeland in connection with an acute exacerbation of
the situation?.

He said about 300 specialists from Russia and other
CIS states are staying in Iraq.

?If all of them want to leave Iraq, we are ready to
evacuate them,? the source said.
------------------------------------------------------
10)
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Articles.asp?Article=81339&Sn=WORL


Gulf Daily News (Bahrain)
May 11, 2004

Sadr widens war



NAJAF - Iraqi cleric Moqtada Al Sadr ordered his Mehdi
Army yesterday to launch a broad new offensive against
US-led occupying forces following a US crackdown on
his strongholds in Baghdad and across the south.

Al Sadr's chief said, at his main base in the holy
city of Najaf, that a new phase had begun in a
month-long insurgency across Shi'ite southern Iraq.

"We have now entered a second phase of resistance," he
said. "There will be volcanic eruptions."

Tanks flattened Al Sadr's office in Baghdad's Sadr
City district overnight and US officials claimed that
troops killed 16 fighters in the sprawling Shi'ite
slum after killing 19 the previous night.
------------------------------------------------------
11)
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=34528

Novinite (Bulgaria)
May 11, 2004

Spanish Troops Turned on US Allies


Spanish troops have reportedly refused to hand over an
aide of cleric Al-Sadr to the US coalition partners.

According to Spanish Defense Minister Jose Bono, who
have just returned from Iraq, Mustafa al-Yakubi was
detained in the area then controlled by the
2,400-strong Spanish contingent.

The US seal-off the Iraqi town of Najaf, which aimed
to catch Muqtada al-Sadr "dead or alive" was also left
unattended by the Spanish soldiers.
------------------------------------------------------
12)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1106058.htm

Agence France-Presse
May 11, 2004

Honduran troops begin Iraq pull out


Honduras has begun its troop withdrawal from Iraq with
the first of its 369 soldiers arriving in Kuwait,
President Ricardo Maduro says.

"I'm pleased to officially announce to the Honduran
people that we have begun withdrawing our soldiers
from Iraq and that some of them are already in
Kuwait," Mr Maduro said.

Honduras and the Dominican Republic decided to pull
their troops out of Iraq last month, following Spain's
decision to do the same.

The Honduran soldiers and 300 Dominican troops were
attached to the 1,400-strong Spanish-led brigade in
Najaf, 160 kilometres south of Baghdad.

Mr Maduro did not specify how many troops have left
Iraq, but says preparations for a full withdrawal are
well under way and that all the troops would soon
return to Tegucigalpa.

He refuses to provide dates on the pull out "for the
security of the soldiers".

Mr Madro is on a tour of Japan, Spain and Italy aimed
at promoting foreign investment in Honduras.









	
		
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