Al Qaeda in Iraq

US silent on plight of Iraq’s Christians

by News Sources 12.23.2010

Reza Aslan writes: Iraq’s 2,000-year-old Christian community is on the brink of extinction, its members targeted by al Qaeda attacks and fleeing abroad. But Hillary Clinton, the one person who could force the Iraq government to act, is keeping her mouth shut. A full-scale genocide is under way in Iraq: a well-planned, well-financed, deliberate plot [...]

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Torture and terrorism

by Paul Woodward 10.23.2010

One of the strange aspects relating to conspiracy theories concerning 9/11 is that they unwittingly obscure something even worse: that the US government foments terrorism not by design but by neglect; that its policies have had a direct and instrumental role in creating terrorists not simply by providing individuals and groups with an ideological pretext [...]

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Fears of al Qaida return in Iraq as US-backed fighters defect

by News Sources 08.13.2010

The Guardian reports: Al-Qaida is attempting to make a comeback in Iraq by enticing scores of former Sunni allies to rejoin the terrorist group by paying them more than the monthly salary they currently receive from the government, two key US-backed militia leaders have told the Guardian. They said al-Qaida leaders were exploiting the imminent [...]

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NEWS, OPINION & FEATURE: The cult of the suicide bomber

by Paul Woodward 03.16.2008

The cult of the suicide bomber By Robert Fisk, The Independent, March 14, 2008 No one doubts that the road to Baghdad – or Tal Afar or Fallujah or Mosul – lies through Syria, and that the movement of suicide bombers from the Mediterranean coasts to the deserts of Iraq is a planned if not [...]

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OPINION: Terrorism, Iraq, and the facts on the ground

by Paul Woodward 01.30.2008

Normalizing air war from Guernica to Arab Jabour By Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch, January 29, 2008 For those who know something about the history of air power, which, since World War II, has been lodged at the heart of the American Way of War, that 100,000 figure [-- the quantity of explosives dropped on Arab Jabour [...]

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NEWS: The threat from the militias; divisions among Sunnis

by Paul Woodward 01.04.2008

Exit al-Qaeda. Enter the militias? By Charles Crain, Time, January 1, 2008 In 2007 the United States military put its most dangerous enemy on the run. In 2008 it may face an even more entrenched foe. Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the primary target of the American troop surge and counter-insurgency strategy, appears to be on [...]

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NEWS & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Torture complex uncovered

by Paul Woodward 12.20.2007

Torture house, mass graves discovered in Iraq CNN, December 20, 2007 Coalition forces found 26 bodies buried in mass graves and a bloodstained “torture complex,” with chains hanging from walls and ceilings and a bed connected to an electrical system, the military said Wednesday. [...] The complex was in an area thought to be an [...]

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NEWS, OPINION & EDITOR’S COMMENT: Time to get out, not dig in

by Paul Woodward 12.03.2007

Iraqi insurgents regrouping, says Sunni resistance leader By Jonathan Steele, The Guardian, December 3, 2007 Iraq’s main Sunni-led resistance groups have scaled back their attacks on US forces in Baghdad and parts of Anbar province in a deliberate strategy aimed at regrouping, retraining, and waiting out George Bush’s “surge”, a key insurgent leader has told [...]

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NEWS, ANALYSIS & OPINION: How is Iraq changing?

by Paul Woodward 11.21.2007

2008: The year of federalism in Iraq? By Reidar Visser, historiae.org, November 12, 2007 In all the speculation about the fate of the US “surge” policy in Iraq, many analysts have overlooked a date on the 2008 calendar which is bound to become fateful: 11 April. On that day, the current moratorium on creating new [...]

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NEWS, ANALYSIS, OPINION & FEATURE: In Iraq, it’s getting harder to find any bad guys

by Paul Woodward 11.13.2007

Who’s the Enemy? By Robert Dreyfuss, TomDispatch, November 11, 2007 Who is the enemy? Who, exactly, are we fighting in Iraq? Why are we there? And what’s our objective? Nearly five years into the war, the answers to basic questions like these ought to be obvious. In the Alice in Wonderland-like wilderness of mirrors that [...]

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FEATURE: “After we finish with al-Qaida here, we will turn toward our main enemy, the Shia militias.”

by Paul Woodward 11.10.2007

Meet Abu Abed: the U.S.’s new ally against al-Qaida By Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, The Guardian, November 10, 2007 Abu Abed, a member of the insurgent Islamic Army, has recently become the commander of the US-sponsored “Ameriya Knights”. He is one of the new breed of Sunni warlords who are being paid by the US to fight [...]

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NEWS: Displaced, bribed, killed without provocation, Iraqis look forward to economic surge

by Paul Woodward 11.09.2007

Report: 14 percent of Iraqis now displaced McClatchy, November 6, 2007 The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction offered a generally optimistic picture of security developments in Iraq in his quarterly report to Congress on Tuesday, but noted that while violence was down, one of every seven Iraqis — 14 percent of Iraq’s population — [...]

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NEWS: Gunmen in Iraq kidnap eleven tribal leaders allied with U.S.

by Paul Woodward 10.30.2007

Gunmen in Iraq kidnap eleven tribal leaders allied with U.S. By Amit R. Paley, Washington Post, October 29, 2007 Eleven tribal leaders who had banded with U.S. troops to fight the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq were kidnapped Sunday morning, the latest in a string of such attacks, fellow tribesmen said. The Shiite and [...]

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NEWS: AQI on the way out?

by Paul Woodward 10.15.2007

Al-Qaeda in Iraq reported crippled By Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, October 15, 2007 Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, head of the Joint Special Operations Command’s operations in Iraq, is the chief promoter of a victory declaration and believes that AQI has been all but eliminated, the military intelligence official said. But Adm. [...]

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NEWS AND ANALYSIS: Who killed Abdul Sattar Abu Risha?

by Paul Woodward 09.15.2007

Super-sheikh murdered by tribal rivals? By Noah Shachtman, Danger Room, September 14, 2007 An expert on Anbar’s tribal politics offers DANGER ROOM a different view. Tribal rivals, he says, are the most likely culprits. Think in tribal terms. Sheikh Sattar met with the U.S. President. This reinforced the newly-won position of the Albu Risha. A [...]

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ANALYSIS: Why the Sunnis have turned against al Qaeda

by Paul Woodward 09.15.2007

Sunni world By Marc Lynch, The American Prospect, September 13, 2007 During his visit to Iraq last week, President Bush carved out an hour to sit down with Shaykh Abd al-Sattar Abu Risha, the controversial head of the Anbar Salvation Council who had become a symbol of America’s Anbar strategy. The pictures from that photo-op [...]

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