Arab News Blog

WRAP: Bombs target provincial councillor, police officer near Baghdad, several women and children wounded.
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Iraqi asylum seekers deported from the UK to Baghdad were beaten by guards during their removal, deportees tell the BBC.
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An attack on the Iraqi Central Bank building in Baghdad killed 15 people and leaves more than 50 injured.
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POLITICO/ here

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Iraq’s electoral commission upholds parliamentary election results in and around Baghdad after a partial recount.
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Green Zone checkpoint. Photo by Iraq.ir.

One of my first days back in Baghdad, I tagged along with a 
photographer to go cover the handover of a small base from the 
Americans to the Iraqis up in northeast Baghdad.

I’d been in the neighborhood years ago on an embed and I was curious 
how it might have changed, and of course it was a chance to get out of 
the bureau and cruise a bit more around Baghdad.

We never made it.

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Iraqi officials say seven people have died and 20 more have been hurt in a car bomb outside a cafe in Baghdad.
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AP is reporting that the wave of bombings and attacks throughout Iraq on Monday is now estimated to have killed 119 persons. Although some analysts are attempting to tie the attacks to the failure of Iraq’s political class to form a government, thus creating a vacuum, I do not see it that way. The attacks do not speak to the weakness of the Iraqi government, but to a) the continued strength of the guerrillas and b) to poor security procedures at the local level. The al-Hayat article cited below quotes an official saying that the security men at the Hilla factory should not have allowed unidentified trucks to park outside it. One take-away is that the US military concentration on killing guerrilla leaders or ‘high value targets’ is not entirely effective. To the extent that the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement is a movement and not just a small organization, it is very difficult to stop it with mere assassinations of individuals.

The biggest casualty tolls came from bombings near a Shiite mosque and in a market in the southern port city of Basra, and at a state-owned textile factory in Shiite-majority Hilla, south of Baghdad. The massive death toll is reminiscent of Iraq’s worst days, in 2006-2007, and proof that the guerrilla cells among dissident Sunni Arabs, whether fundamentalists or secular Arab nationalists, are still highly organized and motivated to undermine the new, Shiite-dominated political order in Iraq.

The bombings had a symbolic side to them. A state-owned textile factory in Hilla generates employment and income for Shiites and ensures their loyalty to the Baghad government. Many of the state-owned economic enterprises in the Sunni Arab areas of Iraq were allowed to collapse by the American government of Iraq, then headed by viceroy Paul Bremer. Sunni Arabs were thrown into unemployment in the tens of thousands, both by American neoliberalism and by the ‘debaathification’ campaign of Ahmad Chalabi and Nuri al-Maliki (now spearheaded by the ‘Justice and Accountability Committee’). In that light, to have al-Maliki heading up a government that provides work at a textile factory for Shiites in Hilla is galling to Sunni Arab militants. Likewise, the Shiite-majority riverside port city of Basra is Iraq’s window on the world, and its Shiite fundamentalist militias have often targeted Sunni institutions and harmed other minorities. Basra province is a major oil-producing and refining center doing bids with foreign oil corporations. Being deep in the Shiite south, it had been considered a difficult target for the Sunni Arab guerrilla cells of the north.

Likewise, a Husayniya or Shiite religious center was bombed in Suwayra near Baghdad, killing 11, and police and army checkpoints throughout Baghdad were attacked with light arms and bombings.

There was also violence in the Sunni north. In Mosul, bombers killed two Peshmerga, members of the Kurdish paramilitary. Arabs and Kurds are competing for influence in Kirkuk, Mosul and Diyala provinces.

These bombings signal that the Sunni Arab cells, full of men with military, munitions and tactical training, are still determined to resist the new, American-imposed order, which is led by the Shiites and the Kurds..

Al-Hayat [Life] reports in Arabic that the attacks were claimed by the Iraqi Hamas, a Sunni fundamentalist organization founded after the US invasion in 2003, which had earlier been aligned with the ’1920 Revolution Brigades.’ The latter guerrilla group was close ideologically to the Muslim Scholars Association. Iraqi Hamas is now, however, said to have developed its own paramilitary capability.

Aljazeera English has a video report on the violence during the first half of the day on Monday:

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At least 21 people are killed and scores wounded in early morning drive-by attacks in Baghdad, and a series of bombings outside the Iraqi capital.
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The pan-Arab London daily al-Hayat [Life] reports in Arabic that sources close to the two major Shiite coalitions have revealed that they will form a 10-person committee of “wise men” to choose the country’s prime minister.

The “wise men” will consist of or include prominent Shiite clerics chosen by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of the Shiites, according to AP.

The move comes in the wake of the sudden announcement the night before last that the Iraqi National Alliance (Sadrists, Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, some others) and the State of Law (Islamic Mission Party or Da’wa and some others) will form a broad coalition. The step gives them a combined tally of 159 of 325 seats in parliament, only 4 short of the 51% required to form a government on the second ballot and then to rule effectively. Likely they will nevertheless seek to form a government of national unity.

The secular Iraqiya list, for which most Sunni Arabs voted denounced the move as having been orchestrated by Iran and returning Iraq to the sway of sectarian religious parties. But Iraqiya failed to form a government in its own right in part because of frictions between Sunni Arabs in the North and Kurds in the East, over the division of spoils.

The Shiite religious parties denied that they had already fixed on former prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari, who was widely viewed as ineffectual in 2005-2006. Still, the announcement of the new coalition was made in Jaafari’s house in Baghdad, which is unlikely to be completely without significance.

The clerical committee will choose among Ibrahim Jaafari, Adil Abdul Mahdi (current vice president and member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq), Baqir Jabr and incumbent PM Nuri al-Maliki. Al-Maliki is fiercely disliked by the Sadr Movement, which controls some 40 seats in the new parliament, because he deployed the Iraqi military against their Mahdi Army militiamen in 2008. Some major clerics in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala have also been extremely fierce critics of al-Maliki.

The Iraqi National Movement or Iraqiya, headed by former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi, denounced the Shiite super-coalition as a return to the bad old days of sectarian rule (i.e. 2005-2010) and said it was a move intended to exclude their party.

Still, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, headed by Ammar al-Hakim, insisted that it would not serve in any government that excluded any major party.

The communique from the new partners said, “An agreement has been reached on the formation of the largest parliamentary bloc, via the alliance of these two [Shiite religious] coalitions. This is a basic step intended to create an opening toward other national forces.”

Aljazeera English has video:

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