News from Middle East

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Iraqi commandos attack Palestinian refugees, arrest 1 (Omar Ghraieb) - 29-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - Commandos of the Iraqi Interior Ministry raided on Tuesday evening the compound of Palestinians’ Association in the Iraqi occupied capital of Baghdad. According to the Association of Palestinians in Iraq in a press statement they issued, Iraqi forces intruded and arrested one of the Palestinians and called for a group of refugees to surrender to it. The Iraqi commandos used live bullets while raiding his apartment, sparking panic and fear among Palestinian refugees, especially children and women, according to the statement...

Villagers Rebuild Razed Bedouin Village (Providence Knolls and Tania Kepler) - 29-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - "We successfully rebuilt all the structures and tents destroyed, noted Dr. Awad Abu Freih, spokesperson of the el Araqib village and member of the el Araqib Popular Committee and the Arab Education Forum in the Negev. In a conversation with the AIC, Dr. Abu Freih stated that the residents of el Araqib "plan on building more than what was destroyed, in an attempt to prevent future demolitions." Over 300 Bedouins, mainly children, were forcefully removed from their village Tuesday morning (27 July) as they watched the Israeli police destroy their homes and property. The raid began at about 4:30 in the morning and residents woke up surrounded by a huge force of 1,500 police with guns, stun grenades, helmets and shields, including hundreds of Special Riot Police as well as mounted police, helicopters and bulldozers...

Document Reveals Military Was Concerned About Gulf War Vets' Exposure to Depleted Uranium (Mike Ludwig) - 29-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - For years, the government has denied that depleted uranium (DU), a radioactive toxic waste left over from nuclear fission and added to munitions used in the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars, poisoned Iraqi civilians and veterans. But a little-known 1993 Defense Department document written by then-Brigadier Gen. Eric Shinseki, now the secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), shows that the Pentagon was concerned about DU contamination and the agency had ordered medical testing on all personnel that were exposed to the toxic substance.....

NYT’s Ignores Documents Showing Large Numbers of Unreported Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan: “We Know All That.” (PostMan) - 29-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - The New York Times continues to downplay the human rights abuses, amounting in some instances to war crimes, documented in classified reports that were released to them by Wikileaks. In contrast to the Guardian and Der Spiegel, the NYT’s failed to highlight the many accounts of atrocities committed by U.S. and coalition troops in the paper’s recent coverage. The Guardian’s article on the Wikileaks’ document release begins: A huge cache of secret U.S. military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents...

British politicians and media dismiss WikiLeaks details of Afghanistan war crimes (By Julie Hyland) - 29-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - Britain’s political elite are attempting to play down the so-called Afghan War Diary—the 92,000 documents published by WikiLeaks, details of which are being serialised in the Guardian newspaper. For nine years Britain’s ruling circles have presented the intervention in Afghanistan as a fight for the "hearts and minds" of the Afghan people. In the face of widespread public opposition to the occupation, both the Labour government and now the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition have insisted that it is morally and politically justifiable. The documents published by WikiLeaks—consisting of battlefield reports written by US army personnel—expose such claims as lies. They lift the lid on just some of the terror and violence routinely meted out against the Afghan people...

A helicopter crashes in Iraq (The Common Ills) - 29-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - A few decades on down the line, history will probably include all the many helicopter crashes in Iraq that crashed due to rebel/resistance attacks. Today, we instead get 'hard landings' (that was hugely popular for years with the press) and 'sandstorms.' Sinah Salaheddin (AP) wants to share this morning that 6 people are dead from an Iraqi helicopter crash due to, yes, "a sandstorm." ("A sandstorm downed an Iraqi military helicopter . . .") Could it have been a sandstorm? Yes, it could have. I wasn't there. (Though I did have the weirdest dream last night/this morning about Jane Arraf being in Mosul and having difficulty taking photos of an explosion.) So what's the problem. I'd say this is the problem (from the same report): " The crash is under investigation, and no other details were immediately available, al-Askari said." When a crash is under investigation, the reasons for the crash are not known...

Settler violence flares in West Bank (Omar Karmi) - 29-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - Settler violence in occupied territory has resurfaced in recent days, even as pressure is growing on Palestinians to start direct negotiations, regardless of any extension to a partial Israeli settlement construction freeze currently in force. On Monday, settlers from the far-right Yitzhar settlement near Nablus ran amok in Burin, a Palestinian village in the area, burning fields and shooting at villagers. Palestinians responded by throwing rocks at the settlers, injuring four. Two villagers were also hurt in the clashes before the Israeli military intervened...

Taliban capture a NATO plane in northern Afghan province (Xinhua) - 29-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - Taliban militants captured a NATO plane in Kunduz province north of Afghanistan Wednesday morning, a local official said but declined to be named. Meantime, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed that the militants captured a reconnaissance plane in Qalai Zal district at 09:00 .a.m. local time Wednesday. An official with NATO-led forces in Kunduz province also confirmed the incident. "A reconnaissance UAD plane made emergency landing in Yangariq area of Qalai Zal district this morning," Lieutenant Colonel Weber told Xinhua...

Two Italian soldiers killed in Afghanistan (Associated Press) - 29-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - Two Italian soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan on Wednesday moments after successfully dismantling another such makeshift device, the defense ministry said. The two, members of a specialist bomb disposal team, were killed by a roadside bomb in Herat after successfully dismantling a similar device that had been pointed out to them by Afghan police, a defense ministry statement said...

Iraq: Shahristani clamps down on electricity unions (By Ben Lando) - 29-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - Weeks after taking office, acting Electricity Minister Hussain al-Shahristani over the weekend ordered all union organizing be banned from ministry facilities, and rounded up documents and computers in Basra. Shahristani, who also holds the office of oil minister where he has fought oil-field workers in like fashion, issued his directives after the inspector general declared illegal any union organizing on ministry property...Falah Alwan, president of the Federation of Workers’ Councils and Unions in Iraq, called accusations against workers "excuses to oppress the unions." "This move is a continuing campaign against the unions, unionists and workers by using threats to terrify them. It is a move which undermines the democracy in the country, if there some left," he said...

One day after WikiLeaks exposures of US war crimes
Congress ratifies Obama escalation of Afghanistan war (By Patrick Martin) - 29-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - Little more than 24 hours after the release of 91,000 documents detailing US military atrocities in Afghanistan, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives gave final approval to a funding bill to pay for the escalation of the war. By a margin of 308-114, well over the two-thirds majority required under an expedited procedure known as "suspension of the rules," the House backed a $60 billion supplemental funding bill passed by the Senate last week. More than half the Democratic caucus joined forces with a near-unanimous Republican minority to pass the bill. The comfortable two-thirds majority was significant since 162 Democrats voted earlier this month for a resolution to require the Obama administration to begin significant troop withdrawals by July 2011...

Audit reveals billions of dollars of Iraqi oil funds gone missing (Martin Chulov in Baghdad) - 29-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - The US department of defence has called in forensic accountants to help track $8.1bn (Ł5.2bn) of $9.1bn in Iraq's oil revenue entrusted to it after the fall of Baghdad, following an official audit that revealed the money was missing. The funds were to be used for spending on reconstruction during 2004-07, a period when Iraq was under weak transitional rule. The report was issued today by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which had previously criticised poor book-keeping by senior officials throughout the last seven years...

A record of war crimes (Bill Van Auken) - 29-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - The tens of thousands of documents posted online by WikiLeaks Sunday have provided a detailed and searing indictment of a criminal colonial war that the Obama administration has made its own. In its sheer volume—92,000 documents, 200,000 pages—the so-called Afghan War Diary makes an incontrovertible case that for nearly nine years the US military has conducted a campaign of terror and deadly violence against the Afghan people. Consisting of battlefield reports written by US soldiers and officers, the documents record the deaths of civilians resulting from air strikes on their homes and the killing of Afghans on motorcycles and in cars and buses by trigger-happy troops manning roadblocks...

Video: Israel cracks down on dissent (AlJazeera.net) - 29-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - The Israeli parliament is considering several new laws that could seriously impact the ability of citizens to criticise the government, according to rights groups. Human Rights Watch is reporting a crackdown on political activists who criticise Israeli's treatment of the Palestinians. In what rights groups consider part of an alarming pattern, Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency, recently admitted to spying on a young Australian activist in the West Bank...

US hopes for Iran nuclear talks (AlJazeera.net) - 29-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - The United States has said it hopes to hold talks with Iran soon and would be prepared to follow up on a plan to provide fuel for Iran's research reactor in exchange for low-enriched uranium. The plan was mooted in Geneva last October at a meeting between Iranian officials and senior diplomats from the five permanent UN Security Council members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - along with Germany...

West Bank Bedouins worse off than Gazans (IRIN News) - 29-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - The road to al-Hadidiya village in the northeastern West Bank district of Tubas is dotted with boulders etched with a warning in Hebrew, Arabic and English: "Danger - Open Fire Area". The boulders arrived about six months ago, and are positioned at the entrance to Palestinian villages, indicating that chunks of the Jordan Valley have become a closed military zone claimed by the Israeli army. They signal a further squeeze on the Bedouin communities here. Shepherd Abdul Rahim Bsharat, 59, and his family have lived and farmed in al-Hadidiya since the 1960s. At that time, he said, there were 400-500 families there. Now, there are 17, who stay on despite having no access to water or electricity. Every building in the village has an Israeli demolition order on it...

Hungry Like the Wolf: Obama's Legacy of Hope and Change in Honduras (Chris Floyd) - 28-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - In the first year of his presidency, the first year of the "hope and change" he promised to bring to the conduct of American affairs, Barack Obama countenanced -- and abetted -- a coup in Honduras that ousted a mildly reformist, democratically elected president and replaced him with a clique of thuggish elites who now rule, illegitimately, through repression, threat and outright murder. Since the installation of these throwbacks to the corrupt and brutal 'banana republics' of yore, Obama's secretary of state, the "progressive" Hillary Clinton, has spent a good deal of time and effort trying to coerce Honduras' outraged neighbors in Latin America to "welcome" the thug-clique, now led by Porfirio Lobo, back into the "community of nations." ...

Iraq executed 230 people from 2005-2009 (AFP) - 28-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 — Iraq executed 230 people from 2005 to 2009 and a further 1,200 have been sentenced to death, a government spokesman said on Tuesday. Ali al-Dabbagh's remarks were in response to a UN report that said 12,000 people had been sentenced to die in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion, which the UN has since admitted was a typographical error. "According to Iraqi judicial reports, there have been a total of 1,254 death sentences, where there is still the option to appeal, and there were 230 executions between 2005 and 2009," he said in a statement...

Bedouin village razed in Negev as Israelis cheer on (Report, The Electronic Intifada) - 28-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - Early morning on 27 July, Israeli bulldozers, flanked by helicopters and throngs of police, demolished the entire Bedouin village of al-Araqib in the northern Negev desert. Despite their land rights cases still pending in the court system, hundreds of al-Araqib villagers were instantly made homeless a month after Israeli police posted demolition orders. Eyewitness reports say the police were accompanied by several busloads of right-wing Israeli civilians who cheered during the demolitions. The Electronic Intifada spoke with Dr. Yeela Ranaan of the Regional Council for Unrecognized Villages (RCUV) in the Negev, who was in al-Araqib all day long during the demolitions...

WikiLeaks “Afghan War Diaries” (by Stephen Lendman) - 28-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - Calling itself "the intelligence agency of the people," WikiLeaks is "a multi-juristidictional public service designed to protect whistleblowers, journalists and activists who have sensitive material to communicate to the public" that has a right and need to know — to then use responsibly for better government in a free and open society, absent in today’s America run by warlords, criminal politicians, and corporate bosses, spurning the rule of law for their own gain....

Ethnic cleansing in the Israeli Negev (Neve Gordon) - 28-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - A menacing convoy of bulldozers was heading back to Be'er Sheva as I drove towards al-Arakib, a Bedouin village located not more than 10 minutes from the city. Once I entered the dirt road leading to the village I saw scores of vans with heavily armed policemen getting ready to leave. Their mission, it seems, had been accomplished. The signs of destruction were immediately evident. I first noticed the chickens and geese running loose near a bulldozed house, and then saw another house and then another one, all of them in rubble. A few children were trying to find a shaded spot to hide from the scorching desert sun, while behind them a stream of black smoke rose from the burning hay. The sheep, goats and the cattle were nowhere to be seen – perhaps because the police had confiscated them....

Hans Blix and the Whitewash testimony (The Common Ills) - 28-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - Hans Blix's testimony yesterday to the Iraq Inquiry was a joke... The headline from yesterday's testimony should have been "Blix Backs Bush's Argument for the War." That's what he did. From one moment to the next. He is the most inconsistent witness and the peace movement would do well to never make arguments based upon him again. If your argument is that inspections should have continued, you had some support in his statements. But so did George W. Bush. Should inspections have continued? In retrospect, he believes they should have. And in real time? He wanted them to go on through April. At one point in his testimony. He wanted them to go on for months, at another point. He wanted armed inspectors to roam through Iraq for years, he offered at another point. With his meandering and ever changing opinions, Bush could well argue that what Blix did find (no WMD, no real violations but some small issues) and Blix' refusal to clear Iraq and say they had no WMD, his move was forced. Was he forced? Of course not. It's an illegal war. And it's a war of choice. It's in violation of the UN charter and every international law -- including those the US has signed on to. But if your argument is based on Blix, Bush can shoot back, "Blix supported me!" Because Blix' wishy-washy b.s. does just that...

Exclusive: After Revealing Afghan War Secrets, Wikileaks Prepares Document Dumps on Iraq and Diplomacy (Newsweek) - 28-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - While the world has begun picking through the 90,000 classified reports on U.S. military activity in Afghanistan obtained and released by freedom-of-information Web site Wikileaks, Declassified has learned that tens of thousands of additional U.S. government documents—including military reports relating to the Iraq War and State Department diplomatic cables—may surface in forthcoming document dumps. Two sources familiar with material currently in the hands of Wikileaks, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, said on Monday that the next subject to be featured in media revelations based on documents leaked to Wikileaks was likely to be U.S. conduct of the Iraq War...

WikiLeaks Iraq Cache More Than Three Times As Big (Newsweek) - 28-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - The cache of classified U.S. military reports on the Iraq War as yet unreleased by WikiLeaks may be more than three times as large as the set of roughly 76,000 similar reports on the war in Afghanistan made public by the whistle-blower Web site earlier this week, Declassified has learned. Three sources familiar with the Iraq material in WikiLeaks hands, requesting anonymity to discuss what they described as highly sensitive information, say it’s similar to this week’s Afghanistan material, consisting largely of field reports from U.S. military personnel and classified no higher than the "secret" level...

Palestinian prisoners protest inhumane Israeli punishment (Middle East Monitor) - 28-jul-2010

July 28, 2010 - Palestinian prisoners protest inhumane Israeli punishmentThe Ministry of Prisoner Affairs for the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has warned of an 'explosion' of the situation within Israeli prisons, given the systemic conduct of collective punishment of detainees exercised in most Israeli jails. In a press release issued on Monday (26.07.2010), the ministry stated that the management of Israel's Prison Service continues to enforce repressive policies against Palestinian detainees who have in turn responded by escalating their active objection. The ministry's lawyers explained that all detainees of the Ramon prison have recently begun a partial hunger strike in protest at the sudden campaign of carrying out night searches...