Kyi Yo
04-04-2008, 04:59 PM
Iraqi PM Halts Raids on Shia Forces
In Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has ordered a nationwide freeze on raids against Shia fighters. The move follows last week’s US-Iraqi offensive that killed more than 500 people in Basra and Baghdad.
http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=344986
Official: 1,000 Iraqis Deserted Anti-Shia Crackdown
The freeze also comes as a senior Iraqi official has told the New York Times more than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers abandoned their posts during the operations. The Bush administration had touted the offensive as proof of US success in training Iraqi forces. The 1,000 desertions include more than 100 officers, among them the commander and deputy commander of an entire brigade. Meanwhile, the US military continues daily air strikes around Iraq. On Thursday, six people were killed and fifteen wounded when US forces fought Shia militants in Hilla. A local resident said a US bombing killed civilians.
Hilla resident: “They were innocent people who worked on transporting the wounded from a place that had been targeted by US-led forces. At the time they were taking the wounded to the hospital, the US-led forces bombed the area, killing a number of our brothers, bodyguards in Babil health office, soldiers and policemen in Babil.”
Earlier today, at least fifteen people were killed and eight wounded when a suicide bomber struck a police funeral in the town of Sadiya, north of Baghdad.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/world/middleeast/04iraq.html?_r=1&ex=1364961600&en=3412ef444ed63c5c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin
KBR Faces New Rape Allegations in Iraq
Another female employee of the military contractor KBR has come forward with rape allegations in Iraq. In an interview with The Nation magazine, a woman identified by the pseudonym Lisa Smith says two colleagues raped her at a southern Iraqi military base in January. Smith says a supervisor told her to “keep quiet” or face danger. Last year, former KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones sued KBR and its former parent company Halliburton after she says she was gang-raped by employees of the company in Baghdad. Jones has said that thirty-eight other women have come forward to privately recount their own stories of sexual harassment and abuse while working in Iraq. A criminal probe into Jones’s case has lasted more than two-and-a-half years with no charges yet to be filed.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080421/houppert
In Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has ordered a nationwide freeze on raids against Shia fighters. The move follows last week’s US-Iraqi offensive that killed more than 500 people in Basra and Baghdad.
http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=344986
Official: 1,000 Iraqis Deserted Anti-Shia Crackdown
The freeze also comes as a senior Iraqi official has told the New York Times more than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and police officers abandoned their posts during the operations. The Bush administration had touted the offensive as proof of US success in training Iraqi forces. The 1,000 desertions include more than 100 officers, among them the commander and deputy commander of an entire brigade. Meanwhile, the US military continues daily air strikes around Iraq. On Thursday, six people were killed and fifteen wounded when US forces fought Shia militants in Hilla. A local resident said a US bombing killed civilians.
Hilla resident: “They were innocent people who worked on transporting the wounded from a place that had been targeted by US-led forces. At the time they were taking the wounded to the hospital, the US-led forces bombed the area, killing a number of our brothers, bodyguards in Babil health office, soldiers and policemen in Babil.”
Earlier today, at least fifteen people were killed and eight wounded when a suicide bomber struck a police funeral in the town of Sadiya, north of Baghdad.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/world/middleeast/04iraq.html?_r=1&ex=1364961600&en=3412ef444ed63c5c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin
KBR Faces New Rape Allegations in Iraq
Another female employee of the military contractor KBR has come forward with rape allegations in Iraq. In an interview with The Nation magazine, a woman identified by the pseudonym Lisa Smith says two colleagues raped her at a southern Iraqi military base in January. Smith says a supervisor told her to “keep quiet” or face danger. Last year, former KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones sued KBR and its former parent company Halliburton after she says she was gang-raped by employees of the company in Baghdad. Jones has said that thirty-eight other women have come forward to privately recount their own stories of sexual harassment and abuse while working in Iraq. A criminal probe into Jones’s case has lasted more than two-and-a-half years with no charges yet to be filed.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080421/houppert