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Iraq
Iraqis out in force for al-Hakim's burial
2009-08-30
[Al Arabiya Latest] Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets of Najaf on Saturday for the funeral of powerful Shiite politician Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, as his body arrived for burial in the southern shrine city.

Hakim's coffin, draped in an Iraqi flag, was earlier paraded in the nearby holy Shiite city of Karbala, where crowds also gathered ahead of a funeral ceremony.

Meanwhile Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki arrived in Baghdad to offer his condolences on the death of Hakim as well as recent truck bomb attacks in the capital that killed nearly 100 people.

Hakim, 60, who died in a Tehran hospital on Wednesday after a 28-month battle against lung cancer, was hailed as "leader of the fight" against the tyrannical reign of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, when his body arrived home on Friday.

Iraqi leaders and other officials gathered at Baghdad airport to receive his body from Iran. Some sobbed audibly, and flowers were thrown on Hakim's coffin as it was carried off the plane.

A sea of people, some waving black banners, walked alongside Hakim's hearse towards a revered Shiite mosque in Baghdad.

The former head of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), Iraq's largest Shiite political party, was one of the principal leaders in exile of the opposition to Saddam, who waged a devastating 1980-88 war against Iran.

In 1982, Hakim helped to establish an opposition movement in Iran against Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime and only returned to Iraq following the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

A scion of one of the traditional leading families among Iraq's Shiite majority, Hakim took over the leadership of his party in August 2003 after his brother Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim was assassinated in Najaf.

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Iraq
Iraqs Shiites create new alliance for election
2009-08-25
" I wish that our brothers in the Dawa party would be among us today and God willing, efforts will continue to include everyone, with Dawa at the top of the list "
Iraqi Vice President and ISCI member Adel Abdul-Mehdi
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iraq's leading Shiite coalition, the biggest group in parliament, announced a new alliance on Monday for January's general election, while Abdel Aziz al-Hakim's son announced that the country's Shiite leader has been admitted to a Tehran hospital.

The grouping includes members of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), supporters of radical anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, as well as a large number of independent candidates.

The new Iraqi National Alliance will replace the United Iraqi Alliance, which was created for the 2005 election and which once consisted of all Shiite parties.

No reason was given publicly for the exclusion of Maliki's Dawa party but the increasingly assertive prime minister had demanded a greater say in the alliance and also insisted the coalition be broadened to include more Sunnis and Kurds. "I wish that our brothers in the Dawa party would be among us today and God willing, efforts will continue to include everyone, with Dawa at the top of the list," Iraqi Vice President and ISCI member Adel Abdul-Mehdi told reporters.
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Iraq
US Transfer of Shiite Province to Iraq Cancelled
2008-07-01
The handover of security control of the Shiite province of Diwaniyah from the US military to Iraqi forces has been cancelled, a local government official told AFP on Monday. Sheikh Ghanim Abid Dahash, spokesman for Diwanyiah provincial council, said the transfer has been postponed 'indefinitely because there is no coordination between the central government and the US forces.'

Dahash did not give details but the US military also confirmed that the transfer had been cancelled. Dahash said a curfew which was imposed in the province on Sunday evening to prevent any insurgent attacks during the handover ceremony was also lifted.

Diwaniyah, formerly known as Qadisiyah, was to be the 10th of Iraq's 18 provinces to be taken over by local forces from US-led foreign troops, amid a push to transfer security control of the entire country back to Baghdad.

Diwaniyah has often been rocked by infighting as rival Shiite militias vie for supremacy. The province has seen fierce clashes between supporters of anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his rival Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council.

Last November, Iraqi and US troops launched a major military assault in Diwaniyah to stabilise the region of around one million people. More than 3,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen supported by tanks and hundreds of US and Polish troops took part in the assault to flush out Shiite militants from the province's capital. Nearly 100 militants were detained during the operation, many of them loyal to Sadr.
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Iraq
Sadr orders fighters off Iraq streets
2008-03-30
Iraq's radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Sunday ordered his fighters off the streets, paving the way for an end to clashes with security forces that have killed hundreds of people. "We want the Iraqi people to stop this bloodshed and maintain Iraq's independence and stability," Sadr said in a statement with his seal released by his headquarters in the holy city of Najaf.
On accounta our motives are pure as driven snow. And stuff.
"Please don't kill us!"
"For that we have decided to withdraw from the streets of Basra and all other provinces."

Sadr's latest call came after six days of fighting between Shiite fighters and Iraqi forces in the southern port city of Basra, Baghdad and several other Shiite regions that have killed at least 270 people.

He said he took the decision as it was his "legitimate responsibility to stop the bleeding of Iraqis, to maintain the reputation of Iraqi people, the unity of land and people, to prepare for its independence and liberation from the dark forces and to quell the fire of division by the occupier and its followers."

Sadr's call came after negotiations in Najaf that began on Saturday between representatives of his movement and the Iraqi authorities.

The Iraqi capital and Basra both remained under curfew on Sunday although there was a lull in the fighting, according to residents of affected neighbourhoods.

Maliki had given a 72-hour deadline to Shiite fighters in Basra to disarm after launching an offensive against them last Tuesday but the call was ignored by the militia. "Sadr has told us not to surrender our arms except to a state that can throw out the (US) occupation," Haider al-Jabari of the Sadr movement's political bureau told AFP on Saturday.

The same day, Maliki vowed to press on with his assault in Basra, saying the militiamen were "worse than Al-Qaeda." "Unfortunately we were talking about Al-Qaeda but there are some among us who are worse than Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is killing innocents, Al-Qaeda is destroying establishments and they (Shiite gunmen) also," he said.

Basra, Iraq's crucial oil hub, is the focus of a turf war between the Mahdi Army and two rival Shiite factions -- the powerful Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) of Abdel Aziz al-Hakim and the smaller Fadhila party. The stand-off there has spread to other Shiite areas of Iraq, including the sprawling Shiite neighbourhood of Baghdad's Sadr City, the bastion of Sadr loyalists.

Pedestrians and vehicles stayed off the streets of the Iraqi capital for a third straight day of curfew, while Basra was relatively calm, residents said.

On Sunday, the US military acknowledged that its ground troops had started participating in the Basra assault. A team of American special forces joined the battle in Basra, combining with Iraqi troops in an operation that killed 22 militants on Saturday, the military said. The joint operation was in a known "criminal stronghold" in western Basra, a US military statement said.

US and British forces have said they have been giving air support to operations since Tuesday.

British troops have deployed outside their base on the edge of Basra in support of the Iraqi operations, British military spokesman Major Tom Holloway said on Sunday. "There are no plans for our troops to enter the city. We are providing other forms of support," he told AFP. This includes air support and surveillance as well as logistical back-up including refuelling helicopters and supplying ammunition and medical supplies.
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Iraq
Sadr orders militia to reject PM's call to surrender arms
2008-03-29
Radical Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Saturday ordered his followers to reject Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's call to surrender their arms as clashes with troops raged for a fifth straight day. "Sadr has told us not to surrender our arms except to a state that can throw out the (US) occupation," Haider al-Jabari of the Sadr movement's political bureau told AFP in the holy city of Najaf, home to the cleric's main office.
Well okay, I guess we can kill a few hundred more of your hard boyz and then ask you again to surrender your arms.
On Wednesday, Maliki gave a 72-hour deadline to Shiite fighters, mostly Mahdi Army militants loyal to the anti-American cleric, to disarm in the southern city of Basra after launching a crackdown against them a day earlier.

The deadline for surrendering heavy and medium weaponry in return for money expired on Friday. After the militia put up stiff resistance, Maliki extended it until April 8.
Bad move. Leave the deadline as it was and let everyone know you're happy to pry their heavy weapons from their cold, dead fingers ...
The crackdown on areas controlled by Sadr's militia has severely strained a freeze of Mahdi Army activities the cleric ordered last August. Since Tuesday, violence has raged across Shiite regions of Iraq, with nearly 260 people killed as Shiite fighters clashed with troops. Most of the casualties were in Sadr City, Basra, the southern city of Nasiriyah and the central cities of Kut and Hilla.
And now, the reporter segues to other news:
On Saturday, the clashes spread to other parts of the country. They erupted in the central Shiite city of Karbala where 12 "criminals" were killed, local police chief Raed Jawdat Shakir said, adding that another 25 people were arrested overnight. The death toll from similar clashes between Shiite gunmen and Iraqi and US troops in Baghdad's sprawling Sadr City, stronghold of the Mahdi Army, rose to at least 75, with another 498 people reported wounded.

"Seventy-five people have been killed and 498 wounded in clashes in Sadr City in the last four days," Qassim Mohammed, a spokesman for Baghdad health directorate, told reporters in Sadr City. He accused American forces of "creating obstacles" in transporting victims of the violence to safety.
I think we need a new spokescritter for the health directorate ...
Sadr City has been wracked by fierce clashes between security forces and the militiamen since the crackdown began in Basra.

Ahmed, a resident of the slum neighbourhood of some two million people, said the situation was deteriorating. "The hospitals are overflowing with wounded. They can't take any more. Even the medical stores are closed," he said. "There is no electricity, no water or fuel. We are afraid of gunbattles. The main markets are also closed."
No problem Ahmed, listen carefully to the nice young American and Iraqi soldiers, do as you're asked to do, and it'll be over in a couple days.
A top Sadr aide in eastern Baghdad, Salman al-Afraiji, told AFP several Iraqi soldiers had come to the cleric's Sadr City office and offered to lay down their own weapons. "We told them they should keep their arms. We gave them a Koran and they went back," he said.

An AFP photographer said US-led coalition warplanes bombed the Al-Baath neighbourhood of northwest Basra early on Saturday, killing at least eight people. Several more people were feared killed, he added.

There were two more strikes later in the day, British Major Tom Holloway said, adding that at least 50 people had been killed in Basra and another 300 wounded since the fighting started.

Clashes also continued on the ground in Basra. "Last night we continued our operations in all areas of Basra," an Iraqi army officer told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding that the crackdown will continue until "we have arrested all criminals."

The city is the focus of a turf war between the Mahdi Army and two rival Shiite factions -- the powerful Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) of Abdel Aziz al-Hakim and the smaller Fadhila party.
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Iraq
Hakim confident Iraqi forces can keep order in Basra
2007-12-16
BAGHDAD - One of Iraq’s most influential Shia figures has said he is confident the country’s security forces will be able to maintain order in the mainly Shia province of Basra, which is to be handed over by British troops on Sunday. Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, who heads the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) -- a mainstay of the governing coalition of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki -- also told AFP in an interview on Saturday he continued to seek the departure of all foreign troops. “I do not see any forewarnings of violence in Basra,” Hakim said. “The Iraqi government has announced that security will be in Iraqi hands, and that will be done from tomorrow.”

On Wednesday, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the handover had been decided because Iraqi forces were ready to take over control of Basra. “Our security forces are at a good level” and Iraq’s forces can manage “security in the province,” he said.

British Major General Graham Binns, head of coalition forces in southeastern Iraq, recently said the violence in Basra had plummeted. “I’m confident the current level of violence is sufficient for the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) to handle,” Binns said.
Bad boys must understand that if violence spikes upwards it will require the intervention of American troops, whose methods are .. different .. than those of the Brits. They really don't want us in Basra.
Speaking himself about the situation, Hakim said: “There are meetings between these forces, and if there is competition between them, that is the nature of democracy, and political competition will not turn into violence.”
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Iraq
US-Iraq forces plan new assault on Shia city
2007-11-07
BAGHDAD - Iraqi and US forces are planning a military assault to take control of the central Shiite city of Diwaniyah, half of which is in the grip of militants, a top Iraqi official said on Tuesday.

“A widespread security operation will be launched soon in Diwaniyah with multinational forces to restore state control over the city,” said Sheikh Hussain al-Khalidi, head of the provincial council of Qadisiyah, the province of which Diwaniyah is the capital. Diwaniyah, 180 kilometres (110 miles) south of Baghdad, is witnessing a raging Shiite turf war between fighters loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and powerful politician Abdel Aziz al-Hakim.

Khalidi said the assault is necessary because gunmen have controlled half of the city for the past year. “The operation will be strong and fast. I appeal to the people of Diwaniyah to be patient as there could be some difficulties caused by the military operation. Our intent is to bring stability,” Khalidi told AFP.

Diwaniyah has seen a series of high-level political assassinations that have spread panic among its 1.1 million people. In August, the governor of Qadisiyah and the police chief were assassinated in a roadside bomb attack on their way back to Diwaniyah. Governor Khalil Jamil Hamza was a member of Hakim’s Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council party that sits in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s ruling coalition.

The militants have also regularly clashed with security forces and last year dozens of casualties were sustained on both sides in a particularly fierce battle.

US and Iraqi forces had launched a series of military operations in the city, but have been unable to restore complete government control.
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Iraq
Iraqi party for Shiite 'revolution' changes name
2007-05-13
One of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite political parties dropped the word “revolution” from its name on Saturday in an apparent attempt to keep its distance from Iran. The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) will henceforth be known as the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq. Party leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, a top Shiite cleric, announced the name change at a news conference called to confirm his re-election at the head of the party, which is part of Iraq’s ruling coalition.

“Revolution means change. This is what we sought from the creation of the Council,” Hakim told reporters, explaining that the fall of former dictator Saddam Hussein had made the revolutionary tag obsolete. “The Council participated in realising political changes in Iraq, the most important of which was regime change. So this word became unnecessary,” he said, flanked by Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi, a SCIRI member.

Hakim and his brother, the late Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim, founded SCIRI as an opposition movement in exile in Iraq’s Shiite neighbour Iran in 1982, under the protection of Tehran’s Islamic regime. “Maybe it’s part of distancing themselves from the past. They were founded in Iran after the revolution there and the situation has changed a lot since then,” Kurdish legislator Mahmud Othman told AFP.

Joost Hiltermann, Iraq analyst at the International Crisis Group, said: “Despite being the largest Shiite party, SCIRI has always been unpopular. It has never had much popular support because of its past. “It was created by the Iranian secret services in the 1980s and so it has a lot of political baggage. It wants to disassociate itself from Khomeini’s revolution and from Iran in general,” he explained.
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Iraq
Shiites use festival to call for autonomous area
2006-09-10
KARBALA: Pilgrims left the Shiite holy city of Karbala on Saturday after the peaceful end of a major festival where their leaders reaffirmed controversial calls for an autonomous region like that of the Kurds in northern Iraq. Prominent Shiite leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim used the celebration of the birth of the Mahdi, a 9th century Shiite imam, to renew his call for an autonomous Shiite region in central and southern Iraq - something the nation's once dominant Sunni Arab minority fears.

"Federalism will lead to stability and security in Iraq," Hakim told worshippers during the main weekly prayers in Karbala. Hakim leads the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the most powerful parties in the ruling coalition. "We support it strongly because it would keep dictatorship from happening again - all are entitled to enjoy federalism," he said.
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Iraq
SCIRI favour amnesty for American slayers
2006-07-04
BAGHDAD: Iraq's dominant Shiite leaders appeared divided on Monday over Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's much-touted national reconciliation plan that aims to curb violence by offering amnesty to rebels. Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the powerful head of parliament's largest bloc, told AFP he favoured extending an amnesty to insurgents who may have killed US troops, an idea strongly opposed by Maliki.

"Yes they should be covered regardless of their religious or ethnic affiliations," Hakim said when asked if he would support extending the reconciliation and amnesty plan to those who may have attacked or killed US-led troops. Hakim's comments came a day after the Iraqi government issued a new list of 41 "most wanted" terrorists including exiled members of the family of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein. His position contradicts the stance of Maliki, who said on Wednesday there would be no amnesty for those who killed US troops, foreigners and journalists.
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Iraq
Zarqawi planned to ignite regional sectarian violence, inter-Shi'ite war
2006-06-13
Slain Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi aimed to trigger a bloody regional Shia-Sunni conflict, state television reported Monday, as the US military prepared to reveal results of the autopsy on his corpse.

Iraq’s state television Al-Iraqiya quoted the documents seized from his bombed safe house as saying Zarqawi planned to create a war between the Shias of Iraq and the Sunni Arabs in the Gulf.

It said he aimed to create divisions within the Shia community and between “Shias and Americans and between Iraqi Shia politicians Ahmed Chalabi and Iyad Allawi,” the former pro-Western premier of Iraq.

He also had his eyes set on igniting a conflict between powerful Iraqi Shia politician Abdel Aziz al-Hakim and fiery Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the report said.

He also planned to infiltrate the security forces in Iraq by getting his men join the forces during recruitment camps, the report added. The documents however also acknowledged the growing might of security forces and the increased pressures the insurgents faced while operating in Iraq, the report added.

Zarqawi and five others were killed in a US air raid on a safe house near the restive city of Baquba on Wednesday.
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Iraq
Debka: 35,000 Palestinians expelled from Baghdad
2006-04-22
The last evictions were carried out by the Shiite Wolves Brigade (picture) Thursday, April 20. According to DEBKA’s sources most of the Palestinians fled to Sunni Muslim sanctuaries in northern Iraq including Samarra and Falujja. For some weeks, 2,000-3,000 Palestinians have been stranded in tents set up in the desert on the Iraqi side of the Jordanian border. Jordan refuses to let them enter.

DEBKAfile adds: The Wolves Brigade is regarded as the most effective and savage of Iraqi militias. Formally it is part of the interior ministry’s security forces, but in actually fact it is an armed branch of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq –SCIRI, one of the two major Shiite parties which is led by Abdel Aziz al Hakim. Its commander goes under the nom de guerre of Abu Walid.

Our Iraqi sources add that the expulsion of the Palestinians is part of the Shiite campaign to purge Baghdad of Sunni Muslims without official Iraqi or American interference. The Wolves have now moved to the southern Baghdad’s Dora to carry on driving out Sunni residents. This campaign has finally put paid to the four-month effort to establish a national government shared by Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis.
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