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Iraq

As offensive nears, Islamic State rigs Mosul with bombs

2016-10-15

A couple days old but noted by Instapundit yesterday. Useful backgrounder on what ISIS is doing in Mosul. All this could have been prevented except for Barack Obama's ego and pride. Islamic State terrorists militants have placed booby traps across the city of Mosul, dug tunnels and recruited children as spies in anticipation of an offensive to dislodge the terrorists jihadists from their Iraqi stronghold, Iraqis and U.S. officials said. Mosul, home to up to 1.5 million people, has been the headquarters of Islamic State's self-declared caliphate in northern Iraq since 2014 and the militants are making complex preparations to prevent Iraqi security forces, backed by a U.S.-led coalition, taking it back. The battle for the city, expected later this month, will help shape the future of Iraq and the legacy of U.S. President Barack Obama. It will shape the future of Iraq, but Champ's legacy is secure, and not in a good way... Even if Islamic State is driven out, there is a real danger of sectarian strife, especially if civilian casualties are high in a mainly Sunni city wary of the Shi-ite led Iraqi government and the Shi'ite militias it depends on. The terrorists jihadists, who swept into Mosul almost unopposed two years ago as Iraqi forces shamefully fled, have rigged its five bridges with explosives, prepared car bombs and suicide attackers and stepped up surveillance, according to four residents who spoke via telephone or social media. "They are digging in to fight for Mosul. They are more cautious, shaving their beards to blend in with the population and constantly moving their headquarters around," said former finance and foreign minister Hoshiyar Zebari, a senior member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party with access to intelligence on Islamic State movements in Mosul. He and Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, both said the group was moving men and equipment through underground tunnels. "You see a terrorist fighter go in one place and pop up in another," said Dorrian. "The entrances are always exposed and those are a priority target." Islamic State terrorists fighters have put up concrete embankments and are using concrete T-walls to block points of entry for the attacking force, he said. Mosul residents said the terrorists militants have also dug a two meter by two meter trench around the perimeter of the city to be filled with burning oil to make air strikes more difficult. Aid groups have expressed concern over the prospect that many civilians could be killed in the fighting. About 200,000 people are expected to flee within the first two weeks of fighting, said Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq. What should Iraq do, Lise -- just give up? The planned coalition attack is part of a concerted assault that has reclaimed territory from IS in Syria, Iraq and Libya. The terrorists militants have recently lost control of the Iraqi cities of Falluja and Ramadi and are threatening to execute anyone discussing "liberation" in Mosul, according to residents and Sunni militia forces who spoke to relatives there. One resident said children as young as eight, sometimes armed with pistols and knives, have been deployed across the city to monitor and inform on the population. The children recruit other children for the same task. "It’s a really heartbreaking scene to see Mosul’s kids becoming future terrorists. I taught my seven-year-old son all about autism to pretend he’s mentally ill to avoid being recruited by Daesh," the resident said by WhatsApp, using an Arab acronym for Islamic State. "They are desperate and they could force even children to fight once government troops are at the doors of Mosul." Other residents say they have begun using older mobile phones which cannot carry applications like Viber, WhatsApp or Facebook messenger, because Islamic State terrorists fighters are highly sensitive to the use of smart phones which make it easier to pass information about their terrorist operations to security forces. Terrorists Jihadists sit on the rooftops of tall buildings on the edge of Mosul with night-vision binoculars to watch for anyone trying to escape and terrorists fighters are making holes in the streets with jackhammers to place improvised explosive devices. "It would make it like hell if they placed bombs in each hole," one of the residents said. The campaign could either increase the chances of a unified Iraq or break it up if sectarian clashes follow as various groups compete for influence in the country's second largest city, Iraqi officials say. Well, that about covers all the possibilities... Before a single shot has been fired, Iraqi security forces have been working in Mosul to sway community leaders away from the group, a Western diplomat said. Zebari said there were signs of a nascent resistance movement in the city, where some residents have spray painted "wanted" signs on the houses of Islamic State terrorists fighters and commanders, risking death. The terrorists jihadists have started bringing women along for surprise house searches so they can check that female residents, who are not allowed to mix with men outside the family, are not hiding anything from the group. “They are desperate, they look afraid , this is the first time they use their women in searching houses," a Mosul resident, who asked not to be named for safety reasons, told Reuters over social media. "Two days ago, I rushed to my house door after hearing repeated knocks and when I opened the door I saw three women in Islamic hijab showing only their eyes with three Daesh terrorists fighters behind them," the resident said. All the residents said the terrorist group was using cranes to lower fighters beneath bridges in the city to place explosives there. "They carry out the booby trapping of the bridges during the night to avoid air strikes," said one. Some Islamic State terrorist leaders and fighters have been leaving for the town of Tal Afar, also under Islamic State terrorist control, or further on across the Syrian border, U.S. officials said. The security forces have been buoyed by victories against the group in Falluja and Ramadi, but face an additional challenge as Iraqi officials squabble over the composition of the fighting force for Mosul, Iraqi officials said. The primary goal is to keep Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias out of Mosul to avoid sectarian clashes in a Sunni-majority city. Shi'ite militias will be allowed to take the lead in operations to retake Hawija, a nearby town controlled by Islamic State terrorists, officials said. They hope that driving Islamic State from Mosul will debilitate the terrorist group, although it could still threaten Iraq. "They could go underground and carry out terrorist acts," Zebari said. "But not as an organized movement."

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Iraq

We can't retake Mosul without Kurds, says Iraqi official

2015-12-30

[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Iraqi army will need Kurdish fighters' help to retake djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , the largest city under the control of Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Iraqi Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said, with the planned offensive expected to be very challenging. Mosul, 400 km north of Baghdad, has been designated by the government as the next target for Iraq's armed forces after they retook the western city of Ramadi. "Mosul needs good planning, preparations, commitment from all the key players," Zebari, a Kurd, said in an interview on Monday in Baghdad. "Peshmerga is a major force; you cannot do Mosul without Peshmerga," he told Rooters, referring to the armed forces of Iraqi Kurdistan, an autonomous northern region close to Mosul. The mostly Sunni city had a population of two million before it fell to the murderous Moslems in June 2014 in the first stage of their sweeping advance through northern and western Iraq. The battle of Mosul would be "very, very challenging", Zebari said. "It will not be an easy operation, for some time they have been strengthening themselves, but it's doable." Given the extent of the area that needs to be secured around Mosul during the attack, the army may also need to draw, in support roles, on local Sunni forces and possibly the Shiite Popular Mobilisation, he said. The Mobilisation, known in Arabic as Hashid Shaabi, is a loosely knit coalition of Iran-backed Shi'ite militias set up to fight Islamic State. It was barred from the week-long battle to retake Ramadi to avoid tension with the Sunni population. The retaking of Ramadi by Iraq's army marked the first major success of the U.S.-trained force that initially fled in the face of Islamic State's advance 18 months ago. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Monday that ISIS would be defeated in 2016 with the army planning to move on Mosul. "We are coming to liberate Mosul and it will be the fatal and final blow to Daesh [Islamic State]," he said in speech praising the army's "victory" in Ramadi. Retaking Mosul would effectively mark the end of the caliphate proclaimed by Islamic State in adjacent Sunni areas of Iraq and Syria, according to Zebari. "It's there where His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... declared his caliphate," he said, referring to the group's leader. "It is literally their capital." The Iraqi Kurdish president, Massoud Barzani ... hereditary head of the Kurdish Democratic Party, maybe a little too close to the Medes and the Persians for most people's tastes... , discussed plans for the liberation of Mosul with Lieutenant General Tom Beckett, Britannia's senior defense adviser, in September, according to Kurdish TV Rudaw.

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Iraq

Iraq to spend 20% of 2016 budget on defense

2015-10-30

[Rudaw] Hoshiyar Zebari, Iraq's minister of finance, told Rooters on Wednesday that an estimated 20 percent of the 2016 national budget will be spent on defense, including paying and arming the Shiite militias known as Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces). The Rooters report quoted Zebari as saying that Baghdad will hire 10,000 more volunteer fighters and focus its military spending on smaller weapons and anti-mining devices in order to combat the forces of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... , or ISIS. "There has been a shift in emphasis by the government to improve the quality of the weapons that are needed for this type of war," Hoshiyar Zebari in an interview for the Rooters Middle East Investment Summit. The Hashd al-Shaabi took up arms last year at the call of top Shiite holy man Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani when ISIS was overrunning much of Iraq. Now, tens of thousands of the Iran-backed fighters are deployed across the country at times working in tandem with the Iraqi Army. Zebari's estimate on defense spending would be less than the $1 billion Baghdad allocated this year, Rooters said, with an undisclosed portion of that sum earmarked for the Hashd al-Shaabi. "I think we gave them ... about 10,000 new recruits which they have requested, but they have their budget within the security forces," he said of next year's national budget. "We will pay their salaries, we pay for their equipment, we pay for their basic war needs."

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Iraq

Life in IS-ruled Mosul under scanner

2015-01-23

[ARABNEWS] In a government building in djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , a handful of Iraqi contractors gathered to compete for a tender last month. It was the kind of routine session that happens in cities everywhere -- except here the contract was for fortifications ordered by the new rulers in town, Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... One member of the radical group grabbed a map and explained to those present what was required. "Under Islamic State's tender document, a trench two meters in depth and two meters in width needs to be dug around Mosul," said a source in the city close to the tendering process. The winning contractor will be paid the equivalent of $4,000 for each kilometer of trench, the source said. Interviews with 11 Mosul residents, several of whom fled this month, reveal how Islamic State has created a police state strong enough to weather severe popular discontent and military setbacks, including the deaths of big shots. Along with the planned trench, the bully boyz have sealed Mosul's western entrance with giant cement walls. They also blew up a bridge that Kurdish fighters could use to attack Mosul. "They will fight to the last drop of blood defending Mosul, and for them this battle could define their existence. Losing Mosul means a final defeat for Islamic State in Iraq," said a retired army general living in Mosul. In Mosul's city center, in the old provincial council building, sits Islamic State's religious court. Verdicts can be ruthless. Last week, Islamic State in Mosul posted on the Internet its version of justice: the stoning of a woman accused of adultery; two men crucified, accused of armed robbery; and two men thrown from a building for allegedly being homosexual. Islamic State runs at least four security organizations in Mosul, including traffic police and a tax force that collects revenues from businesses and individuals. The most feared groups are an elite security committee that makes special arrests and gathers intelligence; and the Islamic moral police, or Hisba. The religious code enforced by Hisba includes bans on smoking and on t-shirts with English writing. Businesses must close at prayer times; women and girls must veil their faces; and schools are segregated. The IS have forced Mosul's remaining civil servants to work in Islamic State's new government offices, which cover municipal services, energy, education, religion and health. Baghdad earmarks at least $130 million monthly to pay Mosul government employees, whether they have stayed in the city or left, said Anwar Matti Hadaya, the exiled head of the Nineveh provincial council's finance committee. Food is readily available. Meat, vegetables, bread and fruit cost the same as before, and some prices are lower than those in Baghdad. Only fuel prices are high and electricity, supplied by generators, has been cut to six hours a day. Tankers provide drinking water. Butchers must pay a tax of around $4 a day to enter slaughterhouses to buy cattle and sheep. Iraqi Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari estimates Islamic State has looted $456 million from banks in Mosul, Tikrit and Baiji since its June land grab. "Islamic State is rich," Zebari said. He predicted IS would create its own currency in the coming months.

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Iraq

ISIS kills 90 Yazidis in Sinjar

2014-08-16

The U.S. military conducted new airstrikes against Islamic militants Friday as sources tell Fox News members of the group killed 90 male members of Iraq's Yazidi minority in a northern village and kidnapped "dozens" of women and children. The Kurdish-speaking ethnic and religious group, which numbers in the hundreds of thousands in Iraq, has been persecuted in the north by Islamic State militants, with at least 500 killed prior to Friday's news, according to Iraq's human rights minister. The U.S. military said in a statement Friday that after receiving reports of civilians being attacked, U.S. forces conducted airstrikes on Islamic State vehicles in the village of Kawju. The village is located south of the village of Sinjar. "[Militants] arrived in vehicles and they started their killing this afternoon,'' senior Kurdish official Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters. "We believe it's because of their creed: convert or be killed." A Yazidi lawmaker and another senior Kurdish official also said the killings had taken place and that the women of the village were kidnapped. Iraqi and Yazidi leaders say the brutal Islamic State fighters have buried Yazidi men alive, killed children and kidnapped women to be slaves. "We have striking evidence obtained from Yazidis fleeing Sinjar and some who escaped death, and also crime scene images that show indisputably that the gangs of the Islamic States have executed at least 500 Yazidis after seizing Sinjar," Sudani told Reuters Sunday. Sinjar is the ancient home of the Yazidis, but also one of several towns captured by the Sunni militants who view the community as "devil worshipers" and demand conversion to Islam under threat of death.

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Iraq

Outgunned and untested for years, Kurdish peshmerga struggle vs IS

2014-08-14

(Reuters) - The Kurdish peshmerga fighter ran out of ammunition but saved two bullets to end his own life in case Islamic State militants caught up with him as he fled the front line in northwest Iraq. My uncle and his buddy also saved two bullets for each other in a foxhole at Wheeler Field in the days just after Pearl Harbor. After a two-month stand-off along a 1,000-kilometre (630 mile) long front, the Kurds failed their first major test, allowing the Sunni militants who want to redraw the map of the Middle East to grab more towns, oil fields and Iraq's biggest dam. The peshmerga, literally "those who confront death", had built up a reputation as fearsome warriors, but in the end they proved no match for the better-armed militants who attacked them with suicidal zeal. "They took us by surprise," said the peshmerga fighter, who asked to remain unnamed because the force had been ordered not to divulge any information about their defeat. "For every mortar round we fired, they fired 100 back. We didn't know where they were coming from. We lost contact with each other. We didn't have enough weapons. It was chaos," he told Reuters. .... The routing damaged the peshmergas' aura of invincibility as one of the only fighting forces in Iraq capable of taking on the Islamic State, and threatened the Kurdistan region's standing as the sole patch of stability in a country torn by sectarian conflict. "This was the first time we saw the peshmerga withdraw, and it had a deep impact on all the peshmerga and the whole of Kurdish society," said spokesman General Halgurd Hikmat. .... Stretched thin over a vast area and armed with Soviet-era weapons raided from the Iraqi army during the 2003 invasion, the peshmerga were unprepared to confront an enemy that has been honing its skills in neighboring Syria for the past two years...The Islamic State was also better equipped with weapons plundered from the Iraq army, including long-range artillery, tanks, armored vehicles, rocket launchers, and sniper rifles, as well as tons of ammunition. They were also flush with cash. "Yes, there have been some reverses by the peshmerga and disorganization, some withdrawals in certain places, but this is not a conventional war," said Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, admitting that even the most expert peshmerga commanders had been stunned by the ferocity of the Islamic State. "Nobody should underestimate their ability and capacity. They are attacking with small numbers, mobile forces and speed: they are not holding territory."

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Iraq

Kurdish forces seize back two towns from IS militants

2014-08-11

[ARABNEWS] Kurdish forces, supported by US air strikes, took back two towns in northern Iraq from Islamic State holy warriors but it will take time to turn the tide of the conflict, a senior Kurdish official told Rooters. Hoshiyar Zebari said the Kurds had recaptured the towns of Guwair and Makhmur. Asked how long the United States would have to continue Arclight airstrikes to help the Kurds defeat the Islamic State, Zebari said: "As President B.O. said, there is no time limit." US President Barack Obama My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to change it... said on Saturday that it would take some time to tackle Islamic State fighters whose latest push through northern Iraq has rattled the Baghdad government and its Western allies. The US Defense Department confirmed that a new round of Arclight airstrikes by US fighter jets and unmanned drones has targeted IS holy warriors in Iraq. US Central Command says the strikes destroyed armed vehicles, including one that was firing on Kurdish forces in the approaches to the city of Irbil, and a mortar position. The military says the Arclight airstrikes took place from about 2:15 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time Sunday to about 5:45 a.m. It was the fourth round of Arclight airstrikes against Islamic State forces by the US military since they were authorized by President Barack Obama.

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Iraq

Iraqi foreign minister blames Maliki for insurgency

2014-08-01

[Beirut Daily Star] hiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ... Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party. Maliki imposed order on Basra wen the Shiites were going nuts, but has proven incapable of dealing with al-Qaeda's Sunni insurgency. Reelected to his third term in 2014... and his security officials are to blame for the rise of Sunni snuffies who have seized parts of Iraq, the country's Kurdish foreign minister said. Hoshiyar Zebari's comments are likely to further strain ties between Maliki's Shiite-led government and the Kurds, complicating efforts to form a power-sharing government that can counter Islamic State bad boys. "Surely the man who is responsible for the general policies bears the responsibility and the general commander of the armed force, the ministers of defence and interrior also bear these responsibilities," Zebari told al-Arabiya television. "There are other sides who bear responsibility, maybe political partners, but the biggest and greatest responsibility is on the person in charge of public policies," he said. In July, the Kurdish political bloc ended all participation in the national government in protest over Maliki's saying that Kurds were allowing Death Eaters to stay in their capital Arbil. Maliki is currently ruling in a caretaker capacity, having won a parliamentary election in April but failing to win enough support from the Kurdish and Arab Sunni minorities as well as fellow Shiites to form a new government. The United States, the United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... and Iraq's own Shiite holy mans have urged politicians to form a new government swiftly to deal with the Sunni insurgency. Islamic State's campaign has fuelled religious tensions and threatened Iraq's survival as a unified state. The sectarian conflict poses the biggest danger to the OPEC member's stability since the fall of Saddam Hussein following a U.S.-led invasion. Maliki has appointed Hussain al-Shahristani, the Shiite deputy prime minister, as acting foreign minister. The Kurds have long dreamed of their own independent state, aspirations that anger Maliki, who has frequently clashed with the non-Arabs over budgets, land and oil. After the Sunni Lions of Islam arrived almost unopposed by the army, Kurdish forces seized two oilfields in northern Iraq and took over operations from a state-run oil company. In another move certain to infuriate the government, the semi-autonomous Kurdish region is pressing Washington for sophisticated weapons it says Kurdish fighters need to push back Islamist bad boys, Kurdish and U.S. officials said. Kurdish peshmerga fighters and Shiite militias now rival the army in its ability to confront the Islamic State, whose fighters had taken control of parts of western Iraq before the advance through the north.

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Iraq

Iraq's foreign minister says Kurds suspend all participation in government

2014-07-12

[Al Ahram] The Kurdish political bloc will no longer take part in Iraq's national government in protest against Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's accusation that Kurds were harbouring Islamist snuffies in their capital, the foreign minister said on Friday. "We have suspended our government business," said minister Hoshiyar Zebari, who is a Kurd. The Kurds said on Thursday they were cancelling their participation in cabinet meetings. Zebari told Rooters that Kurdish ministers were now suspending their day-to-day involvement the foreign, trade, migration and health ministries and the deputy premiership. Zebari said the Kurds will continue to attend the parliament, elected on April 30, which is seeking to form a new government in the face of a Sunni insurgency that has seized large sections of northern and western Iraq. Maliki said on Wednesday the Kurds were allowing snuffies of the Islamic State (ISIL), an offshoot of al Qaeda, to base themselves in Arbil. Zebari said Iraq risked falling apart if a new inclusive government is not formed soon as "the country is now divided literally into three states - "Kurdish; a black state (ISIL) and Baghdad." He urged Iraq's political blocs to form a government quickly. "There is a need for all the leaders to work together and recreate the new Iraq, to build a federal Iraq based on the principles in the constitution."

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Iraq

Iraq bolsters security on Syrian border

2012-07-08

Baghdad has begun to amass troops along the Syrian border amid reports that fighters from al Qaeda's Iraqi faction are looking to gain a foothold in Syria. Iraqi foreign minister Hoshiyar Zebari told reporters on Thursday that armed "operational officers" from al Qaeda in Iraq appeared to be moving into Syria via established smuggling routes along the Iraqi-Syrian border. "We have solid information and intelligence that members of al Qaeda terrorist networks have gone in the other direction, to Syria, to help, to liaise, to carry out terrorist attacks," Zebari said during a briefing in Baghdad. "Most of the suicide bombers, foreign fighters, elements of al Qaeda used to slip into Iraq from Syria. So they know the routes and the connections." Al Qaeda fighters regularly passed through Syria on their way to Iraq to support the anti-American insurgency during the most violent years of the Iraq war. As a result, Baghdad has deployed hundreds of Iraqi national security forces to the country's 400-mile border with Syria, making it the most heavily guarded Iraqi frontier, according to Reuters. The terror group's Iraqi cell has experienced a resurgence in the past few months, spurred on by the growing violence in Syria. Should al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) be able to establish a stable presence inside Syria, the current wave of violence inside Iraq could get much worse, Zebari warned. "This is our main concern -- about the spillover, about extremist groups taking root in neighboring countries, to have a base," he said. The Defense Department confirmed in May that elements of al Qaeda in Iraq were on the ground in Syria, but has no proof that members have infiltrated the ranks of Syrian rebel forces. The threat of Syrian rebel forces being co-opted by terror groups like al Qaeda has been the main crux of the Pentagon's argument against providing arms and military support to the rebellion.

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Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Iran: U.S. Gulf buildup would be imprudent

2011-11-01

[Dawn] Any buildup of U.S. forces in the Gulf after their withdrawal from Iraq would be imprudent, Iran's foreign minister said on Monday, urging all nations to tread cautiously in a troubled region. Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi made the comments in Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... days after U.S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another William H. Seward ... warned Iran not to try to exploit the U.S. withdrawal at the year-end. "Now, about the U.S. planning to build up their forces in the region ... they are not following a rational and prudent approach," Salehi told a joint news conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari. "The Americans always have a deficit, unfortunately, in rationality and prudence. So what I expect is that it's about time for the Americans to be ... more prudent and wise in their approach," he said. Washington is planning to bolster its military presence in the Gulf after it pulls out of Iraq, including negotiating to maintain a combat presence in Kuwait, and is considering deploying more warships in the area, the New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... reported on Sunday. Salehi said the region was entering a troubled period. "The consequences of these developments are not yet known to anybody, so one has to be cautious. Everybody has to be cautious, including the U.S.," he said. Iraq and the United States failed after months of talks to agree on keeping U.S troops in Iraq past the end of this year. U.S President Barack Why can't I just eat my waffle? Obama announced he would stick to plans to pull out the remaining force, about 39,000 now, by the year-end, nearly nine years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. . U.S. officials have accused Iran of interfering in Iraqi affairs by supporting Shi'ite militias in Iraq. On Sunday Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed the coming withdrawal of U.S. troops from neighbouring Iraq as a "golden page in that country's history". "Iraq does not need anybody to meddle in its internal affairs. Iraq is an independent country," Salehi said. Asked if Iran was ready to make a deal with Iraq to train its forces and exchange intelligence information, Salehi said: "Sure. (There is) no problem in such a suggestion, to make a thorough pact that includes all these (ideas)," he said.

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Iraq

Arab summit to test Iraq security, regional role

2011-02-02

BAGHDAD - If Middle East unrest does not scuttle its plans, Iraq will host its first Arab League summit in two decades in March, giving its Shia-led government a chance to reintegrate the country into a sceptical Arab world. The meeting of Arab leaders also offers an enticing target for Sunni Islamist insurgents or Shia militia trying to undermine Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and will become a major test of Iraq's readiness to defend itself after US forces withdraw this year. "I would not call this a gamble, but it is a challenge more than anything," Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters in an interview. "We both need this summit. It is important and challenging for Iraq, but it is important for Arabs too." Maliki's main aim with the summit will be to reassure neighbouring countries, where many Sunni Arab-dominated governments view the rise of Iraq's Shia majority with suspicion and fear the growing influence of Shia power Iran. More than security, the summit may be disrupted by an uprising in Tunisia and protests in Egypt that are testing the region with its worst crisis in decades. "The unrest is still going on in these countries and may affect the date or even change the agenda of the summit. So far no one knows," said Shakir Kattab, a member of Iraq's Sunni-backed Iraqiya political bloc. The stakes are high -- a successful summit would help Iraq to reassert itself as a major Arab nation and could also lead to reduced tacit support in some Arab countries for the insurgency. A disastrous strike by suicide bombers or militants firing rockets and mortars, however, could set back by years Iraq's efforts to prove it is on a path to improved stability. Despite the threat, the government has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to rehabilitating six big hotels in Baghdad that were targeted by insurgents in the past. It is renovating villas and palaces to accommodate delegates from 21 countries invited to the summit, repaving the main road from Baghdad airport and planting flowers and trees to try to prettify a city left in a shambles by years of war. Good for them. Let them show the world what democratically self-ruling Arabs are capable of.

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