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POPSMajor operation underway after 35 Iraqi police killed Khalaf said the victims had travelled by car to an orchard to investigate reports that Al-Qaeda operatives were in the area. "We sent troops to check the report and not fight," he said. "They stepped out of the cars and walked about 300 metres (yards) when they were hit by gunfire." Security officials said the area surrounding the village was a longstanding Al-Qaeda stronghold.
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POPSDon't Look Now--but the Surge is About to Backfire as Iraq poised to Explode
The first is the brewing crisis over Kirkuk, where the pushy Kurds are demanding control and Iraq’s Arabs are resisting. The second is in the west, and Anbar, where the US-backed Sons of Iraq sahwa (”Awakening”) movement is moving to take power against the Iraqi Islamic Party, a fundamentalist Sunni bloc. And third is the restive Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr, which is chafing at gains made by its Iranian-backed rival, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) The final crisis-to-be is the Sadr vs. Badr one. The Times today suggests that Sadr is weakening: The militia that was once the biggest defender of poor Shiites in Iraq, the Mahdi Army, has been profoundly weakened in a number of neighborhoods across Baghdad, in an important, if tentative, milestone for stability in Iraq. Don’t believe it. Sadr’s rivals, ISCI, don’t have anything like the popular base that Sadr has. And underneath Sadr is a volatile mix of neighborhood, local and regional militias, mosques, and econom
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POPSSunni, Shiite In Firefight With AlQaeda Thousands of Iraqis living in Syria have headed back home in the past weeks. While many are relieved about the improved security situation, the move also has been attributed to harsh visa requirements imposed by Syria since last month that make it more difficult for Iraqis to stay in the neighboring country. The Iraqi government also has started to organize free trips for those who want to return home, offering protected convoys and even flights. The New York Times, meanwhile, quoted senior American military officials as saying that Saudi Arabia and Libya were the source of about 60 percent of the foreign fighters who came to Iraq in the past year to serve as suicide bombers or to facilitate other attacks. The report said that data came largely from documents and computers discovered in September, when a U.S. raid near the Syrian border targeted insurgents believed to be responsible for smuggling the vast majority of foreign fighters into Iraq.
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POPS The Return Of Thousands Of Baghdad Residents They fled to Syria six months ago, leaving behind what had become one of the capital's more dangerous districts — west Baghdad's largely Sunni Khadra region. They had been living inside a vicious and bloody turf battle between al-Qaeda in Iraq and Mahdi Army militiamen. Azawi said things began changing, becoming more peaceful, in August when radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army fighters to stand down nationwide
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POPSIraqi blog: Iraq The Model Iraqis read and watch US media: “Evacuate all houses in the area around the Americans’ base for we shall attack it soon… Those occupiers will soon be gone from this land. Who will protect you then?” These were roughly the words in a leaflet the “mujahideen” distributed in Adhamiya a few days ago.
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