The United Nations says 888 people were killed in violence in Iraq in November, up from 714 the previous month.
The U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq says in a statement Tuesday that 489 of those killed in November were civilians, including police. The other 399 were members of Iraqi security forces, including the Kurdish peshmerga, Interior Ministry SWAT forces and militias fighting alongside the Iraqi army. https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/888-killed-iraq-violence-november-35506618
Former head of US special forces admits: Islamic State would not exist if Bush didnt invade Iraq
he former commander of U.S. special forces in Afghanistan and Iraq admitted that strategic blunders by the Bush administration had led to the rise of Islamic State militants.
Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn told the German newspaper Der Spiegel that Americans allowed their anger of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to lead them into disastrous military policies that failed to address the root causes of terrorism and actually helped create new and more brutal terrorists.
The misunderstanding was so great that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who now heads ISIS, was freed in 2004 from a military prison after a U.S. military commission cleared him as harmless.
Torture by Iraqi militias: the report Washington did not want you to see
Two unpublished investigations show that the United States has consistently overlooked killings and torture by Iraqi government-sponsored Shi'ite militias.
'Staggering' 18,800 Iraqi civilians killed since 2014
In figures it calls "staggering", the United Nations says that almost 19,000 civilians have been killed and more than 36,000 wounded in violence in Iraq since the start of 2014.
Jewish shrine reminds Iraqis of religious coexistence
The tomb is in the town of Uzair, which is the Arabic version of the name Ezra, and the shrine has taken on many Islamic aspects. The shrine contains Hebrew scriptures and Jewish symbols, and Quranic verses and Islamic inscriptions. It was turned into an Islamic landmark following the mass exodus of the Jews of Iraq to Israel in the 1950s. https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/02/iraq-tomb-jewish-prohet-ezra-turned-islamic.html#
Words About War Matter
At the moment, there are a maximum of 3,870 U.S. military personnel (or 7,740 actual boots on the ground) in Iraq supporting the war against the Islamic State. Thats the official cap imposed by the Obama administration, because everyone knows that the president and his top officials are eager to end American wars in the Middle East, not expand them. Of course, that number doesnt include the other 1,130 American military types (or 2,260 boots) -- give or take we dont know how many -- who just happen to be there on whats called... er, um... temporary deployments, or are the result of overlap from rotating deployments, but add up to perhaps 5,000 trainers and advisers, or maybe, for all we know, more, including 200 Special Operations forces whose numbers are officially acknowledged by no one but mentioned in press reports. And naturally that 5,000 figure doesnt include the American private contractors also flowing into Iraq in growing numbers to support the U.S. military because everyone knows that they arent either troops or boots on the ground and so dont get counted. Those are the rules. https://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176128/tomgram%3A_william_astore%2C_words_about_war_matter/#more
On the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad So we wont forget!
Thirteen years ago, US occupation forces entered Baghdad, proud of their victory over a country that has been under an unjust and deadly blockade for more than a decade, and boasting about a sneaky victory over a country that was forced to destroy its weapons in compliance with resolutions that appeared to come from the UN but in reality were US-based, and the country did so in order to obtain milk for its children and medicine for the sick.
America came into Iraq and occupied it, ignoring international law, alleging that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction and supports Al-Qaeda which later turned out to be false allegations that aimed at giving a cover to the occupation and its goals of destroying Iraq on the humanitarian and structural levels, bringing it to pieces and robbing it of its wealth. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20160420-on-the-anniversary-of-the-fall-of-baghdad-so-we-wont-forget/
Post-war Iraq: 'Everybody is corrupt, from top to bottom. Including me'
Property prices in central Baghdad are as high as Londons, even though Iraqs national income is down by 70 percent since the collapse of oil prices. Islamic State bombings regularly devastate parts of the capital and still the real estate market booms. Why?
867 Iraqis killed in May, the bloodiest month this year for Baghdad
The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) estimated that a total of 867 Iraqis were killed in violence in the month of May, 468 of them civilians.
The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General for Iraq, Jan Kubis, said the populations resilience against terrorism was praiseworthy and called on the Iraqi government to do more to help protect civilians from the increased threat of terrorist attacks. https://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/020620161
IS conflict: Falluja detainees 'tortured by Shia militias'
The Iraqi government has been urged to investigate allegations that civilians detained during the battle for Falluja have been tortured by Shia militiamen. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36458954
More than 700 Iraqi men and boys missing from Fallujah: UN
Why some Iraqi Shiites are pushing for distance from Iran Iraqs Shiites are witnessing a political-religious rift in their stance toward Iran whose development can be traced back to 2003. While some express complete loyalty to the Shiite political regime in Tehran, others object to its regional policies, including toward Iraq, and distance from it.