Four U.S Soldiers Killed In Afghan Attack

51 Killed in Iraq As Islamic Tensions Rise

Baghdad (AP) — A blistering string of apparently coordinated bombings and a shooting across Iraq killed at least 51 people and wounded dozens Sunday in a wave of violence that is raising the prospect of a return to widespread sectarian killing.

Violence has spiked sharply in Iraq in recent months, with the death toll rising to levels not seen since 2008. Almost 2,000 have been killed since the start of April, including more than 180 this month.

The surge in bloodshed accompanies rising sectarian tensions between Shiites and Sunnis within Iraq and growing concerns that its unrest is being fanned by the Syrian civil war raging next door.

One of the deadliest attacks came in the evening when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a cafe packed with young people in a largely Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad. Eleven people died, according to police.

Most of Sunday’s car bombs hit Shiite-majority areas. The blasts struck half a dozen towns in the south and center of the country.

Clothes shop owner Saif Hameed, 24, was watching TV at home when he heard the blast nearby. He saw several of the wounded being loaded into ambulances.

“It seems the terrorists are targeting any place they can, no matter what it is,” he said. “The main things for them are to kill as many Iraqis as they can and keep the people living in fear.”

There was no claim of responsibility, but the attacks bore the hallmark of al Qaeda in Iraq, which uses car bombs and suicide bombers against security forces and members of Iraq’s Shiite majority.

The U.S. Embassy condemned the attacks, saying it stands with Iraqis “who seek to live in peace and who reject cowardly acts of terrorism such as this.” The United States withdrew its last combat troops from Iraq in December 2011.

The attacks came a day after the leader of al Qaeda’s Iraq arm, known as the Islamic State of Iraq, defiantly rejected an order from the terror network’s central command to stop claiming control over the organization’s Syrian affiliate, according to a message purportedly from him.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s comments reveal his group’s desire to link its fight against the Shiite-led government in Baghdad with the cause of rebels trying to topple the Iran-backed Syrian government.

Pakistani Official Killed In Gun Battle Following Deadly Bus Bombing

QUETTA, Pakistan — A government official in the Pakistani city of Quetta has been killed in a gun battle in a hospital where female survivors of a deadly bus bombing were receiving treatment.

An RFE/RL correspondent reported from inside the Bolan Medical Complex that Abdul Mansoor Kakar, the deputy head of the city’s civilian government, was killed by gunfire after dozens of militants stormed the complex, firing on security forces.

Security and civilian officials had gathered in the hospital after a bomb blast at a nearby women’s university killed 11 female students and injured 19 more.

The militants detonated a second bomb at the hospital, injuring a journalist.

Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan Province has been plagued by separatist and Islamist violence for years.

Six Killed In Libya Clashes

At least six people have been killed in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi after clashes broke out between armed protest groups and Libyan special forces.

Local news media reported that the armed group attacked military offices and government buildings in the city overnight, leading the troops to stage a counterattack.

Residents in the area reported heavy gunfire and explosions during the early morning hours.

All six fatalities are believed to be from the special-forces troops.

The Libyan Defense Ministry has sent reinforcements from the capital, Tripoli, saying it would “not tolerate” attacks on police and army offices.

Thirty-one people were killed last week in clashes between a militia group and protesters in Benghazi.

Based on reporting by dpa and Reuters

2 Killed in Failed Assassination Attempt on Sunni Governor in Northern Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi officials say that the governor of Iraq’s northern Sunni-dominated province of Ninevah has escaped an assassination attempt that left two people killed and three others wounded.

Two provincial police officials said that the Thursday night attack occurred when a car bomb went off next to the motorcade of Atheel al-Nujaifi in the volatile city of Mosul, 360 kilometers (220 miles) northwest of Baghdad.

Police say the governor, the brother of parliament speaker Osmam al-Nujaifi, escaped unhurt but two civilian passers-by were killed.

A hospital official confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the media.

Mosul has been recently the scene of a series of deadly attacks and clashes amid a rising tide of sectarian and political violence hitting Iraq.

At least 93,000 Syrians killed in conflict

Almost 93,000 people were killed in Syria’s conflict by the end of April this year, but the true number could be “potentially much higher”, the UN has said.

The exact figure released on Thursday – 92,901 people – is much higher than the UN’s last death toll back in January of 59,000 people.

“The constant flow of killings continues at shockingly high levels,” said Navi Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights. “This is most likely a minimum casualty figure. The true number of those killed is potentially much higher.”

An average of more than 5,000 people have been killed every month since last July, while rural Damascus and Aleppo have recorded the highest tolls since November, the report said in its latest study compiling documented deaths.

Among the victims were at least 6,561 children, including 1,729 children younger than 10.

Rupert Colville spokesman for Pillay, told Al Jazeera that it had under-reported the number of deaths because of constraints on estimations owing to the conflict.

‘Children tortured’

“We’re reliant, really, on some very brave activists who since the beginning of this conflict have done their best to keep track of how many people have been killed,” Colville said.

The report said UN teams on the ground and activists had found evidence of children being tortured during the conflict.

“We’ve all seen videos and photos of children who have been tortured to death, children who have been summarily executed,” Colville said.

“We’ve seen entire families that have been slaughtered, including babies even, and then you’ve got children who have been killed by indiscriminate shellfire, missiles, aerial bombardment and a general, no-holds-barred conflict.”

Fighting continued across Syria on Thursday. A mortar round struck an area near the runway at Damascus International Airport, briefly disrupting flights, officials said.

It was the first known attack to hit inside the airport, south of the capital, and came weeks after the government announced it had secured the airport road that had been targeted by rebels.

Hama battles

In-depth coverage of escalating violence across Syria

Mahmoud Ibrahim Said, Syria’s Transport Minister, told state television the attack delayed the landing of two incoming flights, from Latakia and Kuwait, and the take-off of a Syrian flight to Baghdad. No passengers were harmed and no planes were damaged, he said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebel fighters had targeted the airport with homemade rockets.

Rebels also battled regime forces for control of a key military base in the central Hama province after chasing soldiers out and setting fire to installations there, activists said.

Following dawn battles, rebels took control of the base on the northern edge of the town of Morek, which straddles the country’s strategic north-south highway leading to Aleppo.

By midday, regime forces shelled the base and sent reinforcements in an apparent attempt to regain control of the area, said the Observatory said.

International talks

The Observatory, which has a vast network of Syrian activists on the ground, said the rebels killed six government fighters and seized ammunition and weapons. Two rebel fighters were killed.

State-run TV reported on Thursday that troops had secured four towns in the central province of Hama after killing 60 members of Jabhat al-Nusra. It said the towns included Masaadah, Abu Hanaya and Abu Jbeilat.

On the international front, the UN is in exploratory talks with Sweden about its participation in a beefed-up peacekeeping force between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, officials from the two countries said.

The UN has asked Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt whether Stockholm would consider sending troops to the UN Disengagement Observer Force after Austrian troops have begun withdrawing as a result of attacks and abductions of
peacekeepers.

The Obama administration is meeting this week on whether to arm the Syrian rebels, a topic that US Secretary of State John Kerry has discussed with his British counterpart William Hague in Washington.

The meetings come ahead of a G8 summit in Northern Ireland next week.

G8 leaders are expected to discuss a co-ordinated response to the Syrian conflict, and how to bring the rival sides together at a peace conference.

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Scores Killed, Many More Hurt In Wave Of Iraqi Bombings

Several car bombings and a suicide bombing have hit areas in northern Iraq, killing or wounding scores of people.

Five car bombs exploded in the northern city of Mosul late on June 10, killing 29 people and wounding dozens more, according to medical and military officials speaking on condition of anonymity.

Casualties were also reported in bombings in Tikrit and Tuz Khurmato, though no figures were provided.

Earlier in the day, two car bombs and a suicide bomber in another vehicle killed at least 13 people and wounded some 50 others at a produce market in the town of Jadidat al-Shatt, near Baquba.

A car bomb at a fish market in the town of Taji, some 25 kilometers north of Baghdad, killed at least seven people and wounded 16.

The June 10 spike in violence heightens concerns of sectarian violence in Iraq.

Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and ITAR-TASS

Six Killed In Attack On NATO Supply Convoy In Pakistan

Pakistani officials say a convoy of NATO supply trucks has been hit by a deadly attack in the country’s northwest.

Jehangir Azam Wazir, a deputy district chief of Jamrud tribal area where the incident took place, said six people on the trucks were killed in the June 10 assault.

Wazir told RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal that the attackers fired on the convoy with guns and rocket-propelled grenades.

A spokesman from Jaishi Asama (The Army of Osama), which emerged only last month, called reporters to claim responsibility for the attack.

Pakistan is a key transit route for the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan.

Islamabad and Washington have signed an agreement allowing NATO supply convoys to use the transit route from the Pakistani port city of Karachi to Afghanistan until the end of 2015.

With reporting by AFP and AP

Russian Officer Killed In Nalchik Shooting

A Russian police officer who was wounded during a nighttime attack on his patrol in the North Caucasus city of Nalchik has died in hospital.

The press service of the Interior Ministry of Russia’s Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria made the announcement on June 9.

According to officials, two gunmen opened fire around midnight on a group of police in the center of Nalchik.

A second officer was injured in the incident.

One gunman was killed and has been identified as a 36-year-old resident of the city with a previous conviction for illegal weapons trafficking.

A search for the second gunman is under way.

Police have also confiscated a car believed to have been used by the attackers.

Based on reporting by Interfax and ITAR-TASS

NATO Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan Attacks

Four foreign soldiers have been killed in two separate attacks in Afghanistan.

A spokeswoman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said three foreign soldiers were killed on June 8 by a man wearing an Afghan Army uniform in the eastern Paktika Province.

The spokeswoman did not give the nationality of the three soldiers, but a spokesman for the Paktika provincial governor said they were American.

Also on June 8, an Italian soldier was killed and three others were wounded in an attack in the western Farah Province.

The Italian Defense Ministry said the soldiers was killed when the armored vehicle he and his colleagues were traveling in was attacked “by enemy elements.”

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks so far.

Taliban insurgents have intensified attacks across the country as Afghan forces take over most security responsibilities ahead of the planned withdrawal of foreign combat troops next year.

Based on reporting by Reuters, BBC, and Al-Jazeera

Six Georgian Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan

TBILISI — The Georgian military says six of its soldiers have been killed in a suicide attack in southern Afghanistan.

General Irakli Dzneladze, chief of the Georgian Army Joint Staff, said during a news conference in Tbilisi that the troops were killed when militants blew up a truck packed with explosives outside their base in restive Helmand Province.

Dzneladze said several soldiers were also injured.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

The incident comes after three Georgian soldiers were killed in a similar attack in Helmand on May 13.

The attack on June 6 was the deadliest attack on Georgian forces in Afghanistan.

It brings the total number of Georgian military personnel killed in Afghanistan to 28.

Georgia has the largest non-NATO contingent in Afghanistan, with some 1,600 troops.

With reporting by AFP

Afghan school children killed in blast

A suicide bomber has killed at least 13 people, including 10 school children, outside a market in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktia province, police say.

Two foreign soldiers and a local policeman were among those killed in the blast on Monday.

The police said the attacker was targeting a passing US military patrol.

General Zelmia Oryakhail, the provincial police chief of the province, said the bomber was on a motorbike and detonated his explosives outside the market in Samkani district as American forces passed.

He said a local school had just let students out for lunch.

Oryakhail said 15 other students were wounded. He did not say how old they were.

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Scores killed in China poultry farm blaze

A large fire at a poultry farm and processing plant in northeastern China has killed at least 55 people, state media reports.

The fire on Monday in Jilin province’s Mishazi township appeared to have been sparked by three early-morning explosions in the farm’s electrical system, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The blaze charred the entire facility and trapped workers inside sheds.

Rescue workers found the bodies in sheds, and rescue efforts were continuing, Xinhua said. Photos from the scene posted on Chinese news websites showed thick smoke billowing from the cement and corrugated iron sheds.

The farm’s owner, Jilin Baoyuanfeng Poultry, is a major producer of processed chicken and employs about 1,200 people.

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More than 1,000 killed in Iraq violence in May

6-1-13 (Reuters) – More than 1,000 people were killed in violence in Iraq in May, making it the deadliest month since the sectarian slaughter of 2006-07, the United Nations said on Saturday, in a surge stoking fears of a return to civil war.

Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in the last two months as al Qaeda and Sunni Islamist insurgents, invigorated by the Sunni-led revolt in Syria and by Sunni discontent at home, seek to revive the kind of all-out inter-communal conflict that killed tens of thousands five years ago.

“That is a sad record,” Martin Kobler, the U.N. envoy in Baghdad, said in a statement. “Iraqi political leaders must act immediately to stop this intolerable bloodshed.”

Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki later met leaders from across Iraq’s sectarian divide in Baghdad to try to broker talks on the crisis, which previous negotiations have failed to solve.

The renewed bloodletting reflects worsening tensions between Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government and the Sunni minority, seething with resentment at their treatment since Saddam Hussein was overthrown by the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 and later hanged.

This week multiple bombings battered Shi’ite and Sunni areas of the capital Baghdad, killing nearly 100 people. Most of he 1,045 people killed in May were civilians, U.N. figures showed.

The U.N. toll is higher than a Reuters estimate of 600 deaths based on police and hospital officials. Such counts can vary depending on sourcing, while numbers often increase beyond initial estimates as wounded people die.

Al Qaeda’s local wing and other Sunni armed groups are now regaining ground lost during their battle with U.S. troops who pulled out in December 2011 nearly a decade after the invasion that empowered the long-suppressed Shi’ite majority.

At the height of Iraq’s sectarian violence, when Baghdad was carved up between Sunni and Shi’ite gunmen who preyed on rival communities, the monthly death count sometimes topped 3,000.

Government officials say al Qaeda’s wing, Islamic State of Iraq, and Naqshbandi rebels linked to ex-officers in Saddam’s army, are now trying to provoke a Shi’ite militia reaction.

Security officials believe Shi’ite militias such as Mehdi Army, Asaib al-Haq and Kataeb Hizballah have mostly kept out of the fray. But militia commanders say they are prepared to act.

SLIDE INTO CONFLICT

Since April, bombings and attacks have targeted Shi’ite and Sunni mosques and neighborhoods in Baghdad and other cities, as well as security forces and even moderate Sunni leaders.

Many Iraqis, especially in Baghdad, fear a return of death squads and revenge killings, with shops closing early and extra security measures in place.

“Shi’ite militant groups have largely stayed out of recent violence. If they are behind bombings of Sunni mosques, that suggests that they are being drawn into conflict,” said Stephen Wicken, at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.

“That would set the conditions up for a slide into broader sectarian conflict.”

Syria’s war, where mostly Sunni rebels are trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad, has further frayed ties between Iraq’s Shi’ites and Sunnis. Iraqi fighters from both sects are crossing the border to fight for opposite sides in Syria.

Iraqi Shi’ite officials fear an Sunni Islamist take-over in Syria if Assad, whose Alawite sect is rooted in Shi’ite Islam, falls. Such fears reflect a broader regional rivalry between Shi’ite, non-Arab Iran and Sunni states such as Saudi Arabia.

Maliki has often upset his Sunni and ethnic Kurdish partners involved in a delicate power-sharing deal.

Soon after U.S. troops left, Iraqi authorities arrested the bodyguards of Maliki’s Sunni vice-president and a year later those of the Sunni finance minister. The arrests were officially linked to terrorism cases, but they aggravated Sunni fears.

Since December, thousands of Sunnis have protested against the government in Sunni-dominated provinces such as Anbar.

An Iraqi army raid on a Sunni protest camp in the town of Hawija in April reignited violence that killed more than 700 people in that month, by a U.N. count. That had been the highest monthly toll in almost five years until it was exceeded in May.

LINK

Dinar Daddy’s Tidbits

Egyptian Court Suspends Investigation of Copts Killed in 2011 Maspero Massacre

Egyptian rights activists expressed their resentment over the ruling by the South Cairo Court to suspend the investigations into the Maspero massacre. The massacre, which led to the death of 24 Copts in October of 2011, took place during a peaceful demonstration to protest a demolished church in Aswan.

Dr. Mounir Megahed, coordinator for Egyptians Against Religious Discrimination (MARED), told Mideast Christian News that he could not see the merits of this ruling and that the decision undermines the judicial process.

Megahed added that the situation of Copts is no different under President Mohamed Morsi than it was before the “Arab Spring” revolution. The Mubarak regime used sectarian tensions to serve its own interests and the Brotherhood adopts the same approach, he said.

In the same context, human rights activist Ebraam Lewis, founder of the Association of Victims of Abductions and Forced Disappearance (AVAFD), expressed his resentment of the state’s ignorance of victims’ rights.

Coordinator of the Coptic Secular Front Kamal Zakher said the decision is causing controversy, especially as the ruling ignores issues that have already been investigated.

South Cairo’s Criminal Court decided on Thursday to turn down the appeal submitted by the prosecutor-general against the decision to suspend the Maspero massacre investigation.

The court also refused to respond to demands submitted by the defense staff representing families of the Maspero massacre’s victims. Demands included summoning Marshal Mohamed Hussien Tantawi, former head of the military council, General Hamdi Badeen, former head of the military police, General Hassan el-Roweni, former assistant Minister of Defense, and General Ibrahim el-Damati, director of military police.

Christian Post

22 Killed In Fighting In Pakistani Tribal Area Operations

Pakistan’s military says at least 19 militants and three soldiers were killed in gunbattles in the restive northwestern tribal areas.

Government forces said they have gained control of strategic heights after clashes with Taliban fighters near the regions of Para Chamkani and Maidan between the tribal areas of Kurram and Khyber.

The death toll could not be independently verified because the remote war zone remains inaccessible to journalists.

The clashes occurred during a newly launched military operation in the strategic Tirah Valley in the Khyber tribal area.

Pakistani government forces are trying to curb the growing strength of the militant Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan and the allied Lashkar-e-Islam militia fighters who threaten the nearby city of Peshawar, capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.

With reporting by AFP

Top Pakistan Taliban leader ‘killed by drone’

A US drone strike has killed the number two of the Pakistani Taliban, Wali ur Rehman, in the North Waziristan region, according to security officials in Pakistan.

Rehman, who had a $ 5m US government bounty on his head, reportedly died along with at least five others when two missiles were fired on a house early on Wednesday.

Officials in several towns, as well as tribal and intelligence sources, said Rehman was killed in the attack in Chashma village near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan.

Two officials said their informants in the field saw Rehman’s body, while a third said intelligence authorities had intercepted communications between fighters saying Rehman had been killed.

A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, however, denied the reports.

“This appears to me to be false news. I don’t have any such information,” Ahsanullah Ahsan told the AP news agency.

The Pakistani Taliban is a separate entity allied to the Afghan Taliban. Known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), they have launched repeated attacks against the Pakistani military and civilians.

Security officials said the others killed in the attack were also TTP cadres and included two of the outfit’s local-level commanders. There were no initial reports of civilian casualties.

Second-in-command

Washington had accused Rehman of organising attacks against US and NATO forces in Afghanistan and also wanted him in connection with a suicide attack on an American base in Afghanistan in 2009 that killed seven CIA agents.

Rehman had been a key figure in the TTP since its inception in 2007 and was second-in-command of the national hierarchy behind Hakimullah Mehsud, as well as leading the group in South Waziristan.

There had been speculation that Rehman had fallen out with Mehsud but a new video, showing the two men together, was released last year and served to deny that.

The US would not confirm that Rehman had been killed.

“We are not in a position to confirm the reports of Wali ur-Rehman’s death,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

“If those reports were true, or prove to be true, it’s worth noting that his demise would deprive the TTP of its second-in-command and chief military strategist.” Carney said.

Wednesday’s raid was the first drone attack since the May 11 general elections won by Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League.

Sharif, who is preparing to take power in the first week of June, has called the drone strikes a “challenge” to his country’s sovereignty.

He has also said the US must take Pakistani concerns seriously.

Pakistan repeated on Friday its view that US drone strikes in its territory were illegal, after President Barack Obama laid out new guidelines for their use.

Obama mounted a firm defence of his covert drone war as legal and just in a major speech on counterterrorism policy on Thursday but warned that undisciplined use of the tactic would invite abuses of power.

He said he had approved new guidelines stating that drone strikes could only be used to prevent imminent attacks and when the capture of a suspect was not feasible and if there was a “near certainty” that civilians would not be killed.

According to Britain’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism, CIA drone attacks targeting suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Pakistan have killed up to 3,587 people since 2004, including up to 884 civilians.

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Dozens Killed in Wave of Baghdad Bombings

Baghdad (CNN) — At least 51 people have been killed and more than 160 others were wounded in a wave of violence in Iraq on Monday, Iraqi Interior Ministry sources told CNN.

The attacks continue the increase in political and sectarian violence in Iraq, including its capital, Baghdad, over the past several weeks.

Much of the violence included Sunnis squaring off with Shiites and the Shiite-led government.

Most of the casualties Monday were in and around Baghdad, where 11 car bombs exploded, mostly in Shiite neighborhoods, Also, one bomb exploded in the central Baghdad commercial area of Bab al-Sharqi, near street vendors. Another exploded in the New Baghdad district in eastern Baghdad, close to shops and a Sunni mosque.

There were several incidents in Anbar and Nineveh provinces, but officials did not give further details.

According to a CNN tally, more than 300 people have been killed in acts of violence across the country since the beginning of May.

Over the past week, Iraqi security forces increased their presence in the capital’s streets and established more checkpoints.

By Mohammed Tawfeeq

11 Killed As Syria Rebels, Kurds Clash

(AAP) — Gunfire has erupted near Syria’s Turkish border, a day after violent clashes killed 11 insurgents.

The latest fighting comes with Syrian Kurds, long oppressed under President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, saying they want to take part in peace talks that the US and Russia hope to convene in Geneva next month.

Sunday’s fighting in Ras al-Ein village near the border with Turkey pitted militants of the People’s Protection Committees (YPG) – the armed group of the main Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) – against rebels battling to overthrow Assad’s regime, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

“It came after an attack launched last night (Saturday) by the (jihadist) Al-Nusra Front against an YPG position and abductions by Kurds of the jihadists,” the Observatory said in a statement.

“Fighting last night in the Afrin region between PYD armed wing the People’s Protection Committees (YPG) and rebels left 11 dead and 20 wounded” among rebel forces.

A YPG militant told AFP the fighting erupted when the pro-Muslim Brotherhood armed group, Liwa al-Tawhid, “stormed our village and demanded they take over one of our checkpoints”.

“They accused YPG fighters of allowing resident of Nabel (a majority Shi’ite village) safe passage across the checkpoints,” the Kurdish militant said.

Most of the rebels forces are Sunni Muslims, while Assad, who they are trying to overthrow, belong to the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.

The Kurdish militant said Liwa al-Tawhid insurgents pounded their positions, wounding several YPG fighters.

The Observatory also reported clashes in the same area of Aleppo province several days previously at a checkpoint installed by rebel forces south of the town of Kubani, without saying whether there were any casualties.

Since the beginning of Syria’s uprising more than two years ago, the Kurds, who make up about 15 per cent of the country’s population, have tried to stay out of the fighting, stopping both rebel and regime forces from entering their areas.

However, in some areas, such as the Sheikh Maqsud district of Aleppo city, rebels and Kurdish groups have joined together to fight forces loyal to the Syrian president.

In Istanbul, meanwhile, the head of the Kurdish National Council, Bahzad Ibrahim, said efforts were underway to resolve the fighting between Kurdish militants and rebels.

And PYD member Sherwan Ibrahim said Kurds want to take part in a peace conference on Syria along side the umbrella Syria opposition National Coalition or even independently.

Several Killed In Pakistan Attacks

Police in northwest Pakistan say two militant attacks have left nine people dead.

Police say suspected militants attacked a police convoy on may 24 in Mattani, killing six policemen and wounding seven others.

In another attack on the same day, a suicide bomber walked up to a vehicle owned by an Afghan religious leader in Peshawar and set off explosives he was carrying, killing three people.

The leader, Haji Hayatullah, was not harmed in the attack because he was in a nearby mosque attending Friday prayers.

Hayatullah’s driver and guard were killed as was a passerby, police said.

Two other civilians were wounded. No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP

U.S. Says Four Americans Killed In Drone Strikes

The U.S. government has admitted that it has killed four Americans in drone strikes.

In a letter to Congress, Attorney General Eric Holder defended the Obama administration’s decision to target and kill radical Muslim cleric and U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in a 2011 drone strike in Yemen.

Holder called it “clear and logical that U.S. citizenship alone” does not give someone immunity from being targeted for death if they meet certain terrorist criteria.

Holder said the strike that killed al-Awlaki also killed American Samir Khan. Awlaki’s son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was killed in Yemen, and Jude Mohammed was killed in Pakistan.

Holder said unlike al-Awlaki, the three were not deliberately targeted for death.

The revelations emerged one day before President Barack Obama is set to deliver a major speech on national security.

Based on Reuters, AP and AFP reporting

US admits drones killed four Americans

The United States has killed four of its own citizens in drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan, the Barack Obama administration has formally acknowledged.

Eric Holder, the US attorney general, said in a letter addressed to congressional leaders on Wednesday that three of those killed were not targets of the strikes involving drones in Yemen and elsewhere.

Holder named the four dead US citizens in a letter to members of Congress one day before President Obama is scheduled to deliver an address on the use of drones.

The letter defends the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the one dead American who was an intended target of a drone strike in September 2011, the letter said.

“The decision to target Anwar al-Awlaki was lawful, it was considered, and it was just,” he wrote.

“The [Obama] administration is determined to continue these extensive outreach efforts to communicate with the American people,” the attorney general wrote.

Al Jazeera’s Tom Ackerman, reporting from Washington DC, said that the other three killed in the drone strikes were not intentional victims.

He said the administration also named Jude Mohammed, a US citizen who has gone to Pakistan from North Carolina and who had been indicted by a jury on charges of murder and kidnapping.

Ackerman said Obama’s speech on Thursday will lay out the criteria and justification for the government’s drone assassintation policy.

The letter appears to be an effort to respond to criticisms against the Obama administration over a perceived lack of transparency, particularly concerning its “counterterrorism” abroad.

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‘Soldier’ killed near London army barracks

One person has died and at least two people have been wounded in an attack near a military training barracks in London, officials say.

Witnesses said the man was hacked to death with a machete-style knife in the Woolwich district in the southeast of the British capital on Wednesday.

Media reports said the victim was a serving British soldier.

While details were scant, Prime Minister David Cameron called an emergency meeting of his government’s emergency COBRA security committee in response to the attack.

Police would not comment immediately on whether the incident appeared to be terror-related.

Home Secretary Theresa May confirmed that one person had been “brutally murdered” and said two other men were shot by armed police and were receiving treatment for their injuries.

“This is a sickening and barbaric attack,” she said.

Britain’s Ministry of Defence said it was urgently investigating reports that a serving soldier was involved in the incident.

Security was tightened in the area immediately after the incident. Helicopters hovered above and nearby roads were sealed off by the police.

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In Russia, Drunk Driver Who Killed Seven Jailed

A Russian drunk driver who triggered nationwide debate after killing seven people, including five orphan children, in a road accident last year has been sentenced to prison.

A Moscow court has ordered Aleksandr Maksimov to serve 8 1/2 years in prison.

Maksimov sparked an outcry in Russia last fall when he crashed his car into a bus stop at 200 kilometers per hour while drunk and high on cannabis.

Officials, including President Vladimir Putin, scrambled to propose stronger drunk-driving penalties and road-safety measures.

Each year, approximately 30,000 Russians die in road accidents.

Based on reporting by AP and ITAR-TASS

More Christians Killed in Northern Nigeria Last Year Than in the Rest of the World Combined

Two weeks ago I informed Nigerian Congressmen and women about this deplorable disrepute during my lecture to the Nigerian House of Representatives, Committee on Human Rights. Invited by the Chairman of the Committee, the Hon. Beni Lar, to address the topic of Ethnicity, Conflict, and Human Rights, I pointed out that the Nigerian Constitution reflects the broadest range of religious freedom exercise recognized within international law. I asked, “What good is this right in principle when in practice there is a societal actor, namely the Boko Haram, which strikes fear with bomb blasting of churches during worship services?” I called for an end to impunity because the predictable and certain result of impunity is more violence. I explained what it means within U.S. law that the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a U.S. government funded agency, had just submitted its recommendation that Nigeria receive US Department of State designation as a “country of particular concern” under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act which would trigger a menu of remedies for engagement.

The discussant to my lecture, Professor Muhammed Tabiu from the Faculty of Law, Bayero University, emphasized that the religious freedom called for in the Nigerian Constitution is even broader then the freedoms articulated within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He stated that the legal framework has done all that it can do and that the improvement must take place “on the ground.” With respect to religious extremism, he noted that “lack of respect for human rights are a daily occurrence.” Prof. Tabiu also agreed with my criticism of the US Department of State’s surprising endorsement of a federal Sharia court of appeal. Jubilee Campaign has yet to find anyone other than the Boko Haram terror group calling for more sharia. I had noted that this illustrates how the US Department of State fundamentally misunderstands and misrepresents the constitution of Nigeria. Prof. Tabiu clarified that there are state courts of appeals for the Sharia courts and that the Constitution of Nigeria reflects a “reasonable compromise” accommodating Muslims as well as Christians in the context of state level Sharia and customary courts.

I also pointed out that in addition to mistakes about Nigerian law, there are also mistakes as to facts. USCIRF for instance reported that only Muslims had been convicted of religious violence. This is however not accurate. Jubilee is involved in a case where Christians, arrested for curfew violation were wrongly convicted of terrorism. The attorney general of Plateau State also has previously provided updates of prosecutions which included a number of Christians arrested and charged in relation to incidents of violence.

Following the close of the Congressional Human Rights Committee session, four Northern Nigeria Congressmen pulled me aside to dialogue about how dangerous and “explosive” my factual statement about the religious identity of the victims in the death toll was. One of the Congressmen insisted that more Muslims have been killed by Boko Haram, and that mosques in the north were also bombed by Boko Haram affiliated actors. When I told him that my data consisting of specific incidents researched from Nigerian media and NGO sources can be found at http://factsnigeriaviolence.wordpress.com/, he could only provide anecdotal claims to support his contention that more Muslims were killed. Ironically, neither the U.S. Department of State’s human rights report on Nigeria nor recent Human Rights Watch reports have provided more than anecdotal references for the same unsupported proposition that more Muslims have been killed by Boko Haram. Moreover, the fact that moderate Muslims have been killed by Boko Haram should be the real “explosive” cause for all of Nigerians to unite and seek the arrest and prosecution of those responsible for the violence.

Coincidentally, the next evening of May 3 I caught an interview on Al Jazeera entitled, “Jailed Boko Haram rebels seek pardon.” Imprisoned since last August, Ibrahim Mohammed told the interviewer, “Yes my belief is that there should be Islamic law, and we have chosen to take up arms against people who do not want Sharia.” Another fighter detailed the attacks he perpetrated which he prefaced with the statement, “Between me and God I took up arms to fight.” When asked about the death of innocent bystanders, the third militant explained that such a death would be by a “mistake” and that “if he dies he is innocent and we don’t worry at all. We are forgiven by God.” Chilling. Without any hint of remorse from them concerning their actions on victims or victims’ families, their lawyer and the interviewer described their efforts to obtain amnesty and prompt release. Amnesty would be a travesty and injustice of the worst kind to innocent victims. Nothing indicates these three men would not resume their jihad to impose Sharia law, as they so clearly stated on camera was the reason why they took up arms.

It seems that following a plea from the governor of Borno State, Kassim Shettima, that his state was on the brink of a takeover by the Boko Haram, President Goodluck Jonathan responded with a declaration of a state of emergency as well as sending military troops to Maiduguri, known to be Boko Haram’s stronghold. After the militants again attacked the government, killed civilians, and seized property, Nigeria’s military sent several thousand troops and imposed a 24 hour curfew in Maiduguri. The military seized stock piles of weapons, including sophisticated rocket-propelled grenades, killed 10 militants, and arrested 63, according to Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera reported yesterday that the blockade of supply routes to Boko Haram seems to achieving the goal of causing militants to flee their bases.

The predictable response from the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry cautioned, “We are also deeply concerned by credible allegations that Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations, which, in turn, only escalate the violence and fuel extremism. The United States condemns Boko Haram’s campaign of terror in the strongest terms. We urge Nigeria’s security forces to apply disciplined use of force in all operations, protect civilians in any security response, and respect human rights and the rule of law.” The U.S. Department of State’s response once again could not be more convoluted and confused as to who the perpetrators of human rights violations and spread of carnage are. In fact, as reported by Al Jazeera and others, the violent takeover of Borno state and other territories by the Boko Haram are being contained as per the state of emergency.

For example, as reported by The Independent on May 8 “The Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram is thought to have been behind a deadly siege on the northeastern town of Bama on Tuesday that left 55 people dead…Boko Haram is a terror group that wants to carve out an Islamic state in a country split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims.” This article goes on to explain that its more recent tactics have resulted from “the help Boko Haram has received from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a branch of the international terrorist network based in the Saharan states of Mali, Niger and Algeria.”

It seems that the Nigerian government is seeking to contain known militants responsible for weekly incidents of carnage and destruction on civilians. We continue to encourage the end to impunity and the restoration of peace for all civilians in the north of Nigeria.

By Ann Buwalda
http://www.jubileecampaign.org

One Killed In Tunisia Clashes

One person is reported to have died in clashes between Tunisian security forces and supporters of the hard-line Islamist Ansar al-Sharia group.

Tunisia’s state-run news agency said the man killed May 19 in a suburb of Tunis was a supporter of the Salafist group, which promotes an ultra-conservative version of Sunni Islam.

The Interior Ministry said 11 members of the security forces and three protesters were injured.

The violence came after security forces blocked Ansar al-Sharia from holding its annual congress in the city of Kairouan.

Clashes were reported in both Kairouan and the Tunis suburb of Ettadamon.

Islamists have grown increasingly active in Tunisia since the January, 2011, overthrow of secular President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.

The U.S. Embassy in Tunisia was attacked last September.

Based on reports from AP, AFP and dpa

Senior Pakistani politician killed in Karachi

A senior member of Pakistani politician Imran Khan’s party has been killed in Karachi in an attack, after an election campaign that claimed scores of people nationwide.

Zahra Shahid Hussain, central vice-president of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party and one of its founding members, was killed late on Saturday, just hours before re-elections began on Sunday.

The motives behind the attack remained unclear.

Hussain “was leaving her home for some work when three gunmen attacked her. She thought they wanted to snatch her purse and handed it over to them but they killed her”, Firdous Shamim, a local PTI leader, told the AFP news agency.

Police said all three assailants escaped after the attack late on Saturday.

“They shot her with one bullet near her chin and she could not survive,” Nasir Aftab, senior police official, told AFP.

Last week’s election, during which 150 people were killed nationwide, gave the rival Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which controls Karachi, 18 of 19 national assembly seats in the port city.

The constituency where Sunday’s repoll is taking place, known blandly as NA-250, is thought to be a stronghold of the PTI.

‘Charged political debate’

Al Jazeera’s Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from the capital Islamabad, said: “The very initial reports surrounding the killing of Zahra Shahid Hussain indicate that this could have been a robbery, for Karachi is prone to violence.”

On average 12 people are killed in Karachi every single day, he said.

Coverage of 2013 general election across the politically divided South Asian nation.

Our correspondent said a message on Twitter sent out by Khan, accusing MQM of being behind the attack, had “charged the political debate in Pakistan”.

Khan and a party spokesperson condemned the killing and denounced it as a security failure on the part of the provincial government.

Altaf Hussain, the MQM leader, is wanted on murder charges in Pakistan and leads his party remotely from self-imposed exile in England.

The MQM is designated as a terrorist organisation by Canada, a charge it strongly denies. The party says the murder cases against Altaf Hussain are politically motivated.

Hussain gave a speech recently which many Pakistanis felt was an incitement to attack political rivals, but the MQM leader insisted his words were taken out of context.

The British police have been inundated with complaints demanding an investigation.

Re-polling in Karachi

Arif Alvi, the PTI’s candidate for the NA-250 constituency in Karachi, which will see re-polling in 43 polling stations on Sunday, condemned the killing but said he did not expect justice to be done.

“She was an asset of the party … and I believe the Sindh [provincial] government should investigate this murder, look for the killers and get them sentenced. But, unfortunately, over the last five years, nobody has ever been arrested for [political] killings or tried in a court of law,” Alvi said at the hospital where Hussain’s body was taken.

Thousands of security personnel have been deployed for Sunday’s re-elections in Karachi.

The Election Commission of Pakistan ordered re-polling at the 43 polling stations in the Karachi constituency of NA-250 following allegations of vote-rigging in the May 11 polls, which marked the first democratic transition of power in Pakistan.

PTI and the Jamaat-e-Islami party have staged nationwide protests against the alleged rigging.

The Pakistan People’s Party and the MQM have announced a boycott, demanding that re-polling be held in all of the polling stations in NA-250, not just in the 43 that the ECP has designated.

Last weekend’s election saw about 50 million Pakistanis vote, with Nawaz Sharif, a centre-right former prime minister, emerging the winner nearly 14 years after he was deposed in a coup.

The Taliban, who denounce democracy as un-Islamic, killed more than 150 people during the election campaign, including 24 on polling day.

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Afghan District Police Chief Killed

An Afghan police chief has been killed after two militants riding on motorcycles opened fire on his vehicle in western Afghanistan.

Abdul Ghani, police chief of Khak-e Safid district in Farah Province, was killed instantly outside his home late on May 17.

Provincial spokesman Abdul Rahman Zhawandai said that Ghani was rushed to hospital but was declared dead upon arrival.

Ghani had led an anti-Taliban campaign in Farah that had resulted in the killing or capture of several local Taliban leaders.

No one has assumed responsibility for the attack.

The attack comes as the Taliban has stepped up their attacks against international and Afghans security forces ahead of NATO’s pullout next year.

Afghan forces have assumed responsibility for security in most of the country, with foreign troops stepping back to an advisory role.

Based on reporting by AP and dpa

Scores killed in attacks on Iraqi Sunnis

At least 76 people have been killed in bombings in majority Sunni districts in Baghdad and surrounding areas in the deadliest day in Iraq in more than eight months have officials said.

The spike in violence has raised fears the country could be on the path to a new round of sectarian bloodshed.

Friday’s attacks pushed the three-day Iraqi death toll to 130, including Shias at bus stops and outdoor markets in scenes reminiscent of the retaliatory attacks between the two Islamic branches in 2006-2007 that claimed tens of thousands of lives.

In the deadliest attack on Friday, twin bombings near a Sunni mosque in Baquba, north of Baghdad, killed 41 people and injured dozens.

One bomb exploded as worshippers were departing the Saria mosque while a second went off after people gathered at the scene of the first blast, police said.

Television aired footage of bodies on the ground outside the mosque, pools of blood and the scattered shoes of the victims.

“I was about 30 metres from the first explosion. When the first exploded, I ran to help them, and the second one went off. I saw bodies flying and I had shrapnel in my neck,” said Hashim Munjiz, a college student, at the site.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Baghdad bombings

In Baghdad, a bomb exploded near a shopping centre during evening rush hour in the mainly Sunni neighbourhood of Amariyah, killing at least 12 people and wounding 32.

That was followed by another bomb in a commercial district in Dora, another Sunni neighbourhood, which killed two people and wounded 22, according to officials.

In another attack, a roadside bomb exploded during a Sunni funeral procession in Madain, south of Baghdad, killing eight
mourners and wounding 11, police said.

Follow Al Jazeera coverage of the past decade

An explosion also struck a cafe in Fallujah, 65km west of Baghdad, killing two people and wounding nine, according to police and hospital officials.

A day earlier, attacks targeted Shias in several locations.

Al Jazeera’s Omar Al Saleh, reporting from Erbil, said the sectarian nature of recent attacks were worrying Iraqis.

“You have attacks on Shia worshippers, you have attacks on Sunni worshippers. It appears that whoever is behind those attacks wants to ignite sectarian strife,” he said.

“It’s an indication that security conditions are really going downhill in this country. There is a huge and growing sense of fear among Iraqis.”

Tensions have been intensifying since Sunnis began protesting against what they say is mistreatment at the hands of the mainly Shia-led government, including random detentions and neglect.

The protests, which began in December, have largely been peaceful, but the number of attacks rose sharply after a deadly security crackdown on a Sunni protest camp in the country’s north on April 23.

A suicide bomber on Thursday killed 12 people at the entrance of Al-Zahraa Husseiniyah, a Shia place of worship in the city of Kirkuk, where relatives of victims from violence on Wednesday were receiving condolences.

Car bombs also hit three Shia-majority areas of Baghdad on Thursday, killing 10 people.

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Scores killed in Iraq mosque bombing

Two bombs near a Sunni mosque north of Baghdad have killed 48 people and wounded 89, police and a doctor say, after two days of attacks targeting Iraqi Shia Muslims in which dozens died.

One bomb exploded on Friday as worshippers were departing the Saria mosque in the city of Baquba while a second went off after people gathered at the scene of the first blast, the sources said.

The violence raises the specter of tit-for-tat killings common during the height of sectarian violence in Iraq that killed tens of thousands of people, and comes at a time of festering sectarian tensions between Iraq’s Sunni minority and Shia majority.

Suicide bomber targets Iraq place of worship

The bombings are the latest in a series of attacks that have targeted both Sunni and Shia places of worship in past weeks, and follow two days of attacks targeting Iraqi Shia.

On Thursday, a suicide bomber killed 12 people at the entrance of Al-Zahraa Husseiniyah, a Shia place of worship in the city of Kirkuk, where relatives of victims from violence the day before were receiving condolences.

Car bombs also hit three Shia-majority areas of Baghdad on Thursday, killing 10 people, while 21 people died in a series of bombings that mainly hit Shia areas of the capital the day before.

Armed men also shot dead the brother of a Sunni MP in Baghdad on Thursday.

Violence in Iraq has fallen from its peak, but attacks are still common, killing more than 200 people in each of the first four months of this year, including more than 460 in April, according to figures from the AFP news agency.

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U.S. Soldiers Killed In South Afghanistan

NATO has lowered the death toll in a roadside bombing in Afghanistan, saying three U.S. service personnel were killed instead of four, as was earlier reported.

The alliance said the soldiers were killed on May 15 in a roadside bomb in the southern province of Kandahar.

A spokesman for the provincial governor’s office, Jawid Ahmad Faisal, said the soldiers were in a vehicle on patrol in Zhari district.

Several others were reported wounded in the blast.

On May 12, three Georgian soldiers serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were killed and several injured in a combined attack by militants on their base in neighboring Helmand Province.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, and AFP

Several Killed As Iraqi Gunmen Open Fire On Liquor Stores

Iraqi officials say at least 11 people have been killed after gunmen opened fire on a line of liquor stores in the capital Baghdad.

Iraqi security officials said that the gunmen, who were traveling in four cars, attacked a row of alcohol shops in Baghdad’s Zayouna area on the evening of May 14.

Officials said at least five people were also wounded in the attack.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack.

With alcohol forbidden in Islam, liquor stores have been a prime target for extremist groups.

The stores have also been targeted because they are often staffed by Iraq’s persecuted religious minorities.

Based on reporting by AP and AFP

Three Georgian Soldiers Killed In Afghanistan Attack

TBILISI — Georgia’s defense minister has announced that three Georgian soldiers were killed and several injured in a combined attack by militants in southern Afghanistan.

Irakli Alasania made the announcement at a special press briefing in Tbilisi on May 13.

He said militants using small arms and a truck loaded with explosives launched the attack on the base of Georgia’s 42nd battalion in Helmand Province shortly after 4:00 p.m. local time.

The Georgians eventually killed all the attackers and are in complete control of the area, according to Alasania.

It was the second-bloodiest encounter for Georgian forces in Afghanistan, after a September 2010 attack that left four troops dead.

In all, 22 Georgian military personnel have been killed in Afghanistan.

With some 1,600 troops, Georgia has the largest non-NATO contingent in Afghanistan.

Darfur rebel-faction leader killed in Chad

The leader of a breakaway faction of Darfur’s main rebel and his deputy have been killed after an attack inside Chad near the border with Sudan.

Mohamed Bashar and Suleiman Arko were killed during fighting with the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), Sudan’s intelligence agency announced on Sunday.

JEM fighters aboard a 30-vehicle convoy reportedly attacked Bashar’s group while they were having lunch, just a few kilometres from the Sudanese border, Al Jazeera’s Harriet Martin, reporting from Khartoum, said.

Martin said that there had been conflicting reports about which side started the fight.

Nahar Osman, an adviser of Bashar, said that his group was attacked.

In an interview with the Sudan Tribune, Nahar said that five other members of Bashar’s group were killed, along with a Chadian security officer and two cattle keepers working nearby.

JEM said Bashar’s forces attacked its base forcing them to fight back. Al Jazeera’s Azhar Sukri said that the main body of JEM rebels appears to have been angry with Bashar for co-operating with the Sudanese government.

Bashar’s rebel faction had signed a peace deal in Doha on April 6 with the Sudanese government to halt 10 years of fighting in Darfur. His top aide Arko led the negotiating team.

It was founded by Darfuris, loyal to a prominent religious and political leader Hassan al Turabi.

Blow to peace process

Martin said: “His [Bashar's] death and the death of his deputy is very significant,” Martin said, adding that was a serious blow to the peace process.

She said that the main JEM group may not have “forgiven” Bashar for signing-up to the Darfur peace deal.

Last April, JEM fighters killed a deputy commander of the breakaway faction allied with Bashar.

Salah Eddin Elzein, director of Al Jazeera’s Centre for Studies, said that Bashar’s death could also raise serious questions about the security arrangement between Sudan and Chad.

“If this happened within Chad, it is a serious development,” Elzein said, adding that both countries have troops patrolling the border.

Elzein also said that the killing of Bashar dealt a blow to the “piecemeal” approach of the African Union in Darfur.

The death of the two top rebel leaders will also put on hold the peace agrement already signed in Doha by the rebels and the government of Sudan, he said.

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In Turkey, 18 Killed By Car Bombs Near Syrian Border

Turkey’s Interior Minister Muhammad Guler says 18 people were killed and 22 wounded by a double car-bomb attack in a town near the border with Syria.

Guler, quoted by the Turkish news agency Anatolia, said one explosives-packed car detonated in front of the municipal building in the town of Reyhanli.

He said another car bomb exploded near the town’s post office.

It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attacks.

Turkey has been a crucial supporter of the Syrian opposition. Ankara has allowed its territory to be used as a logistics base and operations center for Syrian antigovernment fighters.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, Dogan, TRT, and NTV

Dozens killed in Boko Haram raid in Nigeria

Suspected fighters from the Nigerian group Boko Haram have staged an attack on the northeastern town of Bama, freeing over 100 prison inmates and leaving 55 people dead, the military said.

Around 200 heavily armed members of Boko Haram arrived in buses and pick-up trucks and carried out the coordinated strike on Tuesday, first hitting the army barracks and the police station before breaking into the town’s prison, military spokesman Sagir Musa told the Reuters news agency.

Musa said 22 police officers, 14 prison officials, two soldiers and four civilians were killed, while 13 of the group’s own members died, in what was one of the rebel’s most deadly single strikes since a 2009 uprising.

Gunmen freed 105 prisoners during the raid which began at around 5am (0400 GMT) and lasted almost five hours, Musa said. He said some of the attackers were dressed in army uniforms.

Bama’s police station, army barracks and government buildings were set ablaze, he said.

“They came in army uniform pretending to be soldiers but were able to detect them,” Musa said.

Bama is a small, remote town in northeastern Borno state, Boko Haram’s home state and the nucleus of its attacks.

“The call to prayer was just being said at about 5am when the Boko Haram started shooting from all directions and we ran for our lives,” eyewitness Amina Usman told Reuters.

“One woman who could not run burned to death,” Usman added.

Boko Haram and offshoots such as the al-Qaeda-linked Ansaru, as well as associated criminal networks, pose the main threat to stability in Africa’s top energy producer.

Western governments are increasingly concerned about Nigerian fighters linking up with other jihadist groups in the West African region.

Boko Haram wants to carve out an Islamic state in a country split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims. One of its chief demands is that its imprisoned members and family members are released and it has carried out several prison breaks.

Attacks by Boko Haram have killed more than 3,000 people since 2009, based on figures from Human Rights Watch.

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Several killed in blast at Pakistan rally

An explosion at a political party rally in Pakistan on Tuesday has killed at least ten people and wounded dozens more, including a provincial candidate in the upcoming elections.

The target was a Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) rally in a bazaar in Hangu District which was being lead by provincial candidate Mufti Seyd Janan who was reportedly injured in the attack, but is not in a serious condition.

Reports indicate that children returning home from school were among the wounded.

It is thought that a bomb planted on a motorbike and exploded by remote control near Janan’s vehicle.

Coverage of 2013 general election across the politically divided South Asian nation.

JUI has historically been sympathetic to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and has previously acted as a mediator between political parties and the anti-government group.

The TTP, however, claimed responsibility for an attack on the JUI on Monday which killed 25 people and wounded 60 more.

It is thought the target of Monday’s attack was candidate Munir Orakzai, who survived the blast.

Pakistan’s elections are due to be held on May 11, with all campaigning to cease by May 9.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad said the violence surrounding the elections was a source of great concern.

“Between now and May 9 it will be a critical and dangerous situation,” he said.

“The TTP has said it will sabotage these elections, which it believes are against Islam. Previously it has been targeting secular parties, but now it appears to be targeting religious parties as well.”

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Leader of Dinka tribe killed in Sudan attack

A tribal leader and an Ethiopian peacekeeper have been killed after a UN convoy was caught up in a tribal clash in the disputed Sudanese territory of Abyei, according to the UN.

Kual Deng Majok, the top Dinka leader in Abyei, was travelling with the convoy when he was killed by members of the Arab Misseriya tribe in an attack on Saturday that risked escalating new tensions in the area.

The office of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that two others were also seriously wounded in the Abyei border region, claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan.

Al Jazeera’s Harriet Martin, reporting from Khartoum, said the attack occurred after tribe members had attended an Abyei oversight committee meeting.

As the Sudanese delegation wrapped up their visit and headed back north, they were confronted by armed Misseriya members who wanted the Dinka delegates to be handed over to them, she said.

The UN peacekeepers refused to oblige and a tense, five-hour stand-off ended in a firefight, she said.

The Sudanese foreign ministry condemned the attack as an isolated incident.

A curfew was in effect, with UN peacekeepers setting up extra checkpoints trying to prevent gatherings, one local resident told AFP news agency.

“There is high tension,” but no new fighting occurred on Sunday, Mohammed al-Ansari, a Misseriya chief in Abyei, said.

Abyei ownership

Al Jazeera’s Martin said the two Sudanese governments are keen to keep the relationship back on track but have had issues dealing with the tribal groups.

Philip Aguer, South Sudan army spokesman, said the killings showed that the 4,000-member UN force needed to be strengthened “so that it can provide full security”.

The African Union, which has been mediating the Abyei dispute, called on Sudan and South Sudan ”to ensure that the current situation does not spiral out of control.”

In March, Sudan and South Sudan agreed to resume cross-border oil flows and defuse tensions, which have plagued them since the South seceded in 2011 after an independence vote.

But they were unable to decide on the ownership of Abyei, which both the Dinka of South Sudan and the Misseriya of Sudan call their home.

“The secretary-general urges the governments of Sudan and South Sudan and the … Dinka and Misseriya communities to remain calm and avoid any escalation of this unfortunate event,” the UN chief’s office said.

Abyei straddles the border between the neighbours, who fought one of Africa’s longest civil wars. It is prized for its fertile land and small oil reserves.

Like South Sudan, Abyei was meant to have an independence vote, agreed under a 2005 peace deal which ended the civil war between the north and south.

But both countries have been unable to agree which tribe members should participate.

Ethiopian peacekeepers have been running a temporary administration for Abyei since Sudan seized it in May 2011, following an attack on a convoy of UN peacekeepers and Sudanese soldiers which the UN blamed on southern forces.

Sudan later withdrew its forces under a UN peace plan.

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7 U.S. Troops Killed In Afghanistan

Seven U.S. soldiers have been killed in two separate incidents, in one of the deadliest days for American troops in Afghanistan in months.

Officials said five U.S. troops were killed May 4 when they were hit by a roadside bomb in the southern Kandahar Province.

Officials said that in the western province of Farah, two more U.S. soldiers were killed when an Afghan National Army soldier fired on them in a suspected “insider” attack.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the shooting attack.

The Associated Press says it was the third time in the past year that seven Americans have been killed in a single day of the Afghan war.

Based on reprots from AP, Reuters and AFP

Five NATO Soldiers Killed In South Afghanistan

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) says five of its soldiers have been killed in a roadside bomb attack in southern Afghanistan.

The ISAF statement on May 4 did not disclose when the incident happened.

Earlier this week, three British troops were killed when their vehicle hit an explosive device in the southern province of Helmand.

Based on reporting by AFP, AP, and Reuters

Pakistan prosecutor in Bhutto case killed

Pakistan’s main government prosecutor on the Benazir Bhutto murder case has been shot dead in the capital Islamabad, police said.

State prosecutor Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali was shot multiple times by gunmen on Friday as he was driving to the next hearing in the murder case of the former prime minister, who was assassinated in 2007.

His bodyguard was also wounded in the attack and a woman killed when Zulfiqar lost control of his vehicle, police said.

The attack happened in broad daylight in a busy street in a middle class neighbourhood.

Zulfiqar Ali was scheduled to appear in an anti-terrorism court in the neighbouring city of Rawalpindi on Friday, according to Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder in Islamabad.

Hyder said Zulfiqar Ali’s murder shows “that the security apparatus is not working.”

“This is a man who should have been provided maximum security,” our correspondent said. “There will be question marks as to how just one guard was riding with him.”

Musharraf house arrest

On Tuesday, ex-military ruler Pervez Musharraf was placed under a two-week house arrest over charges that he conspired to murder the former prime minister, who was at the time campaigning for election.

Musharraf’s government blamed the killing on Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who denied any involvement and was killed in a US drone attack in 2009.

Bhutto’s son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, who is chairman of the outgoing main ruling Pakistan People’s Party, has accused Musharraf of her murder.

In 2010 a UN report said Bhutto’s death could have been prevented and accused Musharraf’s government of failing to give her adequate protection.

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UN says Somalia famine killed nearly 260,000

Almost 260,000 people, half of them young children, died of hunger during the last famine in Somalia, according to a UN report that admits the world body should have done more to prevent the tragedy.

The toll is much higher than was feared at the time of the 2010-2012 food crisis in the troubled Horn of Africa country and also exceeds the 220,000 who starved to death in a 1992 famine, according to the findings.

“The report confirms we should have done more before the famine was declared,” said Philippe Lazzarini, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia.

“Warnings that began as far back as the drought in 2010 did not trigger sufficient early action,” he said in a statement.

Half of those who died were children under five, according to the joint report by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the US-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network.

“Famine and severe food insecurity in Somalia claimed the lives of about 258,000 people between October 2010 and April 2012, including 133,000 children under five,” said the report, the first scientific estimate of how many people died.

Children toll

Somalia was the country hardest hit by extreme drought in 2011 that affected over 13 million people across the Horn of Africa.

“An estimated 4.6 percent of the total population and 10 percent of children under five died in southern and central Somalia,” the report said, saying the deaths were on top of 290,000 “baseline” deaths during the period, and double the average for sub-Saharan Africa.

Lazzarini said that about 2.7 million people are still in need of life-saving assistance and support to rebuild their livelihoods.

Famine was first declared in July 2011 in Somalia’s Southern Bakool and Lower Shabelle regions, but later spread to other areas, including Middle Shabelle, Afgoye and inside camps for displaced people in the war-ravaged capital Mogadishu.

In Lower Shabelle 18 percent of children under five died, the report said.

During the famine, it was feared that tens of thousands had died, whereas the report now shows more people died than in Somalia’s 1992 famine, when an estimated 220,000 people died over a year.

Famine implies that at least a fifth of households face extreme food shortages, with acute malnutrition in more than 30 percent of people, and two deaths per 10,000 people every day, according to the UN definition.

Mark Smulders, a senior economist for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation and one of the authors of the report, said the area had suffered one of the worst droughts in over 50 years in the whole of Africa.

“Livestock were dying,” he told Al Jazeera. “People simply did not have access to food, and purchasing power went down.”

Somalia, ravaged by nearly uninterrupted civil war for the past two decades, is one of the most dangerous places in the world for aid workers and one of the regions that needs them most.

However, security has slowly improved in recent months, with fighters linked to al-Qaeda on the back foot despite launching a deadly bombing campaign.

At the time, most of the famine-hit areas were under their control, and the crisis was exacerbated by their ban on most foreign aid agencies.

‘Catastrophic political failures’

The aid agency Oxfam said the “deaths could and should have been prevented”.

“Famines are not natural phenomena, they are catastrophic political failures,” Oxfam’s Somalia director Senait Gebregziabher said in a statement.

“The world was too slow to respond to stark warnings of drought, exacerbated by conflict in Somalia and people paid with their lives.”

More than a million Somalis are refugees in surrounding nations, and another million are displaced inside the country.

Next Tuesday, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and British Prime Minister David Cameron will co-host a conference in London to discuss how the international community can support Somalia’s progress.

More than 50 countries and organisations are due to take part.

Oxfam said leaders should “ensure that this was Somalia’s last famine” by helping generate jobs and “ensuring trained, accountable security forces”.

The UN declared the famine over in February 2012.

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British Soldiers, Afghans Killed In Roadside Bombs

Three NATO soldiers killed in the southern Afghan province of Helmand have been identified as British.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense says their armored vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device on April 30 while on a routine patrol in Nahr-e Saraj district.

More than 440 British service personnel have died since operations in Afghanistan began in 2001.

Nine Afghans were killed in separate attacks on April 30.

In southern Afghanistan, Afghan officials say a roadside bomb in the Shah Wali district of Kandahar Province killed three Afghan civilians and wounded five.

Another roadside bomb in the southern province of Uruzgan killed four Afghan civilians and wounded two.

And in the northern Kunduz Province, a roadside bomb targeted local police commander Miran, killing him and his driver.

Two other police officers were reported wounded in the explosion.

With reporting by AFP and AP

Dozens Killed In Kandahar Bus Crash

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Afghan officials say around 30 people have been killed in a road incident in the southern city of Kandahar.

A spokesman for the governor of Kandahar Province said women and children were among the dead and at least 10 others were injured in the April 26 crash.

The spokesman, Javid Faisal, said a loaded bus collided with a truck towing a trailer.

The cause of the incident is being investigated.

With reporting by dpa

Scores killed in two days of Iraq clashes

More than 100 people have been killed in two days of violence across Iraq after a raid on a camp of mostly Sunni Muslim protesters on Tuesday ignited the fiercest clashes since US troops left.

On Wednesday, fighting broke out for a second day between government troops and protesters in the country’s north, after the deaths of at least 56 people at a protest camp in Kirkuk province on Tuesday.

Troops stormed the camp where Sunni Muslims have protested for months against what they see as their marginalisation under the Shia-led government, a raid that prompted Sunni tribal leaders to call for revolt.

Many of the victims were killed in ensuing clashes, which spread beyond the town of Hawija near Kirkuk, 170 km north of Baghdad, to other areas, reviving worries of a return to widespread intercommunal violence.

Al Jazeera’s Omar Al Saleh, reporting from Baghdad, said clashes between fighters and the army were ongoing on Wednesday evening.

“The army is using helicopters. We also heard that gunmen are in charge of at least one police station and that hundreds of people have fled the area.”

Fighters also took over an army base and burned a small Shia mosque in Sulaiman Pek, 160 km north of Baghdad, before the army helicopters drove the fighters out of the town.

At least 18 were killed, including 10 fighters and five soldiers, officials said. An ambush on an army convoy near Tikrit with roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades killed three more soldiers.

In a separate development, at least eight people were killed and 23 more wounded when a car bomb exploded in eastern Baghdad, police and medical sources said on Wednesday. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the blast.

Sectarian clashes

A surge in unrest has accompanied growing turmoil among the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parties that make up Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s power-sharing government.

A decade after the US-led invasion, sectarian wounds are still raw in Iraq, where just a few a years ago violence between Shia armed groups and Sunni fighters killed tens of thousands of people.

Iraq last descended into widespread sectarian bloodshed in 2006-2007 after al-Qaeda bombed the Shia Askari shrine in Samarra, triggering a cycle of retaliation.

Thousands of Sunnis have been protesting since December, venting frustrations building up since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the empowerment of Iraq’s Shia majority through the ballot box.

“We are staying restrained so far, but if government forces keep targeting us, no one can know what will happen in the future, and things could spin out of control,” said Abdul Aziz al-Faris, a tribal leader in Hawija.

The two main Shia groups, Asaib al-Haq and Kataeb Hizbullah, appear to have stayed out of the latest violence. But former fighters said they could take up arms again if needed.

Al Jazeera correspondent Jane Arraf, reporting near the disputed city of Kirkuk, said the Iraqi government said earlier on Wednesday that it is setting up a commission to investigate the string of attacks that erupted on Tuesday.

The prime minister Maliki has offered some concessions to Sunni protesters, including proposed reforms to tough anti-terrorism laws, but most Sunni leaders say they will not be enough to appease the demonstrators.

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Dozens killed in Iraq violence

A wave of attacks and clashes involving security forces and protesters have killed dozens of people in Iraq, officials say.

Iraqi forces stormed a Sunni Muslim protest camp near in the town of Hawija, near Kirkuk, triggering a gunfight between troops and demonstrators.

The fighting on Tuesday was the bloodiest Iraq has seen since thousands of Sunnis started staging protests in December to demand an end to perceived marginalisation of their sect by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shia-led government.

Throughout the day, mortar attacks, bombs and gunmen also killed at least 21 worshippers as they left two Sunni mosques in Baghdad and another in Diyala province in the north, according to police and medical sources. There were no apparent links between the attacks and the clashes at the protest camp.

In a statement on the raid near Kirkuk, the defence ministry said fighting erupted when troops opened fire after coming under attack from gunmen during a raid on the makeshift protest camp in a square in Hawija.

“When the armed forces started… to enforce the law using units of riot control forces, they were confronted with heavy fire,” the defence ministry said in a statement.

Conflicting claims

The defence ministry and military said troops found rocket-propelled grenades, sniper rifles, and other weapons. But protest leaders said they were unarmed when security forces stormed in and started shooting.

“When special forces raided the square, we were not prepared and we had no weapons. They crushed some of us in their vehicles,” said Ahmed Hawija, a student.

The defence ministry said what is described as 20 gunmen were killed at the camp along with three of its officers.

Sheikh Abdullah Sami al-Asi, a Sunni provincial official, said the fighting began when security forces entered the protest area in the town and tried to make arrests.

The raid occurred four days after a checkpoint jointly run by the police and army near the town came under attack. Fighters seized a number of weapons before retreating into the crowd of protesters, according to the defence ministry.

Ministers resign

Two ministers quit in the wake of the raid on Tuesday – Education minister Mohammed Ali Tamim and Science and Technology Minister Abdulkarim al-Samarraie. Their resignations bring the number of Sunni cabinet ministers who have resigned since March 1 to four.

Agriculture Minister Ezzedine al-Dawleh quit on March 8 after a protester was killed in northern Iraq, and Finance Minister Rafa al-Essawi, some of whose bodyguards were arrested on terrorism charges in December, announced his resignation at an anti-government demonstration on March 1.

The arrest of al-Essawi’s bodyguards was seen as the main trigger of the Sunni protest movement.

Al Jazeera’s Jane Arraf, reporting from Baghdad, said demonstrations continue because “a lot of people are being arrested under a very vague and sweeping anti-terrorist law; a lot of these sweeps are happening in Sunni areas.

“They are also upset they have no jobs; a lot of Iraqis here were stripped of their jobs because they were affiliated with the former Ba’ath Party.”

Clashes spread

Outrage over Tuesday’s raid soon spread through other Sunni parts of the country.

Gunmen tried to storm army posts in the nearby towns of Rashad and Riyadh, leaving 13 of them dead, according to defence ministry, police and hospital officials.

Demonstrators also clashed with police in the restive western province of Anbar.

In Fallujah, mosque loudspeakers urged residents to protest in solidarity with Hawija. About 1,000 took to the streets. Clashes later erupted between gunmen and security forces in the centre of the city, leading authorities to announce an overnight curfew.

The United Nations envoy to Iraq called for talks to end violence and Maliki’s office said it would set up a commission that included Sunni leaders to investigate the Hawija deaths.

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Nearly 200 killed in Nigeria violence

Fighting between Nigeria’s military and the armed group Boko Haram has left at least 185 people dead in a fishing community in the nation’s far northeast, officials said on Sunday.

The fighting in Baga began on Friday and lasted for hours, sending people fleeing into the arid scrublands surrounding the community on Lake Chad, according to the AP news agency.

By Sunday, when government officials finally felt safe enough to see the destruction, homes, businesses and vehicles were burned throughout the area.

The assault marks a significant escalation in a long-running insurgency in the predominantly Muslim north, where Boko Haram has mounted a coordinated assault on soldiers using military-grade weaponry.

Boko Haram, which means “Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language of Nigeria’s north, has said it wants its imprisoned members freed and Nigeria to adopt strict Islamic law.

Authorities had found and buried at least 185 bodies as of Sunday afternoon, said Lawan Kole, a local government official in Baga. Officials could not offer a breakdown of civilian casualties versus those of soldiers and fighters.

Many of the bodies had been burned beyond recognition in fires that razed whole sections of the town, residents said.

‘Heavy firepower’

Brigadier General Austin Edokpaye said the Boko Haram fighters used heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades in the assault, which began after soldiers surrounded a mosque they believed housed members of the group.

Edokpaye said they used civilians as human shields during the fighting, implying that soldiers opened fire in neighbourhoods where they knew civilians lived.

“When we reinforced and returned to the scene the terrorists came out with heavy firepower, including [rocket-propelled grenades], which usually has a conflagration effect,” the general said.

However, local residents who spoke to a journalist who accompanied the state officials said soldiers purposefully set the fires during the attack.

‘Picking corpses’

Violence by security forces in the northeast targeting civilians has been widely documented by journalists and human rights activists.

A similar raid in Maiduguri, Borno state’s capital, in October saw soldiers kill at least 30 civilians and set fires across a neighborhood.

On Sunday afternoon, the burned bodies of cattle and goats still filled the streets in Baga. Bullet holes marred burned buildings. Fearful residents of the town had begun packing to leave with their remaining family members before nightfall.

“Everyone has been in the bush since Friday night; we started returning back to town because the governor came to town today,” grocer Bashir Isa said.

“To get food to eat in the town now is a problem because even the markets are burnt. We are still picking corpses of women and children in the bush and creeks.”

Widespread insurgency

The insurgency in Nigeria grew out of a 2009 riot led by Boko Haram members in Maiduguri, which ended in a military and police crackdown that killed around 700 people. The group’s leader died in police custody in an apparent execution.

Shootings, suicide bombings and other attacks carried out by the group have killed at least 1,548 people before Friday’s attack, according to an AP tally.

Fighters suspected to belong to Boko Haram also have been seen in northern Mali, where heavily armed rebels took power last year in the weeks following a military coup.

Analysts say Boko Haram may get its hands on weapons smuggled out of Libya following its recent civil war.

Despite the deployment of more soldiers and police to northern Nigeria, the nation’s weak central government has been unable to stop the killings.

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Yemeni Officials Say Drone Strike Killed Al-Qaeda Militants

A suspected U.S. drone strike has killed two men in Yemen who officials say were Al-Qaeda militants.

The strike on April 21 also reportedly destroyed an arms cache in the town of Wadi Abida in central Marib Province.

An unnamed Yemeni security official told journalists that the strike was carried out at dawn. It is the second suspected U.S. drone strike in Yemen in less than a week.

Earlier, officials said an “Al-Qaeda leader” and four militants were killed in a strike south of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa.

The United States usually does not comment on its drone program.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP

Afghan Police Officers Reported Killed In Suspected Insider Attack

Insurgents in Afghanistan have attacked a police checkpoint in Ghazni Province, Afghan officials say.

Six police officers were reportedly killed in the incident on April 21, which occurred while the officers were sleeping.

One was wounded and one is missing.

According to the AFP news agency, the militants were aided by one of the police officers, who led them into the post.

The slain officers were part of the Afghan Local Police, a U.S.-funded effort to recruit locals into community policing units.

More than 60 international troops and scores of Afghan security personnel have been killed in insider attacks in recent months, breeding mistrust in the run-up to the withdrawal of international combat forces by the end of 2014.

Based on reporting by AFP and AP

13 Candidates Killed Ahead of Iraqi Elections

Baghdad — Iraq holds provincial elections tomorrow, the first elections since the pullout of US troops, against a backdrop of widening violence, a record number of assassinations of political candidates, and deepening political division.

Although overall attacks are at roughly similar levels as they were for the last provincial elections in 2009, at least 13 candidates and two political party officers have been killed in targeted attacks in the past few weeks — a record number. Almost 150 candidates have so far been struck off the list of candidates, most of them for alleged ties to the banned Baath Party of Saddam Hussein.

“It’s a showdown,” says Iraqi political analyst Saad Eskander. “They use ‘legal’ methods — expelling the ones they don’t want or by force — physical liquidation. This is an extension of politics, not an extension of terrorism.”

Violent politics

In Baghdad, where explosions in Shiite areas have become common, residents were jarred last night by a bomb that ripped through a crowded internet café in the almost exclusively Sunni neighborhood of Amariyah. Police said at least 25 people were killed and more than 50 wounded when the explosion tore through a three-story complex packed with young men and families relaxing at the start of the weekend.

Amariyah was an Al Qaeda in Iraq stronghold and the first urban neighborhood in which Sunni neighborhood fighters joined US soldiers to drive out the organization.

No group has taken responsibility for the blast, though an interior ministry official linked the explosion to the provincial elections.

“I think this is a conflict between competing political parties,” said the official. He described it as a warning to supporters of moderate Sunni politicians allied with the Shiite-led government.

Baghdad has been under heightened alert for weeks ahead of elections for provincial council, with restricted access to many Sunni neighborhoods believed by the Shite-led government to be particular security risks. Armored vehicles and tens of thousands of extra troops are being deployed in the capitol.

The interior ministry says it has arrested several Al Qaeda leaders and seized more than 100 bombs over the past week.

The elections will be the first secured completely by Iraqi forces since US troops pulled out of the country in 2011. It is also seen as a test of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s chances for re-election in national polls next year.

A different story outside Baghdad

In an indication of the growing divide between Iraqi provinces and the central government, the Iraqi cabinet decided to postpone elections in the mainly Sunni provinces of Anbar and Ninevah for security reasons. The move, though, is also seen as propping up unpopular incumbent politicians and Prime Minister Maliki’s own hold on power.

With the Kurdish region holding separate elections in September, voters in only 12 of Iraq’s 18 provinces will be going to the polls tomorrow. Elections have also been postponed indefinitely in the disputed city of Kirkuk.

In Baghdad, campaign posters have plastered roundabouts and concrete walls for weeks. Among the most prominent are those for Mohammad Rubai’e, elected four years ago on a campaign he modeled on President Obama’s slogan of “Change.”

“We aimed to produce change in four years but it’s difficult because there was so much destruction,” says Rubai’e, who switched allegiances from the largely Sunni Iraqiya to one of the main Shiite coalitions with wider support. “Iraq needs political reform that starts at the top to achieve visible change.”

At a recent campaign event on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, Rubai’e, a secular Shiite, met with Sunni tribal leaders, pledging to bring clean water to their agricultural area.

“We will vote for whoever listens to us and brings us services. We don’t trust the thieves. We know who they are now,” says Sheikh Raad Mutar al-Mehdi.

‘Most democratic elections’

Despite the fact that voter turnout is expected to be around only 50 percent, this election is considered to be perhaps the most democratic in Iraq’s post-war history.

Parties and candidates needed a certain percentage of votes to win seats in previous provincial elections, meaning that if they did not reach that threshold, votes cast for them were discarded. That clause was removed after legal challenges.

In a more controversial move, the percentage of guaranteed seats for women has also been raised to 25 percent of the total in each province and for the first time, Shiite Kurds have been included in seats set aside for Iraqi minorities. The guaranteed seats for women potentially mean that female candidates who won very few votes will be given seats over male candidates with more support.

By Jane Arraf
Christian Science Monitor