Over at our company blog, http://smallworldnews.tv you can read all about Brian Conley’s experience in China, including his detention. Here’s a link to the first installment, more to come soon!

Why did I end up in Chinese Prison? part 1

What follows is a letter that Ali Shafeya Al-Moussawi’s sister asked us to present to our audience and everyone who contributed to help fund Ali’s funeral and support his family. They are very grateful for the support and wanted to thank everyone directly.

الى كل من بعث بالتعازي بعد فاجعتنا الاليمة

شكرا لكم جميعا من اين ما كنتم و من اين ما ارسلتم تعازيكم , علي هوة ابنكم و اخوكم شكرا على احساسكم بمصيبتنا التي حلت علينا و التي تحل على جميع العراقين المنكوبين في العراق
علي مات شهيدا و ستضل ذكراه حية في قلوبنا الى الابد , ادعوا بالرحمة و الغفران لعلي و اذكروه في كل حين و مرة اخرى اشكركم على مشاعركم التي ادفئت قلوبنا

عائلة الشهيد
علي شفيع الموسوي

To all who sent their condolences after our painful tragedy,

Thank you all from where you are and from where you sent your condolences, Ali is your son and your brother, thank you for feeling our disaster that happened to us and to all the Iraqis in Iraq.

Ali died as a martyr and his memory will continue living in our hearts forever. Pray for mercy and forgiveness upon Ali and remember him everywhere, and one more time thank you for your feelings that warmed our hearts.

The family of the Martyr
Ali Shafeya Al-Moussawi

Ali Shafeya was killed on December 14th. I’ve listed the details of his death below as they appear on Alive in Baghdad’s blog. We’re determined to continue and will be raising money for the future of Alive in Baghdad via a new ChipIn widget soon. We raised $2500 to cover the costs of his funeral and support the family. We hope you will continue to support Alive in Baghdad as it continues. You can also call the Committee to Protect Journalists and ask why they did not list Ali Shafeya in their annual list of Journalists killed in 2007. Here is their phone number: 212-465-1004

Thanks again for all your support.

Ali Shafeya Al-Moussawi was born in 1984 on December 16th, he was killed on December 14th, 2007.

We are collecting donations for the funeral and his family. You can make a donation via Paypal to smallworldnews (at) gmail.com . If you would like to make a donation by mail or via a different payment service please email us directly at the previous address. We have raised nearly $600 until now, but more will help. His mother and sister are displaced Iraqis leaving in Syria without employment.

Ali lived in Habibya, it’s considered as a part of the Sadr city. On Friday the 14th at 11:30pm Baghdad time, Iraqi National Guard forces raided the street where Ali’s house is, one of the neighbors heard a gun firing after 15 minutes from the arrival of the Iraqi National Guard convoy to the street, the force left at 3:00am. His neighbors kept calling Ali’s phone and it was switched off all the time, so they called his cousin Amar because he lives one block away from where Ali lives.

Amar arrived in Ali’s house and found Ali shoot dead in the living room, Amar called the Iraqi Police and told them the story as he heard it from Ali’s neighbors. At 8:30 am Baghdad time the Iraqi Police took Ali’s body to the morgue, his two uncles received the body at 10:00am and they headed to Najaf to bury him.

Amar said the neighbor who lives in the front of his house was shot dead too during that raid, the guy’s name is Hussein and he is 26 years old. He was in his place along with his brother and nephew. The brother and the nephew disappeared after the convoy left.

The morgue report says that Ali took 31 bullets between the chest and the head and died immediately. He will be missed and remembered. His two brothers were killed in the Firdos Square bombing in 2005. He is survived by his mother and sister. As written above, we are collecting donations for his family via Paypal and mail at smallworldnews (at) gmail.com No amount is too small, and anything will be appreciated.

[Editor’s note: This is Alaa’s newest update on the unfolding situation in Adhamiya. You can now see some photos, courtesy of IraqSlogger’s hosting, we’ll also post a link to the article but you’ll have to become a paying subscriber to view the article.]

On Wednesday Al Sahwa troops arrested some more Al-Qa’eda fighters yesterday in Aadhamiya and they were taken to the US troops.

Everyday now the United States forces in Adhamiya are finding more and more roadside bombs being left at car parkinglots or near the parks, or other places, and they are detonating them for disposal.

Some of the people Aadhamiya think that the insurgents have done this because they have no way now to use these things, because al-Sahwa forces know them well and they also know where these insurgents have been hidning their devices.

Now some news about the locations of checkpoints around Adhamiya:

They put them everywhere in Adhamiya, from the north at Omar Street, and to the south in Anteer Square and from the east at Al-Kam to the west at Al Numan Hospital.

Also they are in all the major streets and sometimes three or four checkpoints in the same street if it is a long one like Omar street and Al-Thubbat street and when you move by car in Adhamiya now you have to leave the car in every street to get searched by Al-Sahwa. With this plan there is no way for anyone or any insurgents to bring a bomb or put the bomb in the streets so that make a kind of security for now in Adhamiya, and some of the shops have begun to open again and normal life is returning, step by step.

And about Abu hanifa mosque, most of the Imams were threatened by Al-Qa’eda and now they are in Syria and there is just a young Imam now there and he has not enough power to change any of this situation.

…

Here are some links to photos of the events in Adhamiya by Ali Yussef of the AFP, courtesy of Iraq Slogger:

http://www.iraqslogger.com/images_full_column/77909224_10.jpg

http://www.iraqslogger.com/images_full_column/77909215_10.jpg

http://www.iraqslogger.com/images_full_column/77909056_10.jpg

and here is the article itself on IraqSlogger: http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/4886/Revolutionaries_of_Adhamiyah_Patrol_Near_Home

and this round-up of Iraqi Papers also has some coverage of Al-Sahwa in Adhamiya:

http://www.iraqslogger.com/index.php/post/4882/Iraq_Papers_Wed_Coup_dEtat_in_Adhamiya_

[Editor’s note: This is Alaa’s newest update on the unfolding situation in Adhamiya. We will continue to cover the activities there as best we can, and update you when the rest of the media begin releasing their own coverage. Look for a longer article coming soon as well.]

When Al-Sahwa came into the streets a few days ago, most of Al-Qaedq hid their bombs and car bombs and other explosives material in one of the car parking areas in Adhamiya. Just yesterday, November 13, US troops found these bombs, with the help of Al-Sahwa, and destroyed them. So now more than six car bombs and more than fifteen roadside bombs were destroyed by US troops in the same day. The work for eliminating these bombs took more than eight hours from 12:00 that is, noon, until at least 8:30 pm.

This is just a note to let our readers and viewers know that Brian Conley will be on Johnny’s Partay this Wednesday, November 13th. Come watch and join in the discussion. You can ask Brian questions via chat, or via live webcam if you have an Operator 11 account!

Check out Johnny’s post about the event, to learn how you can participate and engage in discussion! If you have questions for Brian about Alive in Baghdad’s work, or stories you’d like to suggest, come join in!

[Editor’s note: This is Alaa’s newest update on the unfolding situation in Adhamiya.]

Al-Sahwa forces start arrested anyone who has worked with Al-Qa’eda before, because some Al-Qa’eda members began to work with Al-Sahwa and they arrested more than 20 of them. After these arrests, the members who joined from Al-Qa’eda guided the US Troops to some roadside bombs and helped the US troops to destroy it and they destroyed more than six bomb in diferent places in Adhamiya, and also destroyed one of the carbombs yesterday night.

And US troops asked the people of Adhamiya to come and join the Adhamiya people’s police station to be protected by people from Adhamiya and yesterday 200 of them go and joined the police and they will be taken to the Police acadimy next week, as I hear from my source .

[Editor’s Note: Right now the “Awakening” forces, something between a tribal militia and an organized local counter-insurgency force, has begun making greater public moves against Al-Qa’eda and other insurgent forces, with the assistance of the US and Iraqi armed forces. I’ll be posting short updates each day as received from correspondent Alaa who lives in Adhamiya and is in the middle of the Al-Sahwa operation there.]

Today, November 11th, Al-Sahwa forces started arresting some people who work like criminals before. Those arrested were given to the custody of US troops. As well, they arrested two persons who have been killing people and committing some robberies and kidnappings.

Last, there was some small fighting between Al-Sahwa forces and Al-Qa’eda members today, in the early morning of the 11th, between 2:00am and 3:00am. At least one of Al-Sahwa members was killed in this fight.

[Editor’s Note: This entry is written with notes from a conversation with correspondent Alaa, who is based in the Adhamiya neighborhood of Baghdad. Today The US forces, along with new volunteers for what has been called the “Awakening,” or Al-Sahwa, entered Adhamiya in the open for the first time, and this is Alaa’s account of what happened.]

Alaa is one of our new correspondents based in Adhamiya, he has been unable to produce material for awhile now, because of the dangerous times in Adhamiya lately. He has reported to me in the past of a secret war going on between Al-Sahwa and Al-Qa’eda, killings happening in secret, with both groups targetting people for assassination or capture.

Today, for the first time Al-Sahwa came to Adhamiya in force and in the open. Apparently members of Al-Sahwa went to the Abu Hanifa Mosque, where most of Adhamiya’s leadership can be found, to request their assistance in fighting Al-Qa’eda in the neighborhood. Alaa emailed me today about this, and I called him today to get a better account by phone. This event does not seem to have been reported elsewhere in the media yet, and we believe Alive in Baghdad may have the first account of the Adhamiya “Awakening Council” establishing itself by force and in the open in Adhamiya.

Here it is in Alaa’s own words:

“They surrounded Adhamiya, like a wall, they were supported by the US and Iraqi troops, and there was more than 150 soldiers of Al-Sahwa forces. they came at the same time, setting up checkpoints, challenging Al-Qa’eda by firing in the air to frighten them. They fired in the air and waited for Qa’eda and Al-Qa’eda fought at first, but then they stopped after just a few minutes, maybe Al-Qa’eda changed their mine and they will fight in another time.

Al-Sahwa troops have just some small guns like the Kalashnikov and BKC, simple guns, but you know Al-Qaeda is armed with the RPG, but there are just a few numbers of Al-Qa’eda [in Adhamiya now] and a large number of Al-Sahwa. They have a lot of support from the Americans, so I think that is why Qa’eda changed and just disappeared, and Al-Sahwa made new checkpoints in Adhamiya.

They are checking each of the cars on the road, searching everything. But Adhamiya’s people think there will be more fighting with Qa’eda fighters in the near future. And for sure Qa’eda will fight, because Al-Sahwa forces have a list of names, and they arrested 20 people already. This will make a bigger problem in the next days.

The Adhamiya people started to hate Qa’eda because they are killing Shi’a people without reason, and they are just killing people and murdering, and butchering people and tha’ts why they started to hate them. Also, you know some of Al-Sahwa force is from Adhamiya, they hide their faces-but we know they are from Adhamiya, because they are joking with some people in the streets.

They hide their faces, but we know they are from Adhamiya. Al-Qa’eda is still here, and working in secret, but Al-Sahwa will finish Al-Qa’eda. I think they will disappear like in Ramadi, maybe this will be the last few weeks for Qa’eda in Adhamiya.”

A friend sent me a link to this article in the Hollywood Reporter this morning. So apparently ABC thinks what we’re doing is viable and the future of at least some portion of news. Make no mistake, we started opening new foreign bureaus in Summer 2006 with the establishment of a weekly program produced in Iraq.

We’re happy to see that other media are following our lead, now we hope a savvy investor will recognize we’re doing it better than the old media, and cheaper. How? The answer to both is the same, we employ locals with local knowledge and relationships. ABC is still insisting on sending foreign nationals trained and salaried at ABC into the field. Hiring foreign nationals is expensive, and they don’t have the same local contacts and networks.

I hope this is good news for our work and that we’ll be able to locate individuals or organizations/investors to collaborate with at the Networked Journalism Summit next week, given this news and of course our own track record.

On the funding side, we’ve raised about $800 so far, which is approximately 1/3rd of our expenses to cover Baghdad staff and necessities. Please consider making a subscription payment if you haven’t yet, and you appreciate our work. Also remember Alive in Mexico needs your support as well!

I keep getting asked whether or not I’m going to Podcast and New Media Expo in Ontario California. I guess its time to let the cat out of the bag. Alive in Baghdad and Alive in Mexico, the two entities which are part of Small World News, have been on life support since the end of July, when Next New Networks decided three months was enough time to see if Alive in Baghdad: Uncut could sink or swim. Apparently it couldn’t. We understand that NextNew might not be the best place for AiB, and that the news doesn’t make money, but we’ve been hoping we could find some killer deal that would keep us going.

Really we’ve been on life support longer than that. Although we had a huge windfall when we licensed some of our content to SkyNews, BBC Newsnight, and CurrentTV, we’ve not been able to repeat those deals or bring in anything similar.

We’ve been consistently told that our content is some of the most serious and respectable work being done in web video. We’ve also been consistently told that no one wants to sponsor it or advertise against it, because its too much of a downer, among other reasons. We had one sponsorship, from PNN.com, who wasn’t afraid to be associated with hard journalism in the fun and geeky web video world. This lasted 3 months, and was brought to us with much appreciation from blip.tv.

So we’ve initiated a program of voluntary paid subscriptions, where our viewers can choose to give us 5, 10, or 25 dollars per month, because they felt our work was important, necessary, and worth paying for. Particularly we expected it might be worth paying for in an age where the consumer doesn’t have to pay for the news, because it is already bought and paid for, by advertisers, corporations, and others.

Now its September 25th, and when our bills come due on October 1st, we’ll be out of money. We’ve been paying ourselves a meager salary to get by because we do this full-time, while also paying a fluctuating staff of 5-8 overseas in Iraq and Mexico, between our translator, Baghdad bureau chief, and correspondents. It seems our big failure is that we are ahead of our time. Less flatteringly, neither did we have enough business sense to have a model for making money before we tried to change the quality of video journalism available online. There may be media democracy for the wealthy and privileged of the first world, but they appear unwilling to pay a few dollars to support that democracy in the developing world.

We’re still hoping that our viewers will come through and provide monthly support to us on a voluntary basis. Our correspondents want to keep producing their videos, providing the world a window into life in Baghdad. Without a monthly salary however, it will become very difficult for the sons, brothers, and fathers, who bring you Alive in Baghdad each week to continue their work.

Ask yourself, do you want to know what’s going on in Iraq? Do you want to have a way to see inside life in Baghdad? Do you think its important to hear about the war from the civilians affected in Iraq? If you answered yes to any of these, can you afford to skip a beer each month, or a few gallons of gas, or a movie? If you still answered yes, then sign up here for a voluntary subscription donation to Alive in Baghdad. If you can’t do that, in the near future you may need to find another Iraq video blog to subscribe to.

[Editor’s note, Omar Abdullah, our Baghdad Bureau coordinator, interviewed a few Iraqis from different neighborhoods to gauge their opinion of the results of the Surge.]

One of the main changes in Iraq during the last six months is the United States ‘Surge’ in Baghdad. The security plan was supposed to make a better Iraq and a better future, and I don’t know why, but for some reason there was no better Iraq or better future. This is not just my opinion, it is according to the people I interviewed from different places in Baghdad by phone after six months of the surge, and they did not see any improvements in Iraq’s condition, but they saw something else and here is some of the things they saw until now…

Abu Ahmed, 56 years old, is married with fours kids and he lives in Sadr city in Baghdad:

“I think that the surge was not a good thing to be done in Baghdad. So many raids happened in my neighborhood, and nothing changed. I think that what should have been done by the Iraq government, along with the help of the US forces, is disarming all of the militias based in Baghdad, to maintain the security there. Not only raiding houses at nighttime, and those houses of Iraqi civilians, not of insurgents. Like for example, a US raid happened near my house, and the US forces came along with the INGs[Iraqi National Guard soldiers] and they raided the house of a man I’ve known for a long time, and he had only daughters and no boys at all, but they entered his house after midnight and they scared the women in there and broke the doors and nothing was found there! And after they were done with that they just moved on and said ‘We are sorry,’ and I don’t know what is the point of being sorry after they scared the women and broke their doors and made them face the wall for four hours, so what kind of Surge is that? Is it for helping Iraqis or is it for terrorizing Iraqis? And what else, lots of bombings are happening by US missiles in some neighborhoods, but they say that they were targeting some members in the Mahdi army? I don’t know what to say because I’ve run out of words for now, and I will leave the answer to Mr. Bush because I am sure that he knows the answer very well.”

And I had another interview with a different man from Baghdad, but he lives on the other side of Baghdad, in the Abu Ghraib neighborhood, which is considered a Sunni neighborhood and an extremist one. I am sorry to use that word extremist, but it’s good to show some of these people’s opinion also.

Sa’eed Muhammad Al-Janabi, he is 49 years old and married:

“For me I think any attempt to solve the situation in Iraq is something good, if it was the Surge, or an operation, or anything else, and for me I will do anything to help with fixing Iraq. But what the US forces did during the Surge it was not something to help Iraq, the only things that happened since its beginning are the deaths of more Iraqis, and more of them detained. And for no reason! They have to stay in American prisons, like Abu Ghraib, and some other detention centers in the south of Iraq, and they keep them there, even if they have done nothing, for like six months or more. I think keeping people in there for a long time, even if they did nothing, is not something that helps Iraq. Like for example I have a brother who is detained by the US forces, and he is now in a American prison in the south of Iraq, and he was kept there over the last four months. Yet they keep telling him that there are no charges against him and they will let him go soon! So I don’t what kind of surge is that?”

Something to be mentioned is that one of our correspondents, his name is Husam, has been kept in Bucca camp, in the south of Iraq, for more than four months and also with no charges. I am wondering when the US military will let him go too, so I hope that they will release him soon as they are constantly saying they will. Husam was detained after a raid took place in Adhamya, and he was at one of his friends’ houses, the US forces detained two of his friends along with him, his two friends have been released but he is still there.

I recorded one more interview with an Iraqi citizen, Amar Al-Zubaidi who is 36 years old and married. He lives in Al-Salaam district, which is controlled by the Mahdi army:

“The things I saw after the Surge is two US raids in my neighborhood, the US forces came into one of the apartments and they made everybody put their faces to the wall and told them not to move, but thank god, they didn’t take anybody or arrest anybody, but the Surge changed nothing. For example, there is a guy I know who used to work for ABC News as a cameraman, or a correspondent, his name is Alaa. He was kidnapped by the Mahdi army and found dead on the very next day, and sometimes I used to watch them from the window. Where they used to put their fake checkpoints on the street in front of my apartment and kidnap people. But nobody is doing anything about it, so where is that Surge for cleaning all the militias? Or is it just all TV talk and nothing is really happening on the ground?”

That was what some of the people in Iraq think about the Surge; I wonder how the Americans in the US are thinking about it?

By: Omar Abdullah

[Editor’s Note: In anticipation of the Surge Report, we are asking each of our correspondents to write something about their impressions of the conditions today in Baghdad, what they are hearing and what they expect will happen. This piece is by Omar Abdullah, who is now based in Damascus.]

Lots of Iraqis ask this questions everyday, to the police, the Iraqi forces, the US forces, many of them wonder when is this bloodbath is going to end. None of the Iraqi families that I meet did not lose someone, at least they have one of their family members either missing or detained somewhere in Iraq. Some people I meet they think that if the US forces pull out of Iraq all of the problems there will end forever. But some of them say that if the US forces pull out of Iraq it will become a total mess and no one will ever control the situation, because of the large number of militias, some are Sunni and some are Shi’a and most of those militias control large areas in Baghdad and some other places in Iraq.

I spoke with one Iraqi citizen, who lived in Sadr city since the year 1980, named Abbas Mahmoud, he said “Most of the people who lived here had a strong faith in the Sadr family because they are from the family of the Prophet Mohammed and they were very kind since a very long time ago, and I think people in Baghdad will keep their faith in this family forever. But there is only one problem now in Baghdad, there are some people trying to destroy the image of this family by wearing uniforms that look the same as the uniform of the Mahdi Army. Unfortunately they are killing some Sunnis from distant areas of Baghdad and I hope one day we can find all of those people and punish them for killing other Iraqis, and for destroying the image of the Sadr Movement at the same time.”

After this I had another meeting with another Iraqi Sunni who lives in the Al-Karkh side of Baghdad, who used to live in Adhamiya from 1976, his name is Mahmoud Omar A-Kaisi, he said, “If we as Iraqis want this country to be return as it was, we should all be united together and never be separated. We should all use the word Iraqi, not Sunni or Shi’a or Kurds, and we should all refuse the ideas of the occupation and we should control our country by ourselves with out any help from outside. I think we controlled this country for many years and many wars happened in this country and we were able to fix it”

And I hope that Iraq will be rebuilt at some point, and I hope that all of the chaos will just be history.

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[Editor’s note: To expand the content available in the blog, we’re going to begin posting updates written by Omar Abdullah, based on conversation he has with Iraqis in Baghdad about the situation there, as well as posting interesting articles written in Arabic, that we’ve translated to English. Please let us know what you think about this new work.]

I have some new updates coming from Baghdad and on the top of those updates is the new security plan that 90% of Iraqis have admitted is a lost mission and a new shame for the new Iraq government. So many dead bodies are found everyday in Baghdad streets and in huge numbers. Most of them are regular people, not related to any political party or working with Iraq police or the Iraqi national guards, just regular people whom they lived there entire life in peace with no problem of getting killed or kidnapped by one of the militias.

Now in Baghdad there are more problems then getting killed or kidnapped and one of those most important problems is the water and the electricity. The Iraqi people are tired of getting those promises from their government about fixing the electricity every month and official man comes on Al-Iraqiyah satellite channel and give a statement about fixing the power problem forever and everything is still the same, nothing has changed. ,

Things are just getting worse, according to one of our correspondents Basheer Rasheed, who said “The power did not show up in my area for over a week and it came once last week for one hour only, it was barely enough to refill the water tanks we have in the house and god knows how we are going to fix this problem. The Iraqi government is so busy with the security problem and building new security walls like the one around Adhamiya, and it’s proved they failed to fix the security problem in Iraq for more than 5 years and I wonder when are they really going to fix it, instead of watching us die day after day? I don’t know how much the population of Iraq will be in 2009, and god only knows who would stay alive till that day to check the number of how many Iraqis left in Iraq to rebuild it. Ok let say they fix the power and the water along with everything, how are they going fix the trust among the Iraq people for the next years?”

And this question is going in my mind too, how are they going to fix the trust among the Iraq people-Sunni killing Shi’ite and Shi’ites killing Sunni? So many car bombed bridges might be blown up at any second and even there is a joke in Iraq street that says “Don’t cross a bridge or you will go back swimming.” Most of the Iraqis are afraid now from using the bridges and I asked a guy who lives in Karrada, who refused to say his name, about the power there and he told me, “The power dose not show up in here at all but we see the Green Zone from here has power all the time, and we are just living across the bridge from them and we don’t have power. Only just once a week, and sometimes twice a week so how are they going to fix a whole country while they can’t fix a small problem like power but they can provide the power for the green zone 24/7?! Why is this happening to us? They are supposed to let us live, not to kill us inside our own houses with their heavy guns or by cutting the power off for the whole day, and they don’t care if we lived or died!”

I hope that one day all of these words become history and Iraq becomes a place for a good life, instead of getting killed.

By
Omar Abdullah

[Editor’s note: This piece originally appeared on the Iraq Rabita site. We are considering providing Kamal Jubouri’s articles in English for our readers, we’d love your feedback about whether you find them interesting or insightful. This piece, which is a little dated, is about an important bridge that was recently destroyed in Baghdad.]

Some eyewitnesses reported that the explosion was very huge and caused four cars to fall into the Tigris witch were passing over the bridge. The river-police were trying to rescue people from those cars.

Our correspondent spoke with a policemen who confirmed that 12 people get killed and 30 injuries as well as sounds of the explosion were reported as being heard across Baghdad.

The Al-Sarrafya Bridge, located in the heart of Baghdad, is one of the oldest and most famous bridges in the capital. This bridge makes easy to reach to Baghdad University, Al-Mistensirya University, medical city, and Al-Karkh republican hospital as it connects the Al-a’atefya region and Al-Sarrafya.

—-

Another eyewitness reported says as follows:

I distressed today in the early morning as every Iraqi nobleman were distressed with this criminal accident, this time the target was (Al-Sarrafya bridge)… this, leads to collapse a big part of the bridge, and to say nothing about the human damage left behind among killed, wounded, and shocked.

I’m not here to tell a story as what press news were reporting it with passion but I would like to mention on some points leaving the comment on this subject to you:

1 - The time of the explosion and its harshness and the way of it doesn’t goes too far from the explosion of the sepulcher of the two Imams (Samara’a explosion).

2 - Not a human being can deny the supposition that the operation of the bridge was done after the curfew end, and every eyewitnesses assured that the explosion done in a smart way that’s needed along time of work.

3 - The explosion was very huge and heard in all of Baghdad, and that is a sign of the huge amount of squib material that used in it and its type that used in this explosion (remember Samara’a explosion), to know that the explosion happened after less than 24 hour from the American occupation forces show a new Iranian weapons found in Iraq.

4 - Where were the coterie of Baratha temple and what surround it from death squids, the sectarianism, and the ING’s?

5 - As Samara’a… AL-Sarafya bridge is an strategic bridge that serve all Iraqi people without any special sect because its connect many and common areas, and there is no profit to any sect to do such thing.

6 - The current political circumstances is too strained, government disagreement, AL-Sadir forces threatening to withdraw from the Government, splitting in coalition, storm disagreement with the proximity country…it is the same circumstances that happened before Samara’a explosion.

By
Kamal Al-Jubouri

[Editor’s note: This is a new entry by Ausama, a young Iraqi who was living in Baghdad but who has fled with his family to the Kurdish region, due to the escalating violence. You may remember his earlier posts some months back. Ausama was previously involved with a project now known as Hometown Baghdad, by Chat the Planet.]

Now suddenly, for the first time in 4 years , as it appears the American government starts to pay a real attention for the situation in Iraq, a lot of debate about the future and about the strategies and what’s so on …

A lot of question just pops into my mind, like why now? Do the American people know what’s really going on here on the ground? And the 2 most important questions are, how much is the US government serious this time and do they really know what’s going on and who’s really responsible for what’s been going on in Iraq for the past 4 years?

I know those questions might sound a little bit more as critiques than questions, but seriously they’re not, they’re real questions , although I try to answer some of them my self , but I always find my self on a dead end .

I’ll try to answer some of these questions and let’s start by “why now?” did they realized that it has been 4 years since they came and nothing good yet happened? Or
Is it all just another Battle for the American upcoming Elections and as we used for the presidential Battle, each faction in the states would do the impossible to win and in this case I think Iraq is being a tool for those politicians.

“Do the American people know about the truth?” A lot of them know about 30 % of what’s really going on, and those definitely didn’t know through the ordinary Medias
But the larger faction of the American people know the least of what’s going on and they’re not to be blamed since there are two main reasons, the first one is that they believe what’s the CNN or Fox been telling them, the second one which is related to the first one, that they are Americans, they carry the same identity so they definitely should stand beside their army even if they know their army is making a lot of mistakes.

I’m not here to blame the American people , and to be honest , I’m not here to blame the army as well , since a lot of soldiers are just doing what they’ve been told to do !
But of course everything happened so far is caused by the American stakeholders inside the white house.

If it’s not about the upcoming elections, then what it is for? Why the sudden care?
I have 2 theories now and each one of those has a big questions mark above it

The first one : It’s either the American policy in Iraq is going somewhere on a straight line and everything now happening is some tactics and by that I should try to illustrate why and how things are getting worse in Iraq if the plan is perfect why didn’t they made from Iraq a better place from the beginning ? Why to bring Iraq into a possible civil war?!

If it is all planned then why did they destroyed the infra structure of Iraq? And why did they hurt a lot of people and why did they build a sectarian political view?

My explanation for that which is some how is mostly sounds as conspiracy theory
They might want Iraq to suffer from Civil war and from destruction so that they would make Iraq the only courtyard for terrorism.

A lot of the Iraqi people also think that there’s a secret plan to destroy the Iraqi community and to deplete the country from the intellectuals to ruin any plan or chance to re-establish the infra structure of the country.
Which is of course would be something not far from the truth, since that situation would give the American forces the right to stay longer and to deplete the country from its own natural resources.

Or to be little bit optimistic ( after giving a dark theory , huh ! ) and say may be they want us to suffer so that we reject violence in the future and by that , it would be better for them since Iraqis are going to be devastated and will be tired of even thinking about using force against the Americans.
Given the current entries, I think this optimistic is to be a Naïve thought!
And wrong if the Americans ever thought of that.

The second theory says that the American government and the American stakeholders don’t know what they’re doing in Iraq and they’re in a hell of a big dilemma and trouble.

It also says that they don’t know what to do, if they’re going to keep their forces on the ground, they might lose many and give many.

In the same time, they’re obligated to stay in Iraq because it’s their reputation and their official standpoint of the war on terrorism that they should keep.
So if they’re going to leave they’ll be definitely the losers and It would look like they did nothing but destroyed a country.

But to be honest I don’t really believe the 2nd theory , I always intend to think that all of what’s going on is temporary and someday day all of what’s happening in my country would suddenly stop and it’s what I wish and I think it’s what both the Americans and Iraqis want.

Anyway , I don’t know what are their true intentions , but I feel it’s my duty to reveal some of what’s happening on the ground now in Iraq .

What’s happening now, that intellectuals of doctors, lawyers, managers… all the good people are either getting threats to leave the country or getting kidnapped and killed and either ways all are leaving the country.

By who and for what reason? Those are questions where each one tries to accuse the other of the responsibility, but I say whoever is doing it, it all goes in the good of the illiterates and it’s all following a specific pattern.

It’s getting worse everyday and harder to live anything even close to normal in the country, because of bombed cars, explosives (although those 2 are the least to be afraid from now) since the worse is to be caught by a fake checkpoint of some militia and most of those militias are al mehdi militia (I’m not trying to accuse anyone) but it’s well known.

Of course it never end here, it got so clear that whatever to be called (the government) is a sectarian one, and unfortunately the current Iraqis government is responsible for many sectarian based problems in most of the institutions.

On the other hand, no body would ever feel safe by the presence of the American forces around since they arrest and hold the young people and kill “by mistake” sometimes.

Finally, I just want to ask, whose fault is it, that my friend’s father had to pay for? Why did he die? Who’s responsible for that?
Is it his mistake to go into a regular market and try to buy a nice book when a bombed car exploded?

Or why my uncle (and he’s a respectable American graduate mathematic) is being held in the American prisons here in Basra in Iraq.

For what we know so far about him, nearly nothing, neither why was he “abducted”!

That’s it for now, hopefully this new Law Enforcement plan would work and hopefully they’re serious enough this time to end up what they started!

American forces in Iraq are still far short of the military deployment the United States had in Vietnam. U.S. troop numbers in Vietnam increased from less than 20,000 in early 1964 to more than half a million by 1969. But the difference between the force levels – and the two situations — is a lot less than most people think. There is, after all, not just one U.S. army in Iraq.

The previous quote is meant to provide a better understanding concerning the “allied” forces currently in Iraq.

Today, January 23rd, General Petraeus is being questioned by the Senate Armed Forces Committee on how he will direct the pending operations in Iraq, including the “surge” called for by President Bush.

General Petraues was expected to discuss the importance of private Iraqi and foreign contractors in ensuring the success of the surge. Read this article in Bloomberg, published prior to the beginning of the hearing, and this piece by Thomas Ricks, author of Fiasco and a reporter who has been covering the Pentagon and military issues for some twenty years, for background leading up to today’s hearing.

You can also follow the hearings live via CNN Pipeline #3

What’s interesting about these hearings is that on multiple occasions during the hearings General Petraeus has acknowledged that private security contractors may be necessary to ensure the success of the surge.

By his own admission, Petraeus confesses it could take 120,000 troops to secure Baghdad, although there are just over 80,000 available for Baghdad if one includes both MNF-I and Iraqi military forces.

This suggests that 40,000, or one third of the force necessary to secure Baghdad will be private contractors, who have as of yet never been held to any legal standard for crimes committed in the Iraq theatre.

Petraeus even acknowledged that his own security, when he returns to the field, may be ensured, not by US military forces, but by private security contractors, as has happened on his previous tours.

Perhaps it should offer some solace that,

A little noted clause in the 2007 Defense Bill, enacted last October, placed contractors under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military laws that govern the U.S. armed forces.

To learn more about our current forces in Iraq, follow the link in the quotes.

Although it seems assured that General Petraeus will be confirmed, it reamins to be seen how Democrats and the rest of the Senate might respond, if at all, to depending on private security contractors, who’s allegiances and even names are currently difficult, if not impossible to determine currently.

The whole thing was a big mistake

Written: Monday January the 1st 2007 2:30 AM

I was in my bed trying to get some sleep… the moon was complete at that night… I heard a sounds of gun firing then a sound of a bomb… usually I ignore it cause here in Iraq we used to hear these kinds of sounds… anyway… after a little while… I heard sounds of the American’s forces passing through my neighborhood… from those sounds I sensed that they were a lot… and I expected there is some breakthrough in our neighborhood… then the choppers came and things started to get worse… choppers were flying over us… all my family awakened… and we sat in one room praying from the God to keep us safe till the morning… we were hearing the sounds of the choppers when its flying over us with low height… and the big engage started… the choppers were firing with its machinegun on Salih Al-mutlak house and so the Humvees… the battle began around from 2:45 AM to 6:45 AM… all that time we were hearing sounds of explosions and gun firing… then the calm has came…

I woke up in the next day at 11:00 AM because I couldn’t sleep all the night… I went out to see what had happened yesterday… I met my neighbor and we headed to the place of salih al mutlak… his house was completely destroyed. people were taking out the trash…

I drew a map explaining with all what happened… it begins firstly from Salih’s Guards… those Guards were thinking that there is some militia were attacking them so they throw a grenade on the U.S. forces… actually the U.S. forces were only patrolling… that’s the whole story… all of what happened was a misunderstanding from both side… but lets see what the Americans did to the neighborhood.

House #1:

This house belong to Salih Al-mutlak… there was 5 guards in the house… 2 of them escaped in the head of Sallam’s house… one of them killed… the rest 3 escaped to house Num 4… one of them died by a grenade thrown by the U.S. Forces… House Num 1 was completely destroyed… it had been attacked by 4 missiles from the choppers + the gun firing from the machine guns.

House #2:

This house is the Salih Al-mutlak next door… the main door and the wall was destroyed and there were no injury.

House #3:

It is a building on the main street… the second floor was a store and it had been burned because of the gun firing.

House #4:

It is the house where the 3 guards were hiding in its garden… the U.S. forces throw a grenade and kill one of the guards.

House #5:

This house is belong to a poor family… through the battle… one of them get injured… so the rest of the family went outside the house to call for help… when they are outside the house and exactly at the main door… the U.S. forces shoot the family… four of them were killed (the father, his two sons, his daughter)… the injured one died after awhile…

House #6:

This house belongs to Christian family… the father is aged 80 living with his son… (after they destroyed Salih Al-mutlak House… the U.S. forces begin the second attack on Guards of Sallama)… the tank entered house num 6 by destroying the gate and its wall… the 80 aged man was calling them to stop but they didn’t listen to him… they took out his cloth + his son both remained outside in cold weather … and the U.S. forces stole the house… (They stole a big mount of money + laptop + camera + some other stuff)

House #7:

This house was empty… but the guards of Sallama were using it… U.S. forces entered this house and explode its door and they shoot every room in it.

House #8:

The house of Sallama… She is a V.I.P but she is not at the house… she put her guards and blocking the roads… that’s it… (I couldn’t get info about this house because of the Guards)

House #9:

The American destroys the main gate by a bomb… and entered in its garden only… (The car of this house was destroyed too)

House #10:

This house was also has a gun firing by the chopper… we can see the wholes that made by the choppers on the walls of the house and on the street. (The car was destroyed too).