SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA-- Iraqi security forces have regained control of a town north of the capital Baghdad after gunmen who had seized the town agreed to withdraw without resistance.

Iraqi authorities say soldiers backed by tanks entered the town of Sulaiman Bek in Salahuddin Province early on Friday after gunmen retreated under a deal mediated by tribal chiefs and government officials. 

The gunmen were given forty-eight hours to withdraw or face an attack by the army. 

Gunmen seized the town on Wednesday after deadly clashes with the security forces. Suleiman Bek lies on the road that connects Baghdad to Kirkuk. 

A high-ranking military officer said that the army made a tactical withdrawal from the town "so we can work on clearing the area completely, after we knew that the residents had left," AFP reported. 

The gunmen's seizure of Suleiman Bek came amid a surge of violence in Iraq which began on Tuesday when security forces clashed with militants and anti-government protesters in several towns and cities, including Ramadi and Hawija near Kirkuk. 

At least 180 people have been killed in Iraq in a bloody wave of violence over the past four days. 

Iraq has been the scene of anti-government demonstrations since December 23, 2012, when bodyguards of former finance minister, Rafie al-Issawi, were arrested on terrorism-related charges. 

The demonstrators accuse Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of discrimination against Sunni Muslims. Maliki, however, has denied accusations, saying regional countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are fueling sectarian tensions in Iraq.

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SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Gunmen have taken control of the Iraqi town of Sulaiman Bek, which is located about 170 kilometers (105 miles) north of the capital Baghdad, officials say.

On Wednesday, security forces completely withdrew from the area and gunmen took control of the town, situated in Salaheddin province, Shalal Abdul Baban, a local administrative official responsible for the area, told AFP.

Niyazi Maamar Oghlu, a member of the provincial council in Salaheddin province also confirmed the news.

According to both officials, a strategic road between Baghdad and Tuz Khurmatu, a town to the north of Sulaiman Bek, were also cut.

Earlier in the day, five soldiers and seven gunmen were killed and 63 people, including 20 soldiers, were injured in clashes in Sulaiman Bek, security officers and an official said.

Some 125 people have been killed in violence in the country since Tuesday. At least 268 others have also been wounded.

Violence has increased in Iraq since December 2011, when an arrest warrant was issued for fugitive Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, who has been charged with running a death squad targeting Iraqi officials and Shia Muslims.

The government has stepped up efforts to boost security across the country over the past few months.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Press TV

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –A suicide bomber late-Thursday blew himself up inside a Baghdad cafe popular with young people using the Internet and playing pool, killing 32 and wounding 65 more in one of the worst single attacks in the Iraqi capital this year.

Iraqi police and morgue officials updated the death toll from 27 after finding additional bodies in a back street Friday who were thrown out of the cafe by the powerful explosion.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.

The late evening blast in west Baghdad came just two days before the first provincial elections since US troops pulled out of the country more than a year ago.

Among the dead were at least three children and a woman.

It exploded at the Dubai cafe, which lies on the 2nd or 3rd floor of a small shopping mall in a neighborhood that is filled with families as it contains restaurants and clothes shops.

The cafe itself, however, is mostly frequented by young men playing billiards and video games.

Security forces restricted movements in Amriyah on Friday in the wake of the blast.

The bombing is the latest in a wave of violence, with 50 people killed in nationwide attacks on Monday, and March having been the deadliest month in Iraq since last summer, according to an AFP tally.

Police and witnesses said emergency workers struggled to extricate victims trapped when the blast collapsed part of the building that also housed a shopping center below the Dubai cafe.

"It was a huge blast," a police official at the scene said. "Part of the building fell in and debris hit people shopping in the mall below."

Ten years after the US-led invasion, Islamists linked to al-Qaeda carry out at least one major attack a month, but insurgents have stepped up suicide attacks since the start of the year as part of a campaign to provoke confrontation between the country's Shia and Sunni Muslims.

Security officials have been expecting more attacks before Saturday's ballot for provincial councils.

Al-Qaeda's local wing, Islamic State of Iraq, has said it will keep up attacks, and security officials say the group is gaining ground and recruits in the western desert bordering Syria, thanks in part to a boost from the flow of insurgents and funds into the neighboring country's war. -www.shafaqna.com/English

Source:al-akhbar

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- British soldiers and airmen who helped to operate a secretive US detention facility in Baghdad that was at the centre of some of the most serious human rights abuses to occur in Iraq after the invasion have, for the first time, spoken about abuses they witnessed there.

Personnel from two RAF squadrons and one Army Air Corps squadron were given guard and transport duties at the secret prison, the Guardian has established.

And many of the detainees were brought to the facility by snatch squads formed from Special Air Service and Special Boat Service squadrons.

Codenamed Task Force 121, the joint US-UK special forces unit was at first deployed to detain individuals thought to have information aboutSaddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. Once it was realised that Saddam's regime had long since abandoned its WMD programme, TF 121 was re-tasked with tracking down people who might know where the deposed dictator and his loyalists might be, and then with catching al-Qaida leaders who sprang up in the country after the regime collapsed.

Suspects were brought to the secret prison at Baghdad International airport, known as Camp Nama, for questioning by US military and civilian interrogators. But the methods used were so brutal that they drew condemnation not only from a US human rights body but from a special investigator reporting to the Pentagon.

A British serviceman who served at Nama recalled: "I saw one man having his prosthetic leg being pulled off him, and being beaten about the head with it before he was thrown on to the truck."

On the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a number of former members of TF 121 and its successor unit TF6-26 have come forward to describe the abuses they witnessed, and to state that they complained about the mistreatment of detainees.

The abuses they say they saw include:

• Iraqi prisoners being held for prolonged periods in cells the size of large dog kennels.

• Prisoners being subjected to electric shocks.

• Prisoners being routinely hooded.

• Inmates being taken into a sound-proofed shipping container for interrogation, and emerging in a state of physical distress.

It is unclear how many of their complaints were registered or passed up the chain of command. A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said a search of its records did not turn up "anything specific" about complaints from British personnel at Camp Nama, or anything that substantiated such complaints.

Nevertheless, the emergence of evidence of British involvement in the running of such a notorious detention facility appears to raise fresh questions about ministerial approval of operations that resulted in serious human rights abuses.

Geoff Hoon, defence secretary at the time, insisted he had no knowledge of Camp Nama. When it was pointed out to him that the British military had provided transport services and a guard force, and had helped to detain Nama's inmates, he replied: "I've never heard of the place."

The MoD, on the other hand, repeatedly failed to address questions about ministerial approval of British operations at Camp Nama. Nor would the department say whether ministers had been made aware of concerns about human rights abuses there.

However, one peculiarity of the way in which UK forces operated when bringing prisoners to Camp Nama suggests that ministers and senior MoD officials may have had reason to know those detainees were at risk of mistreatment. British soldiers were almost always accompanied by a lone American soldier, who was then recorded as having captured the prisoner. Members of the SAS and SBS were repeatedly briefed on the importance of this measure.

It was an arrangement that enabled the British government to side-step a Geneva convention clause that would have obliged it to demand the return of any prisoner transferred to the US once it became apparent that they were not being treated in accordance with the convention. And it consigned the prisoners to what some lawyers have described as a legal black hole.

Surrounded by row after row of wire fencing, guarded by either US Rangers or RAF personnel, and with an Abrams tank parked permanently at its main gate, to the outside observer Camp Nama seemed identical to scores of military bases that sprang up after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Once inside, however, it was clear that Nama was different.

Not that many people did enter the special forces prison. It was off limits to most members of the US and UK military, with even the officer commanding the US detention facility at Guantánamo being refused entry at one point. Inspectors from the International Committee of the Red Cross were never admitted through its gates.

One person who has been widely reported to have been seen there frequently was General Stanley McChrystal, then commander of US Joint Special Operations forces in Iraq.

While Abu Ghraib prison, just a few miles to the west, would achieve global notoriety after photographs emerged depicting abuses committed there, Camp Nama escaped attention for a simple reason: photography was banned. The only people who attempted to take pictures – a pair of US Navy Seals – were promptly arrested. All discussion of what happened there was forbidden.

Before establishing its prison at Nama, TF 121 had been known as Task Force 20, and had run a detention and interrogation facility at a remote location known as H1, in Iraq's western desert. At least one prisoner had died en route to H1, allegedly kicked to death aboard an RAF Chinook.

The British were always junior partners in TF 121. Their contingent was known as Task Force Black. US Delta Force troops made up Task Force Green and US Army Rangers Task Force Red. One half of Task Force Black comprised SAS and SBS troopers, based a short distance away at the government compound known as the Green Zone. They detained so-called high-value detainees, who were brought to Camp Nama. The other half were the air and ground crews of 7 Squadron and 47 Squadron of the RAF, and 657 Squadron of the Army Air Corps, who lived on the camp itself, operating helicopters used in detention operations and a Hercules transport aircraft.

"The Americans went out to bring in prisoners every night, and British special forces would go out once or twice a week, almost always with one American accompanying them," one British serviceman who served at Nama recalled earlier this month.

''The prisoners would be brought in by helicopter, usually one at a time, although I once saw five being led off a Chinook. They were taken into a large hangar to be bagged and tagged, a bag put over their heads and their hands plasticuffed behind their backs. Then they would be lifted or thrown on to the back of a pick-up truck and driven to the Joint Operations Centre."

The Joint Operations Centre, or JOC, was a single storey building a few hundred yards from the airport's main runway. Some of those who served at Nama believed it had formerly been used by Saddam's intelligence agencies.

The US and UK forces worked together so closely that they began to wear items of each others' uniforms. But while British personnel were permitted into the front of the JOC, few were allowed into the rear, where interrogations took place. This was the preserve of US military interrogators and CIA officers based at Camp Nama. "They included a number of women," said one British airman. "One had a ponytail and always wore two pistols, so we had to nickname her Lara Croft."

There were four interrogation cells at the rear of the JOC, known as the blue, red, black and soft rooms, as well as a medical screening area. The soft room contained sofas and rugs, and was a place where detainees could be shown some kindness. Harsh interrogations took place in the red and blue rooms, while the black room – described as windowless, with hooks in the ceiling, and where every surface was painted black – is said to be the cell where the worse abuses were perpetrated.

According to an investigation by Human Rights Watch, the New York-based NGO, detainees were subject to "beatings, exposure to extreme cold, threats of death, humiliation and various forms of psychological abuse or torture" at the JOC. The New York Times has reported that prisoners were beaten with rifle butts and had paintball guns fired at them for target practice.

Signs posted around Nama are said to have proclaimed the warning "No Blood, No Foul": if interrogators did not make a prisoner bleed, they would not face disciplinary action.

There was also an overspill interrogation room cell behind the JOC: a shipping container lined with padding. "You could see people being taken in there, and they were in pretty poor shape when they were taken out," said one British witness. He adds: "Everyone's seen the Abu Ghraib pictures. But I've seen it with my own eyes."

A number of British soldiers who served with TF 121 said that some SAS officers were permitted to attend interrogations at the rear of the JOC. Human Rights Watch reports that one SAS officer took part in the beating of a prisoner thought to know the whereabouts of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.

While not being interrogated, according to witnesses, prisoners were held in cells the size of large dog kennels. "They were made of wire mesh with sloping corrugated roofs," said a British ex-serviceman who served at Nama. "They were chest high, and two feet wide. There were about 100 of them, in three rows, and they always appeared to have at least one prisoner in each. They would be freezing at night, and really hot during the day.

"The prisoners were mostly men, although I did see two women being taken into the JOC for interrogation. I've no idea what became of them, or to any of the male prisoners after their interrogation was completed."

Some of the scenes at Nama were so disturbing that personnel serving there would literally look the other way, rather than witness the abuse. "I remember being on sentry duty at a post overlooking the dog kennels, and the guy I was with wouldn't even look at them," one British eyewitness recalls. "I was saying: 'Hey turn around and look at them.' And he wouldn't. He just wouldn't turn around, because he knew they were there."

Some complaints made at the time by British personnel were immediately suppressed. "I remember talking to one British army officer about what I had seen, and he replied: 'You didn't see that – do you understand?' There was a great deal of nervousness about the place. I had the impression that the British were scared we would be kicked off the operation if we made a fuss," the ex-serviceman said.

According to one US interrogator interviewed by Human Rights Watch, however, written authorisations were required for many of the abuses inflicted on prisoners at Nama, indicating that their use was approved up the chain of command.

"There was an authorisation template on a computer, a sheet that you would print out, or actually just type it in," the interrogator said. "It was a checklist. It was already typed out for you, environmental controls, hot and cold, you know, strobe lights, music, so forth. But you would just check what you want to use off, and if you planned on using a harsh interrogation you'd just get it signed off. It would be signed off by the commander."

Camp Nama was such a secret location that when General Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, was sent to Iraq in August 2003 to advise on interrogation regimes he was initially refused entry, according to Human Rights Watch.

At the end of 2003, the Pentagon sent a special investigator, Stuart Herrington, a retired military intelligence colonel, to discover more about the methods being employed at Nama. In December that year Herrington reported: "Detainees captured by TF 121 have shown injuries that caused examining medical personnel to note that 'detainee shows signs of having been beaten'. It seems clear that TF 121 needs to be reined in with respect to its treatment of detainees."

More than 30 members of the task force were subsequently disciplined for abusing prisoners. Yet the beatings continued, according to British witnesses. The dog kennel cells remained in place, and UK special forces continued to be used to snatch suspects to be brought in for interrogation. "I can see now that we were supplying the meat for the American interrogators," says one.

In February 2004, senior British special forces and intelligence officers felt emboldened enough to mount a detention operation without an accompanying US soldier. Troopers surrounded a house in southern Baghdad that MI6 had identified as a safe house for foreign fighters. Two men were killed in the raid and two others of Pakistani origin were detained and handed over to the US authorities.

After questioning at Nama, the pair were flown to Bagram, north of the Afghan capital, Kabul, where they are thought to remain incarcerated,despite efforts by lawyers to secure their release by persuading the appeal court in London to order the issuing of a writ of habeas corpus.

Two months later, in April 2004, US news media published a series of shocking photographs showing the abuse of prisoners at a different prison, Abu Ghraib, where individuals detained by regular troops rather than special forces were being held. A few days later Task Force 121 was renamed Task Force 6-26. Shortly after this, two US Navy Seals – who had their own compound with Camp Nama – were seen taking photographs from the roof of their building. Both men were immediately arrested, British witnesses say and were not seen at Nama again.

Later that summer the secret prison was moved to Balad, a sprawling air base 50 miles north of Baghdad, where it became known as the Temporary Screening Facility (TSF). The Army Air Force and RAF troops continued their role there.

SAS troops continued to provide detainees for interrogation, operating from their base in one of a row of seven large villas inside the Green Zone. The villa next door was occupied by troops from Delta Force. Each of the homes had a swimming pool, and at the end of the long garden behind the SAS villa was a large hut occupied by a UK military intelligence unit, the Joint Forward Interrogation Team, or JFIT.

Individuals detained by the SAS – accompanied by their lone American escort – would be flown by helicopter to a landing pad behind the villas, and taken straight to the JFIT. According to former members of TF 6-26, after a brief interrogation by the British, they would be handed over to US forces, who would question them further before releasing them, or arrange for them to be flown north to Balad.

In late 2003, according to former taskforce members, two SAS members wandered next door to the Delta Force villa, where they were horrified to see two Iraqi prisoners being tortured. "They were being given electric shocks from cattle prods and their heads were being held under the water in the swimming pool. There were less visits next door after that."

While a complaint was made, it is not thought to have reported through the chain of command. And it certainly appears not to have reached Downing Street, as shortly afterwards Tony Blair, then prime minister, visited the SAS house to thank the troopers for their efforts.

By the end of 2004, according to the BBC journalist Mark Urban, MI6 officers who had visited the secret prison at Balad were expressing concern that the kennel cells had been reconstructed there, and the British government later warned the US authorities that it would hand over prisoners only if there was an undertaking that they would not be sent there.

Shortly afterwards, the RAF Hercules operated by the task force wasshot down while flying from Nama to Balad, with the loss of all 10 men on board. It was the largest loss of life suffered by the RAF in a single incident since the second world war.

By now, a growing number of British members of the task force were deeply disillusioned about their role. When one, SAS trooper Ben Griffin,decided he could not return to Iraq, he expected to be face a court martial. Instead, he discovered that a number of his officers sympathised with him, and he was permitted to leave the army with a first-class testimonial.

When Griffin went public, making clear that British troops were handing over to the US military large numbers of prisoners who faced torture, the MoD came under pressure to explain itself. In February 2009 the then defence secretary, John Hutton, told the Commons that "review of records of detention resulting from security operations carried out by UK armed forces" had disclosed that two men who had been handed over had since been moved to Afghanistan. His statement made no mention of the joint task force, of H1, or of Camp Nama or Balad or how British airmen and soldiers were helping to operate the secret prisons.

Crispin Blunt, a Tory MP and former army officer, accused Hutton of "simply sweeping under the carpet the apparent evidence of direct British service involvement with delivery to gross mistreatment amounting to torture involving hundreds if not thousands of people".

Today, 10 years after the invasion and the creation of the joint US-UK taskforce that detained and interrogated large numbers of Iraqis, the MoD responds to questions about their abuse by stating that it is aware only of "anecdotal accounts" of mistreatment, and that "any further evidence of human rights abuse should be passed to the appropriate authorities for investigation".

Griffin had done just that, asking the MoD itself to investigate the activities of the taskforce of which he had been a member. The MoDobtained an injunction to silence him, and warned he faced jail if he ever spoke out again.

www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Four bomb attacks have targeted four Shia mosques in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and the northern city of Kirkuk, killing at least 23 people.

According to police officials, the car bomb blasts hit three neighborhoods in Baghdad within an hour of each other and an area of south Kirkuk.

The explosions hit outside mosques where people had gathered for Friday prayers.

The attacks come amid a rise in violence across the country as Iraqis prepare for their first elections in three years. The provincial polls are due to be held in 12 of Iraq's 18 provinces on April 20.

On March 20, two people were killed and four others wounded in a car bomb explosion in the Iraqi capital.

A day earlier, a wave of attacks in mainly Shia-populated neighborhoods of Baghdad killed at least 65 people and injured over 200 others.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Press TV

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- An al-Qaeda-linked group has claimed responsibility for a coordinated suicide bomb and gun attack on the country's justice ministry last week that killed at least 18 people.

Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), an umbrella group for al Qaeda-linked fighters, said in a statement published online on Sunday that it had ordered the suicide bombers to attack the building floor by floor and "liquidate" its enemies inside.

"In a blessed raid among a series of operations for revenge... Baghdad's knights undermined another vicious bastion which was always a tool against Sunnis, torturing, terrifying, imprisoning and executing them," the group said in the statement.

The assault near the heavily fortified Green Zone, where several Western embassies and government offices are located, fanned fears about Iraq's still fragile security a decade after the US-led invasion ousted late President Saddam Hussein.

Three car bombs exploded and a suicide bomber blew himself up in broad daylight in the heart of the capital on Thursday.

Another suicide bomber then walked into the justice ministry and set off his device while armed men attacked the building. Iraqi security forces eventually regained control.

Overall, at least 18 people were killed and more than 30 wounded, security and medical officials said. But ISI claimed to have killed 60 people, according to a statement distributed by the SITE monitoring service on Sunday.

Iraq's power-sharing government has been all but paralysed since US troops left more than a year ago. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shia, is facing protests in the country's Sunni heartland, which shares a porous border with Syria.

'Deadliest region'

Violence has intensified as Sunni opposition protests have swelled and Iraq's al-Qaeda affiliate has urged the protesters to take up arms against the government.

Britain-based Iraq Body Count (IBC), meanwhile, published a study which concluded that at least 112,000 civilians have been killed in the 10 years since the invasion of Iraq.

It said that, including combatants on all sides of the decade-long conflict as well as yet undocumented fatalities, the figure could rise as high as 174,000.

IBC said that, over the years, Baghdad had been, and still is, the deadliest region, accounting for 48 percent of all deaths, while the conflict was bloodiest between 2006 and 2008.

It noted that violence remains high, with annual civilian deaths of between four and five thousand - roughly equivalent to the total number of coalition forces killed from 2003 up to the US military withdrawal in December 2011, at 4,804.

Iraq's military and police are persistently described by Iraqi and US officials as capable of maintaining internal security, but are unable to protect the country's borders, airspace and maritime territory.

But attacks such as the March 14 assault remain common, in addition to a vast array of shootings and bombings nationwide, killing hundreds of people on a monthly basis.

www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Three separate attacks on Sunday in central Iraq have killed at least four people and wounded 14, officials said.

The deadliest was in the Husseiniya area northeast of Baghdad, where three roadside bombs went off simultaneously, killing three civilians, a police officer said. He said 11 others, including three policemen, were wounded.

Another police officer said a soldier was killed when a bomb attached to his car exploded in the northern Utaifiya neighborhood of Baghdad.

Two health officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release information to reporters.

The explosions hit as Iraq’s health ministry on Saturday announced that militant attacks killed 136 Iraqis in February.

The figures showed 88 civilians, 22 soldiers and 26 policemen were killed last month. A further 228 people were wounded. In January, the death toll was 177.

Authorities said 33 militants were killed by security forces in February.

The worst day of violence was on the eighth of the month, when a series of car bombs killed at least 34 people in attacks claimed by al-Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq.

Last year, a total of 4,471 civilians died in what rights group Iraq Body Count described as a "low-level war" with insurgents – the first annual climb in the death toll in three years.-www.shfaqna.com/English

Source:al akhbar

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for a recent series of bomb attacks in Iraq that left 28 people dead in a number of Shia-populated districts across Baghdad.

The group published a statement on its website on Monday claiming responsibility for the attacks, in which many people were also injured, Reuters reported. 
At least eight car bombs exploded in busy commercial streets in the capital city.

On Sunday, the Iraqi Oil Ministry said assailants bombed a section of pipeline carrying oil from the country’s largest refinery to the northern province of Nineveh. 
On Sunday, Oil Ministry spokesman Asim Jihad said the bombing was carried out the previous day in an area located 390 kilometers (240 miles) north of Baghdad. There were no injuries in the attack. 
On Saturday, Brigadier General Aouni Ali, the head of Iraq’s main intelligence academy, and two of his bodyguards were killed in an attack in the northern city of Mosul. 
On February 8, over 35 people were killed and nearly 100 others injured in a series of car bombings in mainly Shia areas of Iraq, including the southern city of Karbala. 
Violence has increased in Iraq since December 2011, when an arrest warrant was issued for fugitive Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi, who has been charged with running a death squad targeting Iraqi officials and Shia Muslims. 
The government has stepped up efforts to boost security across the country over the past few months.

www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- A suicide bomber struck a group of anti-al-Qaida fighters north of Baghdad on Monday, killing at least 22 people and wounding 44 in an attempt to shake confidence in Iraqi security forces, officials said.

The blast is the latest in a string of particularly lethal attacks against security forces and civilians. More than 200 Iraqis have been killed since the beginning of the year.

In Monday's bombing, the attacker mingled with men gathering to collect their salaries outside one of the anti-al-Qaida militia's headquarters in the town of Taji, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the Iraqi capital.

Three Iraqi soldiers and 19 members of the Sunni militia known as Sahwa, or Awakening Councils, were killed, police officials said. Three medical officials confirmed the casualties. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to release information to reporters.

The Sahwa was formed from Sunni fighters who switched sides and joined U.S. and Iraqi government forces to fight al-Qaida at the height of the insurgency. Since then, they have been among the favorite targets for insurgents, who see them as traitors.

The spike in especially bloody attacks comes at a time of growing discontent among Iraq's minority Sunnis, who complain of discrimination by the Shiite-led government.

In recent weeks, Sunnis have staged frequent anti-government demonstrations drawing tens of thousands of people. At the same time, protest organizers have distanced themselves from calls by an al-Qaida front in Iraq to take up arms against the government.

The blast in Taji came a day after several suicide attackers on foot and in two explosives-laden cars hit a provincial police headquarters in Kirkuk, also north of Baghdad.

The deputy police chief in Kirkuk, Maj. Gen. Torhan Abdul-Rahman Youssef, said Monday that 16 people were killed in that attack, dismissing initial reports of 30 dead.

About 90 people were wounded in the Kirkuk explosion.

No group has claimed responsibility for the latest attacks, but suicide bombings are a hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Violence has ebbed across Iraq since the peak of the fighting in the last decade, but deadly bombings and shootings still occur almost daily.

www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Chalghi Baghdadi band in 1932 The Iraqi Maqam the posterior line from right to left1-Ismail Iyada Al-Qaisy 2- Rashid ElQundarchi 3- Shaikh Jalal AlHanafi the anterior line from right to left-4-Salih Thmail 5 Yousif Batto 6- Khadhour.

Bab Al Qadeem or Al-Wastania BabThe old or middle Gate of Baghdad Sheikh Omer 1912.

Iraqi Parliament in 1940s.

Poet Ma'aroof Al-Rasafi in Al-Tifayidh School - 1928.

The GariOld Bus.

Bab Al-SeefAl-Karkh 1917.

Christian Celebration Procession 1920  Baghdad.

Tekhet Rewanold mode of transportation.

Burying of the Poet Jameel Sidqi Al-Zahawi. Al-Shabeebi & Al-Rasafi seen in the back seat - 1936.— www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Uobaghdad