Fewer
Deaths Bring No Reassurance
By Ali al-Fadhily
10 November, 2007
Inter Press Service
BAGHDAD, Nov 9 (IPS)
- Despite claims by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and
Bush administration officials that violence in Iraq is decreasing, residents
in the capital tell a different story.
Attacks by Iraqi resistance
groups against the U.S. military continue in Baghdad and Iraq's al-Anbar
province, despite U.S. military support for certain Sunni militias in
the areas.
According to the U.S. Department
of Defence, 18 U.S. soldiers were killed in Baghdad and al-Anbar in
October. In all 39 U.S. soldiers were reported killed in Iraq for the
month, making it the lowest monthly total since March 2006.
Despite the relatively low
October numbers, 2007 is on pace to be the deadliest year on record
for U.S. troops since the invasion of March 2003. At least 847 U.S.
military personnel have been reported killed this year in Iraq, making
it the second highest toll yet.
The deadliest year was 2004,
when 849 U.S. military members were killed.
But many Iraqis say that
violence elsewhere continues unreported - and that where there is calm,
it is hardly for reassuring reasons.
"Sectarian killings
are less because all the Sunnis have been evicted from mixed areas in
Baghdad," Salman Hameed, a teacher who was evicted from the al-Hurriya
area west of Baghdad eight months ago told IPS. "All my relatives
and Sunni neighbours who survived the killing campaign led by the militias
under the eyes of American and Iraqi forces have fled either to Syria
or to other Sunni cities."
On Nov. 5 Iraqi Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki declared victory during a rare walkabout in Baghdad
as night fell. "We have achieved victory against terrorist groups
and militias," Maliki told reporters. "Things will not return
to the way they were."
Many Iraqis feel that the
reason for the relative calm is that many people have either fled, or
been killed.
"There is no one left
for them to kill," 55-year-old retired teacher Nathum Taha told
IPS in Baghdad. "The Americans continue to use Arab Shia Iraqi
militias to kill Sunnis, but most people have left by now."
Others blamed the media for
lack of adequate reportage.
"Attacks against U.S.
forces are not much less than they were last month, but media coverage
has almost disappeared," Muhammad Younis from Mosul, in Baghdad
on a business trip, told IPS. "The resistance is moving fast and
changing locations in order to avoid intelligence provided by collaborators.
Most Iraqis hate the Americans more than ever after the death and destruction
caused by their occupation."
There was a reported five-fold
increase in the number of bombs dropped on Iraq during the first six
months of 2007 compared to the same period in 2006. Over 30 tonnes of
these were cluster weapons, which take a particularly heavy toll on
civilians.
"American air raids
are increasing in a way that shows a total failure on the ground,"
a retired general of the dissolved Iraqi army told IPS. "A whole
family was killed near Madayin, southeast Baghdad on Saturday (Nov.
3) just after the tragic bombing of houses south of Tikrit (about 100
km north of Baghdad) where more than 10 civilians were killed."
On Nov. 4, Iraqi army personnel
backed by U.S. soldiers detained 12 people during a raid on the Sunni
Abu Hanifa mosque in the Adhamiyah district of northern Baghad.
"Those American and
government forces could not face the resistance fighters, so they arrest
innocent people," Aziz Thafir, a lawyer who witnessed the arrests,
told IPS. "They started their raid with nasty sectarian words against
Sunnis, and then arrested every one who was around in the mosque."
Sectarian violence, which
many Iraqis believe to be backed by the U.S., continues at many places
where there are still mixed communities left.
In Duluiya, 150 km north
of Baghdad, a U.S. army unit raided a house last week and killed a young
man inside. Witnesses who arrived in Baghdad from the Sunni town complained
that the media is not covering either the resistance activity there
or the regular "crimes" committed by U.S. and Iraqi government
forces against innocent civilians.
"They are more vicious
than they were before," 44-year-old Abu Ahmed told IPS in the capital.
"This is a religious war against Sunnis, who would not accept the
occupation and division of the country."
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