Civilian Death Toll in Iraq Spikes in May

By Mussab Al-Khairalla
Reuters

Saturday 02 June 2007

Baghdad - The number of civilians killed in Iraq jumped to nearly 2,000 in May, the highest monthly toll since the start of a U.S.-backed security crackdown in February, according to figures released on Saturday.

Militants blew up a strategic bridge that links Baghdad to the northern cities of Kirkuk and Arbil, and a mortar barrage on the Sunni enclave of Fadhil in mainly Shi'ite eastern Baghdad, killed 10 people and wounded 30, police said.

In Arbil, the capital of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Masoud Barzani, president of Kurdistan, urged Turkey not to send troops into the region to crush Kurdish separatist rebels believed to be hiding there.

An Interior Ministry official, who did not want to be named because he was not authorised to release the figures, said 1,944 civilians were killed in May, a 29 percent hike over April. At least 174 soldiers and policemen were killed in the same period.

The death toll was based on statistics compiled by Iraq's ministries of interior, defence and health on the number of people killed and wounded in attacks in Iraq.

After three months of declines, there has been a sharp rise in the number of sectarian murders in Baghdad. Mortar attacks in the capital are becoming deadlier and car bombs remain common.

At least 20 people were killed and dozens injured in two mortar attacks on Shi'ite and Sunni neighbourhoods in Baghdad in the past 48 hours. In Saturday's attack, 10 people were killed in a barrage on the Sunni Fadhil district

Police, who reported fewer than 10 sectarian murders a day in the first weeks of the security crackdown, are now typically reporting 30 or more.

U.S. military commanders says this is a spike, not a trend, and the full impact of the crackdown will not be known for months.

Figures Politically Sensitive

The United Nations has rebuked Iraq's government for refusing to disclose the politically sensitive civilian casualty figures in what it calls a "rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis".

Maliki's government has accused the U.N. mission in Iraq of exaggerating the death toll from sectarian violence between majority Shi'ite Muslims and minority Sunni Arabs, and banned Iraqi officials from releasing data.

The U.N. mission said in January that 34,452 civilians were killed and more than 36,000 wounded in 2006. These figures were much higher than any issued by Iraqi government officials.

Militants in northern Iraq destroyed the Sarha Bridge, a main route for commercial and military traffic north from the capital and other provinces early on Saturday, police said.

A policeman at the joint operations room in the nearby town of Tuz Khurmato, 150 km (100 miles) north of Baghdad, said half the length of the bridge had been severely damaged. About 20 unexploded cans of explosive material were on the other half.

Motorists were detouring across the dry riverbed below the bridge, said the official.

Several bridges have been targeted in Baghdad, most notably in a truck bombing in April that sent large sections of the famous Sarafiya steel bridge crashing into the Tigris.

At a joint press conference in Arbil, Maliki and Barzani warned Turkey against any military incursions into northern Iraq. Recent troop movements on Turkey's south-eastern border have prompted speculation about possible military action.

"If there are problems then we shouldn't resort to threats, force and weapons because this worsens the problems," Maliki said. "We don't want to harm neighbouring countries, but we also don't want neighbouring countries to interfere with military raids."

Pressure within Turkey for an incursion is growing after a suicide bombing in the capital last week killed six people and wounded scores more. Authorities blamed the attack on the PKK, the Kurdish separatist group that has bases in the mountains of Kurdistan.

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Additional reporting by Shamal Aqrawi in Arbil and Sherko Raouf and Mustapha Mahmoud in Kirkuk.

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Number of Unidentified Bodies Found in Baghdad Rose Sharply in May
By Richard A. Oppel Jr.
The New York Times

Saturday 02 June 2007

Baghdad - The number of unidentified corpses discovered in Baghdad soared more than 70 percent during May, according to new statistics from the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, an indication that sectarian killings are rising sharply as militias return to the streets after lying low during the first few months of the troop "surge."

In May, 726 unidentified bodies were found in Baghdad, many bound and shot in the head or showing signs of torture and execution, compared with 411 during April, according to figures provided by a ministry official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

The Bush administration and military have cited a decline in sectarian killings as proof that the troop escalation is working. And despite May's increase in corpses, the numbers remain far below the peak of sectarian executions last year. In July and August, for example, a total of 5,106 people died violent deaths in Baghdad alone, according to the United Nations, including 3,391 reported by the city's morgue.

The new figures also show a decline in the number of deaths of identifiable victims in Baghdad to 344 in May from 495 in April. While victims of car bombs, homemade bombs and mortar strikes can usually be identified, those who are kidnapped, tortured and executed are normally stripped of identification before their bodies are dumped.

Three more American soldiers were reported killed: two in Baghdad on Wednesday, one from a roadside bomb and one from small-arms fire, and one Friday by small-arms fire near Zawiyah.

Three children, ages 7, 9 and 11, were killed when a allied tank attacked insurgents trying to bury a bomb near Falluja on Friday, the military said. The insurgents escaped.

The increase in sectarian killings came as residents reported more than a dozen people killed this week in the insurgent-dominated Amiriya district of western Baghdad in what they described as fierce skirmishes between Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and the Islamic Army of Iraq. The fighting appeared to be the first large-scale battles inside Baghdad between Al Qaeda and other Sunni insurgent groups.

Terrified Amiriya residents said by telephone on Friday that they were holed up in their homes after Iraqi and American forces warned them to stay inside. American officials said they also imposed a ban on vehicles in the district. Some residents said the forces appeared to be allowing the Sunni insurgent groups to fight Al Qaeda.

The American battalion commander responsible for operations in the area, Lt. Col. Dale Kuehl, said, "We have been involved in operations with the Iraqi Army and local nationals against Al Qaeda in Amiriya," according to a statement. "I believe today was relatively quiet as Al Qaeda is regrouping," he said.

According to residents interviewed, it was unclear how much of the fighting was driven by objections to Al Qaeda's extremist tactics and attacks on other Sunnis, or reflected a turf battle in Amiriya, a large district near Abu Ghraib, by two insurgent factions that not long ago were allies.

Several residents said the fighting began after Qaeda members went to a mosque and confronted and later killed a leader in the Islamic Army, an insurgent group with ties to mainstream Sunni parties. The Islamic Army retaliated by killing several Qaeda fighters, spurring all-out fighting, residents said.

"What is happening now is to clear the name of the Iraqi resistance from all the crimes committed by Al Qaeda against the Sunnis," one Amiriya resident said, adding that at least 40 people were killed.

One midlevel commander in the Islamic Army said he lost two men during the fighting but that the "operation will last forever until we get rid of Al Qaeda." Some residents said another Iraqi insurgent group, the 20th Revolutionary Brigades, joined the fighting against Al Qaeda. But that group later issued a statement denying it had taken part.

Elsewhere, 10 people were killed and 30 wounded during a mortar strike in western Baghdad, according to an Interior Ministry official. Fifteen bodies were also discovered in the city. The killing and dumping of corpses is a hallmark of Shiite militiamen, notably the Mahdi Army, the force that sprang from the movement of the anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

American military commanders in Baghdad have said they believe some Mahdi Army commanders who fled Baghdad in January and February have returned recently. Officials close to Mr. Sadr have asserted that many militiamen who identify themselves as Mahdi fighters are operating outside of Mr. Sadr's command.

On Friday, Agence France-Presse reported that Iraqi civilian deaths soared by almost a third in May, after a decline in April. The Iraqi government has lately refused to release official data on civilian casualties. But the report said information from the Interior, Health and Defense Ministries found at least 1,951 civilians killed throughout the country in May, a 30 percent increase from April. In the past month, American military officials in Baghdad have acknowledged an uptick in sectarian killings. But on Friday a spokesman did not respond to questions about increased civilian deaths in May.

South of the capital, military officials said tests concluded that a body recovered from the Euphrates River on May 27 was not one of two American soldiers still missing since their abduction May 12 near Mahmudiya.

Also on Friday, state-run television reported that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim had returned from Iran, where he sought treatment for a tumor. Mr. Hakim, leader of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, one of the two most powerful Shiite parties, earlier said he traveled to the United States and Iran for treatment of "limited infections" and a "limited tumor."

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Reporting was contributed by Damien Cave, Ali Adeeb, Ahmad Fadam, Khalid al-Ansary, Sahar Nageeb, Karim Hilmi, Wisam A. Habeeb, Muhammed Abd al-Sattar and Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi.