Al-Qaeda overruns towns in Iraq

An Iraqi security forces member takes his position with his weapon in defense against clashes
with al Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in the city of Ramadi, 100 km
(62 miles) west of Baghdad, February 14, 2014

Al-Qaeda on the March in Iraq

• Since George W. Bush "liberated" Iraq we have Islamic terrorists spreading all over the Middle East, Africa and Asia.  Thanks for nothing George.

(Reuters News)  -  Iraqi troops backed by helicopter gunships fought on Saturday to retake full control of a northern town from militants who overran parts of it earlier this week, the mayor and other local officials said.

Talib Mohammed, the mayor of Sulaiman Pek, 160 km (100 miles) north of Baghdad, said the army had met fierce resistance in some parts of the town, after gaining some ground on Friday.

"Snipers and roadside bombs are preventing the army from totally controlling the town," he said. "A police captain was killed by a sniper this morning while he was trying to evacuate his family."

Militants raised the black flag of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - a Sunni group also fighting in neighboring Syria - over parts of Sulaiman Pek on Thursday.

Iraq's endless war to get much worse

An army captain in Sulaiman Pek said snipers were hindering bomb disposal teams faced with dozens of explosive devices.

"Our job is not easy, it's a guerrilla war," said Captain Falah Abdul-Ameer. "Snipers are a big issue now. We can't work out their exact location, they shoot and change places."

South of Baghdad, ISIL militants killed at least eight soldiers in overnight clashes in Jurf al-Sakhar, 60 km (40 miles) from the capital, army and police sources said.

They said 12 militants were also killed in the fighting, which started when the army responded to reports of insurgents gathering in the swamps and orchards in the area.

ISIL and other Sunni Muslim rebels have gained strength in Iraq over the past year. On January 1 they seized the city of Falluja in the western desert province of Anbar. They also have footholds in Ramadi, the nearby provincial capital.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki visited an army base west of Ramadi on Friday night to meet military commanders and tribal leaders, and discuss army operations, local officials said.

During the visit to al-Assad base, Maliki promised 10,000 jobs in the security forces for tribal fighters who have sided with the government against militants, the officials said.

Fighting erupted in Ramadi between militants and security forces backed by tribesmen early on Saturday, police and local officials said. Helicopters bombarded militant positions in central areas of the city, amid explosions and gunfire.

Miss Me Yet?
"Remember those mass graves in Iraq that George Bush told you about?  Well I was filling those graves with crazy-ass pro-Iran Islamist bastards.  I hope you are happy with the Middle East since Bush 'liberated' us."
Sincerely,
Saddam Hussein

Rep. Chris Smith is clueless about why Christians are killed in Iraq

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on
Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights.

Retard Alert!

• Do politicians take classes to improve their stupidity skills?  or does it just come naturally to them?
• The brain-dead members of Congress still cannot accept that Saddam Hussein and his secular, Socialist and pro-Russian Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party protected Christians and filled mass graves with crazy ass Islamists.

Christian persecution is worse now in Iraq than it was before the United States military and its allies deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said in opening remarks at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs' Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations on Tuesday.

“As we witness the black flag of al-Qaeda again fly over cities such as Fallujah, which we had won at the cost of so much American blood, we wonder how it is that for Christians in Iraq, life appears to be worse now than it was under the vicious dictator Saddam Hussein,” Smith said.

You think!!!!

I sit here at the computer amazed that total retards get promoted to committee chairmanships in the Congress.

Even at this late date Smith appears to not have the slightest clue about the ethnic, tribal and religious politics of Iraq.  He claims to be concerned about the Christians of Iraq, but he is either a liar or a clueless moron with no knowledge of the world around him.

(CNS News)

The Untold Holocaust of Christians in Iraq

The Christians of Iraq were protected by Saddam Hussein.  But the war policies of George Bush destroyed the 1,000,000 plus Christian community.



 Tariq Aziz - Minister of Foreign Affairs
Aziz is an ethnic Assyrian but an Arab Nationalist and a member of the Chaldean Catholic Church.  Outside of his own minority Sunni sect, Saddam only trusted Christians in his government and as a result, Aziz became close to Saddam who heavily promoted him, especially after the Ba'ath party purged prominent Shia's in the mid 70's.
(Tariq Aziz)

Aziz with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on 26 July 2000.
Our moron GOP President Bush II replaced the anti-Iran, anti-Islamist 
and pro-Russian Iraqi government with a pro-Iranian government.

5,000 Mercenaries Hired by Iraq

Military "Contractors" a Growth Industry

The rapidly developing Al-Qaeda incursion is forcing the Iraqi government not only to buy more American weapons and supplies, but also to payroll an army of mercenaries and private contractors, previously hired by the US Defense Department.

According to the Wall Street Journal, more than 5,000 specialists have been contracted by the Iraqi government. They are currently working in the country as analysts, military trainers, security guards, translators and even cooks. Some 2,000 of them are Americans.

“You have a situation where the government has become dependent on contractors,” Allison Stanger, a political-science professor at Middlebury College, told WSJ. “It's a real quantum shift.”

"The military task has, in fact, been outsourced in Iraq,” confirmed analyst Steven Schooner, a professor at George Washington University Law School reports RT News.

Washington’s relationship with Baghdad has undergone a major transformation. Officially, the US has just several hundred troops in Iraq and the US Defense Department does not contract private security companies to operate in Iraq.

Baghdad spends money on American weaponry, vehicles and equipment, while American defense companies are earning money in Iraq by placing military contractors there.

Private defense companies, such as Triple Canopy and Dyncorp International, have multibillion contracts in Iraq for years to come.

An assault operation against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), a faction of Al-Qaeda currently occupying Fallujah, is promising to be a serious undertaking implying the use of the utmost in firepower, so Baghdad is buying $6 billion worth of military equipment from the US, including 24 Apache attack helicopters and nearly 500 Hellfire missiles.

According to the US State Department and Pentagon, it is estimated there were over 12,500 contractors in Iraq, working for the US government as of January 2013. By October, according to a quarterly report, their number had decreased to 6,624 specialists. Less than a quarter of them (1,626) were American citizens, the rest were Iraqis (2,191), with 2,807 civilian experts from foreign countries.

The US has allegedly spent over $200 billion on contractors in both Afghanistan and Iraq over the last decade. Now that the US administration has transferred these expenditures to the Iraqi government, the American military industrial complex and private security companies are ready to make a fortune in Iraq.

Al-Qaeda Captures Fallujah - Iran Offers Help

Al-Qaeda Captures Fallujah

Iraq faces a giant cluster-fuck of Islamic Terrorism 

thanks to American policies.

A rejuvenated al-Qaeda-affiliated force asserted control over the western Iraqi city of Fallujah on Friday, raising its flag over government buildings and declaring an Islamic state in one of the most crucial areas that U.S. troops fought to pacify before withdrawing from Iraq two years ago.

The capture of Fallujah came amid an explosion of violence across the western desert province of Anbar in which local tribes, Iraqi security forces and al-Qaeda-affiliated militants have been fighting one another for days in a confusingly chaotic three-way war.

Al-Qaeda controlled Iraq in orange. Plus
much of southern Iraq is pro-Iran.

The upheaval also affirmed the soaring capabilities of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the rebranded version of the al-Qaeda in Iraq organization that was formed a decade ago to confront U.S. troops and expanded into Syria last year while escalating its activities in Iraq reports the Washington Post.

Roughly a third of the 4,486 U.S. troops killed in Iraq died in Anbar trying to defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq, nearly 100 of them in the November 2004 battle for control of Fallujah, the site of America’s bloodiest confrontation since the Vietnam War.

Events Friday suggested the fight may have been in vain.

“At the moment, there is no presence of the Iraqi state in Fallujah,” said a local journalist who asked not to be named because he fears for his safety. “The police and the army have abandoned the city, al-Qaeda has taken down all the Iraqi flags and burned them, and it has raised its own flag on all the buildings.”

At Friday prayers , held outdoors and attended by thousands of people, a masked ISIS fighter took the podium and addressed the crowd, declaring the establishment of an “Islamic emirate” in Fallujah and promising to help residents fight the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his Iranian allies.

“We don’t want to hurt you. We don’t want to take any of your possessions,” the man told the crowd, according to the journalist, who attended the prayers. “We want you to reopen the schools and institutions and return to your normal lives.”

The extent of the militants’ control over the city was unclear, however. Some local tribes were challenging their presence, and there were scattered firefights, according to another Fallujah resident who also did not want to be named because he is afraid. The Iraqi army fired shells into Fallujah from bases outside the city, killing at least 17 people, and most residents spent the day hiding indoors, he said.

Battle against al Qaeda continues in Iraq

Al-Qaeda-Linked Force Captures Fallujah

In the provincial capital, Ramadi, tribal fighters have succeeded in ejecting al-Qaeda loyalists, according to Ahmed Abu Risha, a tribal leader who fought alongside U.S. troops against al-Qaeda in Iraq following the “surge” of U.S. troops in 2007.

The tribesmen are cooperating with Iraqi police, Abu Risha said, and are receiving weapons and support from the Iraqi army. Among those killed in the fighting was Abu Abdul Rahman al-Baghdadi, the emir, or leader, of ISIS in Ramadi.

“All the tribes of Anbar are fighting against al-Qaeda,” he said. “We are happy this fight is taking place. We will confront them face to face, and we will win this battle.”

Iran offers to help Iraq against al-Qaeda

A senior Iranian military official says Iran is ready to help Iraq battle al-Qaeda “terrorists” in the neighboring country’s Sunni-dominated western Anbar province.

Iraqi troops have been trying to dislodge fighters from the al-Qaeda group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant from two key cities the militants overran last week says the Washington Post.

Gen. Mohammad Hejazi, deputy chief-of-staff of Iran’s army, is quoted by Iranian media on Monday as saying the Islamic Republic can offer “military equipment and advisers” should Baghdad ask for it.
.
Hejazi says: “Iraq is our friend.”

He ruled out sending troops to Iraq.



Al Qaeda-linked rebels have gained control of the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.

Bush - The worst thing to happen to the GOP
Yep, Bush's war policies worked out really well didn't they?  Bush destroyed the 1,000,000 man anti-Iranian, anti-Islamist, pro-Russian army of Iraq.  The result is a nation in one giant cluster-fuck of Islamic terrorist chaos with genocide against Iraq's Christians who had been under the protection of Saddam Hussein.
.
The Bush-Cheney Team's insane Leftist domestic and utterly stupid foreign policies did the unthinkable.  For two years they drove me completely out of the Republican Party and caused me to vote for the Libertarian Party in two of the last three Presidential elections. 

Miss me yet?
Sure as President of Iraq I managed to piss off both of the Bush Presidents.  So what?  I kept order in my nation.  Remember those mass graves Bush told you about?  It was true.  But what Bush did not tell you was those graves were filled with those crazy Islamist bastards who wanted to create an  “Islamic Emirate”.  They were my enemies too!
.
Well you Americans got what you wanted.  You killed me and my sons.  With no strong hand ruling Iraq you also set off endless waves of Islamic terrorism in the entire Middle East.  Now your current President wants to overthrow my friend Assad in Syria who like me is also pro-Russian, secular and a protector of the Christians.  You Americans haven't learned jack shit have you?

Where is the Pope? Christmas Day bombings kill 37 Christians

Where the Hell is the Pope?

• Christians around the world are being butchered by Muslim filth and Pope after Pope after Pope refuses to do anything forceful or meaningful to defend Christians.  The different heads of the Roman church are silent.
• An anti-Christian genocide is being carries out by Muslims and for the so-called "leaders" of Western world it is just business as usual.

"Do not be afraid! Our Father is patient, he loves us . . . ," Pope Francis said Christmas Eve.

Let me be brutally frank, the Pope's statement is a load of Bullshit!

The Pope says don't be afraid.  Obviously the Pope never lived in Iraq, Pakistan or Indonesia.  Those words are real easy to say when he is surrounded by his own personal armed guards in Italy.  Meanwhile Christians in Africa, Asia and the Middle East are being slaughtered and forced to convert to Islam.

Muslim terrorists in Iraq targeted Christians in three separate Christmas Day bombings in Baghdad, killing at least 37 people, officials said Wednesday.

In one attack, a car bomb went off near a church in the capital's southern Dora neighborhood, killing at least 26 people and wounding 38, a police officer said.

 

Earlier, two bombs ripped through a nearby outdoor market simultaneously in the Christian section of Athorien, killing 11 people and wounding 21, the officer said reports the New York Post.

 

The Iraq-based leader of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Louis Sako, said the parked car bomb exploded after Christmas Mass and that none of the worshippers were hurt. Sako said he didn't believe the church was the target.

 

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but Iraq's dwindling Christian community, which is estimated to number about 400,000 to 600,000 people, often has been targeted by al-Qaida and other insurgents who see the Christians as heretics.

 

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad condemned the attacks in a statement.

 

"The Christian community in Iraq has suffered deliberate and senseless targeting by terrorists for many years, as have many other innocent Iraqis," the statement read. "The United States abhors all such attacks and is committed to its partnership with the government of Iraq to combat the scourge of terrorism."

 

Along with Christians, other targets include civilians in restaurants, cafes or crowded public areas, as well as Shiites and members of the Iraqi security forces, attacked in an attempt to undermine confidence in the Shiite-led government and stir up Iraq's already simmering sectarian tensions.

 

A medical official confirmed the casualty figures. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media.

Bloody Christmas for Iraq's Christians

Syria's Orthodox Christians are worried

Iraqi police officers guard the entrance of St. Joseph's Chaldean Church before
a Christmas mass in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Dec. 25.

The aftermath of a bomb attack at a marketplace in

Baghdad on December 25th, 2013.

Photo: Reuters

Iraq - 'The Christians are finished here'

^{Isaac Napoleon, a worshipper at the St Shmoni Church in Dora}

Thank You George Bush

• Christians managed to live in Iraq for 2,000 years until George Bush decided to "Liberate" the nation and set off endless waves of Islamic terrorism.

(UK Telegraph)  -  Ten years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Christians have dwindled from more than a million to as little as 200,000.

As the last remaining Christian priest in the Baghdad suburb of Doura, Archdeacon Temathius Esha no longer just puts his trust in God's all-seeing eye. Built into the wall of his vestry, amid pictures of Catholic saints, is a 16-screen CCTV monitor, keeping watch on every corner of his church in case of possible attack.

Along with the armed guard outside and concrete anti-blast walls, it makes St Shmoni's feel more like a fortress than a house of worship. And after a decade in which Doura's Iraqi Christian community has been robbed, kidnapped and murdered by Islamist extremists, it finds itself offering sanctuary to an ever-dwindling flock.
 

"Doura was once one of the biggest Christian communities in Iraq, with 30,000 families," said Mr Esha, as he prepared for an afternoon congregation that barely filled two of the 22 rows of pews. "Now there are only 2,000 left. They feel they are strangers in their own land, and that makes them want to leave. The bleeding from migration is continuous."

^{A sparsely attended service held at the church.}

 

Today, St Shmoni is one of just two of Doura's original seven churches still open, casualties of a period in which the area become one of the most notorious al-Qaeda strongholds in Baghdad. In the years that followed the US-led invasion of 2003, two churches were car bombed, while the others closed due to lack of numbers and the kidnapping for ransom of four of Mr Esha's fellow priests, which has left just him and a local monk remaining.
 

Over the years, his own church has had an improvised explosive device and two car bombs planted outside it. All were fortunately discovered before they were detonated.

The picture in Doura is repeated across Iraq, and indeed the wider Middle East, where the onset of the Arab Spring has ended the protected status that the region's secular strongmen gave to religious minorities. In Iraq, a Christian community that numbered more than a million in Saddam Hussein's time is now thought to have shrunk to as few as 200,000.

Those unable to join Iraqi diasporas in Europe and America often fled to sister communities in neighbouring Syria, only to find themselves in similar peril thanks to al-Qaeda's presence in the war against President Bashar al-Assad. In post-Mubarak Egypt, the Christians fear a similar reckoning, and only last month Pope Francis warned that the entire Church was in peril across the region, adding: "We will not resign ourselves to imagining a Middle East without Christians."

Yet with al-Qaeda once again on the rise in Iraq - more than 6,000 people have been killed in 2013, the most in five years - Christian communities such as Doura are already contemplating that very scenario.

Violence is on the rise again. Only two weeks ago, eight corpses were dumped in Doura. The bodies are as yet unidentified, but the fact that they were blindfolded suggests that the sectarian death squads who took Iraq into its darkest days five years ago are back at work.

With that in mind, many of those gathered at Mr Esha's church last week would make this Christmas their last in Iraq if they could.

"I will leave whenever I can," said Isaac Napoleon, who has lost a brother and a son to terrorism. "Christians are finished here in Iraq."


For the full article go to the UK Telegraph - Christians.   And also Christianity in Iraq.

Tariq Aziz - A Christian
George W. Bush and most American politicians were (and are) clueless as to the complex tribal and religious mix of nations like Iraq or Syria.  Both Iraq and Syria were Socialist and allies of Russia.  To simpleminded Americans that meant they were "bad".  But being secular Socialists they were also enemies of militant Islam and protected the local Christian population. 
.
When Bush destroyed the Iraq Socialist Ba'ath Party he opened the door wide to endless Islamist attacks on Christians and other groups.
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Tariq Aziz was baptized Manuel Christo; born 28 April 1936.  He was the Foreign Minister (1983 – 1991) and Deputy Prime Minister (1979 – 2003) of Iraq and a close advisor of former President Saddam Hussein. Their association began in the 1950s when both were activists for the then-banned Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party. He is an ethnic Assyrian but an Arab Nationalist and a member of the Chaldean Catholic Church.

Iraqi security forces stand guard outside the National Evangelical church in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city. Iraq's Christian churches are under heavy security.