Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz has issued a strong warning to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, comparing his actions to those of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The comments were made during a high-level assessment with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) leadership.“I warn the Iranian dictator against continuing to commit war crimes and launching missiles at Israeli civilians,” Katz said in a statement. “He would do well to remember the fate of the dictator in the country neighbouring Iran who chose this same path against the State of Israel,” he added, referring to Saddam Hussein, who was captured in 2003 and executed three years later.Also read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/israel-iran-war-will-tel-aviv-lose-the-air-war-or-tehran-run-out-of-missiles-first-1750159544037">Israel-Iran war: Will Tel Aviv lose the air war, or Tehran run out&nbsp;of&nbsp;missiles first?</a>Katz also confirmed that Israel had struck the headquarters of Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB in Tehran the day before. He warned that more sites linked to Iran’s civil regime may be targeted in upcoming operations.“We will continue today as well to act against regime and military targets in Tehran, just as we did yesterday against the propaganda and incitement broadcasting authority,” he said.<h2>Netanyahu says hitting Khamenei could ‘end the conflict’</h2>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also addressed the possibility of targeting Khamenei directly. Speaking to ABC News, he said that such an action would not escalate tensions but rather bring the ongoing conflict to an end.“It’s not going to escalate the conflict, it’s going to end the conflict,” Netanyahu said, referring to earlier reports that US President Donald Trump had avoided such action fearing it would provoke further violence.Netanyahu claimed that Iran’s leadership has been behind decades of instability across the Middle East. “We’ve had half a century of conflict spread by this regime that terrorises everyone in the Middle East… What Israel is doing is preventing this, bringing an end to this aggression,” he stated.He continued, “We can only do so by standing up to the forces of evil.”<h2>Who was Saddam Hussein?</h2>Saddam Hussein was the fifth president of Iraq, ruling from 1979 until he was overthrown in 2003 during the US-led invasion. A controversial and often brutal leader, he maintained power through repression and conflict, including war with Iran and the invasion of Kuwait.<h2>What happened to him?</h2>Saddam Hussein was captured by American forces on 13 December 2003 while hiding in an underground bunker near his hometown of Tikrit. He was tried by the Iraqi Special Tribunal and found guilty of crimes against humanity for the killing of 148 Shi’ites in Dujail in 1982.He was sentenced to death and executed by hanging on 30 December 2006.

Katz also confirmed that Israel had struck the headquarters of Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB in Tehran the day before. He warned that more sites linked to Iran’s civil regime may be targeted in upcoming operations.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz has issued a strong warning to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, comparing his actions to those of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The comments were made during a high-level assessment with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) leadership. “I warn the Iranian dictator against continuing to commit war crimes and launching missiles at Israeli civilians,” Katz said in a statement. “He would do well to remember the fate of the dictator in the country neighbouring Iran who chose this same path against the State of Israel,” he added, referring to Saddam Hussein, who was captured in 2003 and executed three years later. Also read | Israel-Iran war: Will Tel Aviv lose the air war, or Tehran run out of missiles first? Katz also confirmed that Israel had struck the headquarters of Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB in Tehran the day before. He warned that more sites linked to Iran’s civil regime may be targeted in upcoming operations. “We will continue today as well to act against regime and military targets in Tehran, just as we did yesterday against the propaganda and incitement broadcasting authority,” he said. Netanyahu says hitting Khamenei could ‘end the conflict’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also addressed the possibility of targeting Khamenei directly. Speaking to ABC News, he said that such an action would not escalate tensions but rather bring the ongoing conflict to an end. “It’s not going to escalate the conflict, it’s going to end the conflict,” Netanyahu said, referring to earlier reports that US President Donald Trump had avoided such action fearing it would provoke further violence. Netanyahu claimed that Iran’s leadership has been behind decades of instability across the Middle East. “We’ve had half a century of conflict spread by this regime that terrorises everyone in the Middle East… What Israel is doing is preventing this, bringing an end to this aggression,” he stated. He continued, “We can only do so by standing up to the forces of evil.” Who was Saddam Hussein? Saddam Hussein was the fifth president of Iraq, ruling from 1979 until he was overthrown in 2003 during the US-led invasion. A controversial and often brutal leader, he maintained power through repression and conflict, including war with Iran and the invasion of Kuwait. What happened to him? Saddam Hussein was captured by American forces on 13 December 2003 while hiding in an underground bunker near his hometown of Tikrit. He was tried by the Iraqi Special Tribunal and found guilty of crimes against humanity for the killing of 148 Shi’ites in Dujail in 1982. He was sentenced to death and executed by hanging on 30 December 2006.

Katz also confirmed that Israel had struck the headquarters of Iran’s state broadcaster IRIB in Tehran the day before. He warned that more sites linked to Iran’s civil regime may be targeted in upcoming operations.

'Remember his fate': Israel warns Khamenei will end up like Saddam Hussein - Who was he and what happened to him?

Glorifying Saddam Hussein might be a crime in Iraq, but for Jordanians, he is a leader who is still remembered for standing up against the West and supporting the Arab cause.

Why does Yemen still rever Saddam? | The West Asia Post

20 years ago, on the 20th of March, 2002, U.S. troops invaded Iraq after then-U.S. President George W. Bush accused Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein of possessing 'Massive Stockpile' of weapons of mass destruction. Those weapons were never found, but millions of futures were lost in that war in Iraq. Listen in Vikram Chandra.

This World | Iraq war: 20 years on | Were the weapons of mass destruction ever found?

In February 2003, a few weeks before the United States launched a full-scale invasion of Iraq, Alexander Phillips, an American then aged 18, participated in one of the anti-war protests which called upon the administration of President George W Bush against invading Saddam Hussein-led Iraq.&nbsp;<img alt="Alexander Phillips" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="ed0600ac-ae30-406e-b154-8ddc61572903" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/Alexander.jpeg" />

Alexander Phillips, with microphone, at an anti-war protest in Orange County, California, March 5, 2003 | Alexander Phillips

"We don't want a smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," the US declared, and went on to invade Iraq, citing the presence of 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' in the country, and characterising the West Asian nation as a 'sanctuary for terrorism'.

Many years later, no such weapons were found. "The Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were no more than a bit of improvised sham, a con man's counterfeit goods," J.D. Maddox, an American intelligence officer who led the Iraq Survey Group that was assigned the task to search the supposed WMDs, wrote in 2020.&nbsp;

The Iraqi capital Baghdad fell to the US forces within two weeks of the invasion. Saddam Hussein was captured by US forces nine months later in December 2003.&nbsp;

In May 2003, the United States installed the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) government at a walled-off segment of Baghdad known as the Green Zone, setting up a capital-within-a-capital.

The new government was seen as insulated from the Iraqi people whose lives and livelihoods were at stake. While Americans and their few Iraqi allies enjoyed clean streets, air conditioning and even fast food chains, ordinary Iraqis were subject to looting and violence.

Three years later, after a trial widely seen as a sham, Hussein was hanged to death in January 2006.&nbsp;<img alt="Saddam Hussein" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="c08d7ab8-af5f-4605-a69a-a5de26e2e591" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/Untitled%20design%20-%202023-03-23T235347.345.jpg" />

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein argues with prosecutors while testifying during cross-examination at his trial in Baghdad's Green Zone, April 5, 2006. He was hanged on December 30, 2006 | Reuters image

A cycle of political uncertainty followed.

The detractors of Hussein's mostly Sunni Ba'ath Party became part of armed groups based on sectarian allegiances, a move that was to snowball into the terror unleashed by Abu Baqr-al Baghdadi's 'Islamic State of Iraq and Syria' years later.&nbsp;

"Iraq was a combustible nation full of sectarianism that had the potential to be worse than civil wars in Syria and Lebanon," said Julian McBride, an anthropologist who tells the stories of victims of war through art and research, and is the founder and director of non-profit Reflections on War (ROW) Initiative.

While anti-war protestors like Alexander Phillips knew that it was unlikely that their protests were going to stop the impending invasion, the political climate post-9/11 terror attack of 2001 in the United States made it even more difficult for such a possibility to emerge in the first place.

Phillips told WION that he and his fellow protestors saw 'a lot of middle fingers' from the passersby at San Diego in February 2003.&nbsp;

ALSO READ |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/pretext-of-iraq-war-just-an-excuse-tony-blair-denounces-putins-ukraine-invasion-573321">Pretext of Iraq war just an ‘excuse’: Tony Blair denounces Putin’s Ukraine invasion</a>

"A lot of angry people were explaining to me that I was misguided. That in five years, Iraq would be a stable democracy," Phillips, 37, now an assistant professor of English at Ashoka University near New Delhi, told WION.&nbsp;

"We were going after war with the evidence that was flimsy at best. I think that it is too easy to say we were misled and that we were lied to," Phillips said, adding that the 'political and journalistic establishment seemed quite set on invading Iraq'.

Twenty years on, the assertions of the Bush administration have been proven false. Despite the commitment of over $60 billion in the US funds to reconstruction alone, Iraq remains fractured and vulnerable to violence.

"I would argue that anyone could have known this at the time. That case for going after the war was questionable at best. I understood this, as an 18-year-old. We could have all known this," Phillips added.

WATCH WION LIVE HERE

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You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us <a href="https://www.wionews.com/content-contribution-registration-form">here</a>.

In February 2003, a few weeks before the United States launched a full-scale invasion of Iraq, Alexander Phillips, an American then aged 18, participated in one of the anti-war protests which called upon the administration of President George W Bush against invading Saddam Hussein-led Iraq.

In February 2003, a few weeks before the United States launched a full-scale invasion of Iraq, Alexander Phillips, an American then aged 18, participated in one of the anti-war protests which called upon the administration of President George W Bush against invading Saddam Hussein-led Iraq. Alexander Phillips, with microphone, at an anti-war protest in Orange County, California, March 5, 2003 | Alexander Phillips "We don't want a smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud," the US declared, and went on to invade Iraq, citing the presence of 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' in the country, and characterising the West Asian nation as a 'sanctuary for terrorism'. Many years later, no such weapons were found. "The Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were no more than a bit of improvised sham, a con man's counterfeit goods," J.D. Maddox, an American intelligence officer who led the Iraq Survey Group that was assigned the task to search the supposed WMDs, wrote in 2020. The Iraqi capital Baghdad fell to the US forces within two weeks of the invasion. Saddam Hussein was captured by US forces nine months later in December 2003. In May 2003, the United States installed the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) government at a walled-off segment of Baghdad known as the Green Zone, setting up a capital-within-a-capital. The new government was seen as insulated from the Iraqi people whose lives and livelihoods were at stake. While Americans and their few Iraqi allies enjoyed clean streets, air conditioning and even fast food chains, ordinary Iraqis were subject to looting and violence. Three years later, after a trial widely seen as a sham, Hussein was hanged to death in January 2006. Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein argues with prosecutors while testifying during cross-examination at his trial in Baghdad's Green Zone, April 5, 2006. He was hanged on December 30, 2006 | Reuters image A cycle of political uncertainty followed. The detractors of Hussein's mostly Sunni Ba'ath Party became part of armed groups based on sectarian allegiances, a move that was to snowball into the terror unleashed by Abu Baqr-al Baghdadi's 'Islamic State of Iraq and Syria' years later. "Iraq was a combustible nation full of sectarianism that had the potential to be worse than civil wars in Syria and Lebanon," said Julian McBride, an anthropologist who tells the stories of victims of war through art and research, and is the founder and director of non-profit Reflections on War (ROW) Initiative. While anti-war protestors like Alexander Phillips knew that it was unlikely that their protests were going to stop the impending invasion, the political climate post-9/11 terror attack of 2001 in the United States made it even more difficult for such a possibility to emerge in the first place. Phillips told WION that he and his fellow protestors saw 'a lot of middle fingers' from the passersby at San Diego in February 2003. ALSO READ | Pretext of Iraq war just an ‘excuse’: Tony Blair denounces Putin’s Ukraine invasion "A lot of angry people were explaining to me that I was misguided. That in five years, Iraq would be a stable democracy," Phillips, 37, now an assistant professor of English at Ashoka University near New Delhi, told WION. "We were going after war with the evidence that was flimsy at best. I think that it is too easy to say we were misled and that we were lied to," Phillips said, adding that the 'political and journalistic establishment seemed quite set on invading Iraq'. Twenty years on, the assertions of the Bush administration have been proven false. Despite the commitment of over $60 billion in the US funds to reconstruction alone, Iraq remains fractured and vulnerable to violence. "I would argue that anyone could have known this at the time. That case for going after the war was questionable at best. I understood this, as an 18-year-old. We could have all known this," Phillips added. WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

Iraq war, 20 years on | An American anti-war protestor remembers as world moves on

In pics | Looking back at the opening weeks of "Operation Iraqi Freedom"

In the 1990s, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein ordered the drainage of the the famous Chebayesh marsh. He wanted to attack the rebels hiding in the reeds. Years after his fall, the wetland was re-flooded. Locals returned too. But now its being threatened by series of factors including climate change. This report tells you more.

Iraq's Chebayesh marsh battles pollution, drought

Saudi Arabia and Iraq on Wednesday reopened their Arar desert crossing, a long-awaited sign of closer trade ties after 30 years of sealed land borders between the two countries.

Arar has been closed since 1990 after the two countries cut ties following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.

Top officials including Iraq's interior minister and the head of its border commission travelled from Baghdad to formally open Arar, where a line of cargo trucks stood waiting.

The Saudi ambassador to Iraq was also in attendance and a delegation from Riyadh was to open the Saudi side of the border.&nbsp;

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/saudi-prince-warns-iron-fist-response-to-extremists-threatening-its-security-343064/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

Arar will be open to both goods and people for the first time since Riyadh cut off its diplomatic relationship with Baghdad in 1990, following Iraqi ex-dictator Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.

Riyadh has been wooing Baghdad as part of an effort to stem the growing regional influence of Iran, while Iraq is seeking economic benefits from closer ties with its southern neighbour.

The Saudi-Iraqi rapprochement extends back to 2015 when Saudi Arabia reopened its embassy in Baghdad following a 25-year break.

In July Saudi Arabia and Iraq signed investment agreements on energy and sports.

Ties have remained rocky ever since, but current Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi has a close personal relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Kadhemi was to travel to Saudi Arabia as his first foreign trip as prime minister in May, but the visit was cancelled at the last minute when Saudi King Salman was hospitalised.

He has yet to make the trip, although Iraqi ministers have visited Riyadh to meet with their counterparts and a top-level Saudi delegation travelled to Baghdad last week.

Baghdad sees Arar as a potential alternative to its crossings with eastern neighbour Iran, through which Iraq brings in a large share of its imports.&nbsp;

'Let them invest'

But pro-Iran factions in Iraq, which call themselves the "Islamic Resistance," have stood firmly against closer ties with Saudi Arabia.

Ahead of Arar's opening, one such group identifying itself as Ashab al-Kahf published a statement announcing its "rejection of the Saudi project in Iraq".

"The intelligence cadres of the Islamic Resistance are following all the details of the Saudi enemy's activities on the Iraqi border," it warned.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday evening, Kadhemi fired back against those describing the rapprochement as Saudi "colonialism".

"This is a lie. It's shameful," he said.

"Let them invest. Welcome to Iraq," Kadhemi added, saying Saudi investment could bring in a flood of new jobs to Iraq where more than one-third of youth are unemployed.

The closer ties have been a long time coming.

They did not improve much after Saddam's toppling in the 2003 US-led invasion, as Riyadh looked at the new Shiite-dominated political class with suspicion due to their ties to Iran.

A thaw began in 2017 when then Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir travelled to Baghdad -- the first such visit in decades -- followed by a Riyadh trip by Iraqi premier Haider al-Abadi.

The first commercial flights resumed between the two countries and officials began discussing Arar, with high-profile US diplomat Brett McGurk even visiting the crossing in 2017 to support its reopening.&nbsp;

But those plans were repeatedly delayed, with Arar only opened on rare occasions to allow Iraqi religious pilgrims through on their way to Mecca for the hajj.

More in the works?&nbsp; 
Iraq is the second-largest producer in the OPEC oil cartel, outranked only by Saudi Arabia.

Its oil, gas and electricity infrastructure is severely outdated and inefficient but low oil prices this year have stymied efforts to revamp it.

Baghdad is also notoriously slow to activate external investment, with international firms and foreign countries complaining that rampant corruption hamstrings more investment.

Kadhemi's government has sought to fast-track foreign investment including Saudi support for energy and agriculture.

On his trip to Washington this summer, he agreed to a half-dozen projects that would use Saudi funding to finance US energy firms.

Last year, Iraq signed a deal to plug into the Gulf Cooperation Council's power grid and add up to 500 MW of electricity to its dilapidated electricity sector.

Those deals too have been criticised by pro-Iran factions in Iraq.

Saudi Arabia and Iraq on Wednesday reopened their Arar desert crossing, a long-awaited sign of closer trade ties after 30 years of sealed land borders between the two countries.

Saudi Arabia and Iraq on Wednesday reopened their Arar desert crossing, a long-awaited sign of closer trade ties after 30 years of sealed land borders between the two countries. Arar has been closed since 1990 after the two countries cut ties following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Top officials including Iraq's interior minister and the head of its border commission travelled from Baghdad to formally open Arar, where a line of cargo trucks stood waiting. The Saudi ambassador to Iraq was also in attendance and a delegation from Riyadh was to open the Saudi side of the border. Arar will be open to both goods and people for the first time since Riyadh cut off its diplomatic relationship with Baghdad in 1990, following Iraqi ex-dictator Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Riyadh has been wooing Baghdad as part of an effort to stem the growing regional influence of Iran, while Iraq is seeking economic benefits from closer ties with its southern neighbour. The Saudi-Iraqi rapprochement extends back to 2015 when Saudi Arabia reopened its embassy in Baghdad following a 25-year break. In July Saudi Arabia and Iraq signed investment agreements on energy and sports. Ties have remained rocky ever since, but current Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi has a close personal relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Kadhemi was to travel to Saudi Arabia as his first foreign trip as prime minister in May, but the visit was cancelled at the last minute when Saudi King Salman was hospitalised. He has yet to make the trip, although Iraqi ministers have visited Riyadh to meet with their counterparts and a top-level Saudi delegation travelled to Baghdad last week. Baghdad sees Arar as a potential alternative to its crossings with eastern neighbour Iran, through which Iraq brings in a large share of its imports. 'Let them invest' But pro-Iran factions in Iraq, which call themselves the "Islamic Resistance," have stood firmly against closer ties with Saudi Arabia. Ahead of Arar's opening, one such group identifying itself as Ashab al-Kahf published a statement announcing its "rejection of the Saudi project in Iraq". "The intelligence cadres of the Islamic Resistance are following all the details of the Saudi enemy's activities on the Iraqi border," it warned. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday evening, Kadhemi fired back against those describing the rapprochement as Saudi "colonialism". "This is a lie. It's shameful," he said. "Let them invest. Welcome to Iraq," Kadhemi added, saying Saudi investment could bring in a flood of new jobs to Iraq where more than one-third of youth are unemployed. The closer ties have been a long time coming. They did not improve much after Saddam's toppling in the 2003 US-led invasion, as Riyadh looked at the new Shiite-dominated political class with suspicion due to their ties to Iran. A thaw began in 2017 when then Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir travelled to Baghdad -- the first such visit in decades -- followed by a Riyadh trip by Iraqi premier Haider al-Abadi. The first commercial flights resumed between the two countries and officials began discussing Arar, with high-profile US diplomat Brett McGurk even visiting the crossing in 2017 to support its reopening. But those plans were repeatedly delayed, with Arar only opened on rare occasions to allow Iraqi religious pilgrims through on their way to Mecca for the hajj. More in the works? Iraq is the second-largest producer in the OPEC oil cartel, outranked only by Saudi Arabia. Its oil, gas and electricity infrastructure is severely outdated and inefficient but low oil prices this year have stymied efforts to revamp it. Baghdad is also notoriously slow to activate external investment, with international firms and foreign countries complaining that rampant corruption hamstrings more investment. Kadhemi's government has sought to fast-track foreign investment including Saudi support for energy and agriculture. On his trip to Washington this summer, he agreed to a half-dozen projects that would use Saudi funding to finance US energy firms. Last year, Iraq signed a deal to plug into the Gulf Cooperation Council's power grid and add up to 500 MW of electricity to its dilapidated electricity sector. Those deals too have been criticised by pro-Iran factions in Iraq.

Saudi Arabia and Iraq reopen Arar border crossing after 30 years

Saddam Hussein's right-hand man Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, a long-time fugitive, has died, the executed Iraqi dictator's daughter and his Baath party said Monday.

After&nbsp;Saddam's capture following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, the wiry, red-haired general remained the "King of Clubs" in Washington's deck of cards of wanted regime figures with a $10-million bounty on his head.

"I offer condolences... to all Iraqis and all his (Duri's) admirers in the Arab world and around the world," tweeted Raghad&nbsp;Saddam&nbsp;Hussein, along with a picture of Duri and her father, who was convicted and hanged in 2006.

The Baath party, which ruled Iraq until&nbsp;Saddam's overthrow, issued a statement announcing the death of 78-year-old Duri, but it also gave no details on where or the cause.

Known as the "Iceman" for his humble origins selling blocks of ice, he has previously been reported dead or captured only to resurface in audio or video messages.

In 2016, an unauthenticated recording showed Duri praising Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State jihadist group.

Disaffected ex-Baathists reportedly played a key role in insurgencies after the invasion.

Duri rose to become the number two in the all-powerful Revolutionary Command Council of&nbsp;Saddam's regime.

Saddam Hussein's right-hand man Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, a long-time fugitive, has died, the executed Iraqi dictator's daughter and his Baath party said Monday. After Saddam's capture following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, the wiry, red-haired general remained the "King of Clubs" in Washington's deck of cards of wanted regime figures with a $10-million bounty on his head.

Saddam Hussein's right-hand man Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, a long-time fugitive, has died, the executed Iraqi dictator's daughter and his Baath party said Monday. After Saddam's capture following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, the wiry, red-haired general remained the "King of Clubs" in Washington's deck of cards of wanted regime figures with a $10-million bounty on his head. "I offer condolences... to all Iraqis and all his (Duri's) admirers in the Arab world and around the world," tweeted Raghad Saddam Hussein, along with a picture of Duri and her father, who was convicted and hanged in 2006. The Baath party, which ruled Iraq until Saddam's overthrow, issued a statement announcing the death of 78-year-old Duri, but it also gave no details on where or the cause. Known as the "Iceman" for his humble origins selling blocks of ice, he has previously been reported dead or captured only to resurface in audio or video messages. In 2016, an unauthenticated recording showed Duri praising Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State jihadist group. Disaffected ex-Baathists reportedly played a key role in insurgencies after the invasion. Duri rose to become the number two in the all-powerful Revolutionary Command Council of Saddam's regime.

Saddam Hussein’s right-hand man dies after years as fugitive

Not just Putin, meet political leaders who had body doubles

April 15 in history: Fall of Saddam Hussein's government, Notre-Dame catches fire and more

December 30 in history: From hoisting of India's first flag of Independence to first colour television sale in US

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/paralysis-in-iraq-as-protesters-harden-position-270033">Iraqi anti-government protesters</a> blockaded an oil field and rallied in southern cities Sunday while political factions remained paralysed in their attempts to form a new government.

Several hundred people demanding jobs shut off access to the Nassiriya field, 300 kilometres (190 miles) south of Baghdad, which produces 82,000 barrels of oil per day, executives said.

The two-day-old blockade is the first to disrupt operations in OPEC's second-largest producer since the start of the popular revolt set to enter its fourth month in early January.

The youth-led protests demand the ouster of the entire political class that has run the country in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

Demonstrators have vented their fury at what they consider inept politicians who have mismanaged the economy, enriched themselves and are beholden to powerful neighbour Iran.

Sit-in protests have shut down state offices and schools across the Shiite-majority south for weeks, and demonstrators again declared a "general strike" in Diwaniya on Sunday, the first day of the working week.

Mass rallies and picket lines also paralysed Kout, al-Hilla, Amara and the shrine city of Najaf, AFP correspondents said.

Murders and abductions&nbsp;

The protests have continued despite being met with batons, tear gas and, at times, live rounds in violence that has claimed nearly 460 lives and left some 25,000 people wounded.

The activists scored a partial success in November with the resignation of prime minister <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/iraq-parliament-approves-resignation-of-prime-minister-mahdi-265661">Adel Abdel Mahdi</a>, who however remains in charge in a caretaker role.

Pro-Iranian and other political factions have since wrangled over finding a successor -&nbsp;so far without success.

And although parliament has just voted for an electoral reform package, there has been no indication that the early polls many citizens are calling for will be held anytime soon.&nbsp;

Heightening the turmoil, President Barham Saleh last week threatened to resign rather than put forward the name of a pro-Iran candidate to form the next government.

Nassiriya student demonstrator Osama Ali praised the head of state, saying he had "foiled the attempts by parties and militiamen to kill off the revolution to protect their own interests".

"This gives us hope to continue our peaceful movement until we obtain all our demands," he told AFP.

Those demands include an end to a system that doles out state jobs according to ethnicity and religion, and a stop to the endemic corruption estimated to have swallowed up twice Iraq's GDP in 16 years.

The protesters also want justice for those activists who have been murdered, many shot dead in the streets or outside their homes.

Dozens have also reported being abducted to rural areas near <a href="https://www.wionews.com/business-economy/rockets-hit-military-base-near-baghdad-airport-6-wounded-military-statement-267191">Baghdad</a> for several hours or days before being abandoned by the roadside.

The United Nations has accused "militias" of waging a sweeping campaign of threats, kidnappings and murders of demonstrators.

The state-run Human Rights Commission says it has still not heard from 56 missing activists.

Iraqi anti-government protesters blockaded an oil field and rallied in southern cities Sunday while political factions remained paralysed in their attempts to form a new government.

Iraqi anti-government protesters blockaded an oil field and rallied in southern cities Sunday while political factions remained paralysed in their attempts to form a new government. Several hundred people demanding jobs shut off access to the Nassiriya field, 300 kilometres (190 miles) south of Baghdad, which produces 82,000 barrels of oil per day, executives said. The two-day-old blockade is the first to disrupt operations in OPEC's second-largest producer since the start of the popular revolt set to enter its fourth month in early January. The youth-led protests demand the ouster of the entire political class that has run the country in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein. Demonstrators have vented their fury at what they consider inept politicians who have mismanaged the economy, enriched themselves and are beholden to powerful neighbour Iran. Sit-in protests have shut down state offices and schools across the Shiite-majority south for weeks, and demonstrators again declared a "general strike" in Diwaniya on Sunday, the first day of the working week. Mass rallies and picket lines also paralysed Kout, al-Hilla, Amara and the shrine city of Najaf, AFP correspondents said. Murders and abductions The protests have continued despite being met with batons, tear gas and, at times, live rounds in violence that has claimed nearly 460 lives and left some 25,000 people wounded. The activists scored a partial success in November with the resignation of prime minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, who however remains in charge in a caretaker role. Pro-Iranian and other political factions have since wrangled over finding a successor - so far without success. And although parliament has just voted for an electoral reform package, there has been no indication that the early polls many citizens are calling for will be held anytime soon. Heightening the turmoil, President Barham Saleh last week threatened to resign rather than put forward the name of a pro-Iran candidate to form the next government. Nassiriya student demonstrator Osama Ali praised the head of state, saying he had "foiled the attempts by parties and militiamen to kill off the revolution to protect their own interests". "This gives us hope to continue our peaceful movement until we obtain all our demands," he told AFP. Those demands include an end to a system that doles out state jobs according to ethnicity and religion, and a stop to the endemic corruption estimated to have swallowed up twice Iraq's GDP in 16 years. The protesters also want justice for those activists who have been murdered, many shot dead in the streets or outside their homes. Dozens have also reported being abducted to rural areas near Baghdad for several hours or days before being abandoned by the roadside. The United Nations has accused "militias" of waging a sweeping campaign of threats, kidnappings and murders of demonstrators. The state-run Human Rights Commission says it has still not heard from 56 missing activists.

Iraq protesters lock down oil field, call strike

Iraq's Adel Abdel Mahdi, consensus leader brought down by street fury

In all the hand-wringing that critics and commentators have done since President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops from northern Syria, one of the common refrains emphasises the breach of trust between Washington and its Kurdish militia partners.

Some scholars of international relations put little stock in trust. Countries are selfish, after all.

Others see trust in impersonal terms, embedded in the rules, norms, institutions and alliances that bind countries to each other.

It turns out, though, that trust does matter in international relations. And in the Middle East, trust is often seen in personal terms.

For the American personnel who worked, ate and lived with the Syrian Kurds, trust-building was also a deeply personal experience. Trust underpinned the crucial intelligence cooperation between the US and its Kurdish partners. That cooperation helped plan and execute the raid that led to the capture killing of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

As one former American special operator has written, “Trust is a powerful commodity that has saved many lives in shadowy battlefields across the Middle East. But it takes a long time to build and can be gone in an instant.”

By contrast, mistrust, even if it is based on perception alone, can linger for decades, thwarting Washington’s foreign policy goals.

Defeating the Islamic State

I observed the long-term consequences of broken trust next door to Syria, in Iraq.

I served as a US diplomat in the southern Iraqi city of Basrah during 2015 and 2016, the height of the war against the Islamic State group, also known as IS.

At the time, after years of sectarian strife, dishonest governments and their broken promises, Iraqis seemed united around the common purpose of defeating IS. The corrupt and sectarian regime of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had been ousted. And the US was leading an international coalition to help the Iraqi government in the fight against IS, providing hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian assistance.

You might think that a war that the US was fighting on behalf of the Iraqi people, a war that was truly an existential one for the majority Iraqi Shia, would have produced at least some goodwill toward the United States.

Instead, when I arrived in Basrah in 2015, I discovered that many Iraqis, including the majority Shia Muslim population among whom I lived, believed that the United States was somehow in cahoots with the Islamic State.

Mistrust for decades 
 
The Middle East is rife with conspiracy theories. But this one was particularly jarring given that the United States was then engaged in a costly and very public effort to defeat the Islamic State, a terrorist group which declared the Shia apostates and said they must be killed.

Over time, I began to understand the roots of these attitudes. Disinformation and propaganda, especially from Iran, fueled them to some extent.

But there were deeper issues at play.

“The United States defeated Saddam’s armies in a matter of weeks,” incredulous Iraqis I met would say to me. “So how is it that you can’t defeat a ragtag army of jihadists in two years?”

Iranian disinformation campaigns blaming the US for the Islamic State were effective because of a deep gulf of mistrust between the US and Iraqis, which led to widespread cynicism among ordinary Iraqis about US motives.

The origins of this mistrust go back decades, from tacit US support for Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, when Washington turned a blind eye to the dictatorship’s atrocities against Iraqi Kurds.

The lack of trust helps explain why the US had such a hard time stabilizing Iraq after 2003, despite toppling a feared despot and despite investing billions of dollars in the country.

Roots in betrayal

Iraqi Shia are the largest Muslim sect in the country, but have less political power than Sunni Muslims. The Shia in particular have painful memories of an event that they see as a massive breach of trust between them and the US.

In 1991, encouraged by then-President George HW Bush, the Shia rose up against Saddam, only to be abandoned by the US.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi Shia were slaughtered.

I visited a memorial to the victims of Saddam’s suppression of the uprising, where I saw a leaflet displayed that was dropped by US and coalition aircraft calling on Iraqi soldiers and civilians to “fill the streets and alleys and bring down Saddam Hussein and his aides.”

“We thought this meant that the Americans would help us,” my guide at the museum told me. &nbsp;Many Iraqis I met also recalled the devastating 1990s sanctions on their country that were championed by the United States. Others talked of Washington’s failure to stabilize the country after 2003. Then there was the perception that the Obama administration came late to the war against the Islamic State.

Other Iraqis I met – young ones – told me of their resentment at US&nbsp;support for a political class in Baghdad that is seen as deeply corrupt. Some of them are no doubt protesting in the streets and squares of Iraqi cities today.

I attended lots of meetings with Iraqi Sunni tribal leaders in the south. They saw the Obama administration’s 2011 withdrawal of U.S. troops and general disengagement from Iraq as a betrayal of trust. They saw it as handing over Iraq to Iranian influence, which they fear.

Ultimately, Iraqis did not see the US as a credible, consistent or committed partner. Some turned to Iran for assistance, while turning against the United States. Perhaps it is no surprise that polls taken at the time I worked in Basrah showed that Iraqis saw Iran and Russia as more favourable security partners.

Can’t escape the past

Iraq is by no means a perfect analogy for the shattered trust between Washington and its Syrian Kurdish allies. Yet the Iraqi experience shows that distrust of the United States has deep roots in past US actions.

In Syria, too, the US has left a legacy of mistrust since 2011, from Obama’s failure to follow through on his call for Assad to step down, to his failure to impose meaningful costs on the Syrian regime for its use of chemical weapons. Trump’s withdrawal is just one episode in a longer story.

Despite breaches of trust, Iraqis continued to need US support. But that need paired with a lack of trust makes things difficult for American diplomats in Iraq. For me, it was often overwhelming to be at the receiving end of the immense disappointment, frustration and more rarely, hope, that the Iraqis have in the United States.

The Syrian Kurds, like the Iraqis, will still need the United States and continue to work with Washington. But the breach of trust will complicate cooperation, as it did in Iraq.

Not everything that Iraqis blame the United States for is fair. And it would be impossible for even the best-crafted US policies to satisfy all of Iraq’s diverse people.

At times I tried to remind my unfailingly hospitable Iraqi interlocutors, especially those in the government, to be a bit more introspective about their own failings and responsibility for Iraq’s post-Saddam ills. I tried to remind them that the United States invested a lot in Iraq, with limited results.

In the end, the credibility of the message was undercut by a lack of trust in the messenger.&nbsp;

(Mieczysław P Boduszyński is Assistant Professor of Politics, Pomona College)

(This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/broken-trust-how-iraqis-lost-their-faith-in-washington-long-before-the-kurds-did-125636">original article</a>) 
&nbsp; 
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL) &nbsp; 
&nbsp; 
&nbsp;

In all the hand-wringing that critics and commentators have done since President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops from northern Syria, one of the common refrains emphasises the breach of trust between Washington and its Kurdish militia partners.

In all the hand-wringing that critics and commentators have done since President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops from northern Syria, one of the common refrains emphasises the breach of trust between Washington and its Kurdish militia partners. Some scholars of international relations put little stock in trust. Countries are selfish, after all. Others see trust in impersonal terms, embedded in the rules, norms, institutions and alliances that bind countries to each other. It turns out, though, that trust does matter in international relations. And in the Middle East, trust is often seen in personal terms. For the American personnel who worked, ate and lived with the Syrian Kurds, trust-building was also a deeply personal experience. Trust underpinned the crucial intelligence cooperation between the US and its Kurdish partners. That cooperation helped plan and execute the raid that led to the capture killing of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. As one former American special operator has written, “Trust is a powerful commodity that has saved many lives in shadowy battlefields across the Middle East. But it takes a long time to build and can be gone in an instant.” By contrast, mistrust, even if it is based on perception alone, can linger for decades, thwarting Washington’s foreign policy goals. Defeating the Islamic State I observed the long-term consequences of broken trust next door to Syria, in Iraq. I served as a US diplomat in the southern Iraqi city of Basrah during 2015 and 2016, the height of the war against the Islamic State group, also known as IS. At the time, after years of sectarian strife, dishonest governments and their broken promises, Iraqis seemed united around the common purpose of defeating IS. The corrupt and sectarian regime of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had been ousted. And the US was leading an international coalition to help the Iraqi government in the fight against IS, providing hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian assistance. You might think that a war that the US was fighting on behalf of the Iraqi people, a war that was truly an existential one for the majority Iraqi Shia, would have produced at least some goodwill toward the United States. Instead, when I arrived in Basrah in 2015, I discovered that many Iraqis, including the majority Shia Muslim population among whom I lived, believed that the United States was somehow in cahoots with the Islamic State. Mistrust for decades The Middle East is rife with conspiracy theories. But this one was particularly jarring given that the United States was then engaged in a costly and very public effort to defeat the Islamic State, a terrorist group which declared the Shia apostates and said they must be killed. Over time, I began to understand the roots of these attitudes. Disinformation and propaganda, especially from Iran, fueled them to some extent. But there were deeper issues at play. “The United States defeated Saddam’s armies in a matter of weeks,” incredulous Iraqis I met would say to me. “So how is it that you can’t defeat a ragtag army of jihadists in two years?” Iranian disinformation campaigns blaming the US for the Islamic State were effective because of a deep gulf of mistrust between the US and Iraqis, which led to widespread cynicism among ordinary Iraqis about US motives. The origins of this mistrust go back decades, from tacit US support for Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, when Washington turned a blind eye to the dictatorship’s atrocities against Iraqi Kurds. The lack of trust helps explain why the US had such a hard time stabilizing Iraq after 2003, despite toppling a feared despot and despite investing billions of dollars in the country. Roots in betrayal Iraqi Shia are the largest Muslim sect in the country, but have less political power than Sunni Muslims. The Shia in particular have painful memories of an event that they see as a massive breach of trust between them and the US. In 1991, encouraged by then-President George HW Bush, the Shia rose up against Saddam, only to be abandoned by the US. Tens of thousands of Iraqi Shia were slaughtered. I visited a memorial to the victims of Saddam’s suppression of the uprising, where I saw a leaflet displayed that was dropped by US and coalition aircraft calling on Iraqi soldiers and civilians to “fill the streets and alleys and bring down Saddam Hussein and his aides.” “We thought this meant that the Americans would help us,” my guide at the museum told me. Many Iraqis I met also recalled the devastating 1990s sanctions on their country that were championed by the United States. Others talked of Washington’s failure to stabilize the country after 2003. Then there was the perception that the Obama administration came late to the war against the Islamic State. Other Iraqis I met – young ones – told me of their resentment at US support for a political class in Baghdad that is seen as deeply corrupt. Some of them are no doubt protesting in the streets and squares of Iraqi cities today. I attended lots of meetings with Iraqi Sunni tribal leaders in the south. They saw the Obama administration’s 2011 withdrawal of U.S. troops and general disengagement from Iraq as a betrayal of trust. They saw it as handing over Iraq to Iranian influence, which they fear. Ultimately, Iraqis did not see the US as a credible, consistent or committed partner. Some turned to Iran for assistance, while turning against the United States. Perhaps it is no surprise that polls taken at the time I worked in Basrah showed that Iraqis saw Iran and Russia as more favourable security partners. Can’t escape the past Iraq is by no means a perfect analogy for the shattered trust between Washington and its Syrian Kurdish allies. Yet the Iraqi experience shows that distrust of the United States has deep roots in past US actions. In Syria, too, the US has left a legacy of mistrust since 2011, from Obama’s failure to follow through on his call for Assad to step down, to his failure to impose meaningful costs on the Syrian regime for its use of chemical weapons. Trump’s withdrawal is just one episode in a longer story. Despite breaches of trust, Iraqis continued to need US support. But that need paired with a lack of trust makes things difficult for American diplomats in Iraq. For me, it was often overwhelming to be at the receiving end of the immense disappointment, frustration and more rarely, hope, that the Iraqis have in the United States. The Syrian Kurds, like the Iraqis, will still need the United States and continue to work with Washington. But the breach of trust will complicate cooperation, as it did in Iraq. Not everything that Iraqis blame the United States for is fair. And it would be impossible for even the best-crafted US policies to satisfy all of Iraq’s diverse people. At times I tried to remind my unfailingly hospitable Iraqi interlocutors, especially those in the government, to be a bit more introspective about their own failings and responsibility for Iraq’s post-Saddam ills. I tried to remind them that the United States invested a lot in Iraq, with limited results. In the end, the credibility of the message was undercut by a lack of trust in the messenger. (Mieczysław P Boduszyński is Assistant Professor of Politics, Pomona College) (This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article) (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)

How Iraqis lost their faith in Washington, long before the Kurds did

Iran-backed&nbsp;militias&nbsp;deployed&nbsp;snipers&nbsp;on Baghdad rooftops during Iraq’s deadliest anti-government&nbsp;protests&nbsp;in years, two&nbsp;Iraqi security officials told Reuters.

The deployment of militia fighters, which has not been previously reported, underscores the chaotic nature of&nbsp;Iraqi politics amid mass&nbsp;protests&nbsp;that led to more than <a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/anti-govt-protests-in-iraq-death-toll-rises-to-100-254028">100 deaths </a>and 6,000 injuries during the week starting October&nbsp;1. Such&nbsp;militias&nbsp;have become a fixture here with&nbsp;Iran's rising influence.

They sometimes operate in conjunction with&nbsp;Iraqi security forces but they retain their own command structures.

The&nbsp;Iraqi security&nbsp;sources&nbsp;told Reuters that the leaders of&nbsp;Iran-aligned&nbsp;militias&nbsp;decided on their own to help put down the mass&nbsp;protests&nbsp;against the government of&nbsp;Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, whose one-year-old administration is&nbsp;backed&nbsp;by powerful&nbsp;Iran-backed&nbsp;armed groups and political factions.

“We have confirmed evidence that the&nbsp;snipers&nbsp;were elements of&nbsp;militias&nbsp;reporting directly to their commander instead of the chief commander of the armed forces,” said one of the&nbsp;Iraqi security&nbsp;sources. “They belong to a group that is very close to the&nbsp;Iranians.”

A second&nbsp;Iraqi security source, who attended daily government security briefings, said militiamen clad in black shot protesters on the third day of unrest when the death toll soared to more than 50 from about half a dozen. The fighters were directed by Abu Zainab al-Lami, head of security for the Hashid, a grouping of mostly Shi’ite Muslim paramilitaries&nbsp;backed&nbsp;by&nbsp;Iran, the second source said. The Hashid leader was tasked with quashing the&nbsp;protests&nbsp;by a group of other senior militia commanders, the source said. The&nbsp;sources&nbsp;did not say how many&nbsp;snipers&nbsp;were&nbsp;deployed&nbsp;by militia groups.

A spokesman for the Hashid, Ahmed al-Assadi, denied the groups took part in the crackdown. “No members were present in the protest areas. None of the elements of the Hashid took part in confronting protesters,” Al-Assadi said in a statement to Reuters.

Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maal said state security forces did not fire directly at protesters and blamed unnamed “vicious” shooters for the mass deaths and injuries. The government has opened an investigation to determine who shot the protesters and who ordered it, Maal said in a news conference on October&nbsp;6.

The assertion that security forces did not participate in the violence seemed to contradict an earlier statement on October&nbsp;14 from the&nbsp;Iraqi government, which admitted state security forces had used excessive force and promised to hold individuals accountable for violence against civilians.

An official with the prime minister’s office said in a statement to Reuters Wednesday that it would be “premature to lay the blame on any parties, whether from Hashid or other security forces before we end the investigation. Let’s wait and see who gave the order ‘shoot to kill.’”

Iran’s role in responding to the demonstrations was another reminder of Tehran’s reach in&nbsp;Iraq, where a sizable number of former militia commanders are now members of parliament and support the&nbsp;Iranian agenda. Stability of the&nbsp;Iraqi government is in the best interests of&nbsp;Iran, which has been steadily amassing influence in&nbsp;Iraq&nbsp;since 2003 when the US-led invasion toppled the Islamic Republic’s arch-enemy, Saddam Hussein.&nbsp;Iran&nbsp;is&nbsp;Iraq’s biggest trading partner.

Iran's delegation to the United Nations did not immediately respond Wednesday afternoon to questions from Reuters about its support of&nbsp;militias&nbsp;and their involvement in the violence against protesters. Leaders of&nbsp;militias&nbsp;in&nbsp;Iraq&nbsp;have denied getting training and weapons from&nbsp;Iran.

As&nbsp;protests&nbsp;entered their third day, on October&nbsp;3,&nbsp;snipers&nbsp;appeared on Baghdad rooftops. A Reuters cameraman who was covering the unrest near Baghdad’s Tahrir Square that afternoon said he saw a sniper, wearing a balaclava and dressed in black as he stood on top of an under-construction building that overlooked the demonstrations.

Protesters fled as the sniper opened fire.&nbsp;One protester who was shot in the head was carried away in a large crowd. Another who was shot in the head appeared to have died and was rushed off in a truck. When his phone rang, a friend recognized that the man’s brother was calling.

“Don’t tell him he died,” the friend said.

The&nbsp;protests&nbsp;started October&nbsp;1 amid public rage over chronic shortages of jobs, electricity and clean water.&nbsp;Iraqis blame politicians and officials for systemic corruption that has prevented&nbsp;Iraq&nbsp;from recovering after years of sectarian violence and devastating war to defeat Islamic State.

Any vacuum of power could prove challenging for the region, given that Baghdad is an ally of both the United States and&nbsp;Iran, who are locked in their own political standoff. Thousands of US&nbsp;troops are stationed in the country in positions not far from those of&nbsp;Iran-backed&nbsp;Shi’ite&nbsp;militias.

The second security source told Reuters that the&nbsp;snipers&nbsp;were using radio communications equipment that was provided by&nbsp;Iran&nbsp;and is difficult to intercept, giving the groups an essentially private network.

A group of senior commanders from&nbsp;Iran’s Revolutionary Guards travelled to&nbsp;Iraq&nbsp;on the second day of the&nbsp;protests&nbsp;and met with&nbsp;Iraqi intelligence and security officials, according to a diplomat in the region familiar with&nbsp;Iran’s decision-making process. After the meeting, senior Revolutionary Guard officers with experience in curbing civil unrest continued to advise the&nbsp;Iraqi government, the diplomat said, although no&nbsp;Iranian soldiers were&nbsp;deployed.

A senior commander of one of the&nbsp;Iran-backed&nbsp;militias&nbsp;- who said his group was not involved in efforts to stop the&nbsp;protests&nbsp;or the resulting violence - said Tehran consulted closely with forces trying to quell the demonstrations.

“After two days, they jumped in and supplied the government and&nbsp;militias&nbsp;with intelligence,” the militia leader told Reuters. “Iranian advisors insisted on having a role and warned us that the ongoing&nbsp;protests, if not reversed, will undermine the government of Abdul Mahdi.”

Iran-backed militias deployed snipers on Baghdad rooftops during Iraq’s deadliest anti-government protests in years, two Iraqi security officials told Reuters. The deployment of militia fighters, which has not been previously reported, underscores the chaotic nature of Iraqi politics amid mass protests that led to more than 100 deaths and 6,000 injuries during the week starting October 1.

Iran-backed militias deployed snipers on Baghdad rooftops during Iraq’s deadliest anti-government protests in years, two Iraqi security officials told Reuters. The deployment of militia fighters, which has not been previously reported, underscores the chaotic nature of Iraqi politics amid mass protests that led to more than 100 deaths and 6,000 injuries during the week starting October 1. Such militias have become a fixture here with Iran's rising influence. They sometimes operate in conjunction with Iraqi security forces but they retain their own command structures. The Iraqi security sources told Reuters that the leaders of Iran-aligned militias decided on their own to help put down the mass protests against the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, whose one-year-old administration is backed by powerful Iran-backed armed groups and political factions. “We have confirmed evidence that the snipers were elements of militias reporting directly to their commander instead of the chief commander of the armed forces,” said one of the Iraqi security sources. “They belong to a group that is very close to the Iranians.” A second Iraqi security source, who attended daily government security briefings, said militiamen clad in black shot protesters on the third day of unrest when the death toll soared to more than 50 from about half a dozen. The fighters were directed by Abu Zainab al-Lami, head of security for the Hashid, a grouping of mostly Shi’ite Muslim paramilitaries backed by Iran, the second source said. The Hashid leader was tasked with quashing the protests by a group of other senior militia commanders, the source said. The sources did not say how many snipers were deployed by militia groups. A spokesman for the Hashid, Ahmed al-Assadi, denied the groups took part in the crackdown. “No members were present in the protest areas. None of the elements of the Hashid took part in confronting protesters,” Al-Assadi said in a statement to Reuters. Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Saad Maal said state security forces did not fire directly at protesters and blamed unnamed “vicious” shooters for the mass deaths and injuries. The government has opened an investigation to determine who shot the protesters and who ordered it, Maal said in a news conference on October 6. The assertion that security forces did not participate in the violence seemed to contradict an earlier statement on October 14 from the Iraqi government, which admitted state security forces had used excessive force and promised to hold individuals accountable for violence against civilians. An official with the prime minister’s office said in a statement to Reuters Wednesday that it would be “premature to lay the blame on any parties, whether from Hashid or other security forces before we end the investigation. Let’s wait and see who gave the order ‘shoot to kill.’” Iran’s role in responding to the demonstrations was another reminder of Tehran’s reach in Iraq, where a sizable number of former militia commanders are now members of parliament and support the Iranian agenda. Stability of the Iraqi government is in the best interests of Iran, which has been steadily amassing influence in Iraq since 2003 when the US-led invasion toppled the Islamic Republic’s arch-enemy, Saddam Hussein. Iran is Iraq’s biggest trading partner. Iran's delegation to the United Nations did not immediately respond Wednesday afternoon to questions from Reuters about its support of militias and their involvement in the violence against protesters. Leaders of militias in Iraq have denied getting training and weapons from Iran. As protests entered their third day, on October 3, snipers appeared on Baghdad rooftops. A Reuters cameraman who was covering the unrest near Baghdad’s Tahrir Square that afternoon said he saw a sniper, wearing a balaclava and dressed in black as he stood on top of an under-construction building that overlooked the demonstrations. Protesters fled as the sniper opened fire. One protester who was shot in the head was carried away in a large crowd. Another who was shot in the head appeared to have died and was rushed off in a truck. When his phone rang, a friend recognized that the man’s brother was calling. “Don’t tell him he died,” the friend said. The protests started October 1 amid public rage over chronic shortages of jobs, electricity and clean water. Iraqis blame politicians and officials for systemic corruption that has prevented Iraq from recovering after years of sectarian violence and devastating war to defeat Islamic State. Any vacuum of power could prove challenging for the region, given that Baghdad is an ally of both the United States and Iran, who are locked in their own political standoff. Thousands of US troops are stationed in the country in positions not far from those of Iran-backed Shi’ite militias. The second security source told Reuters that the snipers were using radio communications equipment that was provided by Iran and is difficult to intercept, giving the groups an essentially private network. A group of senior commanders from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards travelled to Iraq on the second day of the protests and met with Iraqi intelligence and security officials, according to a diplomat in the region familiar with Iran’s decision-making process. After the meeting, senior Revolutionary Guard officers with experience in curbing civil unrest continued to advise the Iraqi government, the diplomat said, although no Iranian soldiers were deployed. A senior commander of one of the Iran-backed militias - who said his group was not involved in efforts to stop the protests or the resulting violence - said Tehran consulted closely with forces trying to quell the demonstrations. “After two days, they jumped in and supplied the government and militias with intelligence,” the militia leader told Reuters. “Iranian advisors insisted on having a role and warned us that the ongoing protests, if not reversed, will undermine the government of Abdul Mahdi.”

Iran-backed militias deployed snipers in Iraq protests: Report

A labyrinth of concrete blast walls, spotlights, and checkpoints are eating up ever more of Kabul, standing in stark contrast to a similar area in Iraq's Baghdad where easing tensions have seen its barricades come down.

The tale of the two "Green Zones" provides a snapshot of the dramatically changing nature of the Afghan conflict, long overshadowed by the war in Iraq where multiple insurgencies following the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 turned Baghdad into a warzone.

But following the so-called Islamic State group's loss of territory in Syria and Iraq, Baghdad has experienced a sharp reduction in violence.

AFP reported recently on the reopening of Baghdad's Green Zone, with hundreds of streets long sealed off from the public opened as Iraq gets back on its feet after decades of conflict.

Not so in central Kabul, once known as a city of gardens and revered by Babur, the nature-loving founder of the Mughal empire.

Today its once-leafy avenues are increasingly blocked by concrete. Towering blast walls continue to expand along with the addition of an already dizzying number of checkpoints that keep traffic perennially gridlocked and residents stressed across the city.

The expansion began with a devastating truck bomb near the Green Zone in 2017 that killed some 150 people and wounded hundreds more, becoming the deadliest attack since the US invasion of 2001.&nbsp;

It caused extensive damage to the nearby German Embassy, among other buildings, and blew windows out hundreds of metres away.

Shortly after, officials announced that they were expanding the ring of steel around the heart of the city - though with more than a hundred of ways into Kabul they have admitted it is impossible to control all entrances.

Trucks entering Kabul en route to the area must now pass through a new sophisticated scanner near the airport to detect explosives, often waiting hours before they can proceed.

Congestion has grown as more of the area, which contains some of Kabul's key traffic arteries, is sealed off - a security concern, with bombers often targeting rush hour.&nbsp;

Diplomats are increasingly avoiding the roads, opting for expensive minutes-long helicopter flights to the city's airport. Diesel generators add to the roar of the choppers passing every few minutes over once tranquil streets.

Only a tiny portion of the Afghan population is allowed to enter the Green Zone, where vehicles are scanned again and armed sentries at myriad checkpoints inspect cars further.

Most Kabul residents have been locked out of the area for years.&nbsp;&nbsp;

"The last time I drove my taxi there was during the Taliban rule," recalls Shir Mohammad, a 48-year-old taxi driver.

'Ugly city'&nbsp;

The zone, originally established in 2001 and encompassing buildings such as NATO headquarters and the presidential palace, is classified as "green" in security lingo, while most other areas in the capital are labelled "red" due to their high-threat levels.

In the years after the invasion, as security deteriorated across Afghanistan, the resurgent Taliban and in recent years IS stepped up their attacks on Kabul.&nbsp;

Attacks have dipped slightly in recent months, as the US and Taliban hold ongoing talks aimed at ending the nearly 18-year-old conflict.

But even if a breakthrough comes the threat from other insurgent groups remains, and Kabul officials say they are moving forward with the plans to expand the Green Zone.&nbsp;

The expansion is planned mostly at the north end of the Green Zone near the airport, with the ultimate aim of building a new access road, a security official requesting anonymity tells AFP.

The plans have gotten off to a slow start, the official admits, saying hundreds of land plots must first be levelled and its owners relocated to a new area.

Several officials questioned by AFP refused to speak about the specifics of the project, citing security concerns.&nbsp;

Kabul residents, often trapped in their cars as helicopters travelling in and out of the Green Zone whir overhead, are hopeful the situation will not last forever.

"If the Green Zone opens again it will dramatically ease the traffic pressure in the city," suggests Mohammad.

Shukrullah Khan, another Kabul resident, is anxiously awaiting the day when it "opens up to the public and the blast walls are removed from the city".

"Kabul has become an ugly city," he adds. "They should move the Green Zone to the outskirts."

A labyrinth of concrete blast walls, spotlights, and checkpoints are eating up ever more of Kabul, standing in stark contrast to a similar area in Iraq's Baghdad where easing tensions have seen its barricades come down.

A labyrinth of concrete blast walls, spotlights, and checkpoints are eating up ever more of Kabul, standing in stark contrast to a similar area in Iraq's Baghdad where easing tensions have seen its barricades come down. The tale of the two "Green Zones" provides a snapshot of the dramatically changing nature of the Afghan conflict, long overshadowed by the war in Iraq where multiple insurgencies following the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003 turned Baghdad into a warzone. But following the so-called Islamic State group's loss of territory in Syria and Iraq, Baghdad has experienced a sharp reduction in violence. AFP reported recently on the reopening of Baghdad's Green Zone, with hundreds of streets long sealed off from the public opened as Iraq gets back on its feet after decades of conflict. Not so in central Kabul, once known as a city of gardens and revered by Babur, the nature-loving founder of the Mughal empire. Today its once-leafy avenues are increasingly blocked by concrete. Towering blast walls continue to expand along with the addition of an already dizzying number of checkpoints that keep traffic perennially gridlocked and residents stressed across the city. The expansion began with a devastating truck bomb near the Green Zone in 2017 that killed some 150 people and wounded hundreds more, becoming the deadliest attack since the US invasion of 2001. It caused extensive damage to the nearby German Embassy, among other buildings, and blew windows out hundreds of metres away. Shortly after, officials announced that they were expanding the ring of steel around the heart of the city - though with more than a hundred of ways into Kabul they have admitted it is impossible to control all entrances. Trucks entering Kabul en route to the area must now pass through a new sophisticated scanner near the airport to detect explosives, often waiting hours before they can proceed. Congestion has grown as more of the area, which contains some of Kabul's key traffic arteries, is sealed off - a security concern, with bombers often targeting rush hour. Diplomats are increasingly avoiding the roads, opting for expensive minutes-long helicopter flights to the city's airport. Diesel generators add to the roar of the choppers passing every few minutes over once tranquil streets. Only a tiny portion of the Afghan population is allowed to enter the Green Zone, where vehicles are scanned again and armed sentries at myriad checkpoints inspect cars further. Most Kabul residents have been locked out of the area for years. "The last time I drove my taxi there was during the Taliban rule," recalls Shir Mohammad, a 48-year-old taxi driver. 'Ugly city' The zone, originally established in 2001 and encompassing buildings such as NATO headquarters and the presidential palace, is classified as "green" in security lingo, while most other areas in the capital are labelled "red" due to their high-threat levels. In the years after the invasion, as security deteriorated across Afghanistan, the resurgent Taliban and in recent years IS stepped up their attacks on Kabul. Attacks have dipped slightly in recent months, as the US and Taliban hold ongoing talks aimed at ending the nearly 18-year-old conflict. But even if a breakthrough comes the threat from other insurgent groups remains, and Kabul officials say they are moving forward with the plans to expand the Green Zone. The expansion is planned mostly at the north end of the Green Zone near the airport, with the ultimate aim of building a new access road, a security official requesting anonymity tells AFP. The plans have gotten off to a slow start, the official admits, saying hundreds of land plots must first be levelled and its owners relocated to a new area. Several officials questioned by AFP refused to speak about the specifics of the project, citing security concerns. Kabul residents, often trapped in their cars as helicopters travelling in and out of the Green Zone whir overhead, are hopeful the situation will not last forever. "If the Green Zone opens again it will dramatically ease the traffic pressure in the city," suggests Mohammad. Shukrullah Khan, another Kabul resident, is anxiously awaiting the day when it "opens up to the public and the blast walls are removed from the city". "Kabul has become an ugly city," he adds. "They should move the Green Zone to the outskirts."

From Kabul to Baghdad, a tale of two 'Green Zones'

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/pope-francis-urges-libya-peace-return-of-refugees-to-syria-212319">Pope Francis</a> said Monday he wants to visit Iraq as early as next year in spite of the security conditions.

"An insistent thought accompanies me when I think about Iraq, where I want to go next year so that it can look to the future through peaceful and shared participation in the construction of the common good," Francis told a Vatican audience.

The pope voiced hope that Iraq "does not return to the tensions which come from the never-ending conflicts between regional powers."

Iraq has been a battleground for competing forces, including the jihadist Islamic State group, since the US-led ouster of president Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Vatican number two Cardinal Pietro Parolin warned in January that a papal trip to Iraq imposed a "minimum of conditions" that "are not currently met".

Discussing terrorism, the Vatican secretary of state said the Iraqi authorities confirmed that "the roots of this phenomenon are still present".

Francis has made boosting ties between Christianity and Islam a cornerstone of his papacy.

He has this year visited Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and Morocco.

The pope has already visited several Muslim countries, including Turkey in 2014, Azerbaijan in 2016 and Egypt in 2017.

Pope Francis moved quickly after his election in 2013 to make overtures to Jews and Muslims, inviting two old friends from Buenos Aires, a rabbi and a Muslim professor on a trip to the Middle East where he condemned religious hatred.

Pope Francis said Monday he wants to visit Iraq as early as next year in spite of the security conditions. "An insistent thought accompanies me when I think about Iraq, where I want to go next year so that it can look to the future through peaceful and shared participation in the construction of the common good," Francis told a Vatican audience.

Pope Francis said Monday he wants to visit Iraq as early as next year in spite of the security conditions. "An insistent thought accompanies me when I think about Iraq, where I want to go next year so that it can look to the future through peaceful and shared participation in the construction of the common good," Francis told a Vatican audience. The pope voiced hope that Iraq "does not return to the tensions which come from the never-ending conflicts between regional powers." Iraq has been a battleground for competing forces, including the jihadist Islamic State group, since the US-led ouster of president Saddam Hussein in 2003. Vatican number two Cardinal Pietro Parolin warned in January that a papal trip to Iraq imposed a "minimum of conditions" that "are not currently met". Discussing terrorism, the Vatican secretary of state said the Iraqi authorities confirmed that "the roots of this phenomenon are still present". Francis has made boosting ties between Christianity and Islam a cornerstone of his papacy. He has this year visited Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and Morocco. The pope has already visited several Muslim countries, including Turkey in 2014, Azerbaijan in 2016 and Egypt in 2017. Pope Francis moved quickly after his election in 2013 to make overtures to Jews and Muslims, inviting two old friends from Buenos Aires, a rabbi and a Muslim professor on a trip to the Middle East where he condemned religious hatred.

Pope Francis says wants to visit Iraq in 2020

Iraq must never forget Saddam Hussein's crimes or allow his party to return, President Barham Salih said on Sunday after attending the unearthing of a mass grave of Kurds killed by the former leader's forces three decades ago.

The grave, found in the desert about 170 km (106 miles) west of the city of Samawa, contained the remains of dozens of Kurds made to "disappear" by Saddam's forces, Salih's office said.

They were among up to 180,000 people who may have been killed during Saddam's "Anfal" campaign that targeted Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s when chemical gas was used, villages were razed and thousands of Kurds were forced into camps.

"He killed them because they did not accept the continuation of this regime because they wanted to live a free and dignified life," Salih, a Kurd, told a news conference at the grave site.

"He brought them to Samawa to bury them but our people in Samawa embraced them," Salih added. Iraq's southern provinces are predominantly inhabited by Shi'ite Arabs, who also suffered oppression and mass killings under Saddam, a Sunni Arab.

"The new Iraq must never forget these crimes that were committed against Iraqi people from all groups," he said.

Iraq must never forget Saddam Hussein's crimes or allow his party to return, President Barham Salih said on Sunday after attending the unearthing of a mass grave of Kurds killed by the former leader's forces three decades ago.

Iraq must never forget Saddam Hussein's crimes or allow his party to return, President Barham Salih said on Sunday after attending the unearthing of a mass grave of Kurds killed by the former leader's forces three decades ago. The grave, found in the desert about 170 km (106 miles) west of the city of Samawa, contained the remains of dozens of Kurds made to "disappear" by Saddam's forces, Salih's office said. They were among up to 180,000 people who may have been killed during Saddam's "Anfal" campaign that targeted Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s when chemical gas was used, villages were razed and thousands of Kurds were forced into camps. "He killed them because they did not accept the continuation of this regime because they wanted to live a free and dignified life," Salih, a Kurd, told a news conference at the grave site. "He brought them to Samawa to bury them but our people in Samawa embraced them," Salih added. Iraq's southern provinces are predominantly inhabited by Shi'ite Arabs, who also suffered oppression and mass killings under Saddam, a Sunni Arab. "The new Iraq must never forget these crimes that were committed against Iraqi people from all groups," he said.

Iraq unearths mass grave of Kurds killed by Saddam Hussein

Iraq must never forget Saddam Hussein's crimes or allow his party to return, President <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-did-not-ask-permission-to-watch-iran-iraqi-president-barham-salih-194996&amp;sa=U&amp;ved=0ahUKEwj0otzmtM_hAhVBN48KHchhD7YQFggFMAA&amp;client=internal-uds-cse&amp;cx=006054055338965708568:09spwrlibei&amp;usg=AOvVaw3BnEbi-gG8CMbfnvTpr1qb">Barham Salih</a> said on Sunday after attending the unearthing of a mass grave of Kurds killed by the former leader's forces three decades ago.

The grave, found in the desert about 170 kilometres west of the city of Samawa, contained the remains of dozens of Kurds made to "disappear" by Saddam's forces, Salih's office said.

They were among up to 180,000 people who may have been killed during Saddam's "Anfal" campaign that targeted Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s when chemical gas was used, villages were razed and thousands of Kurds were forced into camps.

"He killed them because they did not accept the continuation of this regime because they wanted to live a free and dignified life," Salih, a Kurd, told a news conference at the grave site.

"He brought them to Samawa to bury them but our people in Samawa embraced them," Salih added.&nbsp;

Iraq's southern provinces are predominantly inhabited by Shi'ite Arabs, who also suffered oppression and mass killings under Saddam, a Sunni Arab.

"The new Iraq must never forget these crimes that were committed against Iraqi people from all groups," he said.

Iraq must never forget Saddam Hussein's crimes or allow his party to return, President Barham Salih said on Sunday after attending the unearthing of a mass grave of Kurds killed by the former leader's forces three decades ago. The grave, found in the desert about 170 kilometres west of the city of Samawa, contained the remains of dozens of Kurds made to "disappear" by Saddam's forces, Salih's office said. They were among up to 180,000 people who may have been killed during Saddam's "Anfal" campaign that targeted Iraqi Kurds in the late 1980s when chemical gas was used, villages were razed and thousands of Kurds were forced into camps. "He killed them because they did not accept the continuation of this regime because they wanted to live a free and dignified life," Salih, a Kurd, told a news conference at the grave site. "He brought them to Samawa to bury them but our people in Samawa embraced them," Salih added. Iraq's southern provinces are predominantly inhabited by Shi'ite Arabs, who also suffered oppression and mass killings under Saddam, a Sunni Arab. "The new Iraq must never forget these crimes that were committed against Iraqi people from all groups," he said.

Iraq unearths mass grave of Kurds killed by Saddam

President Donald Trump on Tuesday tapped John Abizaid, a top US general from the Iraq war who has studied the Middle East for years, as ambassador to Saudi Arabia amid growing friction between the longstanding allies.

Abizaid is a fluent Arabic speaker of Lebanese Christian descent who headed US Central Command -- which covers the Middle East -- during the Iraq war from shortly after the US invasion in 2003 through 2007.

The 67-year-old wrote his master's thesis at Harvard University about Saudi Arabia, studying how the kingdom makes its decisions on defence spending, in a paper that won acclaim in academic circles.&nbsp;

A California native, Abizaid graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and later won a scholarship to study in Jordan, where he honed his Arabic, which he did not speak as a child.&nbsp;

Trump has been slow in filling key posts amid his promises to shake up Washington. But the absence of an ambassador in Riyadh, nearly two years into his presidency, has become more glaring amid rising tensions between the countries.&nbsp;

Trump, who quickly forged a close relationship with Saudi Arabia upon taking office, has been forced to criticize the kingdom and its powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, after a team from the kingdom killed a US-based critical journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Amid a US souring on the heir apparent, the United States has also curbed cooperation and demanded a halt to the Saudi-led military campaign against rebels in Yemen that has contributed to a humanitarian crisis believed to be the worst in the world.

But US pleas -- made by telephone rather than in person by an ambassador -- have failed to sway the Saudis.

Abizaid requires confirmation from the Senate, which would appear likely as the retired four-star general has long enjoyed respect in Washington.

Shortly after taking over as CENTCOM commander, Abizaid told reporters that US forces were facing a "classical guerrilla-type campaign" from remnants of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

His choice of words contradicted his bosses, who initially tried to portray the Iraq invasion as a quick victory, but then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not move to replace him amid admiration for Abizaid's skills.

And soon after retiring in 2007, Abizaid said that, while the United States should try to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, "there are ways to live with a nuclear Iran," describing the clerical state's behaviour as rational and noting the United States also dealt with the nuclear-armed Soviet Union.

Trump has championed a hard line on Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional rival.

The real estate mogul turned president has shown a fondness for appointing retired generals, with Jim Mattis as defence secretary and John Kelly as his chief of staff.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday tapped John Abizaid, a top US general from the Iraq war who has studied the Middle East for years, as ambassador to Saudi Arabia amid growing friction between the longstanding allies.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday tapped John Abizaid, a top US general from the Iraq war who has studied the Middle East for years, as ambassador to Saudi Arabia amid growing friction between the longstanding allies. Abizaid is a fluent Arabic speaker of Lebanese Christian descent who headed US Central Command -- which covers the Middle East -- during the Iraq war from shortly after the US invasion in 2003 through 2007. The 67-year-old wrote his master's thesis at Harvard University about Saudi Arabia, studying how the kingdom makes its decisions on defence spending, in a paper that won acclaim in academic circles. A California native, Abizaid graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point and later won a scholarship to study in Jordan, where he honed his Arabic, which he did not speak as a child. Trump has been slow in filling key posts amid his promises to shake up Washington. But the absence of an ambassador in Riyadh, nearly two years into his presidency, has become more glaring amid rising tensions between the countries. Trump, who quickly forged a close relationship with Saudi Arabia upon taking office, has been forced to criticize the kingdom and its powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, after a team from the kingdom killed a US-based critical journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Amid a US souring on the heir apparent, the United States has also curbed cooperation and demanded a halt to the Saudi-led military campaign against rebels in Yemen that has contributed to a humanitarian crisis believed to be the worst in the world. But US pleas -- made by telephone rather than in person by an ambassador -- have failed to sway the Saudis. Abizaid requires confirmation from the Senate, which would appear likely as the retired four-star general has long enjoyed respect in Washington. Shortly after taking over as CENTCOM commander, Abizaid told reporters that US forces were facing a "classical guerrilla-type campaign" from remnants of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. His choice of words contradicted his bosses, who initially tried to portray the Iraq invasion as a quick victory, but then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not move to replace him amid admiration for Abizaid's skills. And soon after retiring in 2007, Abizaid said that, while the United States should try to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, "there are ways to live with a nuclear Iran," describing the clerical state's behaviour as rational and noting the United States also dealt with the nuclear-armed Soviet Union. Trump has championed a hard line on Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional rival. The real estate mogul turned president has shown a fondness for appointing retired generals, with Jim Mattis as defence secretary and John Kelly as his chief of staff.

Trump names John Abizaid as new US ambassador to Saudi Arabia

Iraq's parliament Wednesday ordered a manual recount of the May 12 legislative elections and sacked the commission which oversaw the polls that resulted in a surprise victory for a populist Shiite cleric.

After several failed attempts because of a lack of quorum, outgoing MPs met to order a recount at all polling stations, covering almost 11 million votes, in response to charges of electoral fraud.

The nine-member independent commission was dismissed and is to be replaced by judges.

Confusion has gripped Iraq since the vote won by Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr's electoral alliance with communists, even with negotiations to form a new government underway.

Since last month's victory of anti-establishment electoral lists for a four-year mandate, long-time political figures pushed out by Iraqi voters hoping for change have been calling for a recount.

According to intelligence services, tests of electronic voting machines -- used for the first time in Iraqi elections -- produced varied results, appearing to give credence to the fraud claims.

Parliament already decided last week to annul the ballots of displaced Iraqis and those living abroad, although they accounted for only a small fraction of the overall vote.

The election saw a record number of abstentions as Iraqis snubbed the corruption-tainted elite that has dominated the country since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Many of Iraq's longtime political figures -- seemingly irremovable since the dictator's fall -- were pushed out of their seats by new faces.&nbsp;

It is their voices -- with parliament speaker Salim al-Juburi leading the charge -- that have been the loudest in challenging the poll results.

Less than half of Iraq's 24-million electorate took part, dumping the old guard in favour of Sadr's alliance followed by a list of former fighters of the Hashed al-Shaabi alliance that last year played a key role in the defeat of the Islamic State group.

Once the first results came in, the United States and Iran, the two major political players in Iraq, both sent senior envoys to Baghdad to lobby on the make-up of the new government following the most open results since Iraq's first multi-party elections in 2005.

Major change unlikely

The recount is unlikely to produce a major change in the number of seats won by the rival lists, according to experts on Iraqi politics, but rather modify the rankings of candidates within the same lists. &nbsp;

The presidency endorsed parliament's decision on a recount, for which no timetable has been announced.

The outgoing government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi could be asked to stay on in a caretaker capacity, political analyst Essam al-Fili told AFP.

He said such a scenario would "generate political tensions which could lead to other consequences", especially in a country where several political formations are affiliated to fighting forces.

It is in the multi-ethnic, oil-rich northern province of Kirkuk that the challenge to the election results has been the strongest -- and the most potentially explosive.

Kirkuk's ethnically mixed population -- majority Kurdish but with sizeable Arab and Turkmen minorities -- pushed Iraqi authorities to impose a curfew on the night of the results.

Outgoing MPs met to order a recount at all polling stations, covering almost 11 million votes, in response to charges of electoral fraud

Iraq's parliament Wednesday ordered a manual recount of the May 12 legislative elections and sacked the commission which oversaw the polls that resulted in a surprise victory for a populist Shiite cleric. After several failed attempts because of a lack of quorum, outgoing MPs met to order a recount at all polling stations, covering almost 11 million votes, in response to charges of electoral fraud. The nine-member independent commission was dismissed and is to be replaced by judges. Confusion has gripped Iraq since the vote won by Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr's electoral alliance with communists, even with negotiations to form a new government underway. Since last month's victory of anti-establishment electoral lists for a four-year mandate, long-time political figures pushed out by Iraqi voters hoping for change have been calling for a recount. According to intelligence services, tests of electronic voting machines -- used for the first time in Iraqi elections -- produced varied results, appearing to give credence to the fraud claims. Parliament already decided last week to annul the ballots of displaced Iraqis and those living abroad, although they accounted for only a small fraction of the overall vote. The election saw a record number of abstentions as Iraqis snubbed the corruption-tainted elite that has dominated the country since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Many of Iraq's longtime political figures -- seemingly irremovable since the dictator's fall -- were pushed out of their seats by new faces. It is their voices -- with parliament speaker Salim al-Juburi leading the charge -- that have been the loudest in challenging the poll results. Less than half of Iraq's 24-million electorate took part, dumping the old guard in favour of Sadr's alliance followed by a list of former fighters of the Hashed al-Shaabi alliance that last year played a key role in the defeat of the Islamic State group. Once the first results came in, the United States and Iran, the two major political players in Iraq, both sent senior envoys to Baghdad to lobby on the make-up of the new government following the most open results since Iraq's first multi-party elections in 2005. Major change unlikely The recount is unlikely to produce a major change in the number of seats won by the rival lists, according to experts on Iraqi politics, but rather modify the rankings of candidates within the same lists. The presidency endorsed parliament's decision on a recount, for which no timetable has been announced. The outgoing government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi could be asked to stay on in a caretaker capacity, political analyst Essam al-Fili told AFP. He said such a scenario would "generate political tensions which could lead to other consequences", especially in a country where several political formations are affiliated to fighting forces. It is in the multi-ethnic, oil-rich northern province of Kirkuk that the challenge to the election results has been the strongest -- and the most potentially explosive. Kirkuk's ethnically mixed population -- majority Kurdish but with sizeable Arab and Turkmen minorities -- pushed Iraqi authorities to impose a curfew on the night of the results.

Iraq parliament orders full election recount

Former president of Iraq Saddam Hussein's 82 meters 'Basrah Breeze' yacht will be converted into a hotel after it failed to attract buyers.

The ship was kept for sale from 2010 after Iraq got it following a court battle. The yacht was put on the market for $30 million.

For several years, the ship was kept for sale but no buyers showed interest owing to&nbsp;its price.

The "Basra Breeze" is equipped with a presidential suite comprising private quarters which were made especially&nbsp;for Saddam. It has dining rooms, bedrooms, as well as 17 smaller guest rooms.

For the ships' crew, it has 18 cabins and a clinic which is well-equipped. &nbsp;

The captain of the ship Abdul-Zahra Abdul-Mahdi Saleh informed media that the yacht is in a good and functional condition; its two engines and generators also work efficiently.

Authorities have now decided to moor it permanently as a hotel for southern port's pilots, many of whom live in distant cities.

The yacht was built in 1981 by Danish shipyard when Iraq was at war with Iran. Iraq tracked it down in the French resort of Nice where court seized it and sent it home.

Reports say that the Iraq dictator Saddam has never boarded this yacht.

(With inputs from Reuters) 
&nbsp;

The ship was kept for sale from 2010 after Iraq got it following a court battle it was put on the market for $30 million

Former president of Iraq Saddam Hussein's 82 meters 'Basrah Breeze' yacht will be converted into a hotel after it failed to attract buyers. The ship was kept for sale from 2010 after Iraq got it following a court battle. The yacht was put on the market for $30 million. For several years, the ship was kept for sale but no buyers showed interest owing to its price. The "Basra Breeze" is equipped with a presidential suite comprising private quarters which were made especially for Saddam. It has dining rooms, bedrooms, as well as 17 smaller guest rooms. For the ships' crew, it has 18 cabins and a clinic which is well-equipped. The captain of the ship Abdul-Zahra Abdul-Mahdi Saleh informed media that the yacht is in a good and functional condition; its two engines and generators also work efficiently. Authorities have now decided to moor it permanently as a hotel for southern port's pilots, many of whom live in distant cities. The yacht was built in 1981 by Danish shipyard when Iraq was at war with Iran. Iraq tracked it down in the French resort of Nice where court seized it and sent it home. Reports say that the Iraq dictator Saddam has never boarded this yacht. (With inputs from Reuters)

Saddam Hussain's yacht 'Basrah Breeze' to be converted into hotel

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's list appears to be leading in Iraq's parliamentary election, followed by influential Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's alliance, an election commission source and a security official told&nbsp;on Sunday.

The sources cited unofficial initial results.

Iraqis voted on Saturday in the first election since the defeat of Islamic State militants inside the country.

Final results are expected on Monday.

Turnout was 44.52 percent with 92 percent of votes counted, the Independent High Electoral Commission said -- significantly lower than in previous elections.

Results are due to be officially announced on Monday.

Abadi, a rare ally of both the United States and Iran, was mainly concerned with fending off Shi'ite Muslim groups other than Sadr's alliance, which are seeking to pull the country closer to Tehran.

Those rivals were his predecessor as prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, and the leader of the main Shi'ite paramilitary group, Hadi al-Amiri, both closer than he is to Iran, which has wide sway in Iraq as the primary Shi'ite power in the region.

Unofficial results compiled by&nbsp;reporters in southern provinces also indicated that Sadr, a firebrand cleric who led a violent uprising against US&nbsp;troops from 2003-2011, appeared to be making a strong showing.

If the Sadr list finished second, that would mark a surprise comeback by the cleric.

Sadr has a zealous following among the young, poor and dispossessed but has been sidelined by influential Iranian-backed figures such as Amiri.

Sadr has kept Tehran at a distance.

Sadr has formed an unlikely alliance with communists and other independent secular supporters who joined protests he organised in 2016 to press the government to see through a move to stem endemic corruption.

He derives much of his authority from his family. Sadr's father, highly respected Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, was murdered in 1999 for defying Saddam Hussein.

His father’s cousin, Mohammed Baqir, was killed by Saddam in 1980.

Whoever wins the election will have to contend with the fallout from US&nbsp;President Donald Trump's decision to quit Iran's nuclear deal, a move Iraqis fear could turn their country into a theatre of conflict between Washington and Tehran.

Abadi, who came to power four years ago after Islamic State seized a third of Iraqi territory, received US&nbsp;military support for Iraq's army to defeat the Sunni Muslim militant group even as he gave free rein to Iran to back Shi'ite militias fighting on the same side.

If parliament chooses him as prime minister, Abadi will remain under pressure to maintain that balancing act amid tensions between Washington and Tehran over the nuclear accord.

Abadi, a British-educated engineer, was seen by some Iraqis as lacking charisma and ineffective.

He had no powerful political machine of his own when he took office.

But the defeat of Islamic State and Abadi's campaign to eradicate Iraq's rampant corruption improved his standing.

Even if Abadi's Victory Alliance wins the most seats, he still must negotiate a coalition government, which must be formed within 90 days of the election.

Amiri's Badr organisation played a key role in the battle against Islamic State. But some Iraqis resent his close ties to Tehran.

The dissident-turned-militia leader spent more than two decades fighting Saddam Hussein from exile in Iran.

His list is expected to come in third place, according to the election commission source and security official.

Iraqis voted on Saturday in the first election since the defeat of Islamic State militants inside the country

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's list appears to be leading in Iraq's parliamentary election, followed by influential Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's alliance, an election commission source and a security official told on Sunday. The sources cited unofficial initial results. Iraqis voted on Saturday in the first election since the defeat of Islamic State militants inside the country. Final results are expected on Monday. Turnout was 44.52 percent with 92 percent of votes counted, the Independent High Electoral Commission said -- significantly lower than in previous elections. Results are due to be officially announced on Monday. Abadi, a rare ally of both the United States and Iran, was mainly concerned with fending off Shi'ite Muslim groups other than Sadr's alliance, which are seeking to pull the country closer to Tehran. Those rivals were his predecessor as prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, and the leader of the main Shi'ite paramilitary group, Hadi al-Amiri, both closer than he is to Iran, which has wide sway in Iraq as the primary Shi'ite power in the region. Unofficial results compiled by reporters in southern provinces also indicated that Sadr, a firebrand cleric who led a violent uprising against US troops from 2003-2011, appeared to be making a strong showing. If the Sadr list finished second, that would mark a surprise comeback by the cleric. Sadr has a zealous following among the young, poor and dispossessed but has been sidelined by influential Iranian-backed figures such as Amiri. Sadr has kept Tehran at a distance. Sadr has formed an unlikely alliance with communists and other independent secular supporters who joined protests he organised in 2016 to press the government to see through a move to stem endemic corruption. He derives much of his authority from his family. Sadr's father, highly respected Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, was murdered in 1999 for defying Saddam Hussein. His father’s cousin, Mohammed Baqir, was killed by Saddam in 1980. Whoever wins the election will have to contend with the fallout from US President Donald Trump's decision to quit Iran's nuclear deal, a move Iraqis fear could turn their country into a theatre of conflict between Washington and Tehran. Abadi, who came to power four years ago after Islamic State seized a third of Iraqi territory, received US military support for Iraq's army to defeat the Sunni Muslim militant group even as he gave free rein to Iran to back Shi'ite militias fighting on the same side. If parliament chooses him as prime minister, Abadi will remain under pressure to maintain that balancing act amid tensions between Washington and Tehran over the nuclear accord. Abadi, a British-educated engineer, was seen by some Iraqis as lacking charisma and ineffective. He had no powerful political machine of his own when he took office. But the defeat of Islamic State and Abadi's campaign to eradicate Iraq's rampant corruption improved his standing. Even if Abadi's Victory Alliance wins the most seats, he still must negotiate a coalition government, which must be formed within 90 days of the election. Amiri's Badr organisation played a key role in the battle against Islamic State. But some Iraqis resent his close ties to Tehran. The dissident-turned-militia leader spent more than two decades fighting Saddam Hussein from exile in Iran. His list is expected to come in third place, according to the election commission source and security official.

Iraq election: Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ahead, say sources

&ldquo;Interesting question, and you might be surprised about the answer that you will receive here. I had no sympathy for Saddam Hussein, but I can&rsquo;t really say I am doing good now that he is gone. At least, when he was there, there was only one Saddam. Now every city has its own Saddam who wants to rule,&rdquo;&nbsp;Belan Shnanie tells me during a flight.

He worked in the UK for many years for a major oil company, and then decided to return&nbsp;to his hometown Erbil, capital city of Iraq&rsquo;s Kurdistan, to start his&nbsp;own business. &ldquo;Things are pretty slow now,&rdquo; he says.

&ldquo;Are we speaking about the same Saddam who persecuted all opponents on the sole base of their political and ethnical belonging for years, using torture, murder and random imprisonment?&rdquo; I ask. 
&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&ldquo;Yes, we are. Look, I am Kurd and my father died because of Saddam, but I would not be honest if I say that things are better now. We have the same problems, the same inter-ethnic tensions, but less money and no one truly entitled to rule.&rdquo; &nbsp;

This was just the first expression of&nbsp;an idea that I found,&nbsp;not without a certain surprise,&nbsp;to be extremely common in Iraqi Kurdistan, a region known for its historical struggle for independence from the Iraqi state.

Kurds were&nbsp;heavily persecuted by Saddam&rsquo;s paramilitary forces during his regime, and many can&#39;t forget the massacre of Halabja in 1988, when chemical weapons&nbsp;killed more than 4,000 people. Nevertheless, an uncertain future and an unstable present risk to overcome historical memory.

One casual answer is never representative, so&nbsp;I decided to ask&nbsp;this very question to every&nbsp;local citizen&nbsp;I met.&nbsp;&ldquo;Do you think Saddam Hussain was a better option than the present situation?&rdquo;

&ldquo;Yes, of course,&rdquo; says Mahmud while driving his taxi. &ldquo;I am a school teacher. Now you tell me in which country a school teacher drives a taxi? I have to drive this car because the government did not pay my salary as a teacher for the last four months, and I have a family to feed. I eat only at dinner to save money for them.&rdquo; Mahmud&rsquo;s situation is not unique;&nbsp;he took part in&nbsp;a protest held&nbsp;on September 26 across&nbsp;Iraqi Kurdistan, where&nbsp;thousands of teachers and government employees took to the streets to claim their unpaid salaries.&nbsp;

&ldquo;Mahmud you look around fifty years old. You lived during Saddam Hussain as a Kurd, as a repressed minority, and still you think he was better?&rdquo;

&ldquo;Yes, at least he paid my salary.&rdquo;

As a journalist, I must specify that&nbsp;any&nbsp;number of street interactions still amounts to anecdotal evidence, and so&nbsp;cannot claim to represent the&nbsp;people&#39;s consensus.&nbsp;Entire sections of the Iraqi population&nbsp;actively fight&nbsp;for a democratic state and have no intention of going&nbsp;back to the&nbsp;previous form of government. The current president, Masoud Barzani, has been regularly voted and elected. Kurds are actively fighting the Islamic State, and its sectarian,&nbsp;violent ideals in Syria&rsquo;s Rojava and in all the countries where they have a foothold.

I must say though, again as a journalist, that among the great majority of the people I have been speaking to along the streets of Erbil, the most common answer has been: &ldquo;Yes, Saddam was a dictator and did bad things, but at least the economy was good and we did not have to worry about our salary.&rdquo;

The surprising part is that I received such an answer both by Arabs and Kurds.

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&nbsp;

It reminds of&nbsp;the many neo-fascists groups active in Europe, and the increasing appeal they have on a society suffering the&nbsp;long-term&nbsp;effects from&nbsp;the&nbsp;economic crisis.

A society who does not trust&nbsp;its political class&nbsp;expresses&nbsp;frustrations on the&nbsp;many Facebook pages, singing the praises of the repressive and fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini for being&nbsp;an honest man who knew how to rule a country.

&ldquo;You have to understand that for a big part of the young Iraqi generations who have not lived under Saddam, memory does not play a role,&rdquo; says&nbsp;a young educated man&nbsp;in his twenties who asked to&nbsp;remain anonymous. &ldquo;We only know that now we have problems and we think that before there were no problems. This is true for many young Arabs, like me, who perceive&nbsp;Saddam&rsquo;s past as a period of grandeur, and his toppling only as another move made by the West to destabilise the area. Many of us think that war is not the problem, but politics is, and the politicians are all corrupt.&rdquo;

This is another leitmotif among the answers: politicians are all corrupt, a belief which generates a significant mistrust toward the political class. &nbsp;&nbsp;

It is frightening where the lack of&nbsp;stability and&nbsp;secure livelihoods can lead. This nostalgia of an authoritarian, repressive and criminal regime is mainly connected to that, to the idealisation of a past which seems much better than a turbulent present. A human and totally understandable necessity of a salary, a house, food on the table directly affects&nbsp;people&#39;s political&nbsp;perception. In harsh situations - be it war, natural catastrophes or monetary crisis - liberty, freedom of thought, religion and press become secondary options which many are ready to drop in favour of&nbsp;economic stability.&nbsp;

This paves the way to whatever political group becomes able to provide an acceptable livelihood, to guarantee a salary and some food on your table. This is one of the aspects that make the Islamic State an acceptable form of government for entire sections of a society, a dynamic which IS knows well and uses it in its favour. 
&nbsp; 
Frustration, economic difficulties, mistrust towards elected politicians and corruption have been constant elements used to achieve power by almost all the totalitarian regimes of the 20th&nbsp;century.&nbsp;

All together, they generate dangerous and reactionary attitudes which glorify the idea of a &ldquo;perfect past&rdquo; that in reality never existed, thus fuelling authoritarian temptations. An attitude clearly summed up by a banal and, for this&nbsp;democratic European&nbsp;writer, scary sentence, which Mahmud told me before shaking my hand outside the taxi.&nbsp;

&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t really care about democracy and freedom, I care about food for my children and a salary in my bank.&rdquo;

(WION)

In the streets of Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan's capital, many consider Saddam Hussein's reign preferable to the uncertainty of today

“Interesting question, and you might be surprised about the answer that you will receive here. I had no sympathy for Saddam Hussein, but I can’t really say I am doing good now that he is gone. At least, when he was there, there was only one Saddam. Now every city has its own Saddam who wants to rule,” Belan Shnanie tells me during a flight. He worked in the UK for many years for a major oil company, and then decided to return to his hometown Erbil, capital city of Iraq’s Kurdistan, to start his own business. “Things are pretty slow now,” he says. “Are we speaking about the same Saddam who persecuted all opponents on the sole base of their political and ethnical belonging for years, using torture, murder and random imprisonment?” I ask. “Yes, we are. Look, I am Kurd and my father died because of Saddam, but I would not be honest if I say that things are better now. We have the same problems, the same inter-ethnic tensions, but less money and no one truly entitled to rule.” This was just the first expression of an idea that I found, not without a certain surprise, to be extremely common in Iraqi Kurdistan, a region known for its historical struggle for independence from the Iraqi state. Kurds were heavily persecuted by Saddam’s paramilitary forces during his regime, and many can't forget the massacre of Halabja in 1988, when chemical weapons killed more than 4,000 people. Nevertheless, an uncertain future and an unstable present risk to overcome historical memory. One casual answer is never representative, so I decided to ask this very question to every local citizen I met. “Do you think Saddam Hussain was a better option than the present situation?” “Yes, of course,” says Mahmud while driving his taxi. “I am a school teacher. Now you tell me in which country a school teacher drives a taxi? I have to drive this car because the government did not pay my salary as a teacher for the last four months, and I have a family to feed. I eat only at dinner to save money for them.” Mahmud’s situation is not unique; he took part in a protest held on September 26 across Iraqi Kurdistan, where thousands of teachers and government employees took to the streets to claim their unpaid salaries. “Mahmud you look around fifty years old. You lived during Saddam Hussain as a Kurd, as a repressed minority, and still you think he was better?” “Yes, at least he paid my salary.” As a journalist, I must specify that any number of street interactions still amounts to anecdotal evidence, and so cannot claim to represent the people's consensus. Entire sections of the Iraqi population actively fight for a democratic state and have no intention of going back to the previous form of government. The current president, Masoud Barzani, has been regularly voted and elected. Kurds are actively fighting the Islamic State, and its sectarian, violent ideals in Syria’s Rojava and in all the countries where they have a foothold. I must say though, again as a journalist, that among the great majority of the people I have been speaking to along the streets of Erbil, the most common answer has been: “Yes, Saddam was a dictator and did bad things, but at least the economy was good and we did not have to worry about our salary.” The surprising part is that I received such an answer both by Arabs and Kurds. I don’t really care about democracy and freedom, I care about food for my children and a salary in my bank. × It reminds of the many neo-fascists groups active in Europe, and the increasing appeal they have on a society suffering the long-term effects from the economic crisis. A society who does not trust its political class expresses frustrations on the many Facebook pages, singing the praises of the repressive and fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini for being an honest man who knew how to rule a country. “You have to understand that for a big part of the young Iraqi generations who have not lived under Saddam, memory does not play a role,” says a young educated man in his twenties who asked to remain anonymous. “We only know that now we have problems and we think that before there were no problems. This is true for many young Arabs, like me, who perceive Saddam’s past as a period of grandeur, and his toppling only as another move made by the West to destabilise the area. Many of us think that war is not the problem, but politics is, and the politicians are all corrupt.” This is another leitmotif among the answers: politicians are all corrupt, a belief which generates a significant mistrust toward the political class. It is frightening where the lack of stability and secure livelihoods can lead. This nostalgia of an authoritarian, repressive and criminal regime is mainly connected to that, to the idealisation of a past which seems much better than a turbulent present. A human and totally understandable necessity of a salary, a house, food on the table directly affects people's political perception. In harsh situations - be it war, natural catastrophes or monetary crisis - liberty, freedom of thought, religion and press become secondary options which many are ready to drop in favour of economic stability. This paves the way to whatever political group becomes able to provide an acceptable livelihood, to guarantee a salary and some food on your table. This is one of the aspects that make the Islamic State an acceptable form of government for entire sections of a society, a dynamic which IS knows well and uses it in its favour. Frustration, economic difficulties, mistrust towards elected politicians and corruption have been constant elements used to achieve power by almost all the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. All together, they generate dangerous and reactionary attitudes which glorify the idea of a “perfect past” that in reality never existed, thus fuelling authoritarian temptations. An attitude clearly summed up by a banal and, for this democratic European writer, scary sentence, which Mahmud told me before shaking my hand outside the taxi. “I don’t really care about democracy and freedom, I care about food for my children and a salary in my bank.” (WION)

In today's Iraq, an authoritarian leader is tempting

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told US President George W Bush eight months before the 2003 invasion of Iraq &quot;I will be with you, whatever&quot;, and relied on flawed intelligence and unsatisfactory legal advice, a seven-year inquiry concluded today. 
 
In a scathing critique of Blair&#39;s leadership, the inquiry said the threat posed by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein&#39;s supposed weapons of mass destruction had been over-hyped and the planning for the aftermath of war had been inadequate. 
 
More than 13 years since the invasion, the war remains a deeply emotive issue for Britons. There are many who want Blair to face criminal action over his decision to take the military action that led to the deaths of 179 British soldiers and more than 150,000 Iraqi civilians over the following six years. 
 
Critics also say it fuelled a deep distrust in politicians and the ruling establishment. The report was issued 13 days after Britons delivered a stunning blow to their political leaders by voting to leave the European Union. 
 
In a lengthy and passionate defence lasting almost two hours, Blair justified his decision to back Bush and go to war alongside the United States in March 2003, at a time when the inquiry said peace options had not been exhausted and Saddam posed no imminent threat. 
 
&quot;I did not mislead this country. There were no lies, there was no deceit, there was no deception,&quot; the former prime minister told reporters, looking gaunt and strained but growing animated as he responded to questions. 
 
&quot;But there was a decision, and it was a controversial decision ... to remove Saddam and to be with America. I believe I made the right decision and the world is better and safer as a result of it.&quot; 
 
The only Labour prime minister to win three general elections, Blair was in office for 10 years until 2007 and was hugely popular in his heyday, but Iraq has severely tarnished his reputation and legacy. 
 
Families of slain British soldiers said they were considering whether to take legal action against him. 
 
Blair said he would take the same decisions again, and that he did not see that action as the cause of terrorism today, in the Middle East or elsewhere. However, he acknowledged mistakes had been made. 
 
&quot;The intelligence assessments made at the time of going to war turned out to be wrong. The aftermath turned out to be more hostile, protracted and bloody than ever we imagined,&quot; he said. 
 
&quot;For all of this, I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you will ever know.&quot; 
 
&quot;I WILL BE WITH YOU&quot; 
 
The inquiry report, running to 2.6 million words or more than four times the length of &quot;War and Peace&quot;, shed light on the interaction between Blair and Bush in the months leading up to the invasion, which has long been the subject of speculation about secret deals and pledges. 
 
In a memo dated July 28, 2002, eight months before the invasion, Blair told Bush: &quot;I will be with you, whatever. But this is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties.&quot; 
 
Outside the building where John Chilcot, the inquiry&#39;s chairman, delivered his findings, protesters chanted &quot;Tony Blair, war criminal&quot;. But the report itself stopped short of saying the war was illegal. 
 
&quot;We have, however, concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for military action were far from satisfactory,&quot; Chilcot said. 
 
Reg Keys, whose son, 20-year-old Lance Corporal Thomas Keys, was killed in Iraq, said: &quot;We all know who the key players are ... who took part in this most shambolic episode in British politics. We would like to see all those key players face some form of accountability.&quot; 
 
He added: &quot;If that&#39;s through the legal channels, then we will look at that and see what&#39;s viable and appropriate. It has been passed over to lawyers.&quot; 
 
&#39;UNJUSTIFIED CERTAINTY&#39; 
 
Chilcot said Blair had sought to influence Bush&rsquo;s decisions, offering Britain&#39;s support while suggesting possible adjustments to the U.S. position. But the British leader had over-estimated his ability to influence U.S. decisions on Iraq. 
 
His report also said there was no imminent threat from Saddam at the time of the invasion in March 2003, and the chaos in Iraq and the region which followed should have been foreseen. 
 
Britain had joined the invasion without exhausting peaceful options, and thereby undermined the authority of the United Nations Security Council. 
 
&quot;It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged and they should have been,&quot; Chilcot said. 
 
He also said that Blair&#39;s government&#39;s judgements about the threat posed by Iraq&#39;s weapons of mass destruction were &quot;presented with unjustified certainty&quot;. 
 
No such weapons were discovered after the war. 
 
Chilcot, who said decisions were often taken without other senior ministers being consulted, said Blair changed his case for war from focusing on Iraq&#39;s alleged &quot;vast stocks&quot; of illegal weapons to Saddam having the intent to obtain such weapons and being in breach of U.N. resolutions. 
 
&quot;That was not, however, the explanation for military action he had given before the conflict,&quot; Chilcot said. 
 
Iraq remains in chaos to this day, with large areas under the control of Islamic State. On Saturday, 250 people were killed in Baghdad&#39;s worst car bombing since the U.S.-led invasion. 
 
&quot;I wish Saddam would return; he executed many of my family but he is still better than these politicians and clerics who got Iraq to the way it is,&quot; said Kadhim Hassan al-Jabouri, an Iraqi who was filmed attacking Saddam&#39;s statue with a sledgehammer after the invasion. 
 
Others said they were grateful to Washington and London for ending his dictatorship. 
 
The purpose of the inquiry was not to point fingers but for the British government to learn lessons from the invasion and occupation that followed. 
 
&quot;We cannot turn the clock back but we can ensure that lessons are learned and acted on,&quot; Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament. 
 
&quot;It is crucial to good decision-making that a prime minister establishes a climate in which it&#39;s safe for officials and other experts to challenge existing policy and question the views of ministers and the prime minister without fear or favour.&quot; 
 
Jeremy Corbyn, the current leader of Blair&#39;s Labour Party and a fervent pacifist, told parliament that the war was an act of aggression based on a false pretext that had fuelled and spread terrorism across the Middle East. 
 
(Reuters)

In a defence lasting almost two hours, the former UK PM justified his decision to back Bush and go to war alongside the US in March 2003

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told US President George W Bush eight months before the 2003 invasion of Iraq "I will be with you, whatever", and relied on flawed intelligence and unsatisfactory legal advice, a seven-year inquiry concluded today. In a scathing critique of Blair's leadership, the inquiry said the threat posed by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction had been over-hyped and the planning for the aftermath of war had been inadequate. More than 13 years since the invasion, the war remains a deeply emotive issue for Britons. There are many who want Blair to face criminal action over his decision to take the military action that led to the deaths of 179 British soldiers and more than 150,000 Iraqi civilians over the following six years. Critics also say it fuelled a deep distrust in politicians and the ruling establishment. The report was issued 13 days after Britons delivered a stunning blow to their political leaders by voting to leave the European Union. In a lengthy and passionate defence lasting almost two hours, Blair justified his decision to back Bush and go to war alongside the United States in March 2003, at a time when the inquiry said peace options had not been exhausted and Saddam posed no imminent threat. "I did not mislead this country. There were no lies, there was no deceit, there was no deception," the former prime minister told reporters, looking gaunt and strained but growing animated as he responded to questions. "But there was a decision, and it was a controversial decision ... to remove Saddam and to be with America. I believe I made the right decision and the world is better and safer as a result of it." The only Labour prime minister to win three general elections, Blair was in office for 10 years until 2007 and was hugely popular in his heyday, but Iraq has severely tarnished his reputation and legacy. Families of slain British soldiers said they were considering whether to take legal action against him. Blair said he would take the same decisions again, and that he did not see that action as the cause of terrorism today, in the Middle East or elsewhere. However, he acknowledged mistakes had been made. "The intelligence assessments made at the time of going to war turned out to be wrong. The aftermath turned out to be more hostile, protracted and bloody than ever we imagined," he said. "For all of this, I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you will ever know." "I WILL BE WITH YOU" The inquiry report, running to 2.6 million words or more than four times the length of "War and Peace", shed light on the interaction between Blair and Bush in the months leading up to the invasion, which has long been the subject of speculation about secret deals and pledges. In a memo dated July 28, 2002, eight months before the invasion, Blair told Bush: "I will be with you, whatever. But this is the moment to assess bluntly the difficulties." Outside the building where John Chilcot, the inquiry's chairman, delivered his findings, protesters chanted "Tony Blair, war criminal". But the report itself stopped short of saying the war was illegal. "We have, however, concluded that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for military action were far from satisfactory," Chilcot said. Reg Keys, whose son, 20-year-old Lance Corporal Thomas Keys, was killed in Iraq, said: "We all know who the key players are ... who took part in this most shambolic episode in British politics. We would like to see all those key players face some form of accountability." He added: "If that's through the legal channels, then we will look at that and see what's viable and appropriate. It has been passed over to lawyers." 'UNJUSTIFIED CERTAINTY' Chilcot said Blair had sought to influence Bush’s decisions, offering Britain's support while suggesting possible adjustments to the U.S. position. But the British leader had over-estimated his ability to influence U.S. decisions on Iraq. His report also said there was no imminent threat from Saddam at the time of the invasion in March 2003, and the chaos in Iraq and the region which followed should have been foreseen. Britain had joined the invasion without exhausting peaceful options, and thereby undermined the authority of the United Nations Security Council. "It is now clear that policy on Iraq was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments. They were not challenged and they should have been," Chilcot said. He also said that Blair's government's judgements about the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were "presented with unjustified certainty". No such weapons were discovered after the war. Chilcot, who said decisions were often taken without other senior ministers being consulted, said Blair changed his case for war from focusing on Iraq's alleged "vast stocks" of illegal weapons to Saddam having the intent to obtain such weapons and being in breach of U.N. resolutions. "That was not, however, the explanation for military action he had given before the conflict," Chilcot said. Iraq remains in chaos to this day, with large areas under the control of Islamic State. On Saturday, 250 people were killed in Baghdad's worst car bombing since the U.S.-led invasion. "I wish Saddam would return; he executed many of my family but he is still better than these politicians and clerics who got Iraq to the way it is," said Kadhim Hassan al-Jabouri, an Iraqi who was filmed attacking Saddam's statue with a sledgehammer after the invasion. Others said they were grateful to Washington and London for ending his dictatorship. The purpose of the inquiry was not to point fingers but for the British government to learn lessons from the invasion and occupation that followed. "We cannot turn the clock back but we can ensure that lessons are learned and acted on," Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament. "It is crucial to good decision-making that a prime minister establishes a climate in which it's safe for officials and other experts to challenge existing policy and question the views of ministers and the prime minister without fear or favour." Jeremy Corbyn, the current leader of Blair's Labour Party and a fervent pacifist, told parliament that the war was an act of aggression based on a false pretext that had fuelled and spread terrorism across the Middle East. (Reuters)

'I did not mislead this country. There were no lies, there was no deceit, there was no deception,' says Blair

The official inquiry into Britain&#39;s role in the Iraq war finally reports today, seven years after it launched, with former prime minister Tony Blair expected to face severe criticism. 
 
Relatives of some of the 179 British troops who died will gather in London for the publication of the Chilcot report, which runs to 2.6 million words -- more than four times the length of &quot;War and Peace&quot;. 
 
The inquiry, launched in 2009 as the bulk of British troops withdrew from Iraq, was tasked with investigating the run-up to the 2003 US-led invasion and the subsequent occupation. 
 
Anti-war protesters are converging on the conference centre near the Houses of Parliament where civil servant John Chilcot will present his report, to repeat their calls for Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes.&nbsp;Tens of thousands of Iraqis died during the conflict and the sectarian war that followed. The country remains plagued by violence, seen most recently in Sunday&#39;s car bomb in Baghdad that killed more than 200 people. 
 
The US-led invasion was deeply controversial at the time as it did not have explicit approval from the UN Security Council, while claims that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction proved unfounded. 
 
Chilcot was not asked to rule on the legality of the invasion, but leaks suggest Blair will be heavily criticised over the decision-making process.&nbsp;His critics are already lining up against him, with former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond gathering cross-party support to bring legal action or symbolically impeach him. 
 
Blair apologised last year for the fact the intelligence was wrong, and for mistakes in the planning, but said he did not regret removing Saddam Hussein.&nbsp; 
 
&quot;We haven&#39;t set out to criticise individuals or institutions,&quot; Chilcot said ahead of the report launch at 1000 GMT.&nbsp;&quot;However, I made very clear right at the start of the inquiry that if we came across decisions or behaviour which deserved criticism then we wouldn&#39;t shy away from making it.&quot; 
 
More than 120 witnesses gave evidence during months of public hearings, including Blair, his successor Gordon Brown, spy and military chiefs and ministers.&nbsp;The inquiry panel -- one of whom has since died -- trawled through 150,000 government documents, in an investigation Chilcot said was on &quot;an unprecedented scale&quot;. 
 
Their report was delayed by wrangling over what could be published, from diplomatic notes to records of cabinet meetings, as well as the need to give key figures prior warning. 
 
Among the documents to be published are reportedly 29 letters sent by Blair to US president George W Bush, and some record of conversations between the pair. 
 
Bereaved relatives had pressed for the inquiry amid criticism of the planning and management of the conflict, and accusations that the troops were not properly equipped. 
 
Lawyers for some of them said they would be looking for evidence of neglect of duty or misconduct in public office. 
 
However, other relatives are boycotting the publication, declaring that they already expect it to be a whitewash. 
 
The International Criminal Court, which was petitioned at the time to examine possible evidence of war crimes, has said it will consider the report but has no investigation open. 
 
The legality of the war is outside its jurisdiction. 
 
Admiral Alan West, the head of the Royal Navy when the war began, told The House magazine that he hoped the report would not spark a witchhunt. 
 
&quot;What one really wants out of it is lessons so that we don&#39;t make the mistakes again. I have a horrible feeling what other people want is to be able to get at people,&quot; he said. The war, which at one point saw 46,000 British troops deployed, mostly in southern Iraq around the strategic oil hub of Basra, still looms large over British politics. 
 
It has led to deep reluctance to commit ground troops elsewhere, notably in Libya and Syria, and still divides Blair&#39;s Labour party, which is now in opposition. 
 
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is currently facing a rebellion by his own MPs, but is expected to use the report to bolster his position. 
 
The veteran socialist, who was only elected last year, was strongly opposed to the war in Iraq and maintains it was illegal, while many of his critics had supported it. 
 
(AFP) 
 
 
&nbsp;

Protesters are repeating their calls for Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes after investigation of an 'unprecedented scale'

The official inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq war finally reports today, seven years after it launched, with former prime minister Tony Blair expected to face severe criticism. Relatives of some of the 179 British troops who died will gather in London for the publication of the Chilcot report, which runs to 2.6 million words -- more than four times the length of "War and Peace". The inquiry, launched in 2009 as the bulk of British troops withdrew from Iraq, was tasked with investigating the run-up to the 2003 US-led invasion and the subsequent occupation. Anti-war protesters are converging on the conference centre near the Houses of Parliament where civil servant John Chilcot will present his report, to repeat their calls for Blair to be prosecuted for war crimes. Tens of thousands of Iraqis died during the conflict and the sectarian war that followed. The country remains plagued by violence, seen most recently in Sunday's car bomb in Baghdad that killed more than 200 people. The US-led invasion was deeply controversial at the time as it did not have explicit approval from the UN Security Council, while claims that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction proved unfounded. Chilcot was not asked to rule on the legality of the invasion, but leaks suggest Blair will be heavily criticised over the decision-making process. His critics are already lining up against him, with former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond gathering cross-party support to bring legal action or symbolically impeach him. Blair apologised last year for the fact the intelligence was wrong, and for mistakes in the planning, but said he did not regret removing Saddam Hussein. "We haven't set out to criticise individuals or institutions," Chilcot said ahead of the report launch at 1000 GMT. "However, I made very clear right at the start of the inquiry that if we came across decisions or behaviour which deserved criticism then we wouldn't shy away from making it." More than 120 witnesses gave evidence during months of public hearings, including Blair, his successor Gordon Brown, spy and military chiefs and ministers. The inquiry panel -- one of whom has since died -- trawled through 150,000 government documents, in an investigation Chilcot said was on "an unprecedented scale". Their report was delayed by wrangling over what could be published, from diplomatic notes to records of cabinet meetings, as well as the need to give key figures prior warning. Among the documents to be published are reportedly 29 letters sent by Blair to US president George W Bush, and some record of conversations between the pair. Bereaved relatives had pressed for the inquiry amid criticism of the planning and management of the conflict, and accusations that the troops were not properly equipped. Lawyers for some of them said they would be looking for evidence of neglect of duty or misconduct in public office. However, other relatives are boycotting the publication, declaring that they already expect it to be a whitewash. The International Criminal Court, which was petitioned at the time to examine possible evidence of war crimes, has said it will consider the report but has no investigation open. The legality of the war is outside its jurisdiction. Admiral Alan West, the head of the Royal Navy when the war began, told The House magazine that he hoped the report would not spark a witchhunt. "What one really wants out of it is lessons so that we don't make the mistakes again. I have a horrible feeling what other people want is to be able to get at people," he said. The war, which at one point saw 46,000 British troops deployed, mostly in southern Iraq around the strategic oil hub of Basra, still looms large over British politics. It has led to deep reluctance to commit ground troops elsewhere, notably in Libya and Syria, and still divides Blair's Labour party, which is now in opposition. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is currently facing a rebellion by his own MPs, but is expected to use the report to bolster his position. The veteran socialist, who was only elected last year, was strongly opposed to the war in Iraq and maintains it was illegal, while many of his critics had supported it. (AFP)

Former British PM Tony Blair in spotlight as UK Iraq inquiry gives verdict

An official inquiry into Britain&#39;s role in the Iraq War will finally deliver its findings on July 13, seven years after it was set up, with attention firmly focused on how far it will criticise former prime minister Tony Blair. 
 
Britain&#39;s role in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and Blair&#39;s justification for military action in which 179 British soldiers died, is a highly charged issue for many Britons, millions of whom opposed the invasion. The issue still overshadows foreign policy. 
 
Blair&#39;s involvement divided Labour party&nbsp; 
 
It also remains a divisive issue for Blair&#39;s Labour Party which has been plunged into crisis since Britain voted to leave the European Union last week and the report&#39;s publication is likely to reopen old wounds. 
 
One of the key issues will be the inquiry&#39;s conclusion on the legal basis for going to war, with many Britons believing Blair deliberately misled the public, an accusation he denies. 
 
The main reason given for the invasion -- that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction -- has been debunked after none was found. A spokesman for Blair declined to comment. 
 
A lowdown on how inquiry unfolded&nbsp; 
 
The inquiry, headed by civil servant John Chilcot, was set up in July 2009, shortly after the last British combat troops returned home, by former prime minister Gordon Brown to learn the lessons of the war and its aftermath. 
 
Public hearings, including two appearances by Blair, ended in 2011 but since then the writing of the report has been dogged by rows over the release of secret government files and details of contacts between the British leader and the then US president George W. Bush. 
 
It was further delayed to allow those who faced criticism to give their response ahead of publication. 
 
The inquiry has taken longer to complete than the British military involvement in the conflict itself, has cost well over 10 million Pounds ($13.5 million), and runs to some 2.6 million words in length, about three times the length of the Bible or four times that of Leo Tolstoy&#39;s epic novel War and Peace. 
 
One of the five members of the inquiry committee, historian Martin Gilbert, died last year. 
 
The inquiry will publish details of notes from Blair to former US president George W. Bush and quotes from more than 130 records of conversations. 
 
However, the inquiry has previously said that it is not seeking to use material that reflects Bush&#39;s views. 
 
The war is now widely regarded by both politicians and the public in Britain as a huge mistake. 
 
For many Britons, a report that fails to heap opprobrium on Blair and his senior team of ministers will be nothing more than a whitewash. A YouGov poll of 7,983 adults in May found 53 per cent said they could never forgive Blair and just 8 per cent thought he had done nothing wrong. 
 
Labour&#39;s current leader, socialist Jeremy Corbyn, has said he believes the war was illegal and that Blair should be tried for war crimes if evidence showed he broke international law. Corbyn is currently facing a challenge to his own position which his allies blame on Blair supporters within the party. 
 
(Reuters)

The war is now widely regarded as a 'huge mistake' by British politicians and the public

An official inquiry into Britain's role in the Iraq War will finally deliver its findings on July 13, seven years after it was set up, with attention firmly focused on how far it will criticise former prime minister Tony Blair. Britain's role in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and Blair's justification for military action in which 179 British soldiers died, is a highly charged issue for many Britons, millions of whom opposed the invasion. The issue still overshadows foreign policy. Blair's involvement divided Labour party It also remains a divisive issue for Blair's Labour Party which has been plunged into crisis since Britain voted to leave the European Union last week and the report's publication is likely to reopen old wounds. One of the key issues will be the inquiry's conclusion on the legal basis for going to war, with many Britons believing Blair deliberately misled the public, an accusation he denies. The main reason given for the invasion -- that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction -- has been debunked after none was found. A spokesman for Blair declined to comment. A lowdown on how inquiry unfolded The inquiry, headed by civil servant John Chilcot, was set up in July 2009, shortly after the last British combat troops returned home, by former prime minister Gordon Brown to learn the lessons of the war and its aftermath. Public hearings, including two appearances by Blair, ended in 2011 but since then the writing of the report has been dogged by rows over the release of secret government files and details of contacts between the British leader and the then US president George W. Bush. It was further delayed to allow those who faced criticism to give their response ahead of publication. The inquiry has taken longer to complete than the British military involvement in the conflict itself, has cost well over 10 million Pounds ($13.5 million), and runs to some 2.6 million words in length, about three times the length of the Bible or four times that of Leo Tolstoy's epic novel War and Peace. One of the five members of the inquiry committee, historian Martin Gilbert, died last year. The inquiry will publish details of notes from Blair to former US president George W. Bush and quotes from more than 130 records of conversations. However, the inquiry has previously said that it is not seeking to use material that reflects Bush's views. The war is now widely regarded by both politicians and the public in Britain as a huge mistake. For many Britons, a report that fails to heap opprobrium on Blair and his senior team of ministers will be nothing more than a whitewash. A YouGov poll of 7,983 adults in May found 53 per cent said they could never forgive Blair and just 8 per cent thought he had done nothing wrong. Labour's current leader, socialist Jeremy Corbyn, has said he believes the war was illegal and that Blair should be tried for war crimes if evidence showed he broke international law. Corbyn is currently facing a challenge to his own position which his allies blame on Blair supporters within the party. (Reuters)

With Iraq war report due to be published, former British PM Tony Blair comes under spotlight

Iraqi forces recaptured the last district held by Islamic State militants in the city of Fallujah today and the general commanding the operation declared the battle complete after nearly five weeks of fighting. 
 
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi claimed victory over Islamic State in Fallujah more than a week ago but fighting continued inside the city west of Baghdad, including in the Golan district. The offensive has been backed by a U.S.-led coalition mostly in the form of air strikes against Islamic State. 
 
&quot;We announce from this place in central Golan district that it has been cleaned by the counter terrorism service and we convey the good news to the Iraqi people that the battle of Fallujah is over,&quot; Lieutenant General Abdul Wahab al-Saidi told state TV. 
 
Flanked by jubilant fighters, some waving Iraqi flags, Saidi said a few militants were still holding out in buildings. At least 1,800 Islamic State fighters were killed in the operation to retake Fallujah, and the rest had fled, he said. 
 
Government troops launched the operation on May 23 to retake Fallujah, a bastion of the Sunni Muslim insurgency against U.S. forces that toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, in 2003, and later against Shi&#39;ite-led governments. 
 
Abadi said last week that the recapture of Fallujah would pave the way for the military to march on Mosul, Islamic State&#39;s de facto capital. 
 
Fighting to recapture the Iraqi city has forced more than 85,000 residents to flee to overwhelmed government-run camps. The United Nations says it has received allegations of abuse of civilians fleeing the city, including by members of Shi&#39;ite armed groups supporting the offensive. 
 
The militants seized Fallujah in January 2014, six months before they declared a &quot;caliphate&quot; over part of Syria and Iraq.&nbsp; 
 
(Reuters)

Government fighters recapture the last district held by Islamic State in the city

Iraqi forces recaptured the last district held by Islamic State militants in the city of Fallujah today and the general commanding the operation declared the battle complete after nearly five weeks of fighting. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi claimed victory over Islamic State in Fallujah more than a week ago but fighting continued inside the city west of Baghdad, including in the Golan district. The offensive has been backed by a U.S.-led coalition mostly in the form of air strikes against Islamic State. "We announce from this place in central Golan district that it has been cleaned by the counter terrorism service and we convey the good news to the Iraqi people that the battle of Fallujah is over," Lieutenant General Abdul Wahab al-Saidi told state TV. Flanked by jubilant fighters, some waving Iraqi flags, Saidi said a few militants were still holding out in buildings. At least 1,800 Islamic State fighters were killed in the operation to retake Fallujah, and the rest had fled, he said. Government troops launched the operation on May 23 to retake Fallujah, a bastion of the Sunni Muslim insurgency against U.S. forces that toppled Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, in 2003, and later against Shi'ite-led governments. Abadi said last week that the recapture of Fallujah would pave the way for the military to march on Mosul, Islamic State's de facto capital. Fighting to recapture the Iraqi city has forced more than 85,000 residents to flee to overwhelmed government-run camps. The United Nations says it has received allegations of abuse of civilians fleeing the city, including by members of Shi'ite armed groups supporting the offensive. The militants seized Fallujah in January 2014, six months before they declared a "caliphate" over part of Syria and Iraq. (Reuters)

Battle over, say Iraqi forces in Fallujah

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