Deadly conclusion

Iraqi PM reports victories and warns Kurds

Statements by the Iraqi authorities about the improvement of the situation in the country against the backdrop of explosions and reports of new victims look strange. Iraqi Chief of Staff General Babaker Zebari said yesterday that "insurgent attacks have become less frequent, although they will continue for several years." However, the day before yesterday, in a suburb of the city of Mosul, north of Baghdad, a car bomb killed five people, four of whom were children. On July 9, explosions occurred in several cities, including the capital, killing more than 55 people. Among them, 38 died in the town of Tal Afar in the north-west of the country.

In this town, suicide bombers carried out two coordinated attacks. One of them dressed up as a policeman, got a walkie-talkie for convincing, and knocked on the door of the house of the officer in charge of the fight against terrorism. He discovered that he, his wife and son had died. When a crowd gathered near the scene of the tragedy, another suicide bomber turned on the explosive device. One of the perpetrators, according to authorities, served a year in prison for extremism, but was released in June under an amnesty.

Next week, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will report on the successes, as he imagines them, in Washington. He will come to the United States on July 21 to “thank America for its sacrifices with the Iraqi people during the turbulent post-Saddam years” (meaning after the Americans overthrew the regime of Saddam Hussein in March 2003).

The reason for gratitude was the fact that the Americans, fulfilling the bilateral agreement signed at the end of 2008, completed the withdrawal of their troops from Iraqi settlements by the end of June. All American troops (more than 4,320 American soldiers have died in the country in six years) must leave Iraqi territory by the end of 2011. By this time, local security forces will have to learn to provide security on their own. In an interview with the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki also said that together the Iraqis and Americans “achieved victory over terrorism,” and the sacrifices on both sides were not in vain, since they “gave democracy to Iraq.”

“There are currently 130 thousand American soldiers in Iraq, and by the end of 2009 there will be 120 thousand,” Iraqi Charge d’Affaires in Russia Jaber Ali Enuz said recently in Moscow. According to him, only those American military personnel who perform non-combat tasks, including training local personnel, remain in the cities. Mostly Americans are located at bases outside cities.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who is a Shiite Arab by nationality and religion, drew attention to the problems between the Arab and Kurdish populations of the country of almost 27 million. He called on politicians on both sides to “self-discipline” and assured: “I am fighting for the unity of Iraq. Iraq cannot be divided in two." This is an important warning on the eve of the elections scheduled for July 25 in the Kurdish Autonomous Region. There, in northern Iraq, they will elect the local parliament and the head of the region (now this is the famous politician Masoud Barzani).

Vremya Novostey's sources among Kurdish functionaries predict that the struggle will be intense, but draw attention to the fact that the Kurds have postponed the referendum on the local constitution, which grants even greater rights to the autonomy, "due to technical problems." Obviously, the Kurds are wary of exacerbating their difficult relations with the federal authorities in Baghdad and incurring the wrath of their American handlers.

Elena SUPONINA