Yasser - Instablogs
Nov 17 2009
Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms abducted and killed at least 13 people in a village west of Baghdad, in what some described as revenge against Sunnis who helped fight al-Qaida, Iraqi officials said Monday. The exact motive for the attack was...
Nov 9 2009
Iraq’s parliament ended weeks of debate Sunday and passed a long-delayed law paving the way for the planned January election to go forward, sidestepping a crisis that could have delayed the U.S. troop withdrawal. The decision appeared to resolve...
Sep 1 2009
Paranoid, competitive and fuelled by guns, alcohol and steroids. That is how one senior contractor in Baghdad describes the private security industry operating in the city’s Green Zone. It was the world to which Danny Fitzsimons, a 29-year-old...
Aug 22 2009
Some worshippers stayed away from mosques Friday, offering their traditional prayers at home. Markets had fewer-than-usual shoppers. Parks were strangely uncrowded — unusual for a hot August day. The normally bustling streets of Baghdad were subdued,...
Jul 11 2009
Much of the complicated work of dismantling and removing millions of dollars of equipment from the combat outposts in the city has been done during the dark of night. Gen. Ray Odierno, the overall American commander in Iraq, has ordered that an...
Oct 19 2008
For those seeking different and deeper reasons why Iraq ended up where it is today, other than the often-cited but somewhat clichéd list of blunders like the disbanding of the Iraqi army and dissolving of the Baath party, Jonathan Steele’s ”Defeat:...
Oct 13 2008
It is designed to be explanatory, for Muslims, and non-Muslims alike, on the status of the veil, and its more oppressive forms, such as the one-eyed niqab. If you are a Muslim, it is set out as a valid religious opinion. If you are not a Muslim, its...
Apr 10 2008
Alaa Mohammad Ali, a contractor working for the U.S. military in Iraq, is the first civilian to be charged under a new military law. Ali, who holds dual Iraqi-Canadian citizenship, works as a translator for the U.S. Army.
Mar 8 2008
More than a quarter of higher-ranking enlisted soldiers showed signs of mental health problems after being sent to war zones for the third or fourth time, a sharp increase over those on their first or second deployments, according to a military study...