TADHAMUN تـضـامـن

Tadhamun (solidarity) is an Iraqi women organization, standing by Iraqi women's struggle against sectarian politics in Iraq. Fighting for equal citizenship across ethnicities and religions, for human rights, and gender equality.

جمعية تضامن تدعم المساواة في المواطنة بغض النظر عن الأنتماء الأثني أو الديني وتسعى من أجل العدالة الأجتماعية و حماية حقوق الأنسان في العراق

Monday, September 10, 2007

Anbar safer but critics query the cost

Financial Times
By Roula Khalaf in London
Published: September 7 2007 21:10


Sunni Arab tribes’ decision to co-operate with the US against al-Qaeda has allowed George W. Bush to point to some progress in next week’s assessment of his military ‘surge’ strategy in Iraq.
It was in Anbar, the western Sunni heartland, that the president dramatically staged his war council on Monday as his officials hailed the province’s transformation from a Sunni Arab insurgent stronghold to what Mr Bush called ‘one of the safest places in Iraq’.
But analysts warn that the arming and financing of local tribes – a pattern the US hopes to export to other parts of the country – could have more damaging long-term consequences, contributing to the fragmentation of Iraq and an even more brutal civil conflict.
‘The Americans have dampened Anbar but they are accepting that the Iraqi government cannot do it – and the US military is now essentially circumventing the Iraqi government,’ says Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at Queen Mary College in London. ‘The policy is successful in the short term but it will directly damage state-building in the long term.’
Once part of the nationalist Sunni insurgency against the American occupation, some of the Sunni Arab tribes dominant in Anbar have grown increasingly frustrated with the extremism of al-Qaeda and have turned instead to the US for support.
Analysts say it was about a year ago – long before the injection of extra US troops in the ‘surge’ – that signs of a change in attitude emerged, encouraging the US to help organise them as a more robust paramilitary force that can fight al-Qaeda.
Advisers to the US-led coalition say the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad was suspicious of the tribes and reluctant to help them. The US military, however, was receptive to the “bottom up” approach of fighting the insurgency by backing locals, even more so today because the central government has been paralysed.
In the short-term the US strategy has at least created a nascent local authority in a region that has been most chaotic since the 2003 invasion. US military officials acknowledge the long-term political concerns but say the Anbar fighters will be integrated into the national security forces. They say this is already happening, though not at a pace that they would call a success.
But although Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, was summoned by Mr Bush to Anbar to show support for the policy, Shia politicians have been alarmed by the US promotion of tribal paramilitary groups.
‘It’s one of the biggest mistakes the US has made in Iraq – it subjugates Iraqi domestic problems to American domestic policies,’ charges a Shia politician who asks to remain anonymous. ‘The US wants quick fixes now and it needs to show some progress. But the tribes are a militia and they could be used as such in the future.’
Joost Hiltermann, Iraq analyst at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, says the co-operation with Sunni tribes was advocated by his organisation in 2004, but adopting the strategy today is ‘way too late’.
Three years ago, he argues, al-Qaeda was still dominated by foreign fighters and Shia militias had not yet launched their campaign against Sunni groups. Now, al-Qaeda has expanded and has been ‘Iraqified’ and while it has been pushed out of Anbar, it has not been ‘defeated’.
The Sunni tribes, he says, are not a movement that could deliver the Sunni community in any meaningful reconciliation deal. Their loyalties also could easily shift again. ‘When the Americans leave, these people have to face Shia militias so they will turn back to al-Qaeda,’ says Mr Hiltermann.
With the Kurds in the north reliant on their own security forces – the peshmergas – and Shia political groups running their own militias, the emergence of armed Sunni tribal groups has raised fears that the US is accelerating the sort of ‘soft partition’ been advocated by some US politicians.
More alarming, say analysts, is that the US could end up backing militias that are fighting rivals within their own communities. Shia militias are already vying for control of southern provinces in Iraq, sometimes with bloody consequences.
‘Because of the failure of the central government and the US embassy in Baghdad, you have the military running with political strategy, and basing it on security,’ says an adviser to the US-led coalition. ‘The Americans are taking sides in an internecine conflict. This speeds up the fragmentation of Iraq.’

Additional reporting by Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington

Petition sign and circulate:

Release Iraqi women hostages, victims of terrorism themselves

بعيدا عن الوطن؛ حراك التضامن مع الوطن فنا، شعرا وكتابةً
Away from Home; Memory, Art and women solidarity: you are invited to an evening of poetry and music 22/3/2017 18:30 at P21 Gallery London click here for more details
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Public meeting at The Bolivar Hall, London Sat.14/5/2016 at 15:00 IDPs : Fragmentation of Cultural and National Identity



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Protest the suffering of Iraqi Christians: No to terrorism No to state terrorism.Hands off our minorities. Hands off our people. Shame on the human rights violators on all sides. Assemble 11:30 on 28/7/14 near Parliament Square, near Westminister tube station London. For more past events click here

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Halt All Executions! Abolish The Death Penalty!

We women of Tadhamun condemn the persisting practice of arbitrary arrests by the Iraqi security forces. We condemn their arrests of women in lieu of their men folk. These are 'inherited' practices. We are alarmed by credible media reports of the Green Zone government’s intentions of executing hundreds of Iraqi men and women.


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Professor Zaineb Al Bahrani of Columbia University NY speaking at a our meeting on the destruction/damage to historical sites in Iraq

On youtube: Part1
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Human Rights Watch: No woman is Safe

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المقالات المنشورة على هذا الموقع لا تعكس بالضرورة آراء منظمتنا أو أعضاء منظمتنا


Samarra Minrate built in 852 AD

Samarra Minrate built in 852 AD
Building of 1 500 massive police station !
From the angle of the photo, it is possible to calculate that the complex is being built at E 396388 N 3785995 (UTM Zone 38 North) or Lat. 34.209760° Long. 43.875325°, to the west of the Malwiya (Spiral Minaret), and behind the Spiral Cafe.
While the point itself may not have more than Abbasid houses under the ground, it is adjacent to the palace of Sur Isa, the remains of which can be seen in the photo. While the initial construction might or might not touch the palace, accompanying activities will certainly spread over it.Sur Isa can be identified with the palace of al-Burj, built by the
Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil, probably in 852-3 (Northedge, Historical Topography of Samarra, pp 125-127, 240). The palace is said to have cost 33 million dirhams, and was luxurious. Details are given by al-Shabushti, Kitab al-Diyarat.
Samarra was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO at the end of June. The barracks could easily have been built elsewhere, off the archaeological site.--
Alastair Northedge Professeur d'Art et d'Archeologie Islamiques UFR d'Art et d'Archeologie
Universite de Paris I (Pantheon-Sorbonne) 3, rue Michelet, 75006 Paris
tel. 01 53 73 71 08 telecopie : 01 53 73 71 13 Email :
Alastair.Northedge@univ-paris1.fr ou anorthedge@wanadoo.fr