Camp Bucca: Iraq’s Guantánamo Bay
David Enders, The Nation
It may seem hard to imagine a place where people incarcerated by the US military have fewer rights than they do in Guantánamo Bay. Welcome to Iraq. It is just after 4 am, and hundreds of Iraqis are lining up to visit their relatives outside Camp Bucca, which in August held about 18,000 detainees. Near the Kuwaiti border, Bucca shimmers in the predawn of the southern Iraqi desert, a beacon of light in a country where electricity is on for no more than twelve hours a day. It is the US military’s largest detention center in Iraq… One of the biggest complaints is that the vast majority of detainees have not been charged with any crime. “Why don’t the US forces charge him if he has done something? Then at least we would know how long he will be here,” said Hadia Khalaf, whose son Qusay was arrested in September 2007. “He was our provider,” she said, reflecting the plight of many families who rely on extended family and charity to survive…

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Pogrom Acre-style
Khaled Amayreh
Racism raised its ugly head in the northern coastal town of Acre this week, exposing Israelis’ shocking bigotry and intolerance towards its non-Jewish citizens, especially the sizeable Palestinian minority which constitutes nearly one fourth of Israel’s population. It all started the evening of 8 October, the eve of Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, when an unsuspecting local Arab resident of the city drove his car through a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood, reportedly to pick up his daughter from her fiancé’s family home. Upon spotting the middle-aged man, dozens of Jewish fanatics ganged up on the man, beating him and stoning his car, injuring him and his son…

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Afghan mayor turns Taliban leader
AlJazeera.net
The former mayor of Afghanistan’s Herat province is now the most powerful local Taliban commander. Ghullam Yahya Akbari told Al Jazeera that he will not negotiate with the Afghan government as long as foreign troops are on Afghan soil. Given exclusive access to one of his 20 mountain bases hidden deep inside rugged terrain that Akbari says were also used to fight the Russians, Al Jazeera’s Qais Azimy found a group of at least 60 well-armed Taliban fighters. Akbari’s steely resolve to fight foreign forces comes amid reports of many soldiers defecting to the Taliban…

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Qaeda not involved in forcing Christians to leave Mosul, government says
Azzaman
There are no indications that the Qaeda group in Iraq is involved in forcing Christians to flee the northern city of Mosul, a senior Interior Ministry official said. But Ministry spokesman Abdulkarim Khalaf declined to say who was behind the latest wave of anti-Christian violence in the city, a traditional center of Christianity in Iraq. However Khalaf said, “I do not think al-Qaeda is behind the attacks against Mosul Christians.” More than 1,300 Christian families have fled the city and more than 13 Christians have been killed in the past two weeks. Most of the victims and the fleeing refugees lived on the left bank of the city where Kurdish militias are in control as it is mainly a Kurdish-inhabited area…

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Taliban ‘seizes 180 Afghan troops’
AlJazeera.net
A spokesman for the Taliban movement has told Al Jazeera that the movement’s fighters have captured at least 180 Afghan soldiers in southern Helmand province. Qari Yusuf Ahmadi said on Wednesday that the soldiers were seized while travelling in three buses on their way to Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province. The Afghan government made no immediate comment on the abduction claims. Ahamdi said that the soldiers were dressed in civilian dress and were on a mission to reinforce government troops in the area, “to prevent the fall of Lashkar Gah into the hands of the Taliban”. Ahmadi said that he expected Lashkar Gah to soon fall under Taliban control because of their escalated operations in the area…

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October 16, 2008: 2 US Soldiers, 12 Iraqis Killed; 24 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 12 Iraqis were killed and 24 others were wounded in light violence. Also, Two U.S. soldier deaths were reported as well. In political news, the Iraqi Parliament accused U.S. General Odierno of meddling in Iraqi affairs when he said that Iran was bribing parliament members. Elsewhere, Turkish forces and the PKK continued their hostilities at the Turkey-Iraq border. Meanwhile, a heavy sandstorm crippled Baghdad this morning, delaying news reports for several hours. An American soldier was killed in an indirect fire attack in Diyala province. Indirect fire generally means missiles, mortars and the like. One U.S. soldier died of non-combat causes as well…

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Swedish lawyer questions US killing of al-Qaeda number two in Iraq
DPA
A Swedish lawyer Thursday said he doubted claims by the US military alleging that they have killed a non-Iraqi individual who was the second-in-command of al-Qaeda in Iraq. A US military statement on Wednesday said that the body of Abu Qaswarah, also known as Abu Sara, was positively identified after an October 5 raid in the northern-Iraqi city of Mosul. Moroccan-born Abu Qaswarah also had Swedish citizenship. The Swedish Security Service said they had been aware of the 43- year-old, who had been suspected, but never charged, of being active in militant Islamist groups in Sweden…

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