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/ 11 October 2007
An injured survivor and relatives of three Iraqis killed in Baghdad on September 16 when employees of private security company Blackwater USA opened fire on civilians sued the firm in a United States court on Thursday. The Centre for Constitutional Rights said it filed the suit charging that Blackwater and its affiliates violated US law in committing ”extrajudicial killings and war crimes”.
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/ 11 October 2007
Iraq’s humanitarian crisis is worsening and the plight of millions of displaced Iraqis is critical, says a grim United Nations report on human rights in the war-torn country that was released on Thursday. ”Daily life for the average Iraqi civilian remains extremely precarious,” said the human rights report of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq.
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/ 10 October 2007
Iraqi authorities on Wednesday condemned the killing in Baghdad of two women by foreign security guards, as the firm which hired the contractors defended its action. Tuesday’s bloodbath comes just days after Iraq vowed to punish United States security firm Blackwater after a probe found that its guards opened "deliberate" fire in Baghdad three weeks ago.
The Iraqi government wants United States security firm Blackwater to pay -million in compensation to each of the families of 17 people killed in a shooting. The figure was roughly in line with compensation paid by the Libyan government to the families of the 270 people killed in the 1988 Lockerbie airline bombing.
Iraq has vowed to punish United States security firm Blackwater after a probe found that its guards were not provoked when they opened ”deliberate” fire in Baghdad three weeks ago, killing 17 civilians. The US embassy was tight-lipped on Monday on whether those involved in the September 16 killings would be handed over for prosecution.
A United States air strike killed about 25 suspected Iraqi militants linked to Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias on Friday and another 12 al-Qaeda fighters were killed in separate raids, the US military said. US troops said they were engaged in a heavy firefight west of Baquba, capital of volatile Diyala province north of Baghdad, during a dawn raid.
The United States company at the centre of the scandal over the role of private security guards in Iraq brushed aside accusations that it was a cowboy outfit on Tuesday, even as details emerged about a incident in which an allegedly drunken member was involved in a fatal shooting.
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/ 24 September 2007
The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, showed an unexpected streak of stubbornness on Sunday in his stand-off with the United States over the Blackwater shootings, insisting that action had to be taken against the private security firm. Al-Maliki said Blackwater posed ”a serious challenge to the sovereignty of Iraq and cannot be accepted”.
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/ 23 September 2007
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki met ministers from world powers and neighbouring countries on Saturday after telling the United Nations secretary general he could guarantee security for a broader UN role in Iraq. Ministers from Iraq, its neighbours and world powers met at UN headquarters.
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/ 22 September 2007
They needed to be hired fast after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. With too few United States soldiers on the ground, demand for private security guards was at a level not seen since the mercenary heyday of Congo in the 1960s. But the Iraq boom for private security firms is coming to an end, even without the Blackwater shooting row.
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/ 18 September 2007
The United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, apologised to the Iraqi government on Monday in an attempt to prevent the expulsion of all employees of the security firm Blackwater USA. The ministry of interior on Monday took the decision to expel Blackwater after eight Iraqi civilians were killed and 13 wounded in Baghdad.
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/ 16 September 2007
A startling new household survey of Iraqis released last week claims as many as 1,2-million people may have died because of the conflict in Iraq — apparently lending weight to a 2006 survey in the Lancet that reported similarly high levels. More than one million deaths were already being suggested by anti-war campaigners.
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/ 15 September 2007
The movement of radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said on Saturday it would withdraw from the Shi’ite bloc that leads the Iraqi government, in a new blow to the faltering political process. ”The Sadr bloc will hold a press conference in Najaf this evening [Saturday] where it will announce its decision to withdraw from the Shi’ite alliance,” Sadr spokesperson Saleh al-Obeidi said.
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/ 14 September 2007
A Sunni Arab tribal leader instrumental in driving al-Qaeda out of Iraq’s Anbar province was killed by a bomb on Thursday, hours before United States President George Bush endorsed limited US troop cuts in Iraq. Abdul Sattar Abu Risha died in an attack on his car near his home in Ramadi, capital of Anbar.
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/ 14 September 2007
United States President George Bush on Thursday ordered gradual troop reductions in Iraq but defied calls for a dramatic change of course, telling war-weary Americans the US military role there will stretch beyond his presidency. Bush acknowledged Americans’ frustration with the war but insisted progress was being made.
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/ 10 September 2007
Iraq’s embattled Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki gave an upbeat assessment of the situation in his country on Monday, saying civil war had been prevented and boasting that violence had dropped 75% in the restive provinces of Baghdad and Anbar.
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/ 10 September 2007
The Bush administration’s most senior advisers on Iraq, the commander of US forces, General David Petraeus, and the ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, will launch a new drive today to defer any exit of troops until April 2008 amid growing doubts about their credibility in Congress and among the public.
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/ 8 September 2007
General David Petraeus, the commander of United States forces in Iraq, admitted on Friday that sending 30 000 more troops into the war zone in January had failed to yield the desired results. ”It has not worked out as we had hoped,” the general said.
The Iraqi government has called on armed groups to follow the lead of the biggest Shi’ite militia and freeze their operations, even as the United States military on Friday reported the deaths of two more American service members in fighting against Sunni insurgents.