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Childhood and Adolescence

Mohioddin Zehni was born in 1963 in the city of Miandoab in the province of West Azerbaijan. His father was a Bahai and his mother a Muslim but he grew up according to the teachings of the Bahai faith.

Mohioddin was the second child of the family. He studied until the third year of middle school but then dropped out to work as his family was poor. He was known for his kindness; when Mohioddin saw his father work dawn to dusk, he decided to help by joining him to work the farm. He spent his adolescence working while many others of his age could play and half fun.

Answering the Draft

In the early 1980s, when the war between Iran and Iraq was at its height, Mohioddin decided to answer the draft and join the Iranian army. Some members of his family asked him to wait for the war to cool but he was determined to serve his country as a soldier. His birth certificate had been lost, which he could have used as an excuse to delay going into military service, but he quickly obtained a duplicate and presented himself to the conscription organization.

Mohioddin started his military service in the winter or the spring of 1984. He was trained at Ajabshir Recruit Training Centre 03 in East Azerbaijan province. The Revolutionary Guards and the Revolutionary Committees refused to accept to train the Bahais and Bahai conscripts were sent to the regular armys training centers.

After his training was complete, Mohioddin served a few months in Ahvaz, capital of Khuzestan province. He then served two months in Tehran and was then sent to Piranshahr in the province of West Azerbaijan.

Martyrdom

On August 19, 1986, Mohioddin had only 18 days left before being discharged. His service ought to have ended two months earlier but, because of the ongoing war, the government had ordered that all conscripts must serve an extra two months.

A group of soldiers in a trench in the mountains around Piranshahr needed provisions on that day. They were supposed to travel to the army base in Piranshahrs village of Davoud Abad but instead Mohioddin volunteered to get the provisions for the unit.

He left Davoud Abad in a damaged IFA truck and, on the mountainous road to the trench, the brakes failed and the truck tumbled down the mountainside. Mohioddin was killed he was 23 years old.

Martyrdom Denied

Mohioddin was the first Bahai martyr in the city of Miandoab and he was buried next to other war casualties in the city. The Martyrs Foundation initially treated his family the same as it treated other families of war martyrs: the familys Bahai faith was not an issue. But Mohioddins name was removed from the Martyrs Foundation list of martyrs, a few years later, because of his Bahai faith.

Thirty years after Mohioddins death, the Martyrs Foundation rejected his mothers request to recognize him as a war martyr, saying: As you yourself have mentioned in your request, you belong to the Bahaideviant sect and, based on the directive and bylaws of the Martyrs Foundation, creating a file as a martyr or a veteran for anybody who belongs to the Bahai deviant sect is forbidden and this foundation cannot provide you with any services that are offered to the families of war martyrs.

Read more from the original source:
Mohioddin Zehni: Baha'i Martyr of the Iran-Iraq War - IranWire |

Parliament Swears In 64 New MPs; Coordination Framework Divided Over Government Formation; Kadhimi Visits Saudi Arabia And Iran On June 23, Iraqs Parliament convened an extraordinary session in which 64 new MPs were sworn to replace MPs loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr who had resigned on June 12. On June 24, Asaib Ahl al-Haq leader, Qais al-Khazali, said it was difficult to form a stable government without the Sadrists, and called for a political agreement on redoing the elections under a new law and electoral commission. Khazalis position is at odds with that of Nouri al-Maliki, who wants to take the lead on government formation regardless of Sadrs participation. Press reports say Maliki has a strong interest in becoming PM again and believes that the risks of excluding Sadr are exaggerated. On June 25 and 26, PM Kadhimi visited Saudi Arabia and Iran, where he met with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman and President Ibrahim Raisi to discuss bilateral relations and regional developments. Kadhimis office said the talks focused on efforts to establish peace and calm in the region. Speaking from Tehran, Kadhimi said he and Raisi agreed to support a truce in Yemen, while a spokesman for Irans foreign ministry said that Kadhimi related that Riyadh was ready to resume talks on the diplomatic level in Baghdad. On June 24, Salah ad-Din politician Ahmed al-Jubouri (aka Abu Mazin) said he and his party left the Siyada Coalition of Speaker Halbousi and rejoined their previous parent bloc, the Azm Coalition. more

Rockets Target Key Kurdistan Gas Field; Iraqs T-50 Jets Take To The Sky; KRG To Enforce Gun Controls Between June 22 25, five Katyusha-type rockets targeted the Khor-Mor gas field in Sulaymaniyah on three separate occasions. The attacks, which originated from inside the Kurdistan region, did not disrupt operations or production at the field, which is a vital source of fuel for power plants, but prompted the operator, Dana Gas, to halt an expansion project at the field. The attacks came shortly after two rockets fired from Bashiqa targeted Peshmerga forces in Shaikhan. On June 22, Iraqs Defense Ministry said the air forces T-50 jets made their first flight that day from an air base in Baghdad. The aircraft had been grounded since their arrival in 2017 due to financial problems that delayed contracts for essential maintenance, logistics, and training services. On June 30, after a series of high-profile gun murders, KRG PM Masrour Barzani ordered his interior ministry to shut down all places selling weapons and to confiscate any unlicensed weapons. In other developments, on June 17, a Turkish armed drone struck a vehicle transporting PKK militant in Kalar, more than 160 miles from the Turkish border, killing four people. On June 19, Iraqi airstrikes killed Abu Mansoor, the so-called Wali of Anbar, and three of his associates. Between June 18 28, the explosions of seven IEDs in Diyala, Baghdad, Ninewa, Basra, and Babylon, injured at least seven Iraqis. On June 23, the ministries of Defense and Peshmerga reached an agreement under which the Defense Ministry will provide training to Peshmerga forces and allow residents of Kurdistan region to enroll in the Defense Ministrys military academy and staff college. more

Cholera Outbreak Confirmed; New Project Aims To Build Climate Change Resilience; Iraq In New Wave Of COVID-19 Spread On June 19, Iraqs Health Ministry said that lab tests confirmed 13 cases of the cholera in Sulaymaniyah, Muthanna, and Kirkuk. The results confirmed the suspected outbreak, first reported in Sulaymaniyah, where large numbers of people fell sick with relevant symptoms, including diarrhea and vomiting. In response to the outbreak, the WHO sent an urgent consignment of medicines and medical supplies to help local health authorities deal with the situation. On June 29, the UNDP said it launched a new project with funding from the UK and Canada to help Iraq speed up its response to climate change. The Catalytic Climate Action in Iraq is a partnership with the Ministry of Environment designed to build Iraqs capacity to mitigate and adapt to the impact of climate change by managing natural resources, developing renewable resources, and increasing resilience to climate-induced hazards. On June 30, Iraqs Health Ministry said the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases reached 2,348,662, an increase of 17,514 from the 2,331,148 reported on June 16. Hospitalizations increased more than 580%, from 2,146 to 12,516, and the daily average for new cases jumped to 1,251/day during the last 14-day period. The number of people who received the COVID-19 vaccine reached 10,860,930 including 13,125 who received their shots on June 30. As the spread accelerated, the Ministry warned that the spike in infections and hospitalizations indicated that Iraq was in a new wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Ministry urged Iraqis to get vaccinated and go back to using preventative measures on the individual and community levels. more

Iraq Cracks Down On Smuggling Amid Fuel Shortages; Oil Services Companies Respond To Baghdads Blacklist Threat On June 26, Iraqs Joint Operations Command said that PM Kadhimi ordered a new crackdown on fuel smugglers, as the country deals with widespread fuel shortages. As of June 29, raids across several provinces resulted in 42 arrests, the recovery of 700,000 liters of smuggled fuels, and penalties against eight complicit gas stations. Iraqs Oil Ministry attributed the shortage to a price differential between the Kurdistan region and adjacent provinces, which created new incentives for smuggling. On June 27, Schlumberger told Iraqs Oil Ministry that it will comply with the February 15 ruling by Iraqs Federal Supreme Court and subsequent letters sent by Iraqs National Oil Company concerning operations in the Kurdistan region. Schlumberger agreed to refrain from competing for future contracts in Kurdistan, and said it will make all the necessary efforts to resolve issues concerning current contracts. Baker Hughes and Halliburton made similar commitments. In other developments, on June 20, Iraqs Oil Ministry said that the Basra Gas Company exported its inaugural cargo of semi-refrigerated liquid [petroleum] gas from the port of Umm Qasr. On June 28, Iraqs Central Bank said it decided to increase funding available for private sector development initiatives to IQD18 trillion. more

For more background on most of the institutions, key actors, political parties, and locations mentioned in our takeaways or in the stories that follow, see the ISHM Reference Guide.

Link:
Iraq Security and Humanitarian Monitor: June 16 - 30, 2022

An Egyptian delegation of water treatment experts visited Iraq this month for talks with Iraqi officials on addressing an acute water crisis in the Arab country.

The Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources said June 20 that the Egyptian delegation discussed a proposal for building a water desalination plant on the Euphrates River. The station will be used to purify and desalinate seawater to help ease water shortages in southern Iraq.

Minister of Irrigation Mohamed Abdel-Ati said the visit was part of an agreementbetween Cairo and Baghdad to benefit from Egypts expertise in water management.

Egypt and Iraq are keen on making the best use of their water resources amid challenges facing the two countries in the field of water, he added.

The proposed plant on the Euphrates River will be modeled on Egypts Bahr al-Baqar wastewater treatment plant, the largest of its kind in the world. The plant has a production capacity of 5.6 million cubic meters per day.

Iraq was known in ancient times as Mesopotamia, or the land between two riversthe Tigris and the Euphrates. The country is facing its worst drought in decades amid lack of rainfall and poor management of water resources.

Iraq relies on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for nearly all of its water needs. The two rivers originate in Turkey and flow to the Shatt Al-Arab basin in southern Iraq. While the Euphrates River crosses Syria and Iraq, the Tigris flows from Turkey into Iraq.

Turkey contributes 90% to the Euphrates River while Syria contributes 10% to the water flow. As for the Tigris, Turkey, Iraq and Iran contribute 40%, 51% and 9%, respectively.

Dams constructed by both Turkey and Iran on the two rivers, however, have either blocked or diverted water into Iraq, creating acute water shortages there.

According to the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources, the two rivers are forecast to dry up by 2040 unless action is taken to change the current trends. The countrys Sawa Lake already dried out this year, and Razzaza Lake is shrinking.

Southern Iraq faces particularly serious water shortages. The lack of water flow out of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers combined with the rising sea level is pushing salt water from the Arabian Gulf into Iraqs rivers.

Prominent Iraqi environmentalist Azzam Alwash blames climate change for aggravating the current water crisis in Iraq.

The crisis is exacerbated by the increased salinity, rising sea level and lack of flow from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers into Iraq, Alwash, founder and CEO of the environmental group Nature Iraq, told Al-Monitor.

He said climate change causes temperatures to rise and leads to increases in the level of evaporation. The World Bank forecasts that a temperature increase of 1 Celsius would cause a 20% reduction of available freshwater in Iraq by 2050.

For instance, Lake Tharthar, one of the largest lakes in Iraq, loses around 7 billion cubic meters of water in evaporation every year, Alwash added.

According to the United Nations Environment Program, Iraq ranks as the fifth most vulnerable country in the world to climate change. Last year, the World Bank warned that southern Iraq is already exceeding critical water quality thresholds, often too contaminated for people to use.

Abbas Sharaky, professor of geology and water resources at Cairo University, said Egypt has major expertise in water desalination and the reuse of wastewater from which Iraq can benefit.

There is a similarity in the water situation in both Iraq and Egypt, Sharaky told Al-Monitor by phone. While the Nile River, Egypts only source of fresh water, originates from outside the border in Ethiopia, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers on which Iraq relies originate from Turkey and Iran, he said.

Both Cairo and Baghdad are engaged in disputes with upstream countries regarding the construction of dams on rivers without consent from downstream countries, he added.

Egypt and Ethiopia are at odds over the construction of a giant hydroelectric dam on the Blue Nile, a main tributary of the Nile River. While Cairo views the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) as an existential threat to its water share from the Nile, Addis Ababa sees it as vital to its economic development.

Years of negotiations between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to reach a legally binding agreement on the filling and operation of the GERD have failed to make any breakthrough.

Egypt depends on the Nile River to meet 97% of its water needs, which amount to about 114 billion cubic meters annually. The countrys water resources, however, do not exceed 60 billion cubic meters annually, with a deficit of up to 54 billion cubic meters annually. The gap between water resources and needs is bridged by treating sewage and agricultural water with the aim of reusing it.

The Egyptian government has adopted an ambitious plan to build dozens of plants for seawater desalination to help meet the countrys growing water needs. So far, Egypt has constructed 82 desalination plants, with a total water capacity of 917,000 cubic meters per day. The government is also planning to build 14 new desalination plants to raise the capacity of water to 1.4 million cubic meters per day. Egypt has also launched a project worth 80 billion pounds ($4.26 billion) for rehabilitating canals with total lengths of 20,000 kilometers.

Sharaky said Egypt has state-of-the-art water research centers specialized in the hydrology of rivers and the development of irrigation and water supply systems.

Egypt has made long strides in building water treatment plants, the reuse of wastewater and constructing dams for harvesting rainwater, and Iraq can benefit from this Egyptian expertise in dealing with the acute water shortages in the country, he said.

See more here:
Egypt to build desalination plant in Iraq - Al-Monitor: Independent ...

The Iraqi foreign minister announced Thursday that Irans negotiations with Jordan and Egypt have started with the mediation of the Iraqi government in Baghdad.

Fuad Hussein made the remarks during an interview with the Saudi Al-Arabiya television, without giving any further details. There were no comments from Cairo and Amman on the report.

Diplomatic representation between Egypt and Iran is at the level of interest section offices since the two countries severed tiesfollowing the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Hussein called for turning the talks between Tehran and Riyadh into a declared dialogue, adding that the focus of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi's visit to Saudi Arabia last Saturday was the dialogue between Riyadh and Tehran, where he went the following day.

Despite all speculations and expectations, Kadhimis visit led to no tangible results as the visiting Iraqi premier and Iranian president did not announce any news about Tehran-Riyadh talks during their joint press conference.

Iran and Saudi Arabia -- which are locked in proxy conflicts around the region -- have held several rounds of talks in the Iraqi capital Baghdad since 2021.

It was the Islamic Republic that suspended the talks in March a day after Saudi Arabia announced it had beheaded 81 men, including seven Yemenis and a Syrian, for heinous crimes. Forty-one were Saudi Shiites, Human Rights Watch reported, apparently convicted over protests.

Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran in 2016 when mobs attacked its embassy in Tehran after Riyadh executed 47 dissidents including the leading Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

Original post:
Iraq Says Baghdad Hosting Irans Talks With Jordan And Egypt -

Shamiran Mako, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published an article in MENA Politics the official newsletter for the American Political Science Associations (APSA) Organized Section on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Politics on limited statehood in the case of disputed territories in Iraq.

Makos article was part of one of the newsletters research symposiums, which was co-edited by Pardee School Assistant Professor of International Relations Noora Lori, on contingent sovereignty and areas of limited statehood. It explores the empirical and analytical leverage to be gained by identifying subnational pockets of political practices that deviate from national-level classifications of regimes in the Middle East.

In her piece, titled Foreign Intervention, Contingent Sovereignty, and Areas of Limited Statehood: The Case of Iraqs Disputed Territories, Mako explores the ways in which foreign interventions produce or reinforce areas of limited statehood and contention between national and subnational governments. By focusing on Iraqs disputed territories, she demonstrates how hybrid governance in areas of limited statehood can foster competition over territorial control by state and non-state actors at the local level, and between national and subnational governments.

The full article can be read on APSA MENAs website.

Shamiran Makois an assistant professor of international relations at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. She is also a member of the Graduate Faculty at the Political Science Department at Boston University.Her research explores the historical and contemporary drivers of inter and intra-state conflicts that produce weak and fragile states across the MENA region. She is the author ofAfter the Uprisings: Progress and Stagnation in the Middle East and North Africa, with Valentine Moghadam. Read more about Professor Mako on herfaculty profile.

Posted 1 day ago in Research

Tagged: 2022, APSA, Iraq, Journal Article, MENA, Middle East and North Africa Studies, noora lori, political science, Shamiran Mako

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Mako Publishes Article on Disputed Territories in Iraq | The Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies - Boston University