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By HADI MIZBAN

https://apnews.com/article/iraq-war-legacy-photo-gallery-95a63b154deea0951935919bcd77763c

BAGHDAD (AP) There are places around Baghdad where Ill sometimes say a silent prayer for the dead when I pass on certain residential streets, at a particular restaurant, in a square where minibuses gather.

Today, people go about their daily business in these places, perhaps no longer thinking of the horror that took place years ago right where they are walking. For me, each site has become indelibly linked to the carnage I saw and the pain people suffered there.

As an Associated Press photographer, I covered 20 years of turmoil since the U.S.-led invasion of my country. At the height of the sectarian butchery following the invasion, I and other photographers rushed to the scenes of suicide bombings, rocket strikes and shootings around Baghdad nearly every day, sometimes multiple times a day.

Iraqis today remember the pervasive fear of that era, but with so many bombings, the specifics of individual attacks may have faded. This series of composites joins some of my photos from the years of the U.S. occupation and new ones from today, aiming to bring together past and present. Here are the stories behind a few of them.

SADRIYAH INTERSECTION

In this large intersection jammed with minibuses loading up passengers, a car bomb ripped through the crowds on April 18, 2007, killing at least 140 in what was then one of the deadliest single bombings since the U.S. invasion.

When it went off, I was at the site of that mornings first bombing, which had killed dozens, and as the firefighters rushed to the second blast, I hitched a ride with them. We were among the first on the scene at Sadriyah. The stench of burned flesh filled my nostrils. Blackened bodies were strewn among twisted, smoldering minibuses. Survivors loaded pieces of human beings onto wooden vegetable pushcarts to take away.

The next day when I went back, I saw the girl. She was with her mother, searching among the remaining debris and body parts. The mothers feet were bare, covered in ash. She smeared ashes on her face as she screamed for her missing husband: Ahmed, where did you go? I cant do it without you. Your daughters need you.

I saw the look of silent terror in the eyes of the girl as she trailed her mother, holding her little sister and absorbing the scene. I took her picture.

I went back to Sadriyah several weeks ago. The minibuses blared their horns, and people thronged a nearby street market. I relived that day 16 years ago like I was watching it in a cinema. Those closest to a bomb seem to evaporate without a trace, I thought. This intersection was their last resting place.

CAMP SARA

This Baghdad district got its name from a wealthy Armenian Christian woman who once owned the area when it was farmland. As Armenians fled oppression in Turkey and elsewhere in the early 20th century, she let refugees settle on her land, and by the 1950s, it was built up as an almost entirely Christian neighborhood.

On Oct. 4, 2006, two car bombs went off within minutes of each a few dozen meters apart on a main commercial street of the district. All along a block of the avenue, buildings were shattered, blackened, a few collapsed almost completely. At least 16 people were killed and dozens wounded. Some young men carried a frail elderly woman on a chair to safety. Others used tarps to carry pieces of bodies. Everyone was running either away from danger or toward loved ones to see if they were alive.

You have no God, a resident named Dureid shouted in his shock as if the militants behind the blast were there to listen. You are not Muslims. Arent these Iraqis? What is their crime?

The explosion was only one of many by Sunni Muslim extremists that hit Christian areas over the years. Camp Sara was once one of the nicest parts of Baghdad, with good restaurants and a different vibe from the rest of the city. Today, the buildings are cleaned up, but the street looks the same, down to the electricity poles that havent moved.

Still, everything has changed. Most of Camp Saras Christians have been driven away by violence. Dureid has moved to another part of Baghdad; a man in a striped shirt who stood next to him in my photo is in the United States. Camp Sara has become like any other part of Baghdad, its distinctiveness another victim of that bloody time.

KARRADAH

It was Army Day, Jan 6, 2008, marking the founding of the Iraqi army, and a little celebration was being held on a street in Karradah, a middle-class area of Baghdad. I was one of several media cameramen there as residents came out to cheer for soldiers. The doorman from one of the houses, Abu Adel, put a flower into the barrel of one soldiers rifle and kissed him on the cheeks. The next instant, a suicide bomber unleashed his blast.

Only a few yards away, I was thrown to the ground, wrenching my back, but kept taking pictures. The celebration had been transformed into mayhem, with scorched cars and buildings and the torn bodies of 11 dead. Among the dead was Abu Adel.

I went back to the site a few weeks ago. Its once again a quiet street with its villas and houses. As I took pictures, a doorman from one of the houses approached me. His name was Ali Ahmed. I asked him if he had been here that day and showed him my old photos of the explosion.

Ahmed started to weep. I should have died that day, he said. He had been about to go with Abu Adel to put a flower in the soldiers rifle, but first had to deal with a broken generator. There were only seconds between me and death, he said. We found him in the background of one of my photos, behind some bloodied soldiers. I took a new picture of him in the same spot: his older self stepping back into his younger self.

I too nearly died that day. At other times, I felt I was only inches from death, seeing those who by chance were on the wrong side of that thin line. I tell myself God kept me here for my children and my wife. Every day I have with them is a gift.

A place can be bonded to an emotion, like when a couple revisits all the sites where they first fell in love.

Sometimes, that emotion is horror.

___

Follow Associated Press photographers and photo editors on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AP_Images and on Instagram at http://www.instagram.com/apnews.

Read the rest here:
Iraq's years of carnage still engrained in Baghdad streets - The Associated Press

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US-led coalition drone crashes in northern Iraq - Anadolu Agency

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by Asaad Niazi, with Guillaume Decamme in Baghdad

Iraqi archaeological marvels that have survived millennia and the ravages of war now face a modern threat: being blasted and slowly buried by sandstorms linked to climate change.

Ancient Babylonian treasures, painstakingly unearthed, are slowly disappearing again under wind-blown sand in a land parched by rising heat and prolonged droughts.

Iraq, one of the countries worst-hit by climate change, endured a dozen major sandstorms last year that turned the sky orange, brought daily life to a halt and left its people gasping for air.

When the storms clear, layers of fine sand cover everythingincluding the Sumerian ruins of Umm al-Aqarib, "the Mother of Scorpions", in the southern desert province of Dhi Qar.

Sandstorms have slowly begun to reverse years of work there to unearth the temples' terracotta facades and many priceless artifacts, said archaeologist Aqeel al-Mansrawi.

Archaeologists in Iraq have always had to shovel sand, but now the volumes are growing.

After a decade of worsening storms, sand at Umm al-Aqarib now "covers a good part of the site", that dates back to around 2350 BC and spans more than five square kilometers, he said.

In the past, the biggest threat was looting of antiquities at the ruins, where pottery fragments and clay tablets bearing ancient cuneiform script have been discovered. The Umm al-Aqarib archaeological site in Iraq's southern Dhi Qar province: the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers hosted some of the world's earliest civilisations.

Now the changing weather and its impact on the land, especially creeping desertification, spell an additional threat to ancient sites all across southern Iraq, said Mansrawi.

"In the next 10 years," he said, "it is estimated that sand could have covered 80 to 90 percent of the archaeological sites."

The fabled land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers hosted some of the world's earliest civilisations, the remains of which are under threat in modern-day Iraq.

The oil-rich country is still recovering from decades of dictatorship, war and insurgency and remains plagued by misrule, corruption and widespread poverty.

Compounding its woes, Iraq is also one of the five countries most impacted by some effects of climate change, including drought, says the United Nations. Archaeologists in Iraq have always had to shovel sand, but now the volumes are growing.

Upstream dams in Turkey and Iraq have reduced the flow of its big rivers, and more water is wasted by Iraq's ancient irrigation system and outdated farming practices.

Summer temperatures topping 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) now often batter Iraq where droughts have parched agricultural areas, driving farmers and pastoralists into crowded cities.

"The sandstorms became more frequent, the wind became dustier and the temperatures increase," said Jaafar al-Jotheri, professor of archaeology at Iraq's Al Qadisiyah University.

"The soil has become more fragile and fragmented because of the lack of vegetation and roots," he explained.

As more farmers flee the countryside, "their land is left behind and abandoned and its soil becomes more exposed to the wind".

Winds pick up "more sediment fragments that reach the archaeological sites", Jotheri said, adding that the "sand and silt cause physical weathering and disintegration of buildings". The problems at Umm al-Aqarib are compounded by salinisation, when water evaporates so quickly that the soil does not reabsorb the crystals, which are left behind as a crust.

The problem is compounded by salinisation, said Mark Altaweel, professor of Near East Archaeology at University College London.

During extreme heat, he explained, water on the land surface evaporates so quickly that the soil does not reabsorb the crystals, which are left behind as a crust. Archaeologist Aqeel Mansarawi warns changing weather and its impact on the land spell an additional threat to ancient sites all across southern Iraq.

"When it's hyper dry, the water quickly evaporates and that leaves that salt residue," he said, adding that "you can see it on the bricks".

Jotheri said that salt in the earth carried by sandstorms causes "chemical weathering for archaeological buildings".

Iraqi authorities insist they are tackling the complex and multi-layered problem.

The government "is working to contain the sand dunes", said Chamel Ibrahim, director of antiquities of Dhi Qar province.

He pointed to a plan to plant a "green belt" of trees at a cost of about $3.8 million. An aerial view of an ancient structure at the Umm al-Aqarib archaeological site, which is frequently buried by sandstorms due to desertification.

But Jotheri voiced doubt, saying that to keep the vegetation alive, "you need a lot of water".

When it comes to climate change, he said, "we are the country facing the most and acting the least. We are at the bottom of the list in terms of acting against climate change."

Read the rest here:
Iraq's ancient treasures sand-blasted by climate change - Phys.org

SAN DIEGO Former U.S. Congressman Duncan Hunter Jr. is making national headlines again, this time for a deadly, friendly-fire incident in 2004 during the Iraq war.

Hunter is the focus of a new NPR podcast, Taking Cover, a seven-part series of investigative reports.

NPR investigative producer, Graham Smith, and NPR pentagon correspondent, Tom Bowman, spent three years chasing down information in the case.

Bowman said it all began as a tip he received from a reliable source, who told him about a friendly-fire mortar strike that killed two marines and an Iraqi interpreter inside a schoolhouse in Fallujah.

Were sitting in a whiskey bar in Washington, DC and he said there was this friendly-fire incident back in 2004, during the first battle of Fallujah, and it was covered up because the son of a powerful politician was involved. That politician was Duncan Hunter Sr., then chairman of the Armed Services Committee, recalled Bowman.

Duncan Hunter Sr. and Duncan Hunter Jr. are both former U.S. congressmen from the East County.

In 2004, Duncan Hunter Jr. was a Marine lieutenant in Fallujah, Iraq, stationed in a control center, involved in making decisions on where to fire mortars at enemy positions, the podcasters said.

We have the investigative report that we got from the widow of one of the men who was killed. It has a statement written by Duncan Hunter [Jr.], where he says he plotted this target on the map, he pushed in a yellow pin at the spot of the target near the schoolhouse, said Smith.

For three years, the families of the men killed didn't know the incident was the result of friendly fire.

It's like it never happened. And so, we started digging into it. We went to the Marines and said, have you investigated this? And the Marines said, we can't find any mention of this in any investigative report, said Bowman.

None of the officers involved, including Duncan Hunter Jr. were disciplined, according to the NPR report.

The bottom line is, he [Hunter] got away scot-free. He was never punished in any way. Those who were punished, those punishments were brushed aside by a general named Jim Mattis, who later of course, became defense secretary under President Trump," Bowman said.

The investigation revealed mistakes were made in mapping out the target of the mortar attack and the location of Marines nearby, and strongly implies there was a government cover-up of the incident because the son of a congressman was involved.

Duncan Hunter Jr. was involved here. And one of the big questions is, why wasnt he cited at all?, Bowman said.

CBS 8 reached out to Duncan Hunter Sr., and Jr., but they did not respond to messages seeking comment.

WATCH RELATED: Former CA Rep. Duncan Hunter gets 11-month sentence in campaign misappropriation case (2020).

See the article here:
NPR: Duncan Hunter Jr. involved in friendly-fire deaths in Iraq - CBS News 8

Baghdad, April 2023: The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Government of Japan are proud to announce their collaboration on the "Emergency livelihood support to mitigate the food insecurity crisis among vulnerable people in Iraq" project. This project is part of Japan's long-running support through the Japanese Supplementary Budget to the Iraqi people.

The project will enhance sustainable livelihood opportunities and food security in Iraq and builds on the foundation of previous projects supported by the Japanese Government and UNIDO to strengthen resilience and employability.

The project will address the critical issue of food insecurity by revitalizing traditional food processing industries in Nineveh and Duhok Governorates, which have been heavily impacted by the ongoing crisis in Iraq. The project will also target internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees to scale-up domestic and household-level food production and support the transition from subsistence to self-reliance.

As part of the project, UNIDO will provide hands-on training and market-oriented growth guidance to MSMEs producing traditional food products with business and food safety and hygiene training. This will help to strengthen the capacities of communities to address the lack of livelihoods, dependence on food imports, significantly decreased income, and increased food prices. In addition, UNIDO will also support the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources, Ministry of Agriculture in these governorates and non-government institutions to provide training and extension services to the MSMEs producing traditional food products.

The project directly contributes and promotes women's economic empowerment through income generating activities and livelihood opportunities. Women who are extensively involved in agricultural activities, food processing, and preservation will be provided training for improved business management, tools, and equipment as well as extension services.

The emergency livelihood support project is aligned with the overall country's strategy to support longer-term development objectives in rural areas. The project will contribute to improving the lives of vulnerable people, particularly women, in Iraq.

We recognize that there are still tremendous basic needs of vulnerable groups including IDPs, returnees and refugees in Nineveh and Duhok. I commend UNIDO for its tireless efforts to respond to those peoples needs, said Mr. MASAMOTO Kenichi, Charge d' Affaires ad interim, the Embassy of Japan in Iraq.

I trust that UNIDO will improve the peoples livelihood in Nineveh and Duhok backed by the coordination with the authorities and communities of these governorates, through completing this project and making use of UNIDOs excellent expertise added Mr. Kenichi.

UNIDO and the Government of Japan are committed to continue their long-running support to Iraq and its people through projects that foster sustainable development and promote economic growth.

For more information, please contact:

Eduardo Moreira, International Project Coordinator

e.ferreiradesamoreira@unido.org

See the original post here:
UNIDO and Government of Japan collaborate on Sustainable ... - ReliefWeb