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People cool off under an open-air shower in Baghdad as temperatures soar. Photograph: Hadi Mizban/AP

While Europe does battle with a heatwave named Lucifer, the Middle East is enduring a summer so brutal that even those accustomed to Baghdads searing August are labelling it ungodly.

As temperatures rose towards 51C on Thursday, Iraqs government declared a mandatory holiday, allowing civic servants to shelter at home.

So far this month in the Iraqi capital, every day but one has reached 48C or higher, and the forecast is for the high temperatures to continue for the next week. July was little different, in Iraq and in Syria, where the capital, Damascus, has also been several degrees hotter than usual nearly every day since late June.

In Kuwait, where birds have reportedly dropped from the skies, and Riyadh, where building work has ceased this week, locals have called for mercy from a hotter-than-normal air mass that has remained nearly stationary over central Arabia for more than three weeks, stretching the capacity of electricity networks beyond limits.

While the centre of the region is being scorched, on the Mediterranean coast Beirut and Istanbul have also been blighted by a cruel summer in their cases, extreme humidity that has made comparatively modest daytime temperatures seem far higher.

In Baghdad, the perennially under-funded state power network has again failed to cope with the annual onslaught, as demand for power for air conditioners and water coolers far exceeds the capacity to supply it.

We had the day off today, said Mohanad, from central Baghdad. The heat is ungodly. The generator in my neighbourhood that provides electricity for about 300 houses has caught fire from the heat. All it generates is smoke. We dont know what to do. Men can go to the pool here but what do we do with our women, elderly and our babies? Even the ACs in the car arent working properly. Its over 53 degrees today.

Its disgusting. The government cannot do anything to help us even if they tried; the electricity generators were built in the 1960s and havent been changed or modified since. They cant stand against this heat. We are a poor folk, the Iraqis, its hell, its misery. Do not be surprised if you hear on the news about people dying from the heat. Weve never witnessed such a summer before.

Salam al-Saade, from the eastern suburb of Mashtal, said: The heat is unbearable. Everyone around me is so sick of it. We are going to the pool and sending our kids there from the morning till night-time to cool off a little. A lot of people are suffering from headaches. The government is not going to help us in any way. We get 12 hours of national electricity a day but it is not consecutive. It comes for two hours then cuts off. When it does cut off we generate our own and pay for it. This year is the worst weve seen.

In Lebanon, Faysal al-Banna, the chief of ground observation for Beiruts meteorological department said: We definitely do not have it as bad as Iraq and other places. Today it is 30 degrees but we feel its much hotter because of the humidity. Its the humidity from hell, its on fire this year. I guarantee you the next few days will be worse.

Additional reporting by Nadia al-Faour

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Iraq sends workers home as 'ungodly' heat grips Middle East - The Guardian

I remember the white car.

Last week, a U.S. appeals court threw out the murder conviction of a former Blackwater Worldwide security guard for his role in the deaths of 14 unarmed Iraqis in a Baghdad traffic circle nearly 10 years ago.

I was reporting in Baghdad that day Sept.16, 2007 when the contractors opened fire. Most of the victims were in their vehicles at Nisoor Square, a busy, heavily guarded roundabout at the time.

Inside a white car was Mehasin Muhsin Kadhum, a 46-year-old doctor, and her 20-year-old son, Ahmed, who was driving. They were wrapping up errands that included picking up college applications for Kadhums daughter.

By then the Blackwater convoy had entered the circle, and Iraqi officers were trying to stop vehicles as Ahmed approached. A Blackwater guard fired, killing Ahmed. One traffic officer, Sarhan Thiab, told me:

The bullet went through the windshield and split his head open. His mother was holding him, screaming for help.

Within seconds, the guards intensified their assault using machine guns and grenades, killing Kadhum as well. When the shooting ended, 17 Iraqis lay injured in addition to the 14 killed. The victims included children, college students and professionals.

The killings triggered outrage and calls for accountability and justice. It was one of the darkest moments of the Iraq War, damaging the United States reputation and its relationship with the Iraqi government.

When Washington refused to allow the contractors to be tried in Iraq, the incident became a symbol of unaccountable American power and forced a reassessment of the reliance on private security contractors in war zones.

Initially, the guards gave sworn statements to State Department investigators that they had fired on the white car because it was coming at them at high speed and did not stop. But many witnesses told me the car was moving slowly, in a nonthreatening manner.

Subsequently, U.S. military investigators would conclude that the Blackwater guards opened fire without provocation and used excessive force. In 2014, a federal jury found four guards guilty of killing the unarmed civilians.

But last weeks reversal of the first-degree murder conviction of Nicholas Slatten, the former guard, is a major setback for the victims and families. He had been sentenced to life in prison.

The appeals courts also ordered resentencings for the three other former guards convicted of voluntary manslaughter and use of a machine gun in a violent crime. They received 30-year prison sentences.

An official at the Iraqi Embassy in Washington told my colleague Spencer Hsu that the killings are still raw after all these years and were an egregious atrocity that these people committed.

Ironically, it was a discrepancy over who fired the first shots at the white car that led to the throwing out of the murder conviction. Prosecutors argued that Slatten had fired the first shots, but another defendant said that he had fired first.

The white car, I remember, sat at a bus stop on the edge of Nisoor Square for weeks after the killings. It was charred and shattered by the firepower.

Haitham Ahmed, who lost his wife and eldest son, wanted the car to remain visible as a reminder of the carnage. He told me that he wanted it left there until justice was served.

He, too, was a doctor. The family had had many opportunities to leave the country, but he said that he and his wife believed in the promise of a new Iraq. He felt pain, he said, when he saw doctors fleeing Iraq. His son, who was in the third year of medical school, was planning to become a surgeon like his parents.

What I want is the law to prevail, Haitham Ahmed said in 2007. I hope that this act will not go without punishment.

Tracing the paths of 5 who died in a storm of gunfire

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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Overturned Blackwater conviction evokes darkest days of Iraq War ... - Washington Post

I first passed through Mosul in October 2008 in a mounted combat patrol as the leader of a U.S. military training team, my third of four combat deployments. I just returned from my third trip as a reporter to the Mosul environs to witness the carnage and human suffering left behind by the Islamic State. If theres one thing my combat experience and journalistic investigations in the region have confirmed, its that a continued reliance on the military instrument to solve Iraqs substantial political problems will almost certainly see the conflict continue.

During this visit, I was able to interview many in relief camps filled with Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, Christians and other religious and ethnic people who had been driven from Mosul by the Islamic State. I also traveled to Bashiqa, just outside of Mosul, to see the results of the initial battles to retake the city that began last fall. The unmistakable conclusion of all sourcesunified in their outlook, regardless of religious or ethnic backgroundis that it is a virtual certainty the fighting will continue.

Senior U.S. officials have admitted as much, as Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, sought to dampen expectations Americans may have about the defeat of the Islamic State in Mosul. Make no mistake, he cautioned, this victory alone does not eliminate ISIS and there is still a tough fight ahead.

The implication of this and the statements of other officials is that the American military must remain in the region to continue the fight. If the administrations objective is the security of U.S. vital national interests, then the United States must resist the temptation to believe that the application of yet more American military power will resolve an Iraqi political situation that is not, at its core, an American security interest. As should be painfully clear by now, Iraq will not fit Americas priority criteria.

The schism between Sunnis and Shias that has been at the heart of Iraqi violence since 2003 has not been diminished by the defeat of the Islamic State. It was temporarily suppressed while dealing with the common threat that the Islamic State represented to all Iraqi citizens, but now the terrorist group has been driven from Mosul, that friction will likely resurface. Sunni angst was on display in the Baharka relief camp I visited on July 18.

Nabil Ghazi, an eighteen-year-old Sunni Muslim who looked closer to thirty, gave vent to his frustration at the government. On July 9, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had publicly declared Mosul liberated and held a military parade in Baghdad one week later to celebrate. Ghazi, however, was not in a celebratory mood and had questions for the Prime Minister.

Why doesnt he come here and see us? Who are we, are we too poor? Is that why he doesnt come here? In response to Abadis call for displaced residents to return home, Ghazi angrily asked, How can I go back when I have no clothes but the shirt on my back, no money, and my home is completely destroyed? Where should we go? Let him come here and bring us a solution!

Another Sunni Muslim, Hend Jasim, a local journalist from Mosul up to the time that the Islamic State came to power, said with animation that without major changes in how postISIS Mosul is governed, there is little hope for stability. We have to eliminate any religious political parties from participating in the government, she explained. Gen. Bahram Arif Yassin, commanding the Peshmerga forces that cleared many of the towns on the western approaches to Mosul, said he agreed with Jasim, but offered a pessimistic outlook for that probability.

Certainly thats a good idea, he said from his headquarters in Bashiqa, but where will these parties come from? There is no talent pool from which to draw. Almost all the political parties are religious-based. The Trump administration must resist the temptation to believe that now, after the Islamic State has been driven from Mosul, U.S. combat power can bring about an enduring stability.

In 2004, owing to anger at how the newly installed Shia government was running affairs in Mosul, Sunni rebels rose up and attacked parts of the city, but instead of confronting the fighters, there were reports of policemen changing into civilian clothes and joining the insurgents. In 2008, the Washington Post reported that A year after its police force melted away and the streets descended into anarchy . . . (Mosul), a key battleground in the Iraq war, still teeters on the edge of chaos.

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America's Military Power Can't Save Iraq - The National Interest Online

Basketball

By Paul Lintag on Aug 11, 2017 07:25 AM

Fresh from a major statement win over defending champion China ,Gilas Pilipinas will look to make it two in a row in Group B action as the 2017 FIBA-Asia Cup in Lebanon continues Friday.

The Philippines will next take on Iraq, a team they faced back in the Jones Cup.

However, unlike the Jones Cup squad, this Iraq team will feature a different naturalized player in Kevin Galloway instead of DeMario Mayfield.

With Terrence Romeo leading a brave fourth-quarter stand, Gilas Pilipinas avenged its 2015 Finals loss to China to open group play last Wednesday.

And while shooting 58 percent from the field may not be sustainable in the long run, the Philippines will hope to carry the momentum against a very dangerous Iraq squad that actually won its first game in Lebanon, beating Qatar to shaare early Group B lead with Gilas.

Gilas Pilipinas will take on Iraq live from Lebanon at 9:00 p.m. Friday.

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Follow this writer on Twitter, @paullintag8

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Gilas Pilipinas takes on Iraq for Group B lead - ABS-CBN News

(Reuters) Iraqs World Cup qualifier against the United Arab Emirates next month has been moved to the Jordanian capital Amman from Tehran, an Iraq Football Association (IFA) spokesman told Reuters on Thursday. Iraq have played the majority of their home matches in the final phase of Asias qualifying tournament for next years World Cup in Russia in Iran due to security concerns over hosting games on home soil. The UAEs football association, however, requested that the Asian Football Confederation switch the Sept. 5 encounter from the PAS Stadium in the Iranian capital. The IFA spokesman said no reason was given for the switch away from Tehran. Iraq have played three of their home matches against Japan, Australia and Thailand in Iran while their meeting with Saudi Arabia last year was held in Malaysia. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are close allies and both have strained relations with Iran. Global governing body FIFA recently allowed Iraq to play friendly matches in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, but that approval does not extend to competitive fixtures. With two rounds of World Cup qualifiers to be played, Iraq have no chance of reaching the tournament finals. The UAE need to beat Iraq and Saudi Arabia on Aug. 29 to maintain any hope of securing their first World Cup appearance since 1990.

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UAE granted request to move Iraq qualifier to Amman - Iraq FA - euronews