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BAGHDAD, March 19 (Reuters) - Iraq and Iran signed a border security agreement on Sunday, a move Iraqi officials said aimed primarily at tightening the frontier with Iraq's Kurdish region, where Tehran says armed Kurdish dissidents pose a threat to its security.

The joint security agreement includes coordination in "protecting the common borders between the two countries and consolidating cooperation in several security fields", a statement from the Iraqi prime minister's office said.

Iran's Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Shamkhani signed the deal with Iraq's National Security Advisor Qasim al-Araji, in the presence of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani, the prime minister office said.

"Under the signed security deal, Iraq pledges it would not allow armed groups to use its territory in the Iraqi Kurdish region to launch any border-crossing attacks on neighbour Iran," said an Iraqi security official who attended the signing.

The frontier came into renewed focus last year when Iran's Revolutionary Guards launched missile and drone attacks against Iranian Kurdish groups based in northern Iraq, accusing them of fomenting protests that were sparked by the death of a Iranian Kurdish woman while she was being held in police custody.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, speaking in Tehran, said "Shamkhani's current trip to Iraq has been planned since four months and is focused on issues related to the armed groups in northern Iraq". The Islamic republic of Iran will in no way accept threats from Iraqi territories, he added.

Iran has also accused Kurdish militants of working with its arch-enemy Israel and has often voices concern over the alleged presence of the Israeli spy agency Mossad in the autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region.

Last year, Iran's Intelligence Ministry said a sabotage team detained by its security forces were Kurdish militants working for Israel who planned to blow up a "sensitive" defence industry centre in the city of Isfahan.

Reporting By Ahmed Rasheed and Dubai newsroom; Writing by Ahmed Rasheed, Ahmed Tolba; Editing by Tom Perry, David Goodman and Raissa Kasolowsky

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Originally posted here:
Iraq and Iran sign deal to tighten border security - Reuters

THEN

News of [U.S. Army Capt. Christopher Seiferts] death spread quickly throughout the Wilson Area School District where he ran cross country in high school and played saxophone in the jazz band and Bethlehem, where he majored in history at Moravian College.

All I remember about Chris Seifert is he was just a fantastic kid, said Bill Curnow who directed the Wilson Area High School Band while Seifert was a member. He was an outstanding student, a really, really great kid. He was band president and well-liked by all his peers. The Express-Times, March 24, 2003

The memory of Christopher Seifert lives on.

Twenty years ago, news of the 27-year-olds death one of the first U.S. casualties of the Iraq War stunned the Lehigh Valley.

The army captain with the 101st Airborne Division was killed not by opposing forces but in an ambush by a troubled comrade who shot him in the back after tossing a grenade into a tent at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait, injuring 14 and killing two. (The perpetrator, Hasan K. Akbar, faced a court martial. His death sentence is pending.)

Seifert grew up in Williams Township. He attended Central Moravian Church in Bethlehem. He married a classmate from Moravian. He still has family here. And he is immortalized by scholarships and awards that reflect his interests, including the locally iconic Freddys.

Wilson Area High School Principal John Martuscelli said the mood at the high school was somber and quieter than usual .

The wars been going on for a few days. Now the war hit home, he said.

Newspapers with stories of Seiferts fate were strewn on a table outside the high schools main office . In addition to lowering the flag to half staff, the high school community observed a moment of silence in his memory.

He was very, very well-liked by students and faculty alike, Martuscelli said. The Express-Times, March 25, 2003

I still have the announcement I made over the intercom the day after his passing, said Martuscelli, who is still the Wilson principal. I can tell you that it was a sad time for everyone at Wilson and we flew our flag at half-mast that day in his honor.

While Seifert graduated in 1993, before Martsucelli started, he knows well the impact of the alumnus, who was very involved. Seiferts activities included jazz and marching bands, cross country and track, student council, National Honor Society, ski club, ecology club, the student newspaper and the drama club.

Ever since his passing, his family has presented scholarships to graduating seniors in his honor.

[Moravian College professor Rosalind Remer], who taught Seifert in three history classes, said she knew Seifert and his wife, Theresa Flowers-Seifert, when they were dating.

They were the kind of people that when you heard they were together, you thought, Thats a perfect couple, Remer said.

Although Seifert was determined to serve his country, Remer said, he was a gentle soul.

He was really human and open-minded; he wasnt dogmatic, she said. And he was very interested in learning.

As the United States prepared for war against Iraq, Remer said, she read in Moravians alumni magazine that the couple had a baby. The Express-Times, March 25, 2003

I just cant believe its been 20 years since Christopher was killed, said Remer, now a vice provost at Drexel University and on the board at the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, the non-profit that owns the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Christopher was a joy to have in class, Remer recently told lehighvalleylive.com. He was one of the students whom you sort of teach to. That is, in a class of 30 or 35 students, I could always count on his smiling and interested face, his willingness to ask questions and thoughtfully consider whatever topic wed be covering.

I taught other ROTC students at Moravian, but he struck me as unique in the sense that he was eager to really understand how our past informs our present, something every history professor hopes for among her students! We didnt use the term back then, but he was the student who I could count on to lean in, wanting to get as much out of his class experience as he could.

Remer said she has lost track of Seiferts family, though a Lehigh Valley News report indicates Terry Flowers-Seifert and son Benjamin eventually moved locally. Benjamin was four months old when his father died. He is now 20 and in college.

He and Terry were a lovely couple with such a promising future ahead of them, Remer said.

More than 1,000 mourners gathered at Central Moravian Church in Bethlehem to honor U.S. Army Capt. Christopher Scott Seifert .

Seifert was a lifelong member of the church to which his family belonged for more than 30 years.

Led by a police motorcycle escort, the funeral procession arrived behind Central Moravian Church shortly before 1 p.m. A contingent of 11 firefighters from the New York City Fire Department stood at attention as the procession drove down Heckwelder Place.

While the eight-piece Herald Trumpets from the Valley Forge Military Academy played the hymn Abide with Me, six military pallbearers from the 1079th Support Battalion out of Fort Dix, N.J., moved with quiet precision as they carried Seiferts flag-draped casket into the church.

During the service the Rev. Carol A. Reifinger recalled that Seifert loved pranks and was always smiling, said Howard Cooper, a former Marine from Allentown who attended the funeral.

They said he could find the rainbow in any situation, Cooper said. He just seemed to live a really full life in just 27 short years. The Express-Times, April 6, 2003

Reifinger, now a former senior pastor and active retiree at Central Moravian Church, recalls the challenge of planning the funeral for Seifert, who had become a national figure.

We walked kind of a respectful line between what we knew the family wanted and what the public expected to hear and to see, said Reifinger. The church had to be flexible on some of its traditions, allowing Seiferts flag-draped casket to be displayed and patriotic music to be played.

Central Moravian Church still finds ways to honor Seiferts memory. The churchs seasonal Christmas shop, the Star & Candle Shoppe which Reifinger runs and Seiferts mother helps benefits various causes including the Christopher Scott Seifert Fund for Christian Education. His photo and background are displayed every year.

Reifinger knew Christopher through the confirmation program and saw him grow from a fun-loving teenager into a husband and father. She officiated his wedding and shared in service for his funeral.

You remember the last time you were together with him. I remember him in his dress blues getting married, Reifinger said.

I prefer to remember Chris on the day of his wedding.

In an emotional moment during the inaugural Freddy Awards, the widow of slain U.S. Army Capt. Christopher Scott Seifert presented Saucon Valley High School with the award for Outstanding Stage Crew.

Upon her introduction, the audience greeted Theresa Seifert with a long standing ovation.

Please know that by welcoming me, you are welcoming those who lost their lives for our country, she said.

As a member of Wilson Areas stage crew, Christopher Seifert learned technical skills and know-how and also learned life lessons such as teamwork and responsibility, Theresa Seifert said.

It contributed to the character of the fine man he became, she said. The Express-Times, May 23, 2003

The Freddy Awards have become an institution, and the Outstanding Stage Crew award is still offered every year in his honor. Wilson, his alma mater, won it in 2007.

This years Freddys will be Thursday, May 25.

This story is part of Lehigh Valley Then, a periodic series that recalls historical headlines from lehighvalleylive.com, The Express-Times and their predecessors from 10, 20, 25, 50 and 100 years ago. Stories are pulled from microfilm at the Easton and Bethlehem area public libraries.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to lehighvalleylive.com.

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com.

Continue reading here:
Among the first casualties of Iraq War, a Lehigh Valley natives memory lives on 20 years later - lehighvalleylive.com

Updated 19 March 2023

Image source, Daily Mirror Gulf coverage

Fires burned around Saddam Hussein's Council of Ministers building during the first wave of attacks in March 2003

The bombs that lit up the night skies of Iraq in March 2003 were described by military powers in the west as "shock and awe".

It marked the start of the US and UK-led invasion of the country and the removal of leader Saddam Hussein.

The British public were told Iraq had, and was developing, weapons of mass destruction that posed an imminent threat to the UK and its allies.

Thirteen years later, Sir John Chilcot's inquiry into the war found intelligence "had not established beyond doubt either that Saddam Hussein had continued to produce chemical and biological weapons or that efforts to develop nuclear weapons continued".

Now, 20 years on, some of those involved in the war, or directly affected by it, look back on the conflict and consider its legacy.

'War cost me my son'

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'My son died in a hell-hole in Iraq'

On 24 June 2003, three months after the initial invasion, L/Cpl Thomas Keys from Llanuwchllyn, near Bala in Gwynedd, was killed near Amara in south-east Iraq when British Military Police were attacked by a mob of Iraqi civilians in a dispute over British patrols in the area.

Tom's father, Reg Keys, said his son and his fellow soldiers were sent into a "hell hole" with "no working radio, no satellite phone, no flares, no morphine, no grenades and just 50 rounds of ammunition".

Mr Keys would come to believe the UK had been taken to war on a false pretence and hoped in his heart "that one day the prime minister may be able to say sorry".

Born of two worlds

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Welsh-Iraqi Hussein Said says the racism he endured during the war made him hate Wales for a time

Having an Iraqi father and a Welsh mother proved to be a confusing time for Hussein Said.

Only 10 years old, he found himself targeted by schoolyard bullies and said the racism he experienced made him "hate" Wales for a time.

"It was something I found difficult to reconcile - that Iraq/Wales identity".

'We went to war on a lie'

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Iraq War based on lies, minister claims

Lord Peter Hain was a member of Tony Blair's cabinet at the time and the former Secretary of State for Wales now regrets his decision to vote for the war.

"I believed the intelligence, because it was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and I knew he'd used them [before].

"And tragically, that intelligence was shown to be completely false. And so we went to war on a lie."

'We didn't change a lot'

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"There were a lot of things wrong about it," says Lee West two decades after the invasion

Lee West, from Swansea, signed up for the Royal Marines in 2002 and found himself deployed to Iraq three years after UK military involvement should have ended.

"We were in the transition phase for the country where, yes, Saddam had gone, but how's the country now going to operate?"

Twenty years on, Lee has mixed feelings about the outcome: "It was, yes, successful, and we did a lot of things, changed a lot of things within what we were asked to do, but in the grand scheme we didn't change a lot."

The soldiers sent to war

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Soldier Liam Spillane has doubt over the war's success

Liam Spillane joined the Army in 1999 and was deployed to Iraq in 2005 - despite trying to be "that approachable soldier" for Iraqis, dangers on the ground played on his mind.

"I remember one night I thought I'd had a dream. I dreamt that I was alone on a patrol and I was calling out, 'don't leave me, I'm all alone.'

"It turns out that I'd actually woken up shouting 'don't leave me' and things like that, and it was really, really scary."

When UK troops left Iraq in 2009, more than 200 British citizens and 150,000 Iraqis had died, with more than one million people displaced.

Mr Keys believes the war was a mistake: "We didn't need to go to war with Iraq. It was a war of option, not necessity.

"It [war] has to be the last and final option. When all other avenues have failed. But with Iraq it was almost a first option."

See more here:
The Iraq War: Five voices from Wales, 20 years on - BBC

Baghdad, Iraq Haj Mohammed al-Khashali has outlived four sons and one grandson, killed together when a car bomb tore through Mutanabbi Street in 2007.

Sixteen years later, and 20 years after the United States-led invasion of his country, 89-year-old Haj Mohammed is still serving tea in the Shabandar coffee house, on the corner of the historic street he first encountered as a child running along it towards the Tigris River.

Back then, it was not yet known as the Booksellers Street, but everyone knew of the 10th-century Arab poet Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabbi who wrote of war, courage, and love whom it was named after in 1932, during the reign of King Faisal I.

Little did al-Khashali know back then that he was running past the building housing his future coffee shop, which had been standing since 1904 and functioning as a coffee shop since 1917.

Observing his customers from behind his old wooden desk earlier this month, al-Khashali recalled the academic meet-ups of the 1960s, after he began renting the property in 1963, and Shabandar played host to political debates over tea and packs of cards.

The walls of Shabandar are lined with photographs of prominent politicians from an earlier time and the framed faces of al-Khashalis four sons and grandchild, who were among the 30 people killed in the March 2007 suicide attack on the street outside. He has three surviving children, one son and two daughters.

When I was young, photography was my hobby, I loved pictures. When the explosion damaged the building in 2007, I had the archives of all the photos, so I printed them again, he explains. Despite the pain, I promised myself after the explosion that I would renovate this place.

But during the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 that overthrew former president Saddam Hussein, and the resultant sectarian conflict, Mutanabbi Street was not spared the violence as armed groups resisted the invasion and then fought each other.

By the time the US declared the end of its mission in Iraq and withdrew in December 2011, between 110,000 and 120,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed, according to the Iraq Body Count project.

That number has gone up to at least 200,000 civilians and 288,000 Iraqis in total including combatants who have died violently in the 20 years since 2003, the project says, as the country faced devastating challenges, including the rise of armed groups. Today, the United Nations says nearly one-third of Iraqs 42 million population lives in poverty.

I lost four of my children because of what happened after 2003, and its still an open scar in my heart that wont heal, al-Khashali says, as a bulbul shifts nearby in a wooden birdcage suspended from the ceiling. They took down one dictator and implemented many others, he says, referring to the persistent political challenges and corruption that have plagued the country.

Kadhim had not been to Mutanabbi Street much since 2003, but had come from Erbil, the capital of northern Iraqs semi-autonomous Kurdish region, where she has lived since 2014, to see what the street looked like after recent renovations.

In the 1970s, I worked at the general automotive company, and I used to visit this street with my colleagues every day after work, she remembers. I felt different when I walked in [today]; I didnt feel the historical identity of the place any more.

Many of the booksellers on Mutanabbi recall the invasion and occupation. Jaafar Karim, 69, opened his business on the street in 1992, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and at the beginning of a decade of sanctions.

There is a vast difference between Mutanabbi pre-2003 and Mutanabbi post-2003, especially in the freedom of writing and publishing, he says. Now there is more freedom in acquiring books and no censorship or ban on books.

A neighbouring bookshop owner, Mohammed al-Kutubi, agrees, even amid growing fears among some of a clampdown on freedom of speech including the recent sentencing of six people to prison for social media usage deemed by a governmental committee to be indecent, and the increasing role of religion in politics most recently evident in the passing of a law banning the import of alcohol.

During the sectarian war, it was difficult to reach the street at times, and we faced threats from extremists, he adds, rearranging his books. A lot of my colleagues died in the 2007 explosion.

Both the booksellers and locals are less pleased with the recent renovations of the street. Paid for by a donation from the Central Bank of Iraq and the Iraqi Private Banks League, work, including redoing the street and pavements in stone, installing a new lighting system, and painting the buildings on the main street, began in August 2021 and ended three months later at a cost of $3m, according to Omar al-Handal, representative director of Baghdad-based construction company Diamond Loft.

We restored the buildings as they used to be, al-Handal says. It was a deserted, dark area full of stray dogs and now there is life, he said.

Look at this! Its paint, its not the authentic colour of the bricks, bookshop manager Nabil Ali laughs, pointing at the graceful walls of the Baghdadi Cultural Center that hugs the bank of the Tigris beside the Mutanabbi statue. The 11th-century building with its courtyards and arched walkways has been through a number of incarnations since it was built as a stunning palace for Abbasid Caliph al-Mustazhir Billah, serving as an Ottoman archive, then a military school and then a civil court, before the governorate rehabilitated it after it was vandalised during the invasion.

But 65-year-old Ali is more concerned about rising costs. Locals say the improvements have led to increased rents, making their livelihoods ever more untenable in a country of rising exchange rates, dinar devaluations and endemic corruption.

The building owner doubled my rent because the street has become a magnet to visitors until late hours, says one bookshop owner, Baraa al-Bayati.

Inside another of Mutanabbis stores, a 50-year-old man, who refused to share his name, said: How would I describe how the street has changed in the past 20 years? How would I describe Iraq? No education, no health system, and no infrastructure.

He lights a cigarette. I cried when I saw American troops entering Baghdad, and I was surprised to see some people welcoming them with flowers!

If Mutanabbi Street is the face of Baghdad today, it is a complex picture. For some, the street is a symbol of a new and wealthier country, ripe for investment; for others, it is a place of loss, and a memory of a more cosmopolitan city yet to return. They long for a past they understood.

Saddam was a dictator, but I think it was the most effective way to run a country like Iraq, the man continues. What is democracy? And what do we gain out of it in these 20 years? Nothing. Just corruption, killing and destruction.

Link:
Mutanabbi Street slowly re-emerges, 20 years on from Iraq war - Al Jazeera English

Military

Report says UK armed service has major questions to answer about conduct in war against Islamic State

Thu 23 Mar 2023 10.54 EDT

Twenty-nine civilians are feared to have been killed in nine RAF airstrikes in Iraq and Syria between 2016 and 2018, 10 more than previous estimates, and far higher than the single non-combatant fatality accepted by the UK, according to analysis.

In the worst incident, 12 civilians were accepted as likely to have been killed in Raqqa, Syria in 2017 by a US strike, while research points to an RAF drone strike killing at least four member of the same family in Abu Kamal, Syria, in 2016, according to on-the-ground reports.

The reports authors, the London-based charity Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), says the analysis showed the RAF had major questions to answer about the conduct of the war against Islamic State (IS), but the Ministry of Defence insisted there was no evidence of civilian casualties.

Earlier this week, a Guardian investigation identified six RAF airstrikes in Mosul, Iraq, that killed civilians during same period as that covered by the analysis. The latest data also examined British bombing in Syria as part of Operation Shader, the UK contribution to the war against IS that began nearly nine years ago.

RAF Typhoon jets launched an attack on 13 August 2017, purportedly against enemy fighters operating mortars. Syrian media reported there had been up to 12 civilians killed a figure subsequently accepted by the US Central Command, which has overall responsibility for the campaign against the terrorist group.

US Central Command released a statement, acknowledging dozens of civilian casualties, mostly from US strikes, but also referenced the attack on Raqqa by date. Regrettably, 12 civilians were unintentionally killed and six were unintentionally injured as a result of the blast, it stated.

The RAF claims to have only caused a single civilian fatality in the fight against IS during the bombing of a group of terrorists in a vehicle in March 2018 in Syrias Euphrates Valley. However, concerns about that assertion have lingered for several years after US admissions and other leaks. The US says 1,437 civilians have been unintentionally killed in 35,000 airstrikes.

The RAF is an integral part of the campaign against IS. MPs voted for RAF participation in strikes against targets in Iraq in September 2014 and Syria in December 2015, with jets and drones having flown more than 5,500 combat missions and fired more than 4,300 missiles.

Dr Iain Overton, the executive director of AOAV, said delayed or incomplete reporting made it difficult for independent groups to assess the impact of British airstrikes. However, he said, the research showed there are some major questions that the RAF should answer in relation to civilian harm from its airstrike missions, questions that all too often are ignored and rejected.

Britain says it takes reports of civilian casualties very seriously. An MoD spokesperson added: The UK always minimises the risk of civilian casualties through our rigorous processes and carefully examines a range of evidence to do this, including comprehensive analysis of the mission data for every strike.

Two Reaper drones struck targets in Abu Kamal, Syria, on 21 April 2016 using Hellfire missiles that were aimed at an improvised weapons factory and car bomb.

At least four and up to 10 members of one family were killed when their house was targeted, said Airwars, a research group that monitors western bombing in the war on IS. Its estimate is based on a compilation of reports from Syrian media.

At the time of the strike, the RAF said there was no indication of any civilian casualties in our own detailed assessments of the incident. However, the research concluded that the weight of local reporting led to the conclusion that the RAF were responsible, or, at the very least, involved in the targeting which led to civilian casualties.

Although the research focused on a two-year period ending in 2018, questions remain about RAF airstrikes. Earlier this month, it emerged that the MoD was refusing to say whether it had investigated reports of civilian casualties after an RAF drone strike against a terrorist target in northern Syria in December.

The fresh analysis of strike data was taken from combining assessments made by the US, internal Pentagon data leaked to the New York Times, analyses from Airwars and reports from international and local media.

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RAF airstrikes killed 29 civilians in Iraq and Syria in two years, analysis suggests - The Guardian