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More Iraqis Flee As Figure Tops Four Million    [

    One Million Told to Leave Iraqi City As Gunfights Rage
    The Associated Press

    Tuesday 28 August 2007

    Baghdad - More than one million pilgrims were ordered to leave the Shiite holy city of Karbala on Tuesday as the police imposed a curfew after two days of violence that included raging gun battles between what appeared to be rival Shiite militias.

    At least 35 people have been killed during a religious festival there, with nearly 200 wounded, security officials said. The government sent reinforcements from Baghdad to quell growing unrest and help clear Karbala.

    Security officials said gunmen from the Mahdi militia, which is nominally loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, had attacked guards around the two Karbala shrines that were under the protection of the Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a major Shiite party.

    In telephone calls to reporters in Karbala, gunfire and exploding mortar shells could be heard.

    The security officials, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said at least 180 people had been wounded, including women and children.

    A spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf, said "entrances and exits to Karbala have been secured and more forces are on the way from other provinces," including Baghdad. The other officials said buses had been dispatched to Karbala to take pilgrims out of the city.

    Gunshots rang out Tuesday in the area near the Shiite shrines that are the focal point of celebrations marking the birthday of the 12th and last Shiite imam, who disappeared in the ninth century. The festival reaches its high point Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

    Thirty of the dead were killed in fighting on Tuesday; five others died in an outbreak of violence Monday night when pilgrims tried to push past frustratingly slow security checkpoints near the Imam al-Hussein Mosque.

    A member of the City Council said the center of town was in chaos, with pilgrims running in all directions to escape the gunfire. No one, he said, was sure who was doing the shooting. He said a rocket-propelled grenade had exploded near the Hussein Mosque.

    "We don't know what's going on," said the councilman, who would not allow use of his name for security reasons. "All we know is the huge numbers of pilgrims was too much for the checkpoints to handle and now there is shooting."

    Town Gets Its Water Back

    Hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi troops backed by helicopters and jet fighters killed 33 Sunni insurgents who were holding back the water supply to a Shiite town north of Baghdad, The AP reported, citing a statement Tuesday from the U.S. command.

    The assault began before dawn on Monday when a joint force was landed by helicopter in the village of Gubbiya, just east of the Shiite town, Khalis, in Diyala Province. The assault force killed 13 fighters, and attack aircraft killed 20 others, the military said.

    Khalis has been the scene of repeated Sunni insurgent bombings and mortar attacks. The military said the surrounding area is controlled by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

    "The objective of the mission was to open the spillway, which regulates water flow to the town of Khalis, restoring the essential service of water," the statement said.

    The assault uncovered three weapons caches and led to the capture of three men, the military said.

    "Water is currently flowing unimpeded to Khalis," the military's statement said, without specifying whether any U.S. or Iraqi soldiers had been killed or wounded.

    Iranian Offers to Help Iraq

    President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran said Tuesday that Iran was ready to help fill an imminent power vacuum in Iraq, while also defending the Iraq prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who has been criticized by U.S. politicians, The AP reported from Tehran.

    "The political power of the occupiers is collapsing rapidly," Ahmadinejad said at a news conference, referring to the U.S.-led coalition. "Soon, we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course, we are prepared to fill the gap, with the help of neighbors and regional friends like Saudi Arabia, and with the help of the Iraqi nation."

    Ahmadinejad did not elaborate how Iran would fill an eventual power gap in Iraq, but his remarks reflected what may be perceived as Iran's eagerness to have an increasing influence on Iraq's political scene.

    His mentioning a Saudi role may have sought to allay regional fears that Ahmadinejad would want to dominate in Iraq. Even though Riyadh and Tehran have not cooperated in the past, it "doesn't mean it can't happen," Ahmadinejad said.

    Ahmadinejad accused the United States of interfering in Iraq's internal affairs and said any U.S. effort to topple Maliki's government would fail. He dismissed the possibility of any U.S. military action against Tehran, saying Washington had no plan and was not in a position to take such action.

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    More Iraqis Flee As Figure Tops Four Million: UNHCR
    Agence France-Presse

    Tuesday 28 August 2007

    Geneva - More than four million Iraqis have fled their homes because of sectarian violence, the largest population movement in the Middle East since Palestinians left the new state of Israel, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday.

    "An estimated 4.2 million Iraqis have been uprooted from their homes, with the monthly rate of displacement climbing to over 60,000 people compared to 50,000 previously," UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis told journalists.

    More than two million Iraqis are displaced within their own country, with around half being uprooted following the February 2006 Samarra bombings, seen as the catalyst for the latest wave of sectarian conflict, the UNHCR said.

    "Many are barely surviving in makeshift camps, inaccessible to aid workers for security reasons," Pagonis warned.

    Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in sectarian conflict between Shiites and Sunnis, and Pagonis said many families were "choosing to leave ethnically mixed areas before they are forced to do so."

    More than 1.4 million have crossed into neighbouring Syria with between 500,000 and 750,000 heading into Jordan, the UNHCR said.

    The UNHCR and UN children's agency UNICEF have jointly appealed for help in paying for the education of 155,000 Iraqi refugee children, putting forward a figure of 129 million dollars to get them into schools for the 2007-2008 academic years.

    This would allow 100,000 to go to school in Syria, 50,000 in Jordan, 2,000 in Egypt, 1,500 in Lebanon and 1,500 in other regional countries.

    Coinciding with the refugee agency's latest figures of an ever-growing exodus from Iraq, the United States announced it was giving 30 million dollars to the joint UNHCR-UNICEF education initiative.

    "We encourage all potential donors to join us in supporting this appeal," Ellen Sauerbrey, a US assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, said in the Jordanian capital Amman.

    Washington, which led the 2003 war on Iraq, has however been widely criticised for not doing enough in accepting Iraqi refugees waiting in Syria and Jordan for asylum in third countries.

    Only 133 Iraqi refugees have been allowed into the United States since October, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in July, blaming the slow pace on rigorous security vetting of candidates for resettlement.

    Sauerbrey said she was in Jordan and Turkey this past week to discuss ways to expedite resettling Iraqi asylum-seekers.

    "We expect that over 400 Iraqi refugees will travel to the US this month from Jordan, Turkey and Syria and will be resettled in many cities across our country," she said.

    "We are working towards welcoming close to 2,000 Iraqi refugees by the end of September."

    "We have a very strong feeling that it is our moral responsibility to do this (resettle Iraqis). Particularly we have a very moral obligation to those who are in danger because of their association with US forces," Sauerbrey said.

    She also admitted that the process has been "slow."

    "I am the first to admit my own frustration that we have not been able to move larger numbers more quickly," she said, pledging that Washington planned to step up the process in 2008.

    The number of Iraqi asylum seekers in Europe in the first half of 2007 rose to nearly 20,000, the same number received during the whole of 2006, according to the UNHCR.

    Both Damascus and Amman have spoken of the burden posed by the refugees on their infrastructure.

    Jordan has said that sheltering the influx costs the kingdom around one billion dollars a year.

    The Christian relief organisation World Vision on Tuesday described the Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria as "forgotten people," and called international aid agencies their "only hope."