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swartzkaulf

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  1. Sectarian Attacks Return With a Roar to Iraq, Rattling a Capital Already on Edge Karim Kadim/Associated Press The aftermath of a car-bomb attack in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad last month. BAGHDAD — The black-masked soldier stood at the army checkpoint examining the identification cards of each passenger, denying entry to anyone who did not live in the Sunni district of Ameriya. One resident later said entering his neighborhood now felt like crossing the border into a different country. “This neighborhood is full of bad people,” said the soldier at the checkpoint as police officers rounded up people suspected of being terrorists in Ameriya, an operation that locals said targeted them only for being Sunni. Across the country, the sectarianism that almost tore Iraq apart after the American-led invasion in 2003 is surging back. The carnage has grown so bloody, with the highest death toll in five years, that truck drivers insist on working in pairs — one Sunni, one Shiite — because they fear being attacked for their sect. Iraqis are numb to the years of violence, yet always calculating the odds as they move through the routine of the day, commuting to work, shopping for food, wondering if death is around the corner. Adel Ibrahim, a 41-year-old engineer, guessed wrong. On Aug. 6, to prepare for the evening iftar, the meal to break the day’s Ramadan fast, Mr. Ibrahim went to a butcher shop in the central Karrada neighborhood to pick up meat for kebabs. Outside the shop, a Kia minivan exploded, killing Mr. Ibrahim and five others. The next day Mr. Ibrahim’s father, Saleem Ibrahim, was in tears. “They took my son and my dream away,” he said. The drastic surge in violence — mainly car bombs planted by Al Qaeda’s Iraq affiliate against the Shiite majority, and the security sweeps in majority-Sunni neighborhoods that follow — has lent a new sense of Balkanization to this city. Security forces have increasingly restricted the movements of Iraqis in and out of Sunni areas, relying on the neighborhoods listed on residence cards as an indicator of a sect. Sunnis also fear reprisals from reconstituted Shiite militias, groups once responsible for some of the worst of the sectarian carnage that gripped Iraq just a few years ago. Even for the hardened residents of the capital, long accustomed to the intrusion of violence into everyday life, the latest upswing in attacks has been disorienting, altering life and routines in a manner that has cast a pall of fear over this city. The targets of the attacks are not usually government ministries or luxury hotels, places many ordinary Iraqis can safely avoid. They are the markets and cafes, mostly in Shiite areas, that dominate neighborhood routines. During morning commutes, some Iraqis are taking circuitous routes to work to avoid central streets where bombs have struck. The sight of a Kia minivan, a vehicle of choice for bombers, caught in traffic causes fear. Neighborhood soccer teams are canceling matches because those, too, have become targets. Taxi drivers are again making decisions about where to drive based on the rising sectarian tensions that have resulted from the resurgent violence. “Last year the situation was better,” said a Sunni taxi driver who gave his nickname of Abu Omar. “I wasn’t afraid to go anywhere, but this year I am worried about going to Shiite neighborhoods, like Shula or Hurriya, because I keep hearing that the militias are coming back.” After Mr. Ibrahim was killed, the next wave of attacks came four days later, on Saturday evening, as Iraqis were celebrating the end-of-Ramadan festivities known as Id al-Fitr. A young bride-to-be, in her white wedding dress, sat in a hair salon when a parked car just outside blew up. The woman survived with only a small injury to her hand. “She was so brave, she cried for a few minutes, but then decided to continue, and made it to her wedding,” said Said Haneen, the owner of the salon. “That’s how we Iraqis are.” Across town that evening, a cigarette vendor named Jalal Hussain was wounded in another explosion. The next morning his stall was back in business. “It’s a struggle for existence,” he said, as he sold a customer a pack of Marlboros. “I have to feed my family. I have to open again, as long as I am alive. I have witnessed many other explosions, but this one was the closest. We have to keep on surviving. If you are lucky, you will survive another day.”Often, the fear briefly abates after a day of bombings. Surely, the thinking goes, big attacks will not come on back-to-back days. “Customers are already calling to see if we opened or not,” Mr. Haneen said on the morning after the explosion near his salon. “Today, I know there will be no explosions, as yesterday there were many. Maybe in the next two or three days we will witness another wave of bombings, but not today.” For Iraqis, the violence feels permanent, their country’s perpetual decline, inevitable. The space between ordinary citizens and their political leaders, garrisoned in the increasingly fortified Green Zone, where the government has positioned new tanks and soldiers and sought to make entry even more restricted, has never felt wider. Iraqis long ago lost confidence in the ability of their security forces, trained by the Americans at a cost of billions of dollars, to protect them. Now they feel increasingly mocked by their leaders, whose latest pronouncements of security successes are met with revulsion. A few hours before the attacks on Saturday evening, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki sent a text message to every citizen with a mobile phone, wishing all a happy Id al-Fitr and “security, stability and prosperity.” Hours after the attacks, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, Saad Maan, appeared on state television, praised the security forces for a job well done and said that only two people had died, including an officer trying to defuse a bomb. But according to an Interior Ministry official and news reports, more than three dozen people were killed, and more than 100 were wounded. This prompted mocking comparisons on Facebook between Mr. Maan and the Saddam Hussein-era information minister, Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf, who in 2003 proclaimed the Iraqi Army was valiantly pushing back the American invaders, who were in fact fast closing in on Baghdad. This violence is real, and it appears at least partly driven by events beyond the borders of Iraq, in Syria, where a civil war is raging. The United Nations recently warned that the sectarian battlefields of Syria and Iraq are “merging,” as the border between the two countries has become a revolving door for Sunni extremists. At the same time, Shiite militiamen from Iraq, supported by Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, head over to support the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, while also reasserting themselves on the streets of Baghdad. At the checkpoint at the entrance to Ameriya, the Sunni district, the soldier sent away a man who was trying to get to his job at a cafe. “I’ve worked there for years,” the man said. “You know me. Take my ID. I have to go to work.” Inside Ameriya, Othman al-Kubaisi, who owns a cosmetics store, said customers from other parts of the city had stopped coming. “The government treats us like we have been torturing them for years, and now it’s time for them to take revenge on us,” he said. Like many in this fractured city these days, Mr. Kubaisi tries to stick close to home when he can, routinely leaving only to stock up on supplies for his store. “It’s better to avoid problems and stay home,” he said.
  2. BAGHDAD (Reuters) - In an evening in late June, Yasir al-Nuaimi draped an Iraqi flag over his shoulder and headed out to watch a soccer match being shown on television at a cafe in western Baghdad. The 20-year-old told his mother to pray for his team to win. Later that night a bomb hidden inside a grocery bag tore through the cafe where he and other football fans had gathered to watch the Iraqi national youth team play against Egypt. One minute the men were cheering for their team and the next screaming in terror and pain, witnesses said. "Why did they kill my young son?" Yasir's father Ahmed said. In tears, he sat in the family home holding Yasir's Iraqi flag, stiff with his son's dried blood. "He was only watching a game! They killed me and his mother too, not just him. They broke our hearts." Iraqis have endured extreme violence for years, but since the since the start of 2013 the intensity of attacks on civilians has dramatically increased, reversing a trend that had seen the country grow more peaceful. Attacks have spread to some of the few places left for public entertainment, turning Baghdad into a giant fortified prison of concrete blast walls, where once again few now dare to socialize in public. The attacks have raised fears of a return to full-blown sectarian conflict in a country where ruling Shi'ites and minority Sunni Muslims and Kurds have yet to find a stable way of sharing power. More than 1,000 Iraqis were killed in July, the highest monthly death toll since 2008, the United Nations said last week. The past four months have all had higher death tolls than any in the five years before April, leading the Interior Ministry to declare last week that Iraq was now once again in "open war", 18 months after U.S. troops pulled out. Most of the violence has been perpetrated by the Iraqi wing of al Qaeda, the strict Sunni Muslim jihadi group which was defeated by U.S. forces and their allies in 2006-2007 but has been reborn this year to battle the Shi'ite-led government. Strict Islamists of both major sects are hostile both to sport and to cafes where women and men mix in social situations. Sectarian tensions have also escalated as a result of the civil war in neighboring Syria, where Iraq's al Qaeda branch has merged with a powerful Sunni Islamist rebel force fighting to overthrow a leader backed by Shi'ite Iran. "Insurgents now are changing rules of the game," said Ali al-Bahadli, a former Iraqi army general and military analyst who works as an adviser to the Ministry of Defense. "With the recent attacks of cafes and football pitches, the message is directed at civilians is that security forces are unable to protect you." CAFES CLOSE DOORS Security analysts say the Sunni insurgents are targeting cafes and football pitches as a way to undermine the Shi'ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, wrecking its claims to have restored normal life after a decade of war. Recent bombings have targeted men playing in local soccer fixtures and watching matches, after spates of attacks on Sunni and Shi'ite mosques, markets and the security forces. According to figures from the Interior Ministry, around 37 cafes across Iraq have been attacked since April. People have begun to avoid public places like cafes and busy markets, fearing from bombs and suicide attacks. After an easing of violence in the past few years led places to reopen, many cafes have now closed again after losing customers. "I can endure the hardship of being without work, but I will never forgive myself if a bomb went off and killed innocent people inside my cafe," said Haider Kadhim, a cafe owner in central Baghdad who decided to close his business down. Going to a cafe has now become the subject of dark humor: "Don't force me to go to a cafe", goes the local joke, comparing a trip out for coffee to a death sentence. "With more security measures cutting Baghdad into pieces, attacks on cafes, mosques and sport areas, we feel we're living deadlocked inside homes," said ceramics artist Mahir Samarrai, who used to haunt the cafes in eastern Baghdad, where men sip strong coffee, puff on water pipes and discuss the day. Amateur football players are also targets, with dozens killed in recent months. "I used to play football and enjoy hanging out with friends, but now my parents would punish me if they knew I'm still playing in secret," said 22-year-old Hussain Abid-Ali, from Sadr City, a vast, poor Shi'ite district in northeast Baghdad. His mother has even taken to hiding his training shoes to prevent him from playing at the neighborhood pitch. "Our eyes are focusing more on what is going on outside the pitch rather than on the ball," he said. Last time he played, the teams fled the pitch in horror after hearing a blast. The Interior Ministry has stepped up security near soccer pitches, cafes and mosques to try to prevent more attacks. The cafes are not only targeted by the bombs of the Sunni insurgency, but are also under pressure from smaller hardline Shi'ite militias, who try to close them by force. The Shi'ite militias, who warn of practices they see as going against their strict interpretation of Islam, were also behind a campaign targeting alcohol sellers in Baghdad which killed 12 people in May. The militias have been emboldened by the success of Shi'ite religious parties which have risen in power since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Last month, a militia group attacked several cafes in central Baghdad. Attackers accused the businesses of employing female waitresses to also work as prostitutes or for selling drugs. Cafe owners and customers denied this, saying the militia were simply looking for excuses to shut them down. One squabble turned into a deadly attack when militiamen tried to break into a cafe. "Suddenly the front window was smashed and I heard angry men shouting: 'Bring the prostitutes or we will set the whole cafe ablaze,'" waitress Zena said. The single mother, who gave only her first name, said she was working as a waitress to survive. She hid inside a disused toilet stall during the gun attack in which a cafe worker and a militiaman were killed, according to police sources. "I was scared to death," Zena said. "What am I guilty of? I'm working to feed my girl. Is this a crime, somebody tell me, please?" Interior Ministry officials said the attack was carried out by "militia acting above the law". Prime Minister Maliki gave an unusual direct statement on the incident, saying the attackers were arrested. "The government will not tolerate militias and gangs that violate freedom of people in order to impose their corrupted opinions under various pretexts," he said on his website. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/cafes-shut-sports-fields-empty-war-returns-iraq-162723091.html
  3. Not to be a stickler, but if this is in the news then where is the link to this story. Otherwise shouldn't it be in the rumors section? Just saying!
  4. RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  5. Excellent Post I agree with his assessment. Now he just has to get out there and show the party that he is the best candidate! :D
  6. This is were we can get our real News Coverage :o
  7. This is to all of who voted for change! Cheers to you all and the destruction of America!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh and if this statement bothers you, then you might want to do your research on persons we put in our government before you Vote! Just saying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  8. Great Post! There should be a political thread so that everyone can post the facts and not there opinions, I say that because peoples opinions piss others off Just saying!!!!!!
  9. Now that is a good way to post a rumor so if nothing happens no one will be upset but if it does then it is a welcomed surprise! Thanks and go dinar!
  10. For all of you that have commented to me as being upset then you are off base. I want peps to understand that if you are to post a rumor have a little discretion like so many others have in the past. There are ways to post a rumor so that people will take it with a grain of salt. Where in randalln's case he kept pumping and then disappeared. I understand what a rumor is and never posted until I read this with the admin. I feel everyone has a write to post there rumors just as it is there right to post there opinions to those rumors. I have seen other peeps post of friends cashing in there dinars, but they showed discretion and they did not get chastise for there rumors like randalln has. As I see it he brought it on himself for the way he conducted this thread. I feel everyone has the right to freedom of speech as log as it is in a professional and respective manner. Have a great New Year everyone!
  11. J904 is completely correct and you are way off base bummper! If anyone should be placed on review it should be randalln! People should be held accountable for there actions! I understand that this is the rumor section, but is it write to post garbage? Here at dinarvets I think that we have a higher standard than the BS that is at the Okie sites. I have been banned from many of them because I commented on the crap like randalln posts and since they were buddies with the admin. I was banned. People need to vent there anger at peeps like randalln. I say this because I too am tired of all the crap that these pumpers put out on the forums and no one steps up to say anything, and it they do there is always admins there to protect them. So bummper be an administator not an enabler! I also dont care how long randalln has been here.
  12. Easy I do appreciate all of the time and work you have put forth on this post . Thank you :D
  13. Well then you need to show me proof of what you are saying because as I see it they all run the same.
  14. I think that this quote bothers me the most The fiscal year does not start in Jan it starts in November and the next quarter of the fiscal year begins in Feb. A fiscal year (or financial year, or sometimes budget year) is a period used for calculating annual ("yearly") financial statements in businesses and other organizations. In many jurisdictions, regulatory laws regarding accounting and taxation require such reports once per twelve months, but do not require that the period reported on constitutes a calendar year (i.e., January through December). Fiscal years vary between businesses and countries. Fiscal year may also refer to the year used for income tax reporting. In addition, many companies find that it is convenient for purposes of comparison and for accurate stock taking to always end their fiscal year on the same day of the week, where local legislation permits. Thus some fiscal years will have 52 weeks and others 53. Major corporations that adopt this approach include Cisco Systems[1] and Tesco.[citation needed] In the United Kingdom, a number of major corporations that were once government owned, such as BT Group and the National Grid, continue to use the government's financial year, which ends on the last day of March, as they have found no reason to change since privatisation. Nevertheless, the fiscal year is identical to the calendar year for about 65% of publicly traded companies in the United States and for a majority of large corporations in the UK[2] and elsewhere (with notable exceptions Australia, New Zealand and Japan).[citation needed] Many universities have a fiscal year which ends during the summer, both to align the fiscal year with the school year, and because the school is normally less busy during the summer months. In the Northern hemisphere this is July in one year to June in the next year. In the southern hemisphere this is January to December of a single calendar year. Some media/communication based organizations use a Broadcast calendar as the basis for their fiscal year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_year
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