Tuesday, September 27, 2005
What's the next in the series and what does the series represent? Fallujah, Tal Afar...
If you guessed "Samarra" and "ethnic cleansing", you'd be correct.
From the UN News service
Hundreds of families have started to flee the Iraqi city of Samara, some 120km north of the capital, Baghdad, following a recent Ministry of Defense announcement that preparations had started for an offensive by Coalition forces against insurgents holed up there, officials said.... the Iraq Red Crescent Society (IRCS) urged the Iraq government not to proceed with their operation, saying the last offensive against insurgents in Talafar had forced nearly 5,000 families to flee the city. "We put all our efforts to help the people who fled Talafar, another operation will just bring more injustice and pain to Iraqis. We had difficulties getting aid to Talafar as our stores were empty and another offensive will be much worse," Ferdous al-Abadi, spokeswoman for the IRCS, said....
Despite the returns, however, thousands of displaced people [from Tal Afar] are still living in camps and surviving on aid from various humanitarian organisations. The fighting also disrupted the school year, which has now been delayed across the city, residents said.
Speaking of which, this AP tidbit on Ariel Sharon's Peace-Prize-in-Process diplomacy:
A United Nations rights expert yesterday said the disengagement from the Gaza Strip has allowed the Jewish state to divert attention from its further expansion into East Jerusalem and other Palestinian territories.
More blogs about politics.
