Baghdad

(ANTIWAR) At least 4,033 were killed in Iraq during April, and another 629 were wounded. These figures include a U.S. servicemember, who was killed near Mosul this week. In March, 3,330 people were killed, and another 929 were wounded.

(ANTIWAR) During February, at least 2,748 people were killed and 1,224 were wounded. This is a large drop from January, when 4,176 were reported killed and 1,433 were injured. The reduction is likely due to an extensive break in the fighting in Mosul.

The move signals a shift from Iraq’s previous dependence on the United States.

The report is sure to galvanize calls for Blair to be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court [Xinhua]
Sir John Chilcot, tasked with investigating the United Kingdom’s role in the build-up, invasion and occupation of Iraq, published his report today sending a damning indictment of Washington’s and London’s mishandling of intelligence and exaggerating the need for war.

A man from a refugee camp waits to vaccinate his daughter in Baghdad, Iraq [Xinhua]
A new report released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says that a third of all Iraqi children require humanitarian aid while as many as 20 per cent are in danger of exploitation.
UNICEF says that there are at least 1.5 million children displaced by conflict in Iraq, with that number likely to rise if and when the Iraqi army moves to liberate the northern city of Mosul from the clutches of the Islamic State.

As Baghdad reels from a wave of suicide bombings claimed by Islamist extremists which have killed and wounded over 400 in the past week, there are lessons to be learned from how the media deals with these terror attacks – whether they are in the Middle East or in the heart of Europe.
Semantics and social media narratives are crucial battlegrounds in the war against terrorism.

Photo credit:  A handout picture released by the acting Iraqi Prime Minster’s Office shows newly-appointed Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi (R) meeting with the Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi in Baghdad (AFP)
 
 
 

 The new Prime Minister Haidar Abadi needs to bring independent Sunnis to power and have them shoulder responsibility for security and nation-building – this is the only way to prevent them from one day tilting towards the ISIS

 In Iraq the army shows no signs of recovering from its earlier defeats and has failed to launch a single successful counter-attack; in Syria the other opposition groups, including the battle-hardened fighters of al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham, are demoralised and disintegrating as they are squeezed between ISIS and the Assad government.