Threat To Iraqi Citizens

Last week I spoke to a member of a respectable family in Baghdad. They live in Athamiah which is near the river Tigris. This family are well known in the area, the extended families being more than 5. Recently they each received a bullet in an envelope accompanied by a letter warning them to leave their homes. There is no authority there to complain to, it is not known exactly who has sent these letters. Not to comply however, would mean almost certain death for various family members.
Those targeted are given no chance or choice but to leave in the 24 hours specified. The USA can't or won't do anything to help in these matters. They keep as low a profile as they can and let the crooks, murderers and thieves have their day. How can you just get up and move your whole family, including children and your elderly parents, out of the area or even the country? Where do you go? Even if you have relatives elswhere and move in with them, how long can they sustain you until the next bullet comes either by letter or by air? People no longer waste their time worrying about where their next meal is coming from, or when the intermittent electricity will come back on. Now their only thoughts are whether they or their loved ones and friends will live through the next few hours without being kidnapped and tortured or killed.
This is the Baghdad of today, its people held to ransom by gangs of utterly unscrupulous fanatics who have overrun this ancient land. Who can tell how many Iraqies have fled the country?

Those left are too poor to afford the high price of the bus fares to Jordan or Syria and the high rents the greedy landlords in these countries are now charging the fleeing Iraqies. No where to run, and no where to hide. What with the systematic destruction of Lebanon the refugee situation in these areas has now spiralled out of control. Up to one million Lebanese are seeking refuge in the mountains or trying to enter surrounding countries. What will the outcome be? We are all waiting to find out, because this is a concentrated effort to destroy the Middle East, but the world will not keep quiet on this one.


Palestinian parliament speaker arrested(Agencies)Updated: 2006-08-06 10:40
Israeli forces arrested the speaker of the Palestinian parliament at his house in the West Bank early Sunday, and pressed their month long offensive in Gaza.
Palestinian Parliament speaker Abdel Aziz Duaik arrives at the Palestinian Legislative Council in the West Bank town of Ramallah, in this Monday, July 3, 2006 file photo. [AP]About 20 Israeli army vehicles surrounded the house of parliament speaker Abdel Aziz Duaik, a member of Hamas, and took him into custody, the director of the speaker's office said. Israel claimed that as a Hamas leader, he was a target for arrest.
On June 29, Israeli forces in the West Bank rounded up dozens of Hamas officials, including eight Cabinet ministers. Only one was released.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas called the arrest "another crime of piracy by the Israeli occupation against the elected representatives of our people" and called for international community action to win release for him and the other arrested officials.
The roundup was part of Israel's campaign against Hamas since a June 25 cross-border raid in which Hamas-linked militants killed two Israeli soldiers and captured another. Israel has demanded the release of the soldier and an end to the firing of homemade rockets at Israel by militants.
Seventeen Palestinians have been killed since Israeli troops and tanks moved back into southern Gaza three days ago. On Saturday airstrikes killed six Palestinians and tanks rolled to the edge of Rafah, officials said.
The Red Cross requested last week to visit the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. A Red Cross official said the request was made in a meeting with Palestinian factions in Gaza, but was denied.
On Saturday, Hamas said such a visit was "not appropriate at a time when more than 10,000 Palestinian families are denied to visit their prisoners detained in Israel."
Israeli Cabinet minister Ophir Pines said there could be no comparison between Hamas holding a soldier in a secret hideout without access to humanitarian organizations and Israel's custody of Palestinians accused of terrorist activity.