i have seen my fair share of violence. War is war and sometime it is a necessary evil but its still nothing to celebrate.
Hell up in Syria and Iraq
- Thread starter 88m3
- Start date
i have seen my fair share of violence. War is war and sometime it is a necessary evil but its still nothing to celebrate.
Arrogance.
King Novak of Melbourne, the First of His Name
Didn't even make it 20 minutes into that ISIS propaganda flick. Crazy how they really think nothing of running up on people and unloading AKs on them, drivebys, and all kinds of shyt. Smh.
They released a vid yesterday where they took a couple HUNDRED dudes made them dig a huge ditch, get in, and unloaded on all of them. Never seen that many people go at one time. It reminded me of being in school and reading about the nazis killing thousands of jews at a time, could never fathom it
Don't worry it's coming to us very soon...as soon as the guns are taken away.
did one of you faggits report the ISIS twitter page?
ltheghost
Payin Debts.... N40
you think they will do us like this breh
Ain't no fukking way you gonna get to me to dig a ditch.....Hell no! What type of shyt is this? So they just thought they were going to walk them to the ditch and talk it out?!
dudes looked disconnected from reality, weird study in human nature if you ask me, they knew they were going to die, you could see it in there faces, pale & blank here but not here, it was either extend your life for 5 more minutes while dig or just got out earlier than everybody else
you think they will do us like this breh
It's coming once the 2nd amendment is abolished.
ISIS cubscoutsok between this and seeing two dudes crucified and hung up i think am done for today
ltheghost
Payin Debts.... N40
DAMN! But f that...I'm going down fighting. You can't lead me no where! Look how they did them...
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
ok between this and seeing two dudes crucified and hung up i think am done for today
the voice of an angel
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
@Broke Wave probably can't even sing
let me hear and you try and top this on the next podcast
al hum'du Allah al hum'du Allah al hum'du Allah
let me hear and you try and top this on the next podcast
al hum'du Allah al hum'du Allah al hum'du Allah
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Dodging Militias, Stockpiling Food: Life in Baghdad Today
By Caroline Alexander Jun 17, 2014 7:01 PM ET
1 Comment Email Print
Save
June 18 (Bloomberg) –- In “The Big Picture,” Bloomberg’s Angie Lau reports on the top stories of the day on Bloomberg Television’s “First Up.” (Source: Bloomberg)
Related
Sinan Al Dulaimi, 43, works for the United Nations in Baghdad, where he has lived in the eastern Zayouna area since he was 14.
In a telephone interview on June 16, he described life in a 1,300-year-old capital with about 7 million people that has fallen from being one of the Arab world’s cultural hubs to a ghettoized city marred by bomb blasts and sectarian killings.
His neighborhood was established by former President Abdel Karim Qasim, who took power in a 1958 coup and gave 600-square-meter plots to army officers to build homes.
Now, fighters from Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant are about 50 miles from Baghdad after taking Mosul and Tikrit in the north. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani have called for Shiites to arm themselves to counter the radical Sunni group.
“The situation in Baghdad is very bad. The entrance to the city closes at 10 p.m.; it used to close at 1 a.m. Curfew starts at midnight and ends at 5 a.m.
‘‘Soldiers are checking identification papers at checkpoints and since last Friday’s fatwa against ISIL by the Shia clerics, Shia militia have been deployed on the streets and have set up illegal checkpoints.’’ [Dulaimi is Sunni.]
‘Huge Lines’
‘‘You can see huge lines of people outside banks trying to withdraw cash. Otherwise, the streets are mostly empty.
Photographer: Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images
A member of the Iraqi security forces mans a checkpoint in the capital Baghdad.
‘‘We’ve stockpiled food. We’re all worried about food -- cooking oil, rice, those basics -- and prices are rising. Ten kilos of rice usually costs $10, now it costs more than $25.
‘‘I limit my movements to my neighborhood. Each one is closed on itself, many surrounded by checkpoints and concrete, which they put up in 2007 after the sectarian violence of end-2005 and 2006. My neighborhood has just one exit/entrance.
‘‘Sunni, Shia, Kurds, Christians have all lived here. It’s still mixed but it’s Shia majority now. People who moved here recently are buying the houses of former army officers. It’s a dream for them, and they’re trying to fit in so there are no extremists or sectarians. For my safety this is good, to be protected by Shia. Sometimes we hear stories about local killings, but they’re fueled by money, not sectarianism.’’
‘‘I want to avoid car bombings, another reason I don’t leave my neighborhood. I do shopping here though it costs more - - five loaves of bread is $1 versus in the local market outside where $1 buys 10 loaves. Here, it’s about $14-15 per kilo of mutton, outside it’s $10.
Buying Water
‘‘Tap water isn’t healthy for cooking or drinking; we have to buy that, too.
‘‘Power only comes on for about 4-6 hours a day so I supplement with private generators. I pay, like, $250 a month for that. You can’t use ACs with private generators, just TVs, fridges, lights andair coolers. In 1985, my house was cooled by ACs. Now, we use air coolers. We didn’t even use them during the 1970s.
‘‘There’s no electricity and there’s garbage everywhere, but house prices have been getting higher and higher. In my neighborhood, you can’t buy a house for less than $300,000 and that would be for a 150-square-meter house. For 600 square meters, it’s not less than $900,000, up to $1.2 million.
‘‘The average salary isn’t enough to cover all this.”
Rising Crime
“Crime has also been a big problem over the last two to three years and not just in Baghdad but all the provinces, except way up north. Especially robberies. If you work as a contractor or have a good job, organized gangs have information about you. I never used to lock the doors. Now, we lock them and we have security systems.
‘‘We moved our daughter to a private Christian school in the neighborhood. It’s summer holidays so she’s not going. It’s unsafe for her to go outside, but I find things for her to do inside.
‘‘This is the beginning of more sectarian violence and there’s nothing Maliki can do. He’s the problem.
‘‘It started two years ago with peaceful protests in Sunni areas like Ramadi. They had demands and there were solutions. But he called them extremists when it wasn’t the case and sent security forces to attack them. That happened several times. Then they picked up guns and there were weekly clashes between security forces and the tribes. He doesn’t know anything about politics.”
Protecting Daughter
“My wife is a teacher -- her school is inside the neighborhood -- we have daily discussions about what’s going on. All our worries are about our daughter, who’s 9. We saw a lot in our lives and don’t want her to see any of that. We have to leave. We can’t go somewhere inside Iraq because it’s the same everywhere.
‘‘This country used to be secular. Religion was private, for the home, the mosque, not the street.
‘‘I can’t remember what I did yesterday but I remember my childhood clearly. It was a glorious age for me. I had so many friends -- boys and girls -- we used to play outside, we went to theaters, cinemas, parties, up north in the summer. Boys of 14 ask me what I was doing at their age and they’re shocked it could have been like that. They’re living in a different time. We don’t hear laughter in the streets anymore.
‘‘We never imagined that one day we’d reach this point. I think this is the end. This country has collapsed.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...s-stockpiling-food-life-in-baghdad-today.html
By Caroline Alexander Jun 17, 2014 7:01 PM ET
1 Comment Email Print
Save
June 18 (Bloomberg) –- In “The Big Picture,” Bloomberg’s Angie Lau reports on the top stories of the day on Bloomberg Television’s “First Up.” (Source: Bloomberg)
Related
Sinan Al Dulaimi, 43, works for the United Nations in Baghdad, where he has lived in the eastern Zayouna area since he was 14.
In a telephone interview on June 16, he described life in a 1,300-year-old capital with about 7 million people that has fallen from being one of the Arab world’s cultural hubs to a ghettoized city marred by bomb blasts and sectarian killings.
His neighborhood was established by former President Abdel Karim Qasim, who took power in a 1958 coup and gave 600-square-meter plots to army officers to build homes.
Now, fighters from Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant are about 50 miles from Baghdad after taking Mosul and Tikrit in the north. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani have called for Shiites to arm themselves to counter the radical Sunni group.
“The situation in Baghdad is very bad. The entrance to the city closes at 10 p.m.; it used to close at 1 a.m. Curfew starts at midnight and ends at 5 a.m.
‘‘Soldiers are checking identification papers at checkpoints and since last Friday’s fatwa against ISIL by the Shia clerics, Shia militia have been deployed on the streets and have set up illegal checkpoints.’’ [Dulaimi is Sunni.]
‘Huge Lines’
‘‘You can see huge lines of people outside banks trying to withdraw cash. Otherwise, the streets are mostly empty.
Photographer: Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images
A member of the Iraqi security forces mans a checkpoint in the capital Baghdad.
‘‘We’ve stockpiled food. We’re all worried about food -- cooking oil, rice, those basics -- and prices are rising. Ten kilos of rice usually costs $10, now it costs more than $25.
‘‘I limit my movements to my neighborhood. Each one is closed on itself, many surrounded by checkpoints and concrete, which they put up in 2007 after the sectarian violence of end-2005 and 2006. My neighborhood has just one exit/entrance.
‘‘Sunni, Shia, Kurds, Christians have all lived here. It’s still mixed but it’s Shia majority now. People who moved here recently are buying the houses of former army officers. It’s a dream for them, and they’re trying to fit in so there are no extremists or sectarians. For my safety this is good, to be protected by Shia. Sometimes we hear stories about local killings, but they’re fueled by money, not sectarianism.’’
‘‘I want to avoid car bombings, another reason I don’t leave my neighborhood. I do shopping here though it costs more - - five loaves of bread is $1 versus in the local market outside where $1 buys 10 loaves. Here, it’s about $14-15 per kilo of mutton, outside it’s $10.
Buying Water
‘‘Tap water isn’t healthy for cooking or drinking; we have to buy that, too.
‘‘Power only comes on for about 4-6 hours a day so I supplement with private generators. I pay, like, $250 a month for that. You can’t use ACs with private generators, just TVs, fridges, lights andair coolers. In 1985, my house was cooled by ACs. Now, we use air coolers. We didn’t even use them during the 1970s.
‘‘There’s no electricity and there’s garbage everywhere, but house prices have been getting higher and higher. In my neighborhood, you can’t buy a house for less than $300,000 and that would be for a 150-square-meter house. For 600 square meters, it’s not less than $900,000, up to $1.2 million.
‘‘The average salary isn’t enough to cover all this.”
Rising Crime
“Crime has also been a big problem over the last two to three years and not just in Baghdad but all the provinces, except way up north. Especially robberies. If you work as a contractor or have a good job, organized gangs have information about you. I never used to lock the doors. Now, we lock them and we have security systems.
‘‘We moved our daughter to a private Christian school in the neighborhood. It’s summer holidays so she’s not going. It’s unsafe for her to go outside, but I find things for her to do inside.
‘‘This is the beginning of more sectarian violence and there’s nothing Maliki can do. He’s the problem.
‘‘It started two years ago with peaceful protests in Sunni areas like Ramadi. They had demands and there were solutions. But he called them extremists when it wasn’t the case and sent security forces to attack them. That happened several times. Then they picked up guns and there were weekly clashes between security forces and the tribes. He doesn’t know anything about politics.”
Protecting Daughter
“My wife is a teacher -- her school is inside the neighborhood -- we have daily discussions about what’s going on. All our worries are about our daughter, who’s 9. We saw a lot in our lives and don’t want her to see any of that. We have to leave. We can’t go somewhere inside Iraq because it’s the same everywhere.
‘‘This country used to be secular. Religion was private, for the home, the mosque, not the street.
‘‘I can’t remember what I did yesterday but I remember my childhood clearly. It was a glorious age for me. I had so many friends -- boys and girls -- we used to play outside, we went to theaters, cinemas, parties, up north in the summer. Boys of 14 ask me what I was doing at their age and they’re shocked it could have been like that. They’re living in a different time. We don’t hear laughter in the streets anymore.
‘‘We never imagined that one day we’d reach this point. I think this is the end. This country has collapsed.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...s-stockpiling-food-life-in-baghdad-today.html
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
urdish-Turkmen tension on the rise in Kirkuk
Kirkuk's Turkmen vow to take up arms if the city is not returned to Iraqi central government.
Jacob RussellLast updated: 17 Jun 2014 14:11
Heavily armed men gathered at the offices of the Iraqi Turkmen Front in Kirkuk [EPA]
Kirkuk, Iraq - Wearing a flak jacket with a pistol on his hip, the president of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), Arshad Salihi, announced yesterday the mobilisation of a new Turkmen militia in the city of Kirkuk, saying that if the Kurdish Peshmerga forces "refuse to return Kirkuk [to the Iraqi government] we will fight back".
Heavily armed men gathered at the offices of the ITF in Kirkuk. The announcement came after Kurdish forces seized control of the city on June 12 following the complete withdrawal of Iraqi army forces in the face of rapid advances by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants.
Yousif Mohammed Sadiq, the parliamentary speaker of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), said that the KRG has no plans to hand back control of Kirkuk, a city which has long been at the centre of disputes between the KRG and Baghdad.
Kirkuk has been extremely important to the Kurds both culturally and economically. It is a mixed city with Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen and Assyrian populations and is frequently subject to attacks on the security forces and civilians carried out by militants aligned with al-Qaeda. Large oil reserves in the region of Kirkuk are a major factor in the dispute over control of the city.
RELATED: Analysis: The Kurds take Kirkuk, now what?
Many observers argue that after gaining complete military control of Kirkuk without confrontation, it is highly improbable that the KRG will relinquish it.
A statement on the KRG’s website said that: "People living in areas under Peshmerga control ... have nothing to fear because the Peshmerga will loyally protect them."
The secretary-general of the Kurdish security forces, Jabber Yawar, reiterated this to Al Jazeera, saying of the ITF’s statement: "This is media propaganda. Today the Peshmerga are fighting to protect [the Turkmen village of] Mullah Bashir and fighting ISIL there. In Kirkuk, the Peshmerga are there to protect all the different ethnicities."
If today we don’t have forces, tomorrow we will have. We are asking people to carry weapons and defend themselves.
-Arshad Salihi, President of Iraqi Turkmen Front
However, Salihi expressed concern that "without the Iraqi army there will be radical political achievements for other sides".
He went on to clarify that he was referring to the KRG framing his response in belligerent terms; "If they try to impose something that we do not accept, how can we live together? If today we don’t have forces, tomorrow we will have. We are asking people to carry weapons and defend themselves."
The ITF’s announcement came a day after the predominantly Turkmen city of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, fell to insurgents from ISIL.
A Turkmen engineer from Kirkuk who asked to remain anonymous, said: "We don’t trust the Peshmerga because they only look after their own interests. They opened the gates of the army bases and allowed normal people to take what they want. Then they allowed those weapons to be sold on the street. This is evidence that they do not care about law and order in Kirkuk. How can we trust them? People are saying that yesterday they looted the army bases, tomorrow they may loot our shops."
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middl...-tension-rise-kirkuk-2014617122142958412.html
Kirkuk's Turkmen vow to take up arms if the city is not returned to Iraqi central government.
Jacob RussellLast updated: 17 Jun 2014 14:11
Heavily armed men gathered at the offices of the Iraqi Turkmen Front in Kirkuk [EPA]
Kirkuk, Iraq - Wearing a flak jacket with a pistol on his hip, the president of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), Arshad Salihi, announced yesterday the mobilisation of a new Turkmen militia in the city of Kirkuk, saying that if the Kurdish Peshmerga forces "refuse to return Kirkuk [to the Iraqi government] we will fight back".
Heavily armed men gathered at the offices of the ITF in Kirkuk. The announcement came after Kurdish forces seized control of the city on June 12 following the complete withdrawal of Iraqi army forces in the face of rapid advances by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants.
Yousif Mohammed Sadiq, the parliamentary speaker of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), said that the KRG has no plans to hand back control of Kirkuk, a city which has long been at the centre of disputes between the KRG and Baghdad.
Kirkuk has been extremely important to the Kurds both culturally and economically. It is a mixed city with Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen and Assyrian populations and is frequently subject to attacks on the security forces and civilians carried out by militants aligned with al-Qaeda. Large oil reserves in the region of Kirkuk are a major factor in the dispute over control of the city.
RELATED: Analysis: The Kurds take Kirkuk, now what?
Many observers argue that after gaining complete military control of Kirkuk without confrontation, it is highly improbable that the KRG will relinquish it.
A statement on the KRG’s website said that: "People living in areas under Peshmerga control ... have nothing to fear because the Peshmerga will loyally protect them."
The secretary-general of the Kurdish security forces, Jabber Yawar, reiterated this to Al Jazeera, saying of the ITF’s statement: "This is media propaganda. Today the Peshmerga are fighting to protect [the Turkmen village of] Mullah Bashir and fighting ISIL there. In Kirkuk, the Peshmerga are there to protect all the different ethnicities."
If today we don’t have forces, tomorrow we will have. We are asking people to carry weapons and defend themselves.
-Arshad Salihi, President of Iraqi Turkmen Front
However, Salihi expressed concern that "without the Iraqi army there will be radical political achievements for other sides".
He went on to clarify that he was referring to the KRG framing his response in belligerent terms; "If they try to impose something that we do not accept, how can we live together? If today we don’t have forces, tomorrow we will have. We are asking people to carry weapons and defend themselves."
The ITF’s announcement came a day after the predominantly Turkmen city of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, fell to insurgents from ISIL.
A Turkmen engineer from Kirkuk who asked to remain anonymous, said: "We don’t trust the Peshmerga because they only look after their own interests. They opened the gates of the army bases and allowed normal people to take what they want. Then they allowed those weapons to be sold on the street. This is evidence that they do not care about law and order in Kirkuk. How can we trust them? People are saying that yesterday they looted the army bases, tomorrow they may loot our shops."
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middl...-tension-rise-kirkuk-2014617122142958412.html