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Shiite gunmen clash at Karbala festival

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer Tue Aug 28, 6:10 PM ET

BAGHDAD - Fighting erupted Tuesday between rival Shiite militias in Karbala during a religious festival, claiming 51 lives and forcing officials to abort the celebrations and order up to 1 million Shiite pilgrims to leave the southern city.

Security officials said Mahdi Army gunmen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr fired on guards around two shrines protected by the Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.

Residents of Karbala contacted by telephone said snipers were firing on Iraqi security forces from rooftops. Explosions and the rattle of automatic weapons fire could be heard during telephone calls to reporters in the city 50 miles south of Baghdad.

In addition to the deaths, security officials said at least 247 people were wounded, including women and children.

The clashes appeared to be part of a power struggle among Shiite groups in the sect's southern Iraqi heartland, which includes the bulk of the country's vast oil wealth.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said entrances and exits to Karbala "have been secured and more forces are on the way from other provinces." Officials said buses were sent to evacuate pilgrims from the city, which includes some of the world's most sacred Shiite shrines.

Gunfights also broke out Tuesday between Mahdi militiamen and followers of the Supreme Council in at least two Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad and in Kut, about 100 miles southeast of the capital, police said.

Extra police took up positions in the center of another Shiite city, Diwaniyah, after gunmen fired on a mosque associated with the Supreme Council, police said. A curfew was clamped on the Shiite city of Najaf after a mortar round exploded on a major square, causing no casualties, officials said.

The trouble started in Karbala late Monday as tens of thousands of Shiites were streaming into the city for the Shabaniyah festival marking the birth of Mohammed al-Mahdi, the 12th and last Shiite imam who disappeared in the 9th century. Devout Shiites believe he will return to Earth to restore peace and harmony.

Scuffles broke out between police and pilgrims as the crowd tried to push through the security checkpoints near the Imam al-Hussein mosque, the focal point of the celebrations. At least five people were killed, police said.

Early Tuesday, crowds of angry pilgrims chanting religious slogans surged through the streets, attacking police and mosque guards, witnesses said. Two ambulances were set ablaze, sending a huge column of black smoke over the city.

Gunmen appeared, firing automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars at security forces and sending panicked pilgrims fleeing the area, police and witnesses said.

A member of the city council said the center of town was in chaos, with pilgrims running in all directions to escape the gunfire.

"We don't know what's going on," said the councilman, who wouldn't allow use of his name for security reasons. "All we know is the huge numbers of pilgrims were too much for the checkpoints to handle and now there is shooting."

Some rounds struck fuel tanks on the roofs of three small hotels, setting them ablaze, police said.

With the situation spiraling out of control, police ordered pilgrims out of the center of the city, effectively canceling the celebrations which were to reach their climax Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

"The area where they (the pilgrims) were gathering has been evacuated in order to control those (criminals)," said Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman. He said the gunmen were gathering in three areas in the old town and security forces were chasing them.

In Baghdad, a senior government security official blamed the fighting on al-Sadr's followers, saying they provoked the confrontations Monday night and were responsible for the shooting Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid enflaming the situation.

But a spokesman for al-Sadr, Ahmed al-Shaibani, denied that the Mahdi Army was involved in the Karbala fighting. Al-Sadr called for an independent inquiry into the clashes and urged his supporters to cooperate with the authorities "to calm the situation down," al-Shaibani said.

Tensions have been rising in southern Iraq as rival Shiite groups maneuver for power, especially in the oil-rich area around Basra, Iraq's second-largest city.

Concern over Basra is mounting as British forces prepare to evacuate the last of their forces from the city and redeploy to the airport 12 miles to the north.

On Tuesday, Hakim al-Miyahi, head of the security committee of the Basra municipal council, told The Associated Press that Iraqi forces were incapable of maintaining order in the city once the British leave and that the Baghdad government should send reinforcements.

"Some disorder will occur in the absence of British troops in Basra," he said. "It will take at least two army divisions to fill the gap that will be created by British troop withdrawal."

Elsewhere, hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi forces backed by helicopters and jet fighters killed 33 Sunni insurgents who were holding back the water supply to the Shiite town of Khalis, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, the U.S. command said.

The assault began before dawn Monday when a joint force was landed by helicopter in the village of Gubbiya, 10 miles east of Khalis. The assault force killed 13 fighters and attack aircraft killed 20 others, the military said. The area is known to be controlled by al-Qaida in Iraq.

Also Tuesday, a roadside bomb exploded in northern Khalis, killing four Iraqi soldiers, the Iraqi army said.

In Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, mourners buried 11 victims of a mosque suicide bombing Monday. Ten people were wounded in the attack, which police said targeted an anti-al-Qaida Sunni sheik.

Shiite gunmen clash at Karbala festival (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070828/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=Am6ALGjp0McjmtNjPrkjW5is0NUE)

Such a peaceful religion. It's absolutely shameful how quickly and how easily they shed blood.

EU mulls 'natural disaster' force
By Alix Kroeger
BBC News, Brussels

Fire consumes hillside forests in Taygetos, southern Peloponnese, Greece The European Commission will put forward proposals this autumn for a standing EU force to respond to fires, floods and other major emergencies.

The commission says the current system has its limits.

In 2007, there has been flooding in the UK, a heat wave in central and southern Europe, and now forest fires in Greece, in which at least 60 people have died.

But critics say the EU should release financial aid faster, rather than set up a civil protection force of its own.

'Better way'

When Greece appealed for help in fighting its forest fires, nine EU countries responded within 48 hours.

Rails damaged by floods in Oxfordshire (Pic: Network Rail)

Germany sent helicopters, Austria deployed firefighters, and France contributed two specialist water-tanker planes.

Italy even diverted another specialist plane from forest fires in Sicily to join the operation in Greece.

The European Commission says it is too early to put any figures on how much the EU relief effort in Greece has cost.

The commission is currently co-ordinating relief efforts through its monitoring centre in Belgium.

But it is now looking at setting up a permanent civil protection force to respond to natural disasters, and possibly also terrorist attacks and industrial accidents.

"The costs of not doing enough in a co-ordinated way far outweigh the costs of doing it... in a co-ordinated, better way," says commission environment spokesperson, Barbara Helfferich.

"We are in a position to do so and we should do it," she says.

'Token gesture'

But critics say the EU should concentrate on releasing emergency funds, rather than creating a force of its own.

"To talk about setting up a force or some sort of unit to go and react to these sort of disasters... I think is really putting the cart before the horse," says Philip Bradbourn, a British Conservative MEP for one of the regions badly hit by July's floods.

"It really is very much of a token gesture - what's needed is quick action when these disasters occur, with money to help the member states to get over the problems."

Mr Bradbourn says it will be at least a year before his constituency receives any EU aid.

EU mulls 'natural disaster' force (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/europe/6966083.stm)

AIDS victims 'buried alive' in Papua New Guinea

Some AIDS victims are being buried alive in Papua New Guinea by relatives who cannot look after them and fear becoming infected themselves, a health worker said Monday.

Margaret Marabe, who spent five months carrying out an AIDS awareness campaign in the remote Southern Highlands of the South Pacific nation, said she had seen five people buried while still breathing.

One was calling out "Mama, Mama" as the soil was shoveled over his head, said Marabe, who works for a volunteer organisation called Igat Hope, Pidgin English for I've Got Hope.

"One of them was my cousin, who was buried alive," she told reporters.

"I said, 'Why are they doing that?' And they said, 'If we let them live, stay in the same house, eat together and use or share utensils, we will contract the disease and we too might die.'"

Villagers had told her it was common for people to bury AIDS victims alive.

Marabe appealed to the government and aid agencies to ensure the HIV/AIDS awareness programme carried out in cities and towns was extended to the rural areas, where ignorance about the disease is widespread.

Women accused of being witches have been tortured and murdered by mobs holding them responsible for the apparently inexplicable deaths of young people stricken by the epidemic, officials and researchers say.

A recent United Nations report said PNG was facing an AIDS catastrophe, accounting for 90 percent of HIV infections in the Oceania region.

HIV diagnoses had risen by around 30 percent a year since 1997, leaving an estimated 60,000 people living with the disease in 2005.

AIDS victims 'buried alive' in Papua New Guinea (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070827162603.sj4zsa64&show_article=1)

J'lem worried by Iranian owned anti-ship missile
Yaakov Katz , THE JERUSALEM POST    Aug. 28, 2007

The recent delivery of an advanced Russian-made anti-ship missile to Iran has defense officials concerned it will be transferred to Syria and Hizbullah and used against the Israel Navy in a future conflict.

Called the SSN-X-26 Yakhont, the supersonic cruise missile can be launched from the coast and hit sea-borne targets up to 300 kilometers away. The missile carries a 200-kilogram warhead and flies a meter-and-a-half above sea level, making it extremely difficult to intercept. Its closest Western counterpart is the US-made Tomahawk and Harpoon.

The missile homes in on its target using an advanced radar guidance system that is said to make it resistant to electronic jamming.

The Yakhont is an operational and tactical missile and can be used against both a medium-sized destroyer and an aircraft carrier. It would pose a serious threat to the Israel Navy, according to defense officials.

"This is certainly a threat to the Navy," one defense official said. "There is a real fear that if this missile is in Iran it will also be in Syria and Lebanon."

During the Second Lebanon War, the IDF was surprised when the INS Hanit was struck by a Chinese-made ground-to-sea missile, which was not known to have been in Hizbullah hands. At the time, the IDF suspected Iran had assisted Hizbullah in the attack, which killed four sailors. While officials could not confirm that the missile had reached Syria or Hizbullah, the growing assumption is that any weapons system or missile that can be taken apart and fit into a shipping container can easily be transferred.

J'lem worried by Iranian owned anti-ship missile (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1188197171387&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter)

Olmert and Abbas discuss Palestinian statehood
Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:01AM EDT

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held talks on Palestinian statehood on Tuesday but discussed core issues only in broad terms, a senior Palestinian official said.

Abbas has been pressing for the highly contentious matters of borders and the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees to be included in his discussions with Olmert ahead of a U.S.-sponsored Middle East conference expected in November.

But Saeb Erekat, a senior Abbas adviser who attended the meeting with Olmert in Jerusalem, told reporters: "These talks did not reach the level of details."

Abbas said on Monday the international gathering proposed by U.S. President George W. Bush would be a waste of time if Israel pressed ahead with plans to pursue only a broadbrush "declaration of principles".

Israeli officials have used that phrase to describe what Olmert might offer in answer to calls for rapid, final talks in detail on establishing a Palestinian state.

David Baker, an Israeli government spokesman, said Abbas and Olmert held two hours of "one-on-one" talks and spoke about fundamental issues which would lead to the establishment of two states for two peoples.

Baker declined to define the subjects.

Olmert hosted Abbas, whose Fatah faction lost control of the Gaza Strip to Hamas Islamists in fighting in June, at his official Jerusalem residence. They last met three weeks ago in the West Bank town of Jericho.

Israeli political commentators said Olmert, weakened by the failings of his government and the military in last year's Lebanon war, was in no rush to take on "final-status" issues in depth and risk splitting a cabinet that includes the far right.

"I do not want to belittle the negotiations but also I do not want to raise expectations," Erekat said.

Olmert and Abbas, he said, would continue to "exert every effort" in pursuit of the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

HAMAS CRITICISM

The United States hopes the Middle East conference can expedite Palestinian statehood despite the current split between the West Bank, where a Fatah-backed government holds sway, and Hamas-run Gaza.

Hamas called the Abbas-Olmert meeting another attempt to isolate it.

"The meeting will end in complete failure. Such meetings can never achieve anything as long as the Israeli occupation continues to deny the rights of our people and continues its aggression against them," said Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas official.

Hamas is shunned by the West over the group's refusal to recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept existing interim Israeli-Palestinian peace deals.

Abbas said before Tuesday's meeting he would again address ways of easing the effects of Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

Palestinians accuse Olmert of failing to deliver on what they say were promises at earlier meetings to revise travel restrictions in the territory and scrap some of the checkpoints choking their movement between towns and villages.

"The prime minister (told Abbas) he would soon present a plan being prepared by the Israeli security establishment which would allow for freedom of movement between the West Bank cities," Baker said after Tuesday's meeting.

Olmert and Abbas discuss Palestinian statehood (http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL2781715620070828?sp=true)

Holy forfeit! Israel willing to give up Temple Mount
Report: Jewish leader offers Arab coalition joint control
Posted: August 28, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

JERUSALEM – Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told the Egyptian government the Jewish state is willing to forfeit control over the Temple Mount – Judaism's holiest site – to the management of Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, according to an Arab media report.

The Egyptian Al Massrioun daily reported last weekend Barak informed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and the Jordanian government Israel is willing to hand them joint control over the Temple Mount.

The report follows a WND exclusive article last week stating Palestinian negotiators drafting an agreement behind the scenes with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office made clear they will not accept any final peace deal with Israel unless the Jewish state forfeits the Temple Mount.

According to the Egyptian media report over the weekend, Barak stated an umbrella group of several Arab countries controlling the holy site instead of only the PA would help ease Israeli domestic opposition to giving up the Temple Mount, since Egypt and Jordan are considered by Israeli policy to be moderate countries.

Ronen Moshe, a spokesman for Barak, told WND the Egyptian media report is "untrue."

"We do not comment on the specifics of private conversations with world leaders, but this report is not what was said during the talks," Moshe said.

A senior Palestinian official, speaking on condition his name be withheld, told WND yesterday Israel "understands there won't be any deal with the Palestinians unless it forfeits the Temple Mount."

The official said the Mount was previously a sticking point in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, but he said Prime Minister Olmert's government has expressed a number of times a willingness to compromise on the Temple Mount.

"We've recently received many Israeli plans that showed Israel is willing to allow another body, whether Palestinian or international, to control the [Temple Mount]. The issue is no longer a sticking point," the Palestinian official said.

During U.S.-led negotiations in 2000, Barak, then prime minister, reportedly was willing to forfeit the Temple Mount to international control. Those negotiations fell through after Palestinian President Yasser Arafat rejected an offer of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern sections of Jerusalem.

Adviser Gilad Sher – who represented Barak at initial Israeli-Palestinian planning meetings in 2000 during which President Clinton discussed the Temple Mount – wrote in his book "Beyond Reach" that Clinton's plan called for the Temple Mount to become complete Palestinian sovereign territory, while the Western Wall below and its complex would fall under Israeli sovereignty.

Barak was said to have initially rejected that plan, but according to participants at the negotiations summit, he was ultimately willing to place the Mount under international sovereignty. Some reports claimed Barak offered the Temple Mount to the Palestinians, but the Israeli politician has denied those claims.

Palestinian state outline 'coming by November'

A chief Palestinian negotiator told WND aides from Abbas' Fatah organization have been hammering out the parameters of a final status agreement for presentation in November at a U.S.-backed international summit regarding the Middle East.

Yesterday, newly installed Israeli President Shimon Peres told a Tokyo newspaper he hopes to achieve the outline of a final status deal with the Palestinians before the November conference.

Israeli and Palestinian diplomatic sources said U.S.-brokered biweekly meetings between Olmert and Abbas are being utilized to draft the outline of a permanent status deal, ultimately yielding a Palestinian state, scheduled to be aired in public at the November summit.

Issues already discussed between Israel and the Palestinians reportedly include the division of parts of Jerusalem and debates regarding permanent borders between Israel and the PA.

The November international conference and talk from the Bush administration the past few weeks has led many here to speculate the U.S. will push in the near future for intense Israeli-Palestinian negotiations leading to a Palestinian state.

With a year and a half left in office, President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have been urging meetings between Abbas and Olmert to establish a framework for momentum leading to a breakthrough at November's conference.

Asked by WND whether Olmert is willing to forfeit the Temple Mount in an agreement with the Palestinians, David Baker, a spokesman for the prime minister, had no comment.

Jews, Christians barred from praying on Mount

The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism. Muslims say it is their third holiest site.

The First Jewish Temple was built by King Solomon in the 10th century B.C. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The Second Temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C. after Jerusalem was freed from Babylonian captivity. That temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire in A.D. 70. Each temple stood for a period of about four centuries.

The Jewish Temple was the center of religious Jewish worship. It housed the Holy of Holies, which contained the Ark of the Covenant and was said to be the area upon which God's "presence" dwelt. The Al Aqsa Mosque now sits on the site.

The Temple served as the primary location for the offering of sacrifices and was the main gathering place in Israel during Jewish holidays.

The Temple Mount compound has remained a focal point for Jewish services over the millennia. Prayers for a return to Jerusalem have been uttered by Jews since the Second Temple was destroyed, according to Jewish tradition. Jews worldwide pray facing toward the Western Wall, a portion of an outer courtyard of the Temple left intact.

The Al Aqsa Mosque was constructed around A.D. 709 to serve as a shrine near another shrine, the Dome of the Rock, which was built by an Islamic caliph. Al Aqsa was meant to mark where Muslims came to believe Muhammad, the founder of Islam, ascended to heaven.

Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Quran. Islamic tradition states Muhammad took a journey in a single night from "a sacred mosque" – believed to be in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia – to "the farthest mosque" and from a rock there ascended to heaven. The farthest mosque later became associated with the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Currently under Israeli control, Jews and Christians are barred from praying on the Mount.

The Temple Mount was opened to the general public until September 2000, when the Palestinians started their intifada by throwing stones at Jewish worshipers after then-candidate for prime minister Ariel Sharon visited the area.

Following the onset of violence, the new Sharon government closed the Mount to non-Muslims, using checkpoints to control all pedestrian traffic for fear of further clashes with the Palestinians.

The Temple Mount was reopened to non-Muslims in August 2003. It still is open but only Sundays through Thursdays, 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., and not on any Christian, Jewish or Muslim holidays or other days considered "sensitive" by the Waqf.

During "open" days, Jews and Christian are allowed to ascend the Mount, usually through organized tours and only if they conform first to a strict set of guidelines, which includes demands that they not pray or bring any "holy objects" to the site. Visitors are banned from entering any of the mosques without direct Waqf permission. Rules are enforced by Waqf agents, who watch tours closely and alert nearby Israeli police to any breaking of their guidelines.