By Bobby Rajabi

Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

BAGHDAD, Iraq – On April 9, a triple bombing struck the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. The attack killed forty people. The bombings, located near foreign embassies in the Iraqi capital, also wounded over two hundred people. The bombings appeared to target the Egyptian, Syrian, Iranian and German embassies. The group Al Qaeda in Iraq has claimed responsibility for the attacks, making the announcement on the internet.

Two of the explosions that struck on April 9 were suicide attacks that went after the Egyptian consulate and the Iranian embassy. They went off within a minute of each other in Mansour, a well educated suburb on the western side of the city. A few minutes later, a third suicide bomber blew his vehicle up. The explosion took place close to the city center. A number of Iraqi guards working for foreign missions were among those killed int the blast. The Iranian, Egyptian, German and Syrians all claimed damage and injuries caused by the blasts.

Al Qaeda in Iraq, referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq (or ISI) posted on militant forums online that the blasts were the “fifth wave’ of their campaign of mass causality attacks on government targets in Iraq. The campaign began in mid 2009 according the SITE Intelligence Group. SITE is a US based group group. The statement also mentioned that all embassies and international political organizations the have dealings with the central Baghdad government were being considered as legitimate targets.

The statement also read that “the mujahedeen will not hesitate to strike, wherever (the Iraqi government) is located and no matter the level of its fortification.” In another statement posted on extremist online forums, the ISI denied all involvement six separate blasts that killed at least thirty five people on April 6. The blasts also destroyed residential buildings in the mostly Shi’ite neighborhoods.

The embassy bombings are part of a recent string of violence around the Iraqi capital that has killed roughly one hundred twenty people in a week. It is suggested that the bloodshed marks an attempt by insurgents to take advantage of the political uncertainty that has followed the March 7 Iraqi elections.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Al-Qaeda in Iraq claims Baghdad Embassy Bombings – 9 April 2010

Associated Press – Iraq al-Qaida Group Says It’s Behind Embassy Hits – 9 April 2010

BBC – Al-Qaeda in Iraq Group Claims Embassy Bombings – 9 April 2010

Press TV – Extremists Claim Responsibility For Baghdad Blasts – 9 April 2010

Washington Post – Group Linked to Al-Qaeda in Iraq Claims Embassy Bombings – 9 April 2010

By Ahmad Shihadah
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

SA’NA, Yemen – Yemeni forces are not going after a radical U.S.-born cleric who has reportedly been added to the CIA’s list of targets to be killed or captured, the foreign minister said Saturday.

The United States has not handed over evidence to support allegations that Anwar al-Awlaki, 38, is recruiting for al-Qaeda’s offshoot in the impoverished country on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, the minister said.

“Anwar al-Awlaki has always been looked at as a preacher rather than a terrorist and shouldn’t be considered as a terrorist unless the Americans have evidence that he has been involved in terrorism,” Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi told reporters on Saturday, adding that the government was not hunting the US-born cleric believed to be living in Yemen. “The detailed information … and evidence gathered by US agencies has not been given to Yemen.”

However, al-Qirbi also told Al Jazeera television that al-Awlaki “is wanted by Yemeni justice for questioning, so that he can clear his name … or face trial.”

Though Al-Awlaki is a U.S. citizen, born in New Mexico, he lived in Yemen with his family for most of his early life. He returned to attend college and graduate school and it was during this period he began serving as an imam for various mosques around the country.

The US has sought in recent months to heighten cooperation with Yemen, where it believes a relatively new offshoot of Al Qaeda is gaining strength. It has also pledged to double its modest military aid to Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest state. The state’s ability to govern has been compromised by a secessionist movement in the south and a rebellion in the north that was only recently resolved.

The Barack Obama administration took a somewhat extraordinary step last week in authorizing the targeted killing of the cleric.

A handful of intelligence and counterterrorism officials briefed members of the press on the decision last week, during which Reuters quoted government officials as saying that “Al-Awlaki is a proven threat,” and that “he’s being targeted”.

Though known only as an Islamic scholar, espousing controversial views, U.S. intelligence officials cited new information on his direct involvement with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) as justification for his targeting.

“He’s gotten involved in plots,” an unnamed official told the New York Times last week. “The danger al-Awlaki poses to this country is no longer confined to words,”

For more information, please see:

The Philadelphia Inquirer – Yemen Declines To Pursue Cleric Targeted By U.S. – 11 April 2010

The Christian Science Monitor – Yemen Balks At Possible U.S. Possible Strike On Cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki – 12 April 2010

IPS – Yemen Refuses To Hunt Al-Awlaki For U.S. – 13 April 2010

By Meredith Lee-Clark
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

THE NEGEV, Israel/Gaza – “Heavily armed” Islamic Jihad operatives were reportedly killed after a firefight with Israeli military forces near the Al-Bureij refugee camp in Gaza, early on April 13. Varying reports bring the total of dead to between two and four. Two other Islamic Jihad militants were also reportedly injured, according to Israeli forces and Palestinian medics.

The Israeli military has reported that the militants were planting explosives near the Gaza/Israel border, and that Israeli forces found substantial weaponry on the bodies of two of those killed, including explosive devices, assault rifles, hand grenades, and other weapons.

Islamic Jihad’s militant wing, the Al-Quds Brigade, later issued a statement saying that its fighters had engaged Israeli forces when the Israelis attempted to cross the border into Gaza. Israel has denied that its forces attempted to make any such crossing. Residents of the Al-Bureij camp reported that tanks crossed into the area when patrols found the militants planting explosives, and that the Israelis also used machine guns, artillery, and missiles.

The clash comes as Hamas, the ruling party in Gaza, attempts to assert its legitimacy and control of Gaza by holding together a shaky ceasefire with Israel. Hamas has controlled Gaza since it won a parliamentary election ousting Fatah, its rival Palestinian party that currently controls both the Palestinian presidency and the West Bank. In recent months, other militant factions, such as Islamic Jihad, have threatened the tenuous ceasefire that has existed between Hamas and Israel since the end of the open fighting in Gaza during the winter of 2008-2009. On April 11, Hamas security officials detained several Islamic Jihadists accused of trying to fire rockets into southern Israel. According to those detained, Hamas police made the militants sign pledges that they would not attack Israel. Many of the more extremist factions in Gaza have accused Hamas of “going soft” on Israel.

Since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel went into effect in January 2009, international human rights groups estimate that ninety Palestinians have died in Gaza as a result of fighting with Israeli forces, and one migrant farmworker from Thailand was killed in Israel from a rocket fired from Gaza.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Palestinian Fighter Killed in Gaza – 13 April 2010

BBC News – Palestinian Militants Killed in Clashes in Gaza – 13 April 2010

Ha’aretz – Gaza Militants Fire on Israelis After IDF Foils Attack on Border – 13 April 2010

Ma’an News Agency – Israel Army: 4 Targeted in Gaza Were Heavily Armed – 13 April 2010

New York Times – Israeli Troops Kill 2 Palestinian Militants at Gaza Border – 13 April 2010

By Brandon Kaufman
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

CAIRO, Egypt– Human Rights Watch has reported that Kuwaiti forces have arrested and deported supporters of the prominent Egyptian opposition figure Mohammed ElBaradei.

Human Rights Watch has reported that three Egyptians living in Kuwait were arrested on Thursday “after they attended a small meeting of ElBaradei supporters at a local café.”  Their report further went on to say that the initial arrests led to a larger gathering of approximately 30 ElBaradei supporters who met on Friday to talk about how best to respond to the arrests a day prior.  That meeting was disrupted by members of the Kuwaiti security forces who deported more than half of the participants back to Egypt on Saturday.

According to the wife of one of the men detained, some of those arrested are still in custody.  The woman briefly saw her husband on Thursday night when four men dressed in civilian clothing brought him home and subsequently confiscated campaign T-shirts with images of Dr. ElBaradei and an Egyptian flag with the slogan “For Change” written in Arabic.

Before meeting with members of an Egyptian opposition party, ElBaradei posted on his Twitter page that “Deporting Egyptians peacefully congregating in Kuwait is a gross injustice.  I call for their immediate return on humanitarian grounds.”

Sheikh Jaber al-Khaled-al-Sabah, Kuwait’s interior minister, told Human Rights Watch on Saturday that the deported Egyptians, whose meetings were apparently arranged online, had broken the country’s laws by assembling in a group of more than 20 without a permit and by criticizing Egypt’s president.  Said Mr. Sabah, “They are visitors in Kuwait, and we look at them as visitors in Kuwait.  When somebody breaks the law, he has to go back to his country.”  We don’t allow demonstrations in this country.”

For more information, please see:

The New York Times- Kuwait Deports Critics of Egyptian President– 12 April 2010

The Washington Post- Egypt Says No Hand in Kuwait Deportations– 12 April 2010

The Associated Press- Kuwait Deports 21 Egyptian Supporters of ElBaradei– 11 April 2010

By Meredith Lee-Clark
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

JERUSALEM, Israel/West Bank – Palestinian leaders have strongly condemned a new Israeli military order that would classify Palestinians living in the West Bank without “proper identification” as “infiltrators.” Palestinian officials fear the order would allow the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to deport Palestinians from their West Bank homes in the thousands.

Though the military order was passed six months ago, it will go into effect on April 13, and was discovered by HaMoked: the Center for the Defense of the Individual, an Israel-based human rights group, and was published in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz on April 11. HaMoked, along with nine other Israeli human rights groups have joined in the calls to repeal the order.

The order would amend the 1969 laws designed to prevent infiltration to include anyone living in the West Bank without an Israeli permit. Such persons could be expelled within three days, or alternatively, sentenced to a maximum of seven years in prison. In a statement released after the Ha’aretz story broke, the Israeli military confirmed the order, and said that the IDF “is ready to implement the order, which is not intended to apply to Israelis, but to illegal sojourners,” though the statement did not elaborate on the order’s impact on Palestinians.

Ha’aretz characterized the order, saying, “[t]he order’s language is both general and ambiguous, stipulating that the term infiltrator will also be applied to Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, citizens of countries with which Israel has friendly ties (such as the United States) and Israeli citizens, whether Arab or Jewish.”

The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, told Ha’aretz that the order “threatens the emptying of large areas of land from its Palestinian inhabitants.” There is no clear standard of what constitutes a valid permit, so many fear arbitrary, inconsistent, and discriminatory enforcement by Israeli forces.

Saed Erekat, the Palestinian chief negotiator, called on the international community to pressure Israel to revoke the order. Erekat described the order as “racist,” and was a violation of the Geneva Conventions, particularly article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits any forcible transfer or deportation of protected persons and civilians from occupied territory.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Israeli Order Raises Eviction Risk – 12 April 2010

Christian Science Monitor – Israel Moves to Deport “Illegal” Palestinians from West Bank – 12 April 2010

Ha’aretz – Fayyad: New IDF Orders Threaten to Empty West Bank of Palestinians – 12 April 2010

Ma’an News Agency – Erekat: World Must Compel Israel to Revoke Military Order – 12 April 2010

Palestine News Network – Palestinians Fear Mass Expulsions – 12 April 2010