Iraq Headlines 3/31/08

A selection of articles on Iraq from the past week.

Moqtada al-Sadr calls for end to Iraq clashes
Telegraph (UK)
March 31, 2008
Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shi'ite leader, has ordered his followers to abandon a week-old uprising that humbled Iraq's government by exposing its tenuous grip on the country's biggest cities.

Iraq unhappy with Arab summit resolutions
Reuters
March 30, 2008
Iraq criticized fellow Arabs for not expressing support for its U.S.-backed government at an Arab summit that concluded in the Syrian capital on Sunday.

Anger as 50 Iraqi refugees are sent back
Guardian (UK)
March 30, 2008
They were deported to Irbil in northern Iraq. The British government claims the region is safe, but human rights campaigners warn it is becoming increasingly dangerous. It has emerged that one failed asylum seeker, Solyman Rashid, who was returned from Britain after his appeal was rejected, was killed by a car bomb in Kirkuk, northern Iraq, last September.

Bad Judgment: Labeling a close U.S. ally a terrorist organization, Immigration leaves a dedicated Iraqi translator in limbo
Washington Post
March 27, 2008
IT'S HARD to imagine a refugee from Iraq more deserving of residence in the United States than Saman Kareem Ahmad. The 38-year-old Kurd lost his family during Saddam Hussein's genocidal chemical attack against his home town of Halabja in 1988; for the last several years, his de facto family has been the U.S. Marine Corps, for which he bravely served as a translator in Fallujah. Driven out of Iraq by death threats in 2006, he was admitted to the United States under a special visa program for translators and granted asylum. He now provides instruction for Marines headed to Iraq from the base in Quantico.

Patriots, Refugees, and Terrorists
Findlaw Legal News and Commentary
March 26, 2008
In recent months it has become clear that, despite the changes in the terms of the law, the Department of Homeland Security is continuing to bar refugees who should benefit from the expanded waiver authority. These people have fled their countries to escape persecution, and they're being told that they're terrorists. What is going on?

Iraq war disappearing in US media
Associated Press
March 25, 2008
With slugfest for the White House going on and an economy that is plummeting toward recession, there is less and less interest in news, positive or negative, from Iraq, where US soldiers have been fighting since March 20, 2003.

FACTBOX-Main players in Iraq's Basra
Reuters
March 25, 2008
Two powerful factions of Iraq's Shi'ite majority, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council and the Mehdi Army militia of Moqtada al-Sadr, are fighting for power in Basra along with a smaller Shi'ite party, Fadhila.