Raid in Diyala, the southern awakening councils

Raid in Diyala

- There are two new things about the Iraqi forces raidon the gov­er­nor office in Diyala, killing his secretary:

First — reported on Al-Jazeera. Diyala mem­ber of the provin­cial coun­cil also arrested, who is a mem­ber of the Islamic party [apolo­gies for the mis­take yes­ter­day].

Sec­ond — Iraqalaan reported the following:

The spe­cial force [did the raid] came from Bagh­dad with­out pre­vi­ous knowl­edge of the Iraqi mil­i­tary forces who are already oper­at­ing in Diyala, that is why the police engaged in fire­fight with these forces.

Directly or indi­rectly the “Awak­en­ing Coun­cils” in Diyala are con­nected to the Islamic Party. The raid today on the gov­er­nor office was an attempt to wage a war on the “Awak­en­ing Councils”.

Sistani’s health

- I don’t know if it is true or not, but the web­site has a good record of report­ing “real” news. Yaqenreported that Sis­tani is in coma, uncon­scious and prob­a­bly he is clin­i­cally dead in the hos­pi­tal few days ago.

Accord­ing to the web­site, if this is true then this is big blow to the United Iraqi Alliance and espe­cially Al-Hakim’s Supreme Coun­cil. We will wait and see.

Maliki’s jet

- Although Saudi Ara­bia “promised” the Amer­i­cans to revive its rela­tion with Maliki’s gov­ern­ment and reopen its embassy in Iraq by the end of the year, their media keeps the anti-Maliki mood.

This is what reported today Saudi Al-watan today:

Sources in Bagh­dad air­port said that Maliki for secu­rity rea­sons uses an Iran­ian crew in his pri­vate plane. The air­plane was a gift from Iran to Maliki.

South­ern Awakening

- AL-Akhbar reported about the for­ma­tion of “Awak­en­ing Coun­cils” in the south­ern provinces raises con­fu­sion among “Shi­ites ruling-parties” because of the com­ing election.

In Najaf for exam­ple the “Awak­en­ing Coun­cil” announced itself as an inde­pen­dent polit­i­cal bloc will com­pete against United Iraqi Alliance to attract more votes.

In Diwaniya, about 120 tribal sheikhs are ready to announce their “Awak­en­ing Coun­cil”, although it is not sup­ported by the government.