Friday, April 20, 2007
INM daily summary – 20 April 2007
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- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on an announced visit to Iraq, says the U.S. commitment to the war in Iraq is not open-ended.
- U.S. soldiers are building a three-mile wall to protect Azamiyah, a Sunni Arab enclave surrounded by Shiite neighborhoods in a Baghdad area.
- The Islamic State of Iraq announced in a 5:10 minute web video produced and issued to jihadist forums on Thursday, April 19, 2007, the establishment of the cabinet of the “first Islamic administration”.
- Iraq's use of the death penalty has risen rapidly since it was reinstated in mid-2004 and it now ranks as the country with the fourth-highest rate of executions in the world, Amnesty International said.
- The provincial council in Kirkuk has allocated $5 million for the construction of a new airport in the province.
- Grand Aytollah Ali Sistani has forbidden the killing of Muslims in Iraq and has urged the government to disarm all militia groups in the country.
- Iraqi Finance Minister Baqer Jabur Solagh urged his Egyptian counterpart Boutros Ghali to wipe out the huge debts owed by the Iraqi government.
- The son of the Iraqi deputy interior minister was killed along with three bodyguards by a group of gunmen in the northern Iraqi town of Shurqat, 80 km south of Mosul.
- Equipment to detect explosive charges was delivered to Iraq to be used soon, a senior Iraqi official said on Thursday.
- The northern Iraqi city of Mosul has been placed under curfew from Thursday at 8:00 pm till further notice, Ninewa TV said.
- Clashes have erupted near the Baiyaa mosque mosque in western Baghdad before Friday prayers, witnesses and local media said.
- A group of Sunni tribal leaders in beleaguered Al Anbar province said Thursday that it intended to form a national party to oppose insurgents such as Al Qaeda in Iraq and reengage with Iraq's political process.
- The son of prominent Iraqi Shiite leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim came under attack in a town south of Baghdad in which six of his security personnel were wounded, officials said Friday.
- The Kuwaiti Gulf Company for Petroleum Investment (Petro-Gulf) said on Saturday that it intends to assist in building an oil refinery at an investment of $ 130 million in northern Iraq with two others partners.
- Iraq's Oil Minister said that the ministry is reviewing Kuwait's appeal for natural gas though Iraq's domestic market.
- Authorities in the volatile Iraqi town of Tal Afar have imposed an indefinite curfew after militants distributed leaflets threatening to carry out chemical attacks.
