How a Rare Effort to Compensate Iraqi Airstrike Victims Failed

THE CHILDREN WERE running around the yard playing games next to the family car, when Ashwaq Abdel Kareem heard the roar of a jet plane that foretold an airstrike.
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It was near midnight on June 1, 2015. Ashwaq, her husband, and five children were in the backyard of their half-built house in the northern Iraqi town of Hawija. The night sweltered with an oven-like dry heat during an Iraqi summer in which temperatures could soar to 120 degrees in the daytime. Hawija was under ISIS occupation, which meant the entire town had been cut off from electricity, in addition to the general brutality of political rule by the radical group. There was no escape from the temperature except to go outside where a breeze might cool the air.

Far above Ashwaq and her family, a Dutch F-16 fighter jet released a bomb that whistled down to hit a car-bomb factory in the center of Hawija’s industrial district. The F-16’s mission was coordinated by the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS and was planned by the U.S. military. From 2014 to the present day, between 8,000 and 13,000 civilians have died as a result of bombing by the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, according to the monitoring organization Airwars; the coalition only acknowledges the deaths of 1,417 civilians. At the height of the bombing in 2017, as the coalition bombed tightly packed urban areas like Mosul, at least 9,000 civilians died, according to The Associated Press. Yet only one civilian received compensation, although the U.S. military did distribute a limited number of condolence or “ex gratia” payments — which are voluntary payments and not an admission of legal liability — reportedly to the families of around 14 victims.

Experts say the country's rich history is being lost at 'unprecedented rates' due to conflict

​Iraq has filed a complaint with Interpol as it seeks to mount pressure on several states to return looted artefacts, the Ministry of Culture said on Monday.

The country, the birthplace of the world's earliest civilisation in recorded history, is home to thousands of artefacts. Some have been lost over the years have yet to be found.
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“The case is ongoing and we have had excellent achievements in favour of returning Iraqi antiquities,” said ministry spokesman Ahmed Al Alawi.

Following years behind bars, he was finally released, but he found no mother to take care of him, no brother to protect him, and no one to give him a warm welcome. He was released from prison two weeks ago into the old streets of Baghdad. He slept on sidewalks and in public parks, and fed on just enough bread to fulfill a small portion of his nutritional needs. He would sit down and think about what he had done, and would feel nothing but regret, sorrow, and fear of the future that awaited him.

The story of Mohammad Kamel, 33, from Baghdad, began when he was a university student and wanted to try out some drugs. After only a few months, he had become addicted to it, and could not quit it or rid himself of the constant need for it. He fell behind in his studies, and no longer had the physical ability or the money to go to university.

At the time, Kamel turned to the person selling him the drug, and asked him to help find him a job. The person offered him the job of promoting crystal meth inside the university, in exchange for free drugs and a small amount of money. He did not hesitate. All he wanted was to take drugs, so he began selling drugs at the university to a number of male and female students. But he was caught when he tried to sell drugs to one of the students who later turned out to be a member of the security forces.
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Kamel tells Raseef22, "I will live my whole life regretting what I’ve done. I lost my family, my city, and my studies. And after I got out of prison, I became homeless, with nothing to rely on," adding, "After the sins I have committed, my current ambition is to just find a job that will secure my basic needs of food and shelter."

​​Iraq’s parliament approved a new government last week, bringing an end to the year-long political deadlock that followed the country’s 2021 parliamentary elections. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, who previously served as Iraq’s human rights minister as well as labor and social affairs minister, will head the new government, which replaces the caretaker Cabinet led by Mustafa al-Kadhimi. Al-Sudani was backed by the Coordination Framework, a political coalition dominated by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as well as parties representing Iran-backed Shiite militias.
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The new government in Baghdad has nevertheless been welcomed by Iraq’s international partners, including the U.S., the U.K., the United Nations and Saudi Arabia. But despite last week’s breakthrough, which put an end to months of political infighting that paralyzed governance in the country, the composition of Iraq’s new government and the broader context within which it will be forced to operate suggest that Iraq’s deep-seated challenges have not abated.

Unlike its predecessor government, there are no ministers from the Sadrist movement in the new Cabinet. After winning the single largest number of seats in last year’s parliamentary elections, albeit shy of a majority, Muqtada al-Sadr’s movement aimed to install a Cabinet dominated by its members and allies. But his effort to do so was blocked by his political opponents, who sought to maintain the practice of power-sharing along sectarian lines, known as the muhasasa system.