linked - Institut kurde de Paris

• 12 • Information and liaison bulletin n° 261 • December 2006
review Russia in global politics. The
two countries intend to raise their
trade from its present level of
about $300 million to $600 million,
according to the Russian diplomat.
Mr. Assad, whose country had
been the principal Near Eastern
ally of the ex-USSR, made his first
visit to Russia in 2005, thus
renewing bi-lateral cooperation.
Syria continues to buy the bulk of
its weaponry from Russia.
According to the official daily
paper Al-Baas, quoting the Syrian
Ministry of the Interior, Syria has
received more than 800,000 Iraqi
refugees since the beginning of the
conflict in their country. Of this
total, 648,000 Iraqis reached Syria
in the months immediately
following the overthrow of the
Saddam Hussein regime in 2003,
according to a Ministry official
quoted by the paper. This influx of
refugees can be attributed to the
Syrian laws that make it easy to
obtain a visa for Arabs as well as
Syria’s proximity to Iraq. Iraqi
refugees can secure a one-year
residence permit, renewable
annually if they have a regular
source of income in Syria, own
property or enrol their children in
a Syrian school, according to the
official cited by Al-Baas. The
majority of the Iraqi refugees have
settle in or around Damascus. Most
of them come from the middle
classes and are living on their
savings.
Furthermore, Syria and Iraq have
re-opened embassies in their
respective capitals. Damascus and
Baghdad have thus put an end to a
diplomatic breach of over 20 years.
The Iraqi flag was thus hoisted
over the Iraqi Embassy in
Damascus during a ceremony
attended by Syrian and Iraqi
leaders. A similar ceremony took
place in the Mansur quarter of
Baghdad, outside the green zone,
the authorities declared on 11
December. Iraq and Syrian had
broken off diplomatic relations
when Damascus sided with Iran
during the Iraq-Iran war, in the
80s. The two governments agreed,
the month before, to re-establish
full diplomatic relations during a
visit to Baghdad by the Syrian
Foreign Minister Walid al-Mualem.
half were killed in the last four
months of the year victims of acts
described as terrorist by the Iraqi
authorities. Of these, half were
killed in the last four months of the
year. The Ministry reports 1,930
civilians killed in December – a
figure three and a half as great as
January’s (580), which was before
the tide of violence following the
bomb attack against the Shiite
mosque in Samarra, in February.
The Ministry of the Interior
recorded the deaths, in December,
of 125 Iraqi police and 25 soldiers –
figures similar to those for
November and October. The US
Army, for its part, announced the
deaths of 112 US soldiers in
December – its heaviest casualty
list in two years. On 31 December,
the Pentagon announced the death
of a Texan soldier in Baghdad,
bringing the total of Americans
killed in Iraq since the beginning of
the war to at least 3,000, according
to a body count made by
Associated Press based on official
communiqués. At least 820 US
soldiers were killed in Iraq in
2006, 111 of whom in December,
the most murderous month that
year.
THE NUMBER OF IRAQI CIVILIAN VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE
REACHES AN UNPRECEDENTED LEVEL IN DECEMBER
T
he number of Iraqi
civilian victims of
violence reached a record
level in December, after
having considerably
increased the month before, as
shown by figures coming from the
Iraqi Ministry of the Interior. The
number of civilians killed in Iraq in
November increased by 43% as
compared with October, itself
particularly bloody. According to
figures from the Ministries of the
Interior and Defence, 1,847
civilians were killed in November
throughout Iraq, as against 1,289 in
October, marred by murderous
attack on the occasion of Ramadan.
Furthermore, the number of
insurgents killed in November was
more than twice as many as in
October, reaching 423 as against
194 the month before, according to
the two Ministries.
The statistics, that are considered
to be indicative, rather than
necessarily covering all the deaths
from violence, show 12,320
civilians killed in 2006, Of these,
Further more, according to a
Pentagon report published on 19
December, Iraq experienced 959
attacks a week between 12 August
and 10 November – a record since
Congress demanded, in 2005, that
the Pentagon set up this kind of
report. “In the course of the last three
months; the number of attacks has
increased by 22%. Part of this increase
is due to the seasonal peak in violence
during the month of Ramadan”,
stresses this report, to the US
Congress, which covers the period
from 12 August to 10 November.
The Pentagon report points out
that the coalition forces remain the
principle target of these attacks