IRAQ: Daring to venture out again in Basra

Today's Los Angeles Times includes a report on the recent bloodshed in Iraq's strategic southern city of Basra, the country's economic artery to the world.

Here is more about Basra:

Noor, 19, wears a gem-encrusted ring bearing the first letter in her name. Her sequined shirt says "beach dance." She wears light-pink lipstick and blue eye shadow. Her hair is wrapped in a white head scarf.

Before the government campaign two months ago, she worried about explosions and assassinations on her way to and from Basra's university. She heard stories of women being pulled from minibuses and shot. Police have estimated that more than 100 women have been executed by religious militants since last summer. Now Noor's family has ventured out tentatively for excursions to Basra's commercial Jazair Street.

But she wonders if elections, scheduled for the fall, will spark a new period of chaos.

"When the new government is formed, there will be more assassinations and confrontations as there have been many times before."

— Ned Parker and Usama Redha

EGYPT: Mysterious murder with sectarian echoes

Makram Azer was sitting in his jewelry shop this week in the El Zeitoun neighborhood in Cairo when two gunmen stormed in, killing him and three workers and injuring two. Nothing was stolen.

The murder is far from being seen as a mere crime. The victims were Copts, and that struck a nerve with the Christian community that constitutes about 10% of Egypt's predominantly Sunni Muslim population.

The prosecutor reportedly announced that preliminary investigations showed that no sectarian or terrorist motivations stood behind the crime.

Copts have long complained of religious discrimination, and sensitivities between Muslims and Copts have erupted in violence. In 2006, for example, a knife-wielding assailant attacked three churches in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, killing one and wounding at least 12. The government announced then that the perpetrator was mentally sick, a finding that fell short of convincing Christians. 

With this week's killing, those in the Coptic diaspora have seized the opportunity to shed light on the conditions of their co-religionists at home. Their websites have been following closely the murder and displaying plenty of incendiary comments. Most commentators have accused the government of neglecting violence against Christians, expecting it to put the blame on some sick-minded gangster, as it has done with similar incidents in the past.

"There will be no punishment for the criminals. Christians are slaves in their own country. All these killings happen with the full blessing and planning of Habib Adli [Egypt's interior minister] and his gangsters," read a comment on the United Copts website, which represents a group of hard-line Copts in the diaspora.

"God willing, the perpetrators will be arrested by the police and they will not turn out to be mentally retarded," read a comment on another Coptic website maintained by Copts living in the U.S.

— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo

Photo: A cartoon commenting on the murder on a Copts website. The officer tells the prosecutor: "Here are the pictures of some mentally retarded men. Your highness can choose one or two of them for this case." Credit: Shafiq Botros / United Copts website

IRAQ: General to take hot seat in court

His lawyers and supporters have long said that the criminal case against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, charged with dereliction of duty in the 2005 killing of 24 Iraqis in Haditha, has been trumped up for political purposes.

On Monday, Chessani's lawyers will get a chance in a Camp Pendleton courtroom to cross-examine the officer who brought the charges against Chessani: Gen. James Mattis (pictured).

The defense wants the case thrown out because of "undue command influence." It's not an unusual claim in military trials, although it is rarely successful.

Mattis has a complex — some might say contradictory — reputation among Marine generals.

He is known as an aggressive combatant who drives troops fast and furious. He led Marines into Afghanistan to help topple the Taliban in 2001 and was preparing to take his grunts cave hunting in Tora Bora to find Osama bin Laden until superiors, at the last moment, told him to back off.

In 2003 he led Marines into Iraq in the rush toward Baghdad, beating the Army across the Line of Departure. The next year he had the insurgents cornered in Fallouja until the White House ordered the attack halted. To his troops he's known as "Mad Dog" Mattis.

But at the same time, he holds his Marines, particularly officers, to high standards of conduct. He advanced investigations that led to charges against Marines for Iraqi deaths in Haditha, Hamandiya, Fallouja and a detention center outside Nasiriyah. He was also instrumental in the censure of a two-star general and two colonels in the Haditha case.

His philosophy is that, particularly in a counterinsurgency, allowing misconduct to go unpunished can lead to a loss of the moral high ground and undercut hard-fought victories on the battlefield.

Chessani's attorneys assert that Mattis, by allowing one of his top lawyers to attend certain meetings while the Haditha investigation was underway, was signaling that he wanted a case to be built, regardless of the facts. It may be a tough sell to the judge.

Still, the judge in Chessani's case has given the defense a partial victory: ordering the prosecution to disprove the defense assertions. Mattis, who was commanding general of the Marine Forces Central Command when the Haditha charges were brought, is now c.g. of a joint forces command at Norfolk, Va. and also Supreme Allied Commander (for) Transformation at NATO.

Chessani is charged with dereliction for not ordering a full-scale war crimes investigation when his Marines killed two dozen civilians during a chaotic day that began when a roadside bomb killed one Marine and injured two others.

"This case is dripping with double standards and political intrigue as the Pentagon attempts to appease Washington's political establishment and the press," said Richard Thompson, chief counsel for the Thomas More Law Center, which is representing Chessani.

— Tony Perry in San Diego

Photo: Gen. James Mattis, then a major general, during the assault on Baghdad. Credit: Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times

IRAN: Former German official says war imminent

An opinion piece by the former German foreign minister published today in a leading Middle East paper says that Israel is planning to attack Iran over its nuclear program.

Joschka Fischer, German's top diplomat from 1998 to 2005, is a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

[UPDATE, June 2, 3 p.m. PST: Fischer was actually a fellow at Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, not at WWICS]

He wrote a piece that appeared in today's Daily Star, an English-language  Lebanese newspaper, arguing that President Bush's recent visit to the Middle East was a precursor to a war on Iran's nuclear program:

The Middle East is drifting toward a new great confrontation in 2008. Iran must understand that without a diplomatic solution in the coming months, a dangerous military conflict is very likely to erupt. It is high time for serious negotiations to begin.

Fischer said Bush's speech during his address to the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, this month indicated a coming Israeli-U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear program:

He seemed to be planning, together with Israel, to end the Iranian nuclear program -- and to do so by military, rather than by diplomatic, means.... Although it is acknowledged in Israel that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would involve grave and hard-to-assess risks, the choice between acceptance of an Iranian bomb and an attempt at its military destruction, with all the attendant consequences, is clear. Israel won't stand by and wait for matters to take their course.

Fischer, former leader of Germany's Green Party, was one of the key diplomats involved in assessing Iran's nuclear facilities and pressuring Tehran for a temporary halt of its uranium enrichment program from 2003 to 2005, when he left office.

His piece was the talk of the town in Beirut. It stunned some abroad, as well. Conservative blogger Don Surber writes:

I had hoped that reasonable minds would by now have resolved this situation amicably and without violence. When a lefty like Fischer doubts that can happen, I worry.

—Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: Joschka Fischer. Credit: Andrzej Barabasz / Wikimedia Commons

IRAN: Chris de Burgh plans to play Tehran

Chris de Burgh is determined to sing for his lady, whether she wears a sexy red dress or an austere black chador.

This fall, the British pop star, who became famous worldwide with his 1980s light-rock hit "The Lady in Red," will likely perform in the Iranian capital.

This is what he and his Iranian producers announced at a news conference in Tehran on Wednesday morning.

Of course, there is still the arduous task of getting a official written permission from Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and then making sure that the country's strict religious authorities do not decide to spoil the party.

AFGHANISTAN: U.S. casualty identified

Pfc. Chad M. Trimble, 29, of West Covina, Calif., died Wednesday near Gardez, Afghanistan, of wounds caused by a roadside bomb. He was assigned to the Army's 1st Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Ft. Campbell, Ky. At least 510 American military personnel have died since the war began in 2001.

IRAQ: Marine freed from jail in Los Angeles

Marine Sgt. Jermaine Nelson, jailed in Los Angeles last week for contempt of court for refusing to testify against his former squad leader, was released Thursday after promising to attend a grand jury session and listen to questions.

Joseph Low, Nelson's attorney, said his client promised U.S. District Court Judge Percy Anderson that he would attend a June 18 session of a grand jury probing the alleged killing of prisoners by Marines during the fight for Fallouja in late 2004.

But Nelson did not promise to provide information about former Sgt. Jose Luis Nazario, Low said. "I did inform the judge [that] nothing has changed except our willingness to listen," he said.

Anderson had Nelson jailed last week when, despite receiving immunity, he declined to answer questions about "a brother Marine." Low said Nazario had saved Nelson's life in Iraq.

A dozen Marines and other supporters waited outside the courtroom during the closed session.

Marine Gunnery Sgt. James Griffin, stationed at Twentynine Palms, said he was angry that the Marine Corps had not backed Nelson's refusal.

"They teach us 'you never leave your brothers behind,' " Griffin said, "but he's all by himself right now.... We give our lives to the Corps — now this Marine is fighting for his."

Nelson faces charges in the military legal system in Camp Pendleton tied to the alleged killing of prisoners. Nazario is charged in federal court in Riverside, where he was a probationary police officer until he was charged.

Retired Marine Gerald Johnson said charging Nelson and Nazario could make other Marines second-guess themselves during combat.

Court documents suggest that the Marines claim they were faced with a split-second decision: either take time to process prisoners according to the rules, or rush to the aid of Marines pinned down in a firefight.

Another supporter, Joyce Glanza, said it was wrong to pull Nelson into a civilian courtroom. "It's not a jury of your peers anymore; it's a totally different thing."

— Scott Glover in Los Angeles / Tony Perry in San Diego

Photo: Marines in house-to-house combat in Fallouja. Credit: Rick Loomis/Los Angeles Times.

SAUDI ARABIA: A barber faces beheading

It’s a profanity uttered countless times a day around the globe, but a barber in Saudi Arabia faces beheading for the crime of using God’s name in vain. Sabri Bogday, a Turk who cuts hair in the Saudi port city of Jeddah, is awaiting appeal on his sentence.

Press reports say Bogday cursed during an argument with a neighbor, who later complained to police. This nation is ruled by a strict Wahabbi brand of Islamic justice that doles out lashings and public beheadings for crimes including murder, rape and heresy.

Bogday has been in jail for 13 months. Turkish President Abdullah Gul has asked Saudi King Abdullah to spare the barber. But the Arab News reported there could be complications hinging on arcane interpretations of religious law by fundamentalist judges.

The newspaper quoted a lawyer as saying: “Some judges consider it heresy and infidelity, and say that the accused cannot repent and so faces the death penalty. Others consider the statement to be disbelief, thus allow the accused to retract what he has said and repent and then set him free. ... Sentences in these cases are limited and considered rare, because the judgment is not based on something that is written.”

—Jeffrey Fleishman in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Photo: A beheading in Saudi Arabia. Source: kvinnonet.org

ISRAEL: Talk of prisoner swap with Hezbollah

Recent reports suggest Israel and Hezbollah are nearing an agreement. The talks, mediated by Conrad Gerhard, former head of Germany's federal intelligence service (BND) involve the possibility of Israel releasing Samir Kuntar, another four prisoners and the remains of 10 Hezbollah combatants in exchange for IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, whose kidnapping by Hezbollah in July 2006 sparked the Second Lebanon War.

According to reports, the two had been injured -- at least one gravely, but taken alive. Their fate remains unknown, as Hezbollah refuses to divulge any information on their condition.

Israel has paid controversially high prices for abducted soldiers and civilians, dead or alive. Redeeming prisoners is an important Jewish principle, as is bringing Jews to burial. But so is the precedence of the living over the dead.

Some maintain that past deals set bad precedents that left Israel vulnerable to kidnappings and extortion, and urge the government to re-set definitions to exchanging live prisoners for live prisoners only, not for bodies or remains.

According to press reports, Israel has threatened to declare the missing reservists dead on more than one occasion during the negotiations but hasn't.

IRAQ: McClellan, Bush, Obama, McCain spar over war

The debate over the U.S. invasion of Iraq has become front and center of presidential election contest.

This week, former White House spokesman Scott McClellan's bombshell book became the talk of the Beltway.

Bush allies promptly trashed McClellan for his disloyalty while others chided him for his tardy arrival to the anti-war camp. But few addressed the substantive issues raised in the book, which reveals tantalizing details about the run-up to the war and the management of the media:

If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq. ... The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. ...In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.

Meanwhile, presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain accused his primary rival, Barack Obama, of being clueless about the war in Iraq and "ignoring the successes of the U.S. troop buildup" and suggested he swing by Baghdad for a visit.

Certainly violence in Iraq is down, but it might be too early to start patting ourselves on the back. Today, two car bombs killed and injured at least 26 people in northern Iraq, and that was before noon.