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Winter storms have devastated refugee and displacement camps across Syria, humanitarian organizations reported on Wednesday. Freezing temperatures have also gripped neighboring Iraq in recent days, where at least three displaced people have died from exposure in the space of 72 hours, according to an Iraqi human rights monitor. Two children died at the Ashti camp in Sulaymaniah province, as did a 71-year-old woman living in an abandoned house in Diyala province, the Afada observatory said Wednesday. In Syria, videos and photos posted online by local photographers and residents of the camps showed tents blanketed in white while people feared the...

Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi, on Saturday said that the Iraqi security forces captured a leading figure in Saddam Hussein’s Baath party in an operation based on intelligence reports. Al-Abadi said this in his address to a ceremony in Baghdad for the 146th anniversary of the Iraqi press. “The security forces managed to arrest the terrorist Abdul Karim al-Sadoun by the efforts of the Iraqi intelligence,” Abadi said. Abadi did not give further details about how or where the arrest took place, saying he preferred an official statement to declare the details later as interrogation was still underway. Al-Sadoun was...

Sunni insurgents battling forces loyal to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki broke into a military base in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad on Thursday, a security source and a local official said. They said militants fought their way into the base on the edge of Muqdadiya town, 80 km (50 miles) northeast of the capital. The northern side of the town was already under their control before Thursday's clashes. The area around Muqdadiya has seen sustained fighting in recent weeks since fighters led by the hardline Islamic State, an offshoot of al Qaeda, seized the northern city of Mosul and...

In a statement to PUKmedia, Colonel Nouri Abdul Karim Mustafa, Commander of the Third Battalion of the Fourth Brigade of Kurdistan Region Guards forces (The Peshmerga) , said that at 9 am on Friday morning, Border Guards Forces entered Jalawla sub- district , to form a joint force with the Iraqi army under the supervision of coalition forces. This step is the beginning of the Peshmerga forces deployment al- Saadiya sub- district as well , and perhaps in the areas of Mandali, Qaratapa, and the Kurdish Separated Areas in Diyala province, Colonel Mustafa clarified.

U.S. Army Spc. Scott Guthrie stands watch on the roof of an Iraqi police station in Tunis, Iraq, Feb. 28, 2009. Guthrie is assigned to 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment, 172nd Infantry Brigade. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class James Wagner Thomas Ricks posted a nice response by Lt. Joseph Somers, in reaction to a shootout in Diyala province between Iraqi Police (IP) and Iraqi Army (IA), questioning its meaning. Lt. Somers sheds some light on the cause of the shootout; but the real gem is the second half of his letter: I am the platoon leader responsible...

SAADIYAH, Iraq — Iraqi police officers found explosives planted at a polling station Sunday morning here, the latest incident in a tense run-up to provincial elections in northeast Diyala province. The officers found two anti-tank mines with cell phone detonators at a school that will act as a polling station in Saadiyah, north of Baghdad in a part of Iraq disputed between Kurds and Arabs, U.S. military officials said. An Iraqi army explosives ordnance team defused and disposed of the explosives, officials said. Two men hired to guard the school were arrested for suspected complicity in the bombing plot, an...

BAGHDAD -- A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of Iraqi police recruits, killing 28 people and wounding 45, police said. It was the biggest attack for weeks in Iraq, where which has been enjoying some of its lowest levels of violence in four years. It came amid Iraqi efforts to conclude a security deal with the United States that would allow American forces to leave Iraq by the end of 2011. A police source said the bomber, wearing an explosive vest, struck a large crowd lining up to apply to join the police in the town of...

Click to view images from Miqdadiyah. Photos by Bill Murray. The U.S. military loves metrics to measure success or failure. Vietnam had its dubious enemy body counts, the Gulf War its measure of smart bombs accuracy. Troops today in Iraq may have come across their most accurate technique to gauge the current campaign: the Chai count. “Do you know how many times I drank Chai in Anbar in 2005 and 2006,” asked US Army Captain Scott Polasek asked Hussam Alwan Abed, the head of the Sons of Iraq program in Miqdadiyah, 60 miles north of Baghdad in the Diyala...

Iraq’s Quick Reaction Forces moves through upper Diyala province in the largest Iraqi offensive in five years.

Excerpt - BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi military commander says a new U.S.-backed operation has begun in the volatile Diyala province northeast of Baghdad. ~ snip ~

Iraqi security forces are massing more than 30,000 soldiers and police for an upcoming operation against al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army in the eastern province of Diyala, according to police and military officials. The operation, which was expected to be launched this week, has been scheduled to kick off on August 1, an anonymous senior Iraqi military officer told AFP. "The operation is aimed at cleansing the region of insurgents, al Qaeda and militias who are still there," the officer said. Like other offensives against al Qaeda and the Mahdi Army, the Diyala operation will be planned and led...

A fresh outbreak of violence left at least seven people dead and 27 injured, including three children, in separate attacks in Iraq's restive province of Diyala, police said Tuesday. In Baquba, the capital of Diyala, twin attacks targeting members of tribal police, known as the Awakening Councils, left three of them dead and eight people injured. The Awakening Councils are US-backed Sunni tribal police units formed to fight al-Qaeda militants in Iraq. In the first incident, gunmen attacked a centre of the Awakening Council in al-Abara village, south of Baquba, killing a council member and injuring another, security sources told...

Suspected Al-Qaeda militants attacked a village in Diyala province north of Baghdad and beheaded five members of a local group fighting the jihadist network, police said. Police Lieutenant Colonel Najim al-Sumaidaie said the militants raided the village of Benizad, south of the provincial capital Baquba, and attacked a newly created outpost of a local anti-Qaeda "Awakening" group. "Five people from the Sahwa (Awakening) group were shot dead and later beheaded by the militants," Sumaidaie said, referring to groups of mostly Sunni Arabs who have allied with the US military to fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq. "We set up the outpost with...

BAGHDAD — Iraq has captured an Al Qaida-aligned cell that recruited and deployed women for suicide operations. On March 1, Iraqi and U.S. troops raided a suspected Al Qaida safe house in Al Makhesa, in northeastern Diyala. Officials said scores of suspected women operatives recruited as suicide bombers were arrested. The women suicide cell was said to have consisted of 100 operatives. Officials said Al Qaida has increased its use of women for suicide operations. The women cell was said to have operated in the Diyala province. Officials said some of the women were recruited by their husbands for suicide...

Al Qaeda in Iraq safe havens before the surge up until November 2007. Map from The Institute for the Study of War. Click to view. With al Qaeda in Iraq's bases of operations dismantled in the central Baghdad regions, Diyala province has emerged as the primary battleground between Iraqi and Coalition forces and the terror group. As the concurrent combat operations against al Qaeda in Baghdad and the Belts regions peaked during the summer and fall, al Qaeda in Iraq attempted to re-establish its bases in the northern provinces of Salahadin, Ninewa, Tamin, and Diyala. In the region northeast...

WASHINGTON - Commanders in Iraq have decided to begin the drawdown of U.S. forces in volatile Diyala province, marking a turning point in the U.S. military mission, The Associated Press has learned. Instead of replacing the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, which is returning to its home base at Fort Hood, Texas, in December, soldiers from another brigade in Salahuddin province next door will expand into Diyala, thereby broadening its area of responsibility, several officials said Tuesday. In this way, the number of Army ground combat brigades in Iraq will fall from 20 to 19. This reflects President...

The reaction was immediate when Army 1st Sgt. Bruce L. Reges strode into the classroom in the Baghdad suburb of Baqubah, in the volatile Diyala province. At 6-foot-5 and wearing full body armor, Reges, 57, looked fearsome to the schoolchildren. Outside, two Stryker armored vehicles blocked the street. A heavily armed security detail was checking out the roof and other classrooms. Click link and read the entire article.

Behind the Media Veil by: Bethany Stotts, September 10, 2007 It seems that the professional media guidelines currently require coverage of Iraq to focus on ongoing insurgency, death counts, and sectarian violence, and that the media characterize the newly formed democratic Iraqi government as largely ineffectual. September 4th’s major headlines covering “Iraq parliament returns, but still no benchmark law” (Reuters), “Iraq parliament back; weighs no key laws” (Associated Press), and “Iraqi Parliament Ends Recess, Faces US Pressure to pass Laws” (Bloomberg). In anticipation of possible news of progress in Iraq, the media has already framed General Petraeus’ testimony as a...

BAQOUBA, Iraq, Sept. 2, 2007 – In an effort to build upon the recent success of the Aug. 19 reconciliation agreement between more than 80 leaders from the Diyala River Valley, approximately 40 tribal leaders gathered at the Baqouba Government Center, Sept. 1, to continue their discussions about the importance of reconciliation. The leaders, both Sunni and Shia, represented multiple tribes throughout the Diyala River Valley, with emphasis placed on tribes from Abu Sayda and Mukiesha - two villages that have not worked together in over a year due to tribal infighting. Ra'ad Hameed Al-Mula Jowad Al-Tamimi, Diyala's governor, hosted...

BAGHDAD — Operation Lightning Hammer concluded Wednesday after a 12-day, large-scale operation to disrupt al-Qaeda and other terrorist elements in the Diyala River Valley, a complex area of villages and palm groves in Iraq’s Diyala province. The operation, which involved approximately 16,000 Iraqi and Coalition forces clearing approximately 50 villages, was a key element in Multi-National Corps-Iraq’s overall operation, Phantom Strike; and resulted in 26 al-Qaeda members killed, 37 suspected terrorists detained and the discovery of 10 weapons caches. “The strength and determination of the fighting men and women from the Iraqi and Coalition forces showed great results during Lightning...