Iraq hunting $17 billion missing after US invasion

Iraq's parliament is chasing about $17 billion of Iraqi oil money it says was stolen after the 2003 US-led invasion and has asked the United Nations for help to track it down.

The missing money was shipped to Iraq from the United States to help with reconstruction after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

In a letter to the UN office in Baghdad last month, parliament's Integrity Committee asked for help to find and recover the oil money taken from the Development Fund of Iraq (DFI) in 2004 and lost in the chaos that followed the invasion.

"All indications are that the institutions of the United States of America committed financial corruption by stealing the money of the Iraqi people, which was allocated to develop Iraq, (and) that it was about $17 billion," said the letter sent to the UN with a 50-page report.
The committee called the disappearance of the money a "financial crime" but said UN Security Council resolutions prevent Iraq from making a claim against the United States.

"Our committee decided to send this issue to you ... to look into it and restore the stolen money," said the letter.

UN officials were not immediately available for comment.

SALARIES, PENSIONS

The DFI was established in 2003 at the request of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the US body headed by Paul Bremer that governed Iraq after the invasion. The fund was to be used to pay the salaries and pensions of Iraqi government workers and for reconstruction projects.

In 2004, the administration of former US President George W Bush flew billions of dollars in cash into Iraq. The money came from the sale of Iraqi oil, surplus funds from the UN oil-for-food program and seized Iraqi assets.

Last July, an audit report from the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) said the US Department of Defense was unable to account properly for $8.7 billion of Iraqi oil and gas money after the 2003 invasion.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Al Jazeera television on Sunday: "No one on the Iraqi side was controlling the work of Paul Bremer at that time. So I think the administration of the United States needs to give the answers for where and how this (money) was being used.

"We do understand that Iraqis are also engaged in such lack of transparency and corruption related to the Paul Bremer time in Iraq," he added.

Osama al-Nujaifi, Iraq's parliament speaker, said a committee was investigating what happened to some $20 billion of DFI money.

"Some of these funds were spent and are documented. But some do not have such documents," he said. "We as a parliament are working together with the Iraqi Board of Supreme Audits and with coordination of SIGIR to know where this money ended up."

The appeal to the United Nations could help Iraq recover its money by putting its case before the international community, said Bahaa al-Araji, the head of the Integrity Committee.

"We cannot sue the Americans. Laws do not allow us to do that. All we want is to get this issue to the UN," Araji said. "If this works, it will open the way for Iraq to restore its stolen money." In 2003, the CPA issued an order granting immunity to US personnel and institutions working in Iraq.

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NATO strike kills civilians: Libya govt

  Libyan officials said some seven civilians were killed in a NATO air strike in eastern Tripoli in the early hours of Sunday morning.



"There was intentional and deliberate targeting of the civilian houses," deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim told reporters at the site. "This is another sign of the brutality of the West."

There were heaps of rubble and chunks of shattered concrete at the scene, which a large crowd of what appeared to be local residents were helping to clear.

On previous occasions when reporters have been taken to see fresh air strikes, the ruins of shattered buildings would typically still be smoking so soon after being hit. There did not appear to be any smoke at the site the Libyan said was targeted by NATO on Sunday morning.

If confirmed, the incident would be a blow to NATO's campaign which is aiding rebels fighting the government of Muammar Gaddafi at a time when the Western alliance is debating how to sustain its mission.

At a local hospital, reporters were shown three bodies, including a child, which government officials said were people killed in the air strike.

One of the bodies was covered with debris and dust. Reporters were also shown a wounded child.

"Basically, this is another night of murder, terror and horror in Tripoli caused by NATO," government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told  at the hospital. Five families were living in the building which was hit, he said.

It could not be immediately verified whether the three bodies had come from the destroyed building in the Arada district. Arada is a neighbourhood in the Souq al-Juma district, which is known for anti-Gaddafi sentiment.

Two weeks ago, Libyan government officials were accused by a staff member at the same hospital in a note passed to journalists of falsely labelling a child hurt in a car crash as the victim of a NATO attack.

The incident occurred just over 24 hours after the Libyan government accused NATO of specifically targeting civilians.

After four months of civil war, rebels control much of the east of Libya, the area around the western port city of Misrata and much of the Western Mountain region stretching to the border with Tunisia.

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Libyan rebels take new villages in Western Mountains

Rebel fighters are seen before a heavy fight against pro-Gadhafi forces at the frontline of Dafneya, some 40 km west Misrata, Libya, Sunday, June 12, 2011.



Libyan rebels have pushed deeper into government-held territory from their base in the Western Mountains, taking two villages from which forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi had been shelling rebel-held towns.

But the rebels are still a considerable way from Gaddafi's main stronghold in Tripoli, while their fellow fighters on the other two fronts -- in Misrata and in eastern Libya -- have made only halting progress against better-armed government troops.

The rebel advance some 150 km (90 miles) southwest of Tripoli on Wednesday, came as the White House insisted that President Barack Obama had the legal authority to press on with US military involvement in Libya.

Strains have begun to show in the Western alliance trying to topple Gaddafi. The US defense secretary rounded on European allies last week for failing to back the mission the alliance took over in late March.

The White House urged skeptical lawmakers not to send "mixed messages" about their commitment to the NATO-led air war that has helped the rebels push on from their bastion in the east.

"The revolutionaries (rebels) now control Zawiyat al-Babour and al-Awiniyah after pro-Gaddafi forces retreated this morning from the two villages," Abdulrahman, a rebel spokesman in the nearby town of Zintan.

In Gharyan, a Gaddafi-held town that forms the gateway from Tripoli to the mountains, there was an undercurrent of tension as the frontline moves closer to the capital.

Libyan government minders took a group of reporters to the town, which lies about 120 km southwest of Tripoli and about 20 km east of Kikla, which rebels seized from loyalists on Tuesday.

Despite an outward appearance of normality, walls around town on Wednesday had recently painted over graffiti. The windows of one government building were smashed, the sign for another was riddled with holes.

While many traders and people on the streets were reluctant to talk to reporters, one shop owner said the calm in the area during the day was replaced by fighting every night.

"Two thirds of the people here are for the rebels," he told Reuters, giving his name as Mohammed.

Those willing to talk in front of the minders were strongly pro-Gaddafi.

"Sarkozy is stupid, he is fighting this war for petrol," a man called Yunis said in French, referring to the French president, vilified by Gaddafi supporters as the driving force behind NATO bombing. "This is colonialism all over again."

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South Sudan accuses north of air attack, clashes flare

 South Sudan's army accused the north on Friday of bombing a southern border village and said southern forces were getting ready to defend against a possible ground attack.
The south is preparing to secede on July 9 and fears of fresh fighting between the two long-standing rivals grew after the north seized the contested Abyei region on May 21.
The United Nations said fighting between northern forces and southern-aligned armed groups in the north-run oil state of Southern Kordofan had spread to the tip of the southern Unity state and that tens of thousands may have fled the clashes.
Philip Aguer, spokesman for the south's Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army, said the northern military was trying to occupy areas near the border -- whose exact position is yet to be decided -- in an attempt to control the country's oil fields.
"There has been an air bombardment by northern forces in Unity state, in the morning yesterday and again in the afternoon. Three people were killed in the morning," Aguer said. The three dead were civilians, he said.
"We are expecting not only air attacks but also ground forces. We know their forces are moving from Abyei towards Unity state. ... We are getting ready to defend ourselves. Our forces near the border are on maximum alert and are expecting an attack any time," he added.
A spokesman for the northern army was not immediately available to comment. In previous statements, it blamed southern or southern-aligned forces for provoking fighting in Abyei, Southern Kordofan and elsewhere.
The White House said on Friday night it was "deeply concerned" by the developments in southern Sudan.
"The United States condemns reported acts of violence in Southern Kordofan that target individuals based on their ethnicity and political affiliation," the Obama administration statement said. "We call on the UN to fully investigate these incidents, and we demand that the perpetrators immediately halt these actions and be held accountable for their crimes."
South Sudan voted to secede in a January referendum promised by a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of brutal civil war between the north and south.
That vote went more smoothly and peacefully than many analysts and humanitarian groups predicted, but a lack of agreement between the two sides on questions such as how to share debt and oil revenues has complicated the split.
The secession could see the north lose some 75 percent of Sudan's current 500,000 barrels a day of oil output, the lifeblood of both the northern and southern economies.fighting,area,un,

VOLATILE BORDER

Northern forces have been fighting armed groups in the volatile Southern Kordofan border state since a police station was attacked on Saturday.
Between 30,000 and 40,000 people may have fled fighting in the state capital, Kadugli, alone, the United Nations said on Friday. The town's normal population is estimated at 60,000.
"The fighting has spread to the disputed border area of the northernmost tip of Unity state in southern Sudan," Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, told reporters in Geneva.
Armed checkpoints were set up on the main roads inside and around Kadugli and there had been reports of "large-scale" looting as late as Thursday, she added.
Kouider Zerrouk, spokesman for UNMIS, the local U.N. Mission in Sudan, said separately that MiG and Antonov aircraft bombardments were reported in the state's Umm Dorain, Umm Serdiba, Heiban and Saraf el-Gamos on Thursday, and artillery fire could be heard near Kadugli on Friday.
"The security situation in Kadugli and its environs remains volatile," he said. "Military build-up is continuing in various locations."
Analysts have seen Southern Kordofan as a flashpoint because it is home to thousands of northerners who sided with the south against Khartoum during the last civil war. Northern officials have called last week's clashes an "armed rebellion."
The region also holds the most productive oil fields that will be left in the north after the split.
Former South African President Thabo Mbeki met with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Thursday to discuss Southern Kordofan and Abyei and was scheduled to travel to Juba to meet officials there on Friday, state news agency SUNA said.
Abyei, long a centerpiece of the north-south divide, has been one of the most contentious issues before southern secession. It is used all year by the south-linked Dinka Ngok people and part of the year by northern Misseriya nomads.
Khartoum took control of the area with tanks and troops nearly three weeks ago, following an attack on a convoy of northern soldiers and U.N. peacekeepers that was blamed on southern forces. The move drew an international outcry.
Abyei was "calm but unpredictable" with sporadic shooting in the region's main town, OCHA said on Friday. Some 101,800 people may have fled the fighting there, it added, up from a previous estimate of 96,000.

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Over 10,000 flee clashes in Sudan border state: UN

 More than 10,000 people displaced by fighting in Sudan's Southern Kordofan were staying near a U.N. compound on Thursday, the country mission spokesman said, after nearly a week of clashes in the tense border state.

Fighting between government forces and armed groups erupted in the state capital of Kadugli and elsewhere after a police station was attacked on Saturday, adding to tensions as the country's south prepares to secede in about a month.

Southern Kordofan, an oil-producing state which lies in northern territory, has long been seen as a flashpoint because it is home to thousands of fighters who fought alongside the south against Khartoum during the last civil war.

In statements carried by the state news agency SUNA, Sudan's President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said north Sudan's armed forces were in control of Southern Kordofan on Thursday and were combing it for "remnants of the rebellion."

Southern Kordofan is important to the north because it has the most productive oil fields that will remain under Khartoum's control after the split. The south could take as much as 75 percent of Sudan's 500,000 barrels per day of oil output.

It also borders the disputed Abyei territory and Darfur, a western region that is the scene of a separate insurgency.

Analysts have predicted fighting could break out in Southern Kordofan ahead of the split, especially after an official of the ruling northern party was named the winner in a gubernatorial election last month.

The south said the vote was rigged, which Khartoum denied.

Southern Sudan voted to secede in a January referendum, the culmination of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war between the north and south. The split is scheduled for July 9.

CLASHES CONTINUE

The number of people staying near the local U.N. Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) compound after fleeing the state capital of Kadugli and nearby villages had risen to an estimated 10,000 by Thursday, UNMIS spokesman Kouider Zerrouk said.

Clashes took place in Kadugli and other areas into Thursday, he added.

Bashir's ruling National Congress Party had earlier accused southern-aligned armed groups in Southern Kordofan of fighting with the support of "foreign powers" and some domestic opposition.

"The armed forces will carry out their national duty and deal with all rebel forces," the statement cited presidential assistant Nafie Ali Nafie as saying.

Officials with the south's dominant party, the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement, have said the clashes started when the north tried to disarm armed groups in the area.

The northern army has blamed the southern-aligned groups for starting the fighting.

The militias are still referred to as members of the Southern Peoples' Liberation Army -- the southern military -- although Juba says they are no longer part of their army and cannot ask them to withdraw south because they are northern.

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