February 20, 2007

Asharq al-Awsat, along with other Arab papers, reports uncritically the ridiculously-timed NYT piece about striking oil in Sunni-Iraq territory (actually this was nothing but a reexamination of old seismic reports that boosted reserve estimates all over the country, no reported figures for Sunni versus Shiite areas and not even any names of who did these reports).

More in the real world, Asharq al-Awsat also says on its front page that the Maliki government and the biggest Sunni parliamentary bloc yesterday traded charges of being infiltrated by armed groups. A spokesman for the Iraqi Accord Front said the Baghdad security plan started off in the right direction, but recently there have been operations where the government forces were assisted by the Mahdi Army, and he said this threatens to derail the plan. In rebuttal, Maliki security adviser Sami al-Askari said the problem is that the Accord Front hasn't made up its mind whether it really supports the government and the current plan, or not.

And al-Askari went on to say that the Accord Front is under pressure from armed groups in the areas it represents:

Askari said [in a telephone interview from Baghdad], in reply to the Accord Front charges, that "the Accord Front hasn't yet made up its mind whether it is with the government and the political process, or against it", adding that "the Accord Front makes a practice of criticising the government even though it is a part of that government". Askari explained that the Iraqi Accord Front is under pressure from "armed groups that are deployed in its areas, in fact the Front has been penetrated by those armed groups, moreover some of its members are accused of being involved in some of the violent acts in the country".

Askari urged the Accord Front to get behind the government and the security plan, noting that important figures in that bloc have expressed support for the plan, including vice president of the republic Tareq al-Hashimi, and deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie.