Free the Captives: Witness Against Illegal Detention and Torture

Today's dispatches bring news of defiant celebrations amid continuing violence in Iraq, further calls for the release of detained journalists, and analysis of the present turmoil. We found no new reports of Tom Fox or the other CPT peaceworkers held captive in Iraq. Once again, we call on their captors to free them, unharmed, now!

from Reuters: War-weary Iraqis say it with Valentine's Day flowers

Defying almost daily car bombs, shootings and kidnappings, some Baghdad lovers ventured out of their homes to say it with flowers on Valentine's Day.

"The security situation has affected all sides of life, but it did not stop us from coming to buy a flower to prove that life goes on in Iraq," said Saif, who went with his fiancee Bayan to a busy flower shop in central Baghdad to buy roses.

To lure amorous couples, the shop's owners carpeted the sidewalk outside the store with red petals and put up a banner that read: "We all celebrate Valentine's Day for all the world and for the Iraqis."

Bayan said celebrating Valentine's Day in Iraq was a way to defy violence.

from the Associated Press: Roadside Bomb Kills U.S. Marine

A roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine in western Baghdad on Tuesday in one of two attacks that also wounded six coalition military personnel, the military said.

The attack that killed the Marine happened at about 10:30 a.m. near Abu Ghraib, the military said in statement. Two other coalition personnel were wounded in the attack that also damaged their vehicle.

About an hour later, another coalition convoy was attacked by a roadside bomb and small-arms fire in the Baghdad's Salaam area, wounding four soldiers.

The death took the number of U.S. military personnel to have died in Iraq to at least 2,270 since the since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

from Reuters: Gunmen kill 11 farmers north of Baghdad

Masked gunmen shot dead 11 members of the same family, including a 5-year-old boy, after rounding up a group of farmers in Iraq, police and survivors said.

Among the dead was Sheik Hussein Sarhan al-Hiyali, a tribal leader who owned the farm in the Shi'ite town of Balad, some 50 miles north of Baghdad. [...]

The motive of the killings was not immediately clear, but sectarian violence has become a common element in Iraq's conflict in recent months. Balad is mostly Shi'ite but it borders several Sunni areas.

from Aljazeera: US urged to free Aljazeera journalist

An international media watchdog has urged the United States to free Sami al-Hajj, an Aljazeera cameraman, and another journalist, saying they had been unfairly detained.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (known by its French acronym, RSF) said in a statement on Tuesday: "These journalists have been denied justice and not allowed to see family or lawyers."

Al-Hajj is being held at a military base in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, and Abdel Amir Yunes Hussein, 26, who works for US network CBS News, is being held at a US prison in Iraq. [...]

Al-Hajj, 36, has been held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002 after being arrested in Afghanistan in 2001, it said.

He has been accused of making videos of Osama bin Laden.

RSF said he had told a human rights lawyer who visited him in Guantanamo that he had been interrogated more than 130 times and tortured, including sexually. [ more ]

from the Associated Press: 2006 Make-Or-Break Year in Iraq

Intersecting factors in Iraq and at home make this year pivotal. The first permanent post-invasion government offers hope for Iraqi political stability even in the face of unabated sectarian violence. At the same time, the Bush administration faces growing domestic pressure to reduce the U.S. troop presence.

Within the administration, there is an urgency to get it right this time, after the stumbles and false starts of the U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authority and more than a year of Iraqi-led caretaker governments.