Free the Captives: Witness Against Illegal Detention and Torture

God help the people of tormented Iraq! Their society reeled under wave after wave of violence Thursday. Casualties were well into three figures.

Amid the spreading carnage, there was no news on Thursday of Tom Fox and the other Christian Peacemakers held captive in Iraq. Ekklesia makes note of CPT's warnings of civil war that are now realized:

Two months ago, when the US president suggested that the war was being won, Christian Peacemakers living in Iraq said that they were observing a very different situation to the one the President described.

The Christians warned about an ongoing a loss of faith and trust in the United States government by both Iraqis and Americans, an absence of security, lack of basic services, and limited reconstruction. They also highlight the continuing bombing of civilians, kidnapping, torture and extra judicial deaths.

We cannot begin to do justice to the horror that has been loosed. Here are only a few glimpses:

Reuters' latest tally of military and civilian deaths in Iraq includes three U.S. soldiers who were killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb, bringing the total U.S. military deaths up to 2,287. Credible estimates of Iraqi civilian casualties put the total at more than 100,000. Whatever it was yesterday, it is much higher today.

also from Reuters: Iraq's main Sunni bloc pulls out of government talks

"We are suspending our participation in negotiations on the government with the Shi'ite Alliance," Tareq al-Hashemi, a top official of the Iraqi Accordance Front, told a news conference.

Reuters also posts detailed information about militias and security forces operating in Iraq.