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Iraqi Sunni religious leaders called for all Sunni mosques in Baghdad to close down indefinitely in protest of recent violence targeted at Sunni religious leaders and worshipers. The Associated Press reports that mosques are complying with the request. The closing of mosques as a protest tactic has been used before by Sunnis until local authorities and tribal leaders promised protection, most notably in the southern province of Basra in September and in the northeastern Diyala province this month, according to the AP.
Amid the on-going turmoil in Iraq, Falih Hasan Fezaa, an independent Iraqi researcher and former editor-in-chief of the Foreign Culture Magazine in Baghdad, suggests that the last ten years have taught Iraqis “that their country has become a failed state, because political entrepreneurs have gambled with the future of the country.” Fezaa adds, the “astounding paradox” is that despite the vast oil wealth and International Monetary Fund predictions that the Iraqi economy will grow nine percent this year, 25 percent of the population remain under the poverty line.
Meanwhile, Kira Walker reports the sharp decline since the 1990′s in the number of Iraqi Kurds who speak Arabic fluently, “even though Arabic is the second official language in Kurdistan and the primary language of Iraq.” However, she suggests that since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, Iraqi Kurds have shown a renewed interest in learning Arabic. Nadham Omar, an Arabic teacher at Shahid Kochar Public School in Erbil, argued, “it’s important for students to learn Arabic,” because all of the historical, scientific, business, and religious texts in Kurdistan are in Arabic.
Also, a Shi’ite Iraqi militia took credit for six mortar bombs launched from Iraq into an uninhabited northeastern section of Saudi Arabia. Wathiq al-Batat, commander of Iraq’s al-Mukhtar Army militia told Reuters, “the goal was to send a warning message to Saudis to tell them that their border stations and patrol are within our range of fire,” and to stop interfering in Iraqi affairs.
