At least 40 bodies have been found recently in Iraq's southern oil port of Basra, with the pull-out of British troops leaving only chaos and women increasingly targets of religious fundamentalists. "Some women along with their children have been killed," Basra police commander Abd Al Jalil Khalef told the pan-Arab daily Asharq Al Awsat. "A woman with two children, oe who was six and the other was 11 years old, were killed." He added that families usually refrain from filing complaints out of fear of retribution, indicating that many killings never get reported. Warnings have appeared written in red on the walls of Basra streets: "We are warning women not to wear makeup and not to be uncovered. Whoever violates this will be punished. As god as my witness, I have informed you."

A fire erupted Dec. 7 on the pipeline carrying oil from the Kirkuk fields to the Baiji refinery north of Baghdad. The state-run Northern Oil Company said the reason was unclear. In September, the pipeline burst in a suspected bomb attack. (Gulf News via Iraq Updates, Dec. 7) There have been 576 pipeline attacks in Iraq since March 2003, along with 69 attacks on refineries, 508 attacks on tanker trucks, six on maritime tankers and one on a train tanker car. At least 635 oil workers have been attacked—killed, wounded, kidnapped or subject to an attempted kidnapped. At least 1,211 workers in Iraq's power sector have also been targeted, and there have been 651 attacks on distribution and transmission lines and towers, 66 attacks on thermal power stations and five on hydroelectric power stations and 13 on power substations. Iraq's northern pipeline has been the major target. It was built with a total capacity of around 1.7 million barrels per day, but frequent attacks since the war have kept is largely out of commission. Recent repairs and a new security plan have allowed it to resume working, part of the reason Iraq has increased production from a little more than 2 million bpd to nearly 2.4 million. (UPI, Dec. 6)

All the talk about how calm Iraq is now thanks to the surge only indicates how dumbed-down our definition of "calm" has become. A suicide bomber blew himself up near a police station northeast of Baghdad Dec. 4, killing at least eight and wounding 30. The attack occurred as police were gathered at the station in Jalula, Diyala province, with Kurdish peshmerga troops who came to the area as part of a security crackdown. The dead included four Iraqi police, two Kurdish troops and two civilians, police said. (AP, Dec. 4) On Dec. 5, car bombs killed at least four across northern Iraq. The most deadly was in Kirkuk, where explosives hidden in a parked car killed three Kurdish troops in a passing convoy. (AP, Dec. 5) On Dec. 6, eight peshmerga troops and three gunmen from an unknown militant group were killed in a battle at Khanaqin, Diyala. (Reuters, Dec. 6)

Turkey attacked PKK rebel targets in northern Iraq Dec. 1, saying it inflicted "heavy losses." The Turkish General Staff said it ordered artillery and air-strikes against a group of "50 to 60 terrorists...inside Iraq's borders" southeast of the Turkish town of Cukurca, Hakkari province. "If necessary, other army units will intervene in the region," the statement added. While there have been mounting reports of Turkish strikes on Iraqi territory in recent weeks, this is the first time Turkish authorities have admitted to such an attack.

Australia's Labor Party prime minister-elect Kevin Rudd said Nov. 30 he will pull the country's 550 combat troops out of Iraq by the middle of 2008. Rudd was elected in a landslide Nov. 24, ousting veteran conservative prime minister John Howard, a supporter of the US-led war in Iraq. (AFP, Nov. 30) In the latest in the growing string of US atrocities in Iraq, soldiers opened fire on a car that tried to run a road block during a supposed operation against al-Qaeda in Baiji, 140 miles north of Baghdad, Nov. 27. A wounded child was found inside the vehicle, and was transferred to a military medical facility where he died. "We regret that civilians are hurt or killed while coalition forces work diligently to rid this country of the terrorist networks that threaten the security of Iraq and our forces," said US military spokesman Commander Ed Buclatin. (AFP, Nov. 27)

Japan's House of Councillors passed a bill Nov. 28 to end the nation's air force mission in Iraq. Japan withdrew its ground troops from Iraq in July 2006, but a Japanese unit stationed in Kuwait still provides air support for the Multi-National Force-Iraq. The bill, which passed 133-103, is supported primarily by the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)—and is not expected to pass the more powerful House of Representatives, dominated by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). (Jurist, Nov. 28)

Masked gunmen reportedly stormed the family home of a journalist associated with Saddam Hussein's party and critical of the Iraqi government, killing 11 relatives as they ate breakfast in a Baghdad neighborhood known as a Shi'ite militia stronghold Nov. 26. Dhia al-Kawaz, editor of the Asawat al-Iraq news agency, was in Jordan when his two sisters, their husbands and seven children aged 5 to 10 were slain in north Baghdad's Shaab district. The agency's Web site reported witnesses saying more than five masked men broke into the home and opened fire, then planted a bomb inside. The Interior Ministry said it had no information about the attack, and local police refused to comment. (AP, Nov. 27)

Both Sunni and Shi'ite opposition groups are criticizing the "declaration of principles" on long-term ties signed by US and Iraqi leaders Nov. 26, charging it would lead to "US interference for years to come." The Iraqi parliament will have to approve the agreement signed separately by President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri Maliki on Monday. The agreement sets a July 31, 2008 target date to formalize US-Iraq relations beyond the expiration of the renewable UN mandate authorizing the presence of US-led multinational forces in Iraq. The Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars said the Iraqi signatories would be looked on a "collaborators with the occupier." (BBC, Nov. 27)