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During April 2017 (reporting period), the Iraq Internally Displaced Persons Information Centre (Iraq IIC) handled 5,563 calls, pushing the total number of calls handled passed 74,000. In April, callers identified cash and food as priority needs, with each accounting for 25% of total calls. Requests for information on Government services made up 14% of calls, with calls related to health accounting for 8% of calls.

During this reporting period, 31% of cash callers said shelter/NFIs was their primary need, with the majority of such calls made from camps in Ninewa (27%), where kerosene for cooking, mattresses and blankets were cited as main needs. Calls requesting cash for health needs accounted for 29% of cash calls, with Ninewa (20%), Sulaymaniyah (16%), Diyala (6%), and Salah al-Din (6%) ranking as top call locations for cash-for-health requests. Six percent of cash callers requested cash to cover food, health, and shelter related debt. In April, 34% of calls from Diyala requested cash assistance, with food and shelter being cited as primary needs.

For 41% of food callers, information on how to register for food assistance was a priority need, with 26% of such callers being women calling from Erbil (29%) and Ninewa (28%). Thirty-seven percent of food callers asked why their names had been removed from food distribution lists. Of the 6% of food callers that said food vouchers are not enough to cover needs, 68% called from Ninewa (of which more than two-thirds were from camps) and 20% called from Anbar. Some callers from camps in Ninewa said they are selling food assistance to pay for food items such as fresh vegetables and alternative types of pulses. Twenty percent of calls relating to Government services requested information on Ministry of Displacement and Migration (MoDM) cash grants to cover food needs.

In line with trends over the past 12 months, calls relating to Government services ranked in the top three caller requests, accounting for 14% of all calls in April. During April, 78% of Government services calls were requests for information on MoDM cash grants, with 41% of those callers requesting shelter/NFIs. The majority of these calls were made from camps: 71% were made from Qayarrah Al-Jadah while the majority of the MoDM cash grant calls form out-of-camp locations were from Ninewa (30%) and Salah al-Din (21%). Requests for restitution for damaged assets, which accounted for 10% of total Government services calls, were largely from people who originate from Ninewa (67%), Anbar (14%), and Salah al-Din (12%).

Nine percent of total calls in April, were related to the Protection Cluster; of these calls, 56% came from out-of-camp locations and 63% of calls from camps were requests for legal assistance to help replace lost documentation, register births, deaths, and marriages, update their PDS cards, and find detained family members and friends. Ninewa was the top caller location for legal assistance, with 25% of legal calls being made from out-of-camp locations and 75% of legal calls being made from camp locations in Ninewa.

For 8% of Iraq IIC callers in April shelter/NFIs was a primary need, with 85% of these calls coming from camps. Of those camp-based callers, 67% of calls were made from camps in Ninewa, in particular Qayarrah Airstrip and Qayarrah Jadah. Callers largely sought NFI support in the form of kerosene for cooking, mattresses, blankets and as the end of the month drew to a close callers increasingly requested summerisation items. Calls relating to the Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) cluster made up 4% of calls in April. Feedback that camp management was not listening to IDP needs was a top complaint in Haj Ali (50%). There was an increase in reports of snakes and spiders in camps located in the Al-Hamdaniya area.

Health calls accounted for 8% of total calls during April. Of those calls, 38% were made from camp locations, with 67% of camp health calls being made from camps in Ninewa, in particular Qayarrah Airstrip and Qayarrah Jadah. These callers requested health assistance primarily for secondary and tertiary healthcare reasons. While Ninewa topped the list for out-of-camp health calls, 100% of calls requesting psychosocial support in April were made from Erbil and Dahuk.

In April 2% of total callers cited Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) as a primary need, with 85% of calls relating to water access. Of those calls, 65% were made from camps, with camps in Ninewa accounting for the lions share (87%). In out-of-camp settings, the majority of calls relating to water access came from Mosul City. Of the calls relating to poor sanitation, 86% were made from camps, in particular Qayarrah Airstrip (29%), Kirkuk Laylan (18%), Haj Ali (18%), and Ameriyat Al-Falluja (12%).

For the fourth consecutive month, Ninewa topped the list of caller locations, accounting for 46% of total calls, followed by Erbil (14%), and Dahuk (9%). For Ninewa-based callers, food was a top priority, with 28% of callers requesting food assistance, followed by cash, which accounted for 21% of total Ninewa calls. The call centre received its first calls from Al Jarabee camp in Telafar in April, with callers citing a range of needs including camp security, food, in-date medicines, water, and sanitation. For more information on calls from Ninewa, please see the Iraq IIC Ninewa Monthly Summary for April.

Of people calling from camp locations to seek information on returns, 87% were made from Ninewa and 13% from Anbar. Returnees calling from out-of-camp locations primarily called from Ninewa (79%), Anbar (10%), Salah al-Din (6%), Diyala (4%), and Baghdad (1%). Of calls made by returnees in Ninewa, 78% had returned to their area of origin in East Mosul. For returnees to East Mosul, 22% requested cash assistance, 19% information on Government services, 13% legal assistance, and 5% called about employment opportunities. Anbar returnees cited Government-related services as a priority need (42%), with people requesting information on restitution for damaged assets and Government salaries.

All Iraq IIC reports are available for download on the humanitarian community portal: humanitarianresponse.info.

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Iraq IDP Information Centre Report, April 2017 - ReliefWeb

Iraq vet says he was prohibited from returning to FDNY Academy New York Daily News Decorated Iraq combat vet Samuel Berger, who has years of experience fighting fires, has been rejected from re-entering the FDNY Academy after he had to take an emergency leave because his mother fell ill, the Daily News has learned. The FDNY and a ...

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Iraq vet says he was prohibited from returning to FDNY Academy - New York Daily News

CAIRO Egypt made clear on Monday that it planned to press ahead with air strikes against Islamist militants in neighbouring Libya who it says were responsible for killing Egyptian Christians in an ambush last week.

Libyan military commanders said Egyptian jets hit the Libyan city of Derna on Monday, continuing attacks that began hours after masked men boarded vehicles driving dozens of people to a monastery in the southern Egyptian province of Minya on Friday and killed 29.

A witness said on Monday one air attack hit the western entrance to Derna and two others hit Dahr al-Hamar in the city's south.

"The air strikes are joint ones between the Libyan National Army and Egyptian army," said Ahmad Messmari, a spokesman for the Libyan National Army, an eastern Libyan faction allied with Egypt.

An Egyptian military spokesman, Colonel Tamer al-Refaei, said anyone who plotted what he called terrorist violence against Egypt was not beyond the reach of the military.

"Anyone sponsoring terrorism will be punished no matter where they are," he told the state-owned Ahram newspaper. "We have not announced the cessation of military operations against terrorist training camps."

Libyan operational commander Brigadier Abdulsalam Al-Hasi told Reuters the strikes targeted Majlis Mujahideen Derna and Abu Salim brigade, two local Libyan groups allied with al Qaeda.

Refaei said the military was not targeting a specific militant group because it did not differentiate between various factions.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said Egypt had targeted militant bases in Libya "to get rid of them and to limit their ability to threaten Egypt's national security".

Speaking at a news conference in Cairo with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Shoukry said Egypt looked forward to "Russia utilising all of its available capabilities to work together to get rid of terrorism".

ISLAMIC STATE

Islamic State claimed responsibility for last week's attack in Egypt, the latest targeting the Christian minority there. Three church bombings since December, also claimed by Islamic State, have killed more than 70 people.

Another Egyptian state-owned newspaper, Akhbar, said two men responsible for planning the Minya attack had also been involved in the church bombings. The two, now on the run, had been helped by accomplices from Libya who supported Islamic State.

Akhbar quoted security sources as saying the two men had provided weapons and cars for the gunmen, some of whom belonged to Islamic State's Libyan affiliate.

Egypt has carried out air strikes in Libya occasionally since its neighbour descended into factional fighting in the years following the 2011 civil war that ousted Muammar Gaddafi.

Islamist militant groups, including Islamic State, have gained ground in the chaos, and Derna, a city of about 150,000 that straddles the coastal highway linking Libya to Egypt, has a long history with Islamist militancy.

Islamic State first attempted to establish a presence in Libya in Derna, but it faced armed resistance from more locally affiliated militant groups, including the Majlis Mujahideen Derna coalition and the Abu Salim brigade. It was driven out of the city in 2015 and later set up its main Libyan base in Sirte.

Egypt has been backing eastern commander Khalifa Haftar, whose Libyan National Army has been fighting Islamist militant groups and other fighters in Benghazi and Derna for more than two years.

Messmari, the Libyan National Army spokesman, told reporters in Benghazi late on Sunday that Haftar's forces were coordinating with Egypt's military and the weekend raids targeted ammunition stores and operations camps.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Friday the air raids targeted militants responsible for plotting the attack, and that Egypt would not hesitate to carry out additional strikes inside and outside the country.

(Additional reporting by Ayman Ayman Al-Warfalli in Benghazi and Asma Alsharif in Cairo; Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Giles Elgood and Dan Grebler)

BERLIN German police on Tuesday detained a 17-year-old Syrian suspected of planning a suicide attack in Berlin, a spokesman for the interior ministry of the neighboring state of Brandenburg said.

BERLIN German Chancellor Angela Merkel underlined her doubts about the reliability of the United States as an ally on Monday but said she was a "convinced trans-Atlanticist", fine-tuning her message after surprising Washington with her frankness a day earlier.

BAGHDAD Two car bombs killed at least 20 people in Baghdad and wounded about 80 others early on Tuesday, security sources said, one targeting the late-night crowds typical of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan who shop and eat ahead of the next day's fast.

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Egypt to press ahead with air strikes after Christians attacked - Reuters

Barack Obama

Jim Kavanagh Correspondent On November 20, 2015, two jihadi militants attacked the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako, Mali, seizing about 100 hostages and leaving bodies strewed across the building.

When it was over, 22 people (including the attackers) had been killed. As the New York Times reported:

Mali has been crippled by instability since January, 2012, when rebels and Al Qaeda-linked militants armed with the remnants of late Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafis arsenal began advancing through the countrys vast desert in the north and capturing towns.

Not much has been made in American and Western media of this attack.

Most of the dead were Malians, Russians, and Chinese and, hey, it was in Africa; Shit happens. Especially there. How many people reading this even remember that it happened? Follow-up analysis? It was Africa. That kind of coverage.

Last Monday, jihadi suicide bomber Salman Abedi blew himself up at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, killing 22 people.

Salman grew up in an anti-Gaddafi Libyan immigrant family. In 2011, his father, Ramadan Abedi, along with other British Libyans (including one who was under house arrest), was allowed to go [to Libya], no questions asked, to join the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), an al-Qaeda-affiliate, to help overthrow Gaddafi.

In Manchester, as Max Blumenthal puts it, in his excellent Alternet piece, it was all part of the rat line operated by the MI5, which hustled anti-Gaddafi Libyan exiles to the front lines of the war.

In Manchester, Salman lived near a number of LIFG militants, including an expert bomb maker. This was a tough bunch, and everybody including the cops and Salmans Muslim neighbours knew they werent the Jets and the Sharks. As Middle East Eye reports, he was known to security services, and some of his acquaintances had reported him to the police via an anti-terrorism hotline.

Could it be any clearer? The Abedi family was part of a protected cohort of Salafist proxy soldiers that have been used by the West to destroy the Libyan state. There are a number of such cohorts around the world that have been used for decades to overthrow relatively prosperous and secular, but insufficiently compliant, governments in the Arab and Muslim worldand members of those groups have perpetrated several blowback attacks in Western countries, via various winding roads. In this case, the direct line from Libya to Mali to Manchester is particularly easy to trace.

Too bad more people in Britain and the West hadnt paid attention to what happened in Mali two years ago. Too bad they hadnt thought too much about the chain of jihadi proxy interventions that the United States and its allies, or about the connection with the chain of jihadi attacks in Western countries. Too bad they hadnt recognised the continuing arrogance of the Western (US/Nato) and Middle Eastern (Gulf, Israel) powers who think they can unleash and re-leash these jihadi fighters at will. Too bad they dont understand the contradiction between mourning the bombing of Manchester and crying for the bombing of Syria.

Too bad the Western (i.e., American-directed) media dont provide what would be necessary to understand these things: ongoing coverage and analysis of the obvious relation between the continuing series of horrors perpetrated by jihadi militants and the continuing series of horrors perpetrated by Western and allied governments.

Its a good bet nobody will have forgotten the Manchester bombing two years from now.

It was in merry old England, after all and many of the victims were beautiful British girls.

Its also a good bet that the media analysis will continue to have everyone scratching their heads about why these death-loving Muslims hate us so much.

That kind of coverage.

The jihadi attackers in Mali and the jihadi bomber in Manchester were direct products not accidental by-products, but deliberately incubated protgs of American-British-French-NATO regime change in Libya, a project that was executed by the Obama administration and spearheaded by Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clintion

Before the glorious revolution, Libya under Gaddafi had the highest standard of living of any country in Africa, according to the UN Human Development Index.

Before the jihadi onslaught backed by Nato bombing campaign, Gaddafis Libya was an anchor of stability in North Africa, as even the US and British governments knew and acknowledged, per a 2008 cable from American foreign service officer Christopher Stevens, published by WikiLeaks:

Libya has been a strong partner in the war against terrorism and cooperation in liaison channels is excellent . . . Muammar Gaddafis criticism of Saudi Arabia for perceived support of Wahabi extremism, a source of continuing Libya-Saudi tension, reflects broader Libyan concern about the threat of extremism. Worried that fighters returning from Afghanistan and Iraq could destabilise the regime, the [government of Libya] has aggressive pursued operations to disrupt foreign fighter flows, including more stringent monitoring of air/land ports of entry, and blunt the ideological appeal of radical Islam.

The US-British-French-Nato humanitarian intervention put an end to that by overthrowing the Libyan government under entirely phony pretexts, in contravention of fundamental international law, and in violation of the UN resolution they claimed as a justification.

The executioners and beneficiaries of that aggression where the jihadis who have been rampaging from Mali to Manchester.

Its a bright, clear line.

Gaddafi himself warned Tony Blair that an organisation [the LIFG] has laid down sleeper cells in North Africa called the Al Qaeda organisation in North Africa.

Gaddafis son, Saif, warned that overthrowing Libyas government would make the country the Somalia of North Africa, of the Mediterranean and You will see millions of illegal immigrants. The terror will be next door.

Thanks to Blair and Obama and Clinton and Sarkozy, thats exactly what happened.

Libya was destroyed as a functioning state, and the terror is now inside every Western door.

Westerners and Americans transfixed by Gaddafis garish posturing may have, and may still, find it hard to accept, but it needs to be said aloud: In 2011, Gaddafi was right about what was going on in Libya, and all best and brightest militaristic conservatives and humanitarian liberals, in and out of government, were wrong.

A lot of radical lefties, too, myself included; though I always vehemently opposed the US-Nato intervention, I, too, took Gaddafis complaints for excuses.

But lesson learned (by some): What was going on in Libya was the same thing that went on in Afghanistan in the 80s, and the same thing that is going on in Syria today, supercharged by the intervening war in Iraq

Throughout this nefarious chain of destruction, nobody in the world has committed worse crimes than all the humanitarian liberals in and out of government who have enacted and/or gone along with the imperialist chaos program of destroying relatively prosperous and secular societies in the Arab and Muslim world, and replacing them with sectarian jihadi playgrounds.

And no force in the world is more responsible for the rampaging jihadi wolves, lone and in packs, than the United States and its compliant allies, including Great Britain.

Whether any American liberal wants to or not, anyone who is mourning Manchester needs to hear it said: Were crying over the horror in Manchester today because yesterday Hillary Clinton was laughing about the horror she inflicted on Libya including the killing of Gaddafi by those protected Salafist proxies who sodomised him with a bayonet: We came. We saw. He died. [big smile, joyous laughter] Yes, exactly that.

Ha, Ha. Maybe she can get a gig in a comedy club in Manchester.

Really, knowing what we do about Libya through to Manchester, does any of the outrageous things weve from Trump equal the despicableness of Hillarys perverse glee in this video? Its an image not to be forgotten.

Im sure that our current president, if hes given the timeand, if hes not, some other Republican or Democratwill meet or exceed the high standards that have been set, but Donald Trump has not yet come near committing the series of crimes for which Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (following the precedent of five previous American administrations) are responsible. These crimes produced the twin horrors of imperialist and jihadi chaos, of which the destruction of the Libyan state was one egregious example, and the killing of young concertgoers in Manchester another. This represents a deep, persistent bipartisan policy that is much more important and difficult to confront than the question of which front man or woman will be selling it.

Manchester is the latest iteration of a scenario weve gone through so many times now, like some groundhog-day dream

Its still dream on, and I fear it will take a shock much greater than Manchester before Americans finally get the news. Counterpunch

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Legacy of Hillary, Barack's Libyan adventure - The Herald

Tripoli, Libya (CNN)At least 47 people were killed in fierce clashes between rival militias in Libya, the Ministry of Health said.

"Can hear explosions and artillery fire in south Tripoli. Condemn action by these militias who threaten security of Libyans, especially before Ramadan," British Ambassador to Libya, Peter Millett wrote on Twitter.

People were trapped in combat zones, leading the International Committee of the Red Cross to urge all sides of the conflict to help ambulances reach the injured.

In a statement, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, called on "rival groups to stop fighting immediately and put Libyan national interest first."

The clashes, which were mostly reported on the southern neighborhoods in the city, come after a period of relative calm.

Last year, the United Nations hastened the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord in an effort to promote stability.

But it continues to compete with the Islamist-dominated General National Congress in Tripoli, also known as the Government of National Salvation, and with the previous internationally recognized government, the Council of Deputies, which has set up camp in the east of Libya and backs Gen. Khalifa Haftar, the head of the so-called Libyan army.

CNN's Nic Robertson and Sarah Sirgany contributed to this report.

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Rival militias clash in Libyan capital, leaving 47 dead - CNN