Gunmen stormed two adjacent homes in al-Tahrir neighborhood of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul late Nov. 15, killing the two male heads of the households, the latest in a series of attacks targeting Christians. Simultaneously, a bomb detonated outside a Christian's home in central Mosul, damaging the house's exterior.

Lawyers acting for more than 140 Iraqi civilians are challenging the British government's refusal to hold a public investigations of the treatment of detainees in British-occupied areas of Iraq following the 2003 invasion. The British government has already held one inquiry into claims of abuse, with a second due to hold hearings next year. But Public Interest Lawyers say the two inquiries only cover a fraction of the cases, asserting that at the current pace it would take more than 100 years to hear them all. (AP, Nov. 5)

The Iraqi oil ministry's auction of three natural gas fields last week has been angrily opposed by all the governorates in which they are located, with provincial officials threatening legal action against Baghdad and warning that they will refuse to cooperate with the developers. Bids were granted to companies from Turkey, Kuwait, Kazakstan and South Korea to develop gas fields holding approximately 10% of the country's reserves. The fields in Anbar, Diyala and Basra are primarily being developed for domestic consumption to improve Iraq's feeble power supply, oil ministry officials said.

UN Special Rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak called Oct. 23 for the Obama administration to launch an inquiry into the role of the US in human rights violations allegedly committed in Iraq. Nowak's comments follow the release of government information on WikiLeaks that included thousands of previously classified documents. Many of the documents purportedly illustrate instances of abuse, torture and murder carried out by US and Iraqi forces.

From Global Exchange, Aug. 17:

The Iraq Debacle: The Legacy of Seven Years of War
We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, mark the August 31st withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq with the following evaluation and recommendations:

Iraq's Oil Ministry said on Aug. 29 the agreement Germany's RWE public utility signed with the Kurdistan Regional Government, which included possible future gas supply for the Nabucco pipeline project, is illegal. RWE announced two days earlier that it had signed a gas cooperation agreement with Iraq's autonomous Kurdish government.

From the War Resisters League (WRL), Aug. 25:

Blowing the whistle on war crimes is not a crime!
Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old intelligence analyst stationed in Iraq, stands accused of disclosing a classified video, published by WikiLeaks on April 5, 2010, depicting American troops shooting civilians from an Apache helicopter in 2007.

The US Army's 4th Stryker Brigade crossed into Kuwait Aug. 19—supposedly the last "combat brigade" to leave Iraq. Their departure leaves about 56,000 US troops in the country. By the end of the month, only a "residual force" of some 50,000 US troops will remain. President Obama said that more than 90,000 US troops have left Iraq in the past 18 months. "And, consistent with our agreement with the Iraqi government, all of our troops will be out of Iraq by the end of next year," he said.