US forces shot two Shi'ite pilgrims the night of Feb. 7 as they walked to Karbala for the Arbaeen holy day, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said. The victims were a man and a woman, and the man later died of his injuries, the official said. Reports from witnesses said an eight-year-old girl was killed. The US military admitted to the accidental discharge of a weapons. The Interior Ministry said the shooting took place east of Diwaniya, about 110 miles south of Baghdad. Two other pilgrims were killed on Sunday in the Qahira district of Baghdad by a roadside bomb. (NYT, Feb. 8; CNN, AP, Feb. 7)

Iraq's provincial elections Jan. 31 saw 4,000 women as candidates for 147 of the roughly 440 seats on provincial councils in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces, and many of them will be guaranteed seats under an electoral quota system. Regardless of the votes their candidates receive, parties are required to give every third seat to a woman, according to a report by the International Crisis Group. The ultimate share of seats held by women will depend on the distribution of votes among parties, the report said. But some woman candidates quoted by the media questioned how significant the change really is.

For six years, since before the Iraq war began, peace activists in the upstate New York town of Potsdam have held a weekly vigil in front of the village post office. On Jan. 24, they gathered one last time. The group is going on "hiatus" to give President Barack Obama a chance to fulfill his campaign promise to bring the troops home from Iraq. (North Country Public Radio, Jan. 26)

In the lead-up to Iraq's provincial elections, there is growing anger that the published version of the election law has only a weak provision to set aside seats for women. Early versions of the law, which governs the election of Iraq's 18 provincial councils, included a firm guarantee that women would have at least 25% of the seats—the same percentage mandated by the Constitution for the national parliament. But the provincial election law was changed several times, and the quota language was gone by the time it went to the Presidency Council, where it awaits approval. "We've been told it was a mistake, but this is not good enough," said Maysoon al-Damluji, a woman from a secular bloc in Parliament. "We're trying to be sure that women get not less than 25 percent of the seats."

A spate of morning rush hour bomb blasts in Baghdad killed at least five and injured 14 Jan. 12. (Middle East Online, Jan. 12) Iraqi Education Minister Abed Theyab narrowly escaped injury Jan. 15 when a roadside bomb exploded near his convoy in Baghdad, injuring three by-standers. In another attack, a security guard was killed when a bomb exploded near a convoy carrying Housing Ministry employees to work. Also that day, two rockets or mortars struck the Green Zone, injuring one. (AP, Jan. 15)

Iraqi and US military forces will beef up security ahead of landmark provincial elections set for Jan. 31, when up to 15 million Iraqis could go to the polls in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces. Already candidates have been targeted for death. On Dec. 31 unidentified gunmen shot Mowaffaq al-Hamdani, a candidate for Mosul, and on January 3 a member of the Kurdish Communist Party was killed by unknown assailants in Kirkuk. (AFP, Jan. 8) Among those who will be fielding candidates for the first time are leaders of Iraq's traditionally marginalized Black community, who say they were inspired to run by Barack Obama's victory in the US. "Obama's win gave us moral strength," said Jalal Chijeel, secretary of the Free Iraqi Movement. "When he became a candidate, so did we."

Turkish warplanes and Iranian artillery bombarded Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq on Jan. 5, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) said. "Turkish planes and Iranian artillery bombarded Aquwan and the Iranians bombarded Maradu. The bombardment lasted for about one hour starting from 7 PM," said the spokesman, Ahmed Denis, said. He had no immediate word on any casualties.

From the General Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions in Iraq (GFWCUI), Dec. 13:

Dear Brothers and Sisters in the global struggle for workers' rights, peace and justice:

Plans are underway to hold an International Labor Conference in Iraq in February 13 & 14, 2009. We see this as an important and urgent step toward strengthening and unifying the labor movement in Iraq. Only through increased solidarity in Iraq, and with workers in the region and around the world can we hope to impact the fate not only of workers but of all Iraqis.