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<p>WASHINGTON - The United States allowed in more than 2,300 Iraqi refugees last month, setting a record and putting the Bush administration on pace to surpass its goal of accepting 12,000 by the end of September.</p> <p>The State Department said Friday that 2,352 Iraqi refugees had arrived in the country in July, shattering the previous monthly record of 1,721 from June.</p>

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- More than 1,000 refugees from Iraq arrived in the United States in May, the most in recent months, bringing the fiscal-year total to 4,742 so far, the State Department reported June 3. But with just four months left in the fiscal year, the administration's objective of resettling 12,000 Iraqis in the U.S. by October is far from being reached, said Anastasia Brown, director of refugee programs for Migration and Refugee Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. She added that even that goal is an inadequate fraction of the estimated 4.9 million Iraqis who have been...

SODERTALJE, Sweden -- Behind the wheel of his old Ford Escort, Oshin Merzoian puttered happily along snowy streets. Back home in Baghdad, he said, he always drove at crazy speeds to avoid killers and kidnappers. But here in "Little Baghdad," as this city that has accepted roughly as many Iraqi refugees as the entire United States is called, Merzoian is enjoying the luxuries of living in peace. He doesn't strap on a gun for protection, and he notes that Swedish police worry more about seat belts than roadside bombs. "Even if they remake Iraq from gold and diamonds, I wouldn't...

BAGHDAD, Jan. 4 - Nearly 50,000 Iraqi refugees returned home from Syria in the final 3 1/2 months of 2007, the latest sign of diminishing violence in this war-pocked country, according to new data from relief workers. "Security has definitely improved, and improved by far," said Said I. Hakki, president of the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, the aid group that compiled the statistics. "And yet the return is really not that dramatic, when you consider that there are almost 2 million Iraqi refugees out of the country." The new figures, contained in a report scheduled for release Monday, are significantly...

CAIRO, EGYPT — Ahmed Hilmy, agitated and anxious, walked into the Iraqi Airways office in downtown Cairo to find out whether he had cleared the waiting list for a confirmed seat on the next day's flight to Baghdad. The green-clad ticket agent tapped in Hilmy's name, punched a few more computer keys, then looked up with a smile. "You're on," she said. Hilmy's face relaxed with a broad grin. After eight months as a refugee in Egypt, he was going home. "I'm so happy," he said. "It's not totally secure, not everything is safe, but it's better than staying here...

DAMASCUS, Syria—If only Iraqi refugees were returning to their homeland because they believed it is now safe. If only the reported boom in crossings at the Syrian-Iraqi border really meant that relieved returnees were eagerly going home. Alas, while some Iraqis decided to end their forced exile this fall, their decision had at least as much to do with the deteriorating situation in their host country as with improved conditions in their homeland. The phenomenon seems to affect only those Iraqis stranded in Syria. I spent most of November in the Middle East; among Iraqi refugees in Jordan and among...

The figures are hard to estimate precisely but the process could involve hundreds of thousands of people. The numbers are certainly large enough, as we report today, for a mass convoy to be planned next week as Iraqis who had opted for exile in Syria return to their homeland. It is one of the most striking signs that not only has violence in Baghdad and adjacent provinces decreased dramatically in recent months, but confidence in the economic and political future of Iraq has risen sharply. Nor is this movement the action of men and women who could easily reverse course...

Iraqi refugees are returning home in dramatic numbers, concluding that security in Baghdad has been transformed. Thousands have left their refuge in Syria in recent months, according to some estimates. The Iraqi Embassy is organising a secure mass convoy from Damascus to Baghdad on Monday for refugees who want to drive back. Embassy notices went up around the Syrian capital yesterday, offering free bus and train rides home. Saida Zaynab, the Damascus neighbourhoods once dominated by many of the 1.5 million Iraqi refugees, is almost deserted. Apartment prices are plummeting and once-crowded shops and buses are half empty.

Come home, come home, Ye who are weary, come home; ...Most Reverend Shlemon Warduni, Auxiliary Bishop of the St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Diocese for Chaldeans and Assyrians in Iraq officiated standing directly beneath the dome under the Chaldean cross. Speaking in both Arabic and English, Bishop Warduni thanked those American soldiers sitting in the pews for their sacrifices. Again and again, throughout the service, he thanked the Americans. .........Today, Muslims mostly filled the front pews of St John’s. Muslims who want their Christian friends and neighbors to come home. The Christians who might see these photos likely will recognize...

WASHINGTON — Prodded by Congress and human rights groups, the Bush administration is promising to increase the pace for allowing Iraqi refugees into the United States. Of the estimated 4.2 million Iraqis displaced by the war, either to nearby countries or within Iraq, only 68 Iraqis legally entered the U.S. between October and June as refugees, State Department and Homeland Security officials acknowledged Friday.

Iraqis Could Wait 2 Years for Entry, Ambassador Says: The U.S. ambassador to Iraq warned that it may take the U.S. government as long as two years to process and admit nearly 10,000 Iraqi refugees referred by the United Nations for resettlement to the United States, because of bureaucratic bottlenecks. In a State Department cable titled "Iraqi Refugee Processing: Can We Speed It Up?" Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker noted that the Department of Homeland Security had only a handful of officers in Jordan to vet the refugees.... Human rights groups and independent analysts say thousands of desperate Iraqis who have...

Amman, Jordan - Adnan Abbas – with his poor English, four young daughters, and little money to speak of – shrugs when told that making a new life in the US will be hard. "I know that a new country, new language, is difficult and that America isn't going to say, 'Welcome, Adnan, here's a million dollars,' " he says. "But life in Iraq? That's impossible. We're one of the luckiest families in the world." On Tuesday, the Abbas family will take their five small suitcases, close the door on the small flat they've rented for the past year in...

PEWSEY, WILTSHIRE, UK -- Against a backdrop of unremitting violence and the constant threat of persecution, Iraqi Christians are being forced out of their communities and onto the road in a desperate search for safety. In the third of a series of special reports on life within Iraq, Barnabas Fund, based in the UK, has discovered that life as a Christian refugee brings its own dangers and hardships. “Leaving your home, your job, the life you have always known,” said the report posted on their website – www.barnabasfund.org. “Fleeing for your life, with nothing but your memories, to an unknown...

The Arabs that pushed us to war in Iraq, Where are they now?http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1951039.stm Iraqi refugees hope for US strike http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP19601 An Egyptian Columnist Attacks Pro-Iraqi Arab Lobby (so there is an Arab Lobby pro Iraq war...) http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/000681.html Arabs, not Jews, driving Bush’s Iraq plans” (2002) http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june98/iraq_4-27.html Iraqi refugees now in the US are united by tragedy, hatred of Saddam Hussein ... Give us the temporary support we need (1998) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/iraq/stories/arabs7.htm Arab states have escalated their attacks on Iraqi President Saddam ... "There is no shred of support for Saddam anywhere in the Arab scene," (1999) _______________ Above are just a...

Iraqi refugee Guzin Najim thought she'd be safe when she escaped to Australia after her diplomat husband was murdered by Saddam Hussein's brutal secret police and she'd been forced to live, with her children, for three years under house arrest. But the terror has reached Sydney. Religious fanatics faithful to the murderous tyrant have delivered death threats to her home in the city's south-western suburbs, forcing her once again to flee for her life. Now Ms Najim, 47, has moved to a secret location to hide from the men who have ordered that her throat be cut for speaking out...

<p>As they sit in the comfortable living room of their Nashville home, members of the Tayip family say the horrors they experienced in their northern Iraq homeland seem further away every year.</p> <p>But to this day, they say, their suffering and hardships continue to shape their lives and how they see the world.</p>

Iraqi refugees: Al-Sahaf committed suicide 15-04-2003, 11:46 Iraqi refugees who have taken shelter at Iraq's borders near the Iranian town of Dehloran over the week have claimed that Information Minister Saeed al-Sahaf had committed suicide, the Iranian newspaper, Mardomsalari reported Tuesday. A similar report was published in Iran's Arabic newspaper, Al Wifaq. According to these reports, al-Sahaf hanged himself a few hours before Baghdad fell to US forces on April 9th. The refugees gave no source to confirm their claim. In his press briefing on Monday, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, said the US government believed former Iraqi leaders,...

In packed vehicles, Iraqis return home to Baghdad By Edmund Blair BAGHDAD, April 13 (Reuters) - Piled into trucks, clinging to the back of old pick-ups and crushed into rickety saloon cars, thousands of Iraqis returned home to Baghdad on Sunday after fleeing the war to towns outside the city. They had escaped in fear as U.S.-led forces bombed the city when Saddam Hussein still had an iron grip. They returned with smiles and flicking victory V-signs. One man shouted "Down, down, Saddam" from his precarious seat on top of bags and blankets on the back of truck carrying more...

RUWEISHED, Jordan (BP)--God cares about refugees fleeing hostilities in Iraq, so it is critical that God's people be in their midst -- and not leave ministries to secular organizations, a Southern Baptist missions leader says. Soon after the Iraq war began in March, Southern Baptists were among the first to set up a ministry center for refugees near this desert town in eastern Jordan near the Iraqi border. "We think it is vital for God's people to help with these helping ministries and not just leave it for secular agencies," says John Brady, who coordinates the work of Southern Baptists'...

Pavarotti, Bono To Sing For Iraqi Refugees Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti and U2 frontman Bono will team up on stage next month to raise funds to help Iraqis uprooted by the war, the United Nations refugee agency said today (April 8). The concert is set for May 27 in Modena, northern Italy, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Pavarotti and Bono previously performed together in 1995 to raise funds for child victims of the war in Bosnia. Pavarotti, a peace messenger for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, has dedicated his last three annual Modena charity concerts to help...

Baath militiamen shoot at civilians in Basra By Michael Georgy BASRA, Iraq, April 6 (Reuters) - Pro-Saddam militiamen with AK-47 assault rifles opened fire on civilian vehicles in Basra on Sunday, wounding one man, in an attempt to force civilians to fight U.S. and British troops, witnesses said. The wounded man, Waleed Ja'awil, 18, was riding in the back of a pick up truck when Baath party militiamen dressed in civilian clothes shot at the farmer and his three cousins. The truck raced out of the city and stopped on the edge of Basra near a British military camp. Ja'awil...

For Bassem Ramadan, images of coalition tanks advancing through Iraqi cities do not evoke fear, hatred, or anger. “Freedom has its price,” said the Iraqi refugee, while watching footage of destruction on his television screen in Hayy al-Sellom. “Everyone in Iraq was waiting for this moment,” he said. “Not the Shiites, not the Kurds ­ everyone. Saddam’s regime was equally bloody on all of us, even on women and children,” he said. In light of the widespread anti-war sentiment in the Arab world, Ramadan’s stern-pro-war stance was surprising. Ramadan, and other Shiite refugees here dubbed the war a “blessing.” When...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Thousands of residents were fleeing Baghdad in a stream of bumper-to-bumper vehicles Friday after U.S. troops seized the city's Saddam International Airport. An Iraqi official promised an "unconventional" response and said he was referring to commando and suicide attacks. Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf claimed Iraqi forces had surrounded the U.S. troops at the airport after managing to isolate the unit from other units near the city. "Tonight we will do something unconventional, not by the military," al-Sahhaf said. We will do something which I believe is very beautiful. Those remaining soldiers who did not surrender...

WITH the boom of artillery fire ringing in their ears, thousands of terrified Baghdadis searched for safety yesterday as the reality of the coming battle began to sink in, perhaps for the first time. "This is it. This is the final battle. We have no way out. We are facing a reality now. We’re confronting the mightiest army in the world. What can we do? Where can we go? We’re at a loss," said Nour Khaled, 48, a mother of two. "We will definitely die. Who can escape such a war? My husband and I pray to God that if...

TERRIFIED civilians continued to stream out of burning Basra yesterday – risking death from the bullets of evil pro-Saddam fanatics. War-weary residents, faint with dehydration, faced a grim choice – stay and be forced to fight at gunpoint by Iraqi militia, or try to flee through the crossfire between the beseiged city's defenders and the British soldiers outside. Several thousand were pinned down in the middle of a shoot-out yesterday – triggered after Iraqi troops fired machine guns and artillery at the fleeing residents. Amid the fire, desperate mothers clutched screaming babies, young men protected their grandmothers and elderly men...

Potent swirls of incense smoke and festive bowls of pistachios do little to mask the sadness that hangs over the lives of 10 Iraqi refugees in a three-bedroom apartment in Coon Rapids. Four generations of the family live together — from the octogenarian grandmother with traditional tattoos on her hands and not a word of English to the little boys fighting over video games without a trace of an Arabic accent. In between is the father who weeps for his slain brother, the mother who sees ghosts, and three beautiful young women suspended between custom and curiosity. All these lives...

GULF WAR II: Brit support grows for conflict + Officer reveals brutality LT COL TIM COLLINS: Reveals his battle to lift Iraq's shadow of tyrannyTO THE RESCUE: US marine carries tot to safety after Iraqis fire on civiliansTO LOVING CARE: Forces doc cradles tot A SMILING teenage girl who waved at patrolling British soldiers and accepted a big-hearted squaddie's gift of chocolate was HANGED by agents of Saddam. The butchers of the dictator's corrupt Ba'ath party had spied on the Muslim youngster from an alleyway in Az Zubayr near Basra. Battle-hardened troops of the 1st Batallion, The Royal Irish Regiment...

Two 4,700-Pound Bombs Hit Baghdad Tower By DAVID CRARY .c The Associated Press The biggest bombs dropped on Baghdad so far - two 4,700-pound ``bunker busters'' - struck a communications tower Friday in an intense U.S. bombardment. Four U.S. Marines were missing after fierce fighting in Nasiriyah. U.S. and Iraqi forces traded tank and artillery fire throughout the day in Nasiriyah, a strategic southern city that has been the scene of some of the toughest fighting of the war. Several buildings, including a power plant, were ablaze. Nasiriyah, a city of about 500,000 on the Euphrates River near a junction...

Refugees hurry out of Basra. Many of the citizens fleeing the city were attacked by Iraqi mortars as they made their escape. THE crowd was halfway across the concrete and steel bridge when the mortar rounds started falling on the Basra side. Men, women and children screamed as they ran to escape Iraqi machine-gun fire. A thousand people, maybe more, ran for their lives. A young woman fell, hit by shrapnel as a pick-up truck broke cover and charged forward, the machine-gun mounted on its roof spewing bullets at the crowd. On the British side, a tank lurched forward,...

<p>The Al-Mamori family has been tied to the television ever since the war in Iraq began, flipping between BBC, CNN and Al-Jazeera.</p> <p>Even with access to 35 Arabic language TV channels, not to mention American cable news shows, the most vivid images Jawad Al-Mamori sees of Iraq are not on the screen. They are in his mind.</p>

Iraqi refugee says world hasn't seen Saddam's cruelty Even with access to 35 Arabic language TV channels, not to mention American cable news shows, the most vivid images Jawad Al-Mamori sees of Iraq are not on the screen. They are in his mind. Pointing at the television images of American troops trudging toward Baghdad, the Iraqi refugee cannot contain his frustration that cameras can't show Saddam Hussein's grim tactics. ``They cannot see behind the picture,'' said Al-Mamori, 36, who now lives in Santa Clara. ``We were there.''

When Mazin Alkabbi awoke from an anesthesia-induced slumber on a morning in 1994, Iraqi authorities gave him grim news: He had been in a car accident and lost his ears. Alkabbi knew better. There had been no accident. His ears had been surgically removed because he fled the military when Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1991. Just hours before the surgery, he was arrested at his home in Basra. Alkabbi, who now lives in Arlington, remembered having his hands tied, being blindfolded and at one point even thinking he might just be questioned and released. His Iraqi identification...

Iraqis leave Basra, tank convoy destroyed By David Fox SOUTH OF BASRA, Iraq, March 27 (Reuters) - Thousands of tired and thirsty Iraqi civilians trudged out of Basra on Thursday, seeking water and shelter from air raids, as British forces shot up more Iraqi tanks leaving the city. Spokesman Captain Al Lockwood said British forces destroyed 14 Iraqi tanks and four armoured personnel carriers, foiling a fresh attempt by troops loyal to President Saddam Hussein to break out of the southern city, Iraq's second largest. "It was a very quick, short, sharp engagement. They were all destroyed," Lockwood said, adding...

Iraqis in Syria Speak Out Against Saddam By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press Writer SAYDA ZEINAB, Syria - The small, bespectacled Iraqi housewife sat on the floor of a Shiite Muslim shrine just outside the Syrian capital Damascus, speaking in rushed, quiet tones of her hatred for her president, Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). AP Photo   "All he (Saddam) did was take the country from one war to the other. First Iran, then Kuwait and now this," Raziqa al-Hadi said. On hearing this, another Iraqi woman was emboldened to chime in: "I agree. I hope Saddam dies!" Then the...

Since the US-led war against Iraq started four days ago, the refugee influx that aid agencies were expecting has not materialised. But if the conflict drags on, Iraqi refugees could pour into neighbouring countries. Camps have been set up on Iraq's borders with Iran, Jordan and Syria. Until two days before the war started, many Iraqis did make it into Syria, while Jordan had already shut its borders, except for Iraqis with an onward destination. Starting on Tuesday, they were turned back on the Syrian border as well. Syrian officials said there was no reason to let in refugees as...

Fear takes hold on Iraq's desert road to Jordan By Edmund Blair RUWEISHED, Jordan, March 23 (Reuters) - The Iraqi driver was so scared travelling the desert road to Jordan after a night of heavy U.S. bombing on Baghdad that he regularly put his hands out of the window to dry his sweating palms. His passengers, who recounted their tale on Sunday, were South African "human shields" fleeing war in Iraq. They said they too were terrified on Saturday as they passed charred vehicles, burning buildings and a bombed fuel station on the highway to the Jordanian border. The only...

As soon as the television showed missiles falling over Iraq Wednesday night, Khalid Al-Baidhani jumped from his living room couch and charged up the stairs of his Portland apartment. "Becky, Becky, wake up!" he shouted to his wife. "It's happening!" The United States had opened attack on his home country, and Al-Baidhani couldn't have been happier. Like thousands of Iraqi refugees nationwide, Al-Baidhani wants to see Saddam Hussein ousted and Iraq adopt a true democracy. "God willing, the dark days will be gone soon," said Al-Baidhani, a machine operator who has family in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, located in...

Turkish officials see no sign of Iraq refugee wave SILOPI, Turkey, March 23 (Reuters) - Turkish officials said on Sunday they saw no signs of a Kurdish refugee wave from northern Iraq that could spark a Turkish military push into the region. The United States and its Kurdish allies firmly oppose any large Turkish incursion into northern Iraq. Turkey says it has the right to cross the border and that its aim would be to marshal refugees and prevent a humanitarian disaster. "Although the population movement in northern Iraq is increasing, we have not identified any migration towards our borders,"...

Anti-war protesters have no idea: refugee By Eamonn Duff March 23 2003 A Sydney Iraqi family has slammed ongoing Australian anti-war protests, saying demonstrators have no idea who or what they are campaigning for. Dhafir Al-Shammery escaped certain death under Saddam Hussein's regime in 1996. Today he is one of several hundred Iraqis living in Sydney who now know what the term freedom truly means. In an exclusive interview with The Sun-Herald, he said: "When I see thousands of Australians marching the streets on behalf of the Iraqi people, my heart sinks, because their view is not that of the...

AS an Iraqi Australian who is proud to be a citizen of this wonderful country, I salute you. My heart is with you and also with the people in my beloved Iraq. I am sure that none of you would wish to be involved in this war for light-hearted reasons. Neither would the Iraqi people, who have been suffering for 35 years under the most brutal regime in modern history. Iraqis are emotional, peace-loving people, generous and above all proud of their identity. I spent 32 years in Iraq before I was forced to flee. I love Iraq. I love...

UN stockpiles food near Iraq, awaits refugee influx By David Brough ROME, March 22 (Reuters) - The United Nations food aid agency scrambled on Saturday to move food to warehouses near the border with Iraq to prepare for the possible arrival of thousands of refugees fleeing the U.S.-led invasion. The collapse of the U.N.-backed oil-for-food programme after the United Nations ordered its international staff to leave Iraq on Monday has denied fresh food supplies to 60 percent of the country's 25 million people. "We are continuing our preparations, and we may have to assist about two million Iraqis in an...

<p>AMMAN, Jordan, March 21 (UPI) -- An unintended coalition of U.S. air power and Baghdad taxi drivers kept a potential flood of Iraqi refugees away from the Jordanian border Friday. The U.N. refugee agency and the Jordanian government were expecting a quarter of million people to stream across the border. Jordan is already home for 400,000 Iraqi refugees from the first Gulf War.</p>

REFUGEES trickled across Iraq's borders today, but there was no exodus as war broke out. The first arrivals included dozens of Sudanese families who moved to Baghdad with dreams of riches only to head home a decade later penniless and disillusioned. Volunteers at two camps struggled against a fierce, biting wind on the parched plains of Jordan to erect beige tents bearing the logo of the Red Crescent Society. Workers sprayed asphalt, unpacked medicine and hoisted floodlights to build towns of tents. Officials acknowledged preliminary work had gone slowly at Jordan's border. They blamed the heavy winds and a funding...

The Kansas City Star Intissar Mahdi, her husband, Nasser Salehi and children Rokaya, Mohamad and Sokayna came here from Iraq in 2000. Violent images flash from a television in an Iraqi restaurant in Kansas City's old Northeast area. On screen young Iraqi men in Baghdad jump, scream and wave their fists. One tears savagely at an American flag.Back at the Al-Shawi Restaurant, groups of young Iraqi men gather as well. Quiet as librarians they eat kebabs and drink hot tea. Others smoke or talk. All stare hypnotically at the screen.As they monitor satellite broadcasts from Dubai, Lebanon and Abu...