IRAQ - Talabani Hospitalised.

Officials on Feb. 26 said Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was in a stable condition in a Jordanian hospital, denying a report he had heart surgery. Presidential spokesman Kamiran Qardaghi said: "He is in a stable condition, it's just exhaustion. There has been no surgery".

An official from Talabani's Petriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) said the report on Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV of the president undergoing triple bypass surgery was false. Iraqi Ambassador to Amman Sa'd al-Hayyani on Feb. 27 said Talabani was recovering, adding: "He's in good shape, fully aware and doing well. There are no tests planned today". He said Talabani had been suffering from exhaustion and mild lung inflammation. He declined to say when Talabani would be discharged from the King Hussein Medical City so he can return to Iraq.

Rape Charges Add Fuel To Sectarianism: Four Iraqi soldiers on Feb. 22 were accused of raping a 50-year-old Sunni woman and the attempted rape of her two daughters in the second allegation of sexual assault levelled against Iraqi forces in one week. Nijm Abdullah was on Feb. 22 quoted as saying the alleged attack occurred earlier in the month in the northern city of Tal A'far during a search for weapons and insurgents. A lieutenant and three enlisted men denied the charge but later confessed after they were confronted by the woman, a Turkman.

Abdullah, a retired army brigadier general who is now the mayor of Tal A'far, said a fifth soldier suspected something was wrong, burst into the house and forced the others at gunpoint to stop the assault, adding: "They have been referred to the judicial authorities so they can receive their just punishment".

A tribal leader from Tal A'far, Shaikh Muhammad Khalil Hanash of the Hawyat clan, said the alleged attack took place on Feb. 8. He said the woman told him the lieutenant filmed the attack on a cellphone video camera but did not take part.

It was said on Feb. 22 that a second allegation of rape within a single week was likely to further undermine the reputation of the Iraqi security services, which the US hoped could take over from coalition troops. The accusation followed an allegation made on Feb. 19 by a 20-year-old Sunni woman, Sabrin al-Janabi, who said she was raped by three Iraqi policemen after she was detained during a search of her house in western Baghdad.

The government cleared the policemen after an investigation lasting less than a day, and accused Sunni activists of fabricating the allegation

to undermine support for the security forces during the Baghdad crackdown. But Janabi's complaint and the speed with which the officers were cleared unleashed a political storm, with Sunni politicians accusing the Shi'ite-led government of a cover-up.

Gen Caldwell on Feb. 21 said Janabi had been taken to a US-run medical facility in Baghdad and that Gen. David Petraeus, the new top US commander in Iraq, had ordered his own investigation. But Caldwell clarified his remarks on Feb. 22, saying the US military was not conducting an independent inquiry. He said Petraeus had ordered that any evidence pertinent to the case be secured and preserved "so that it may be provided to the appropriate Iraqi judicial official in accordance with US policy".

Rape is considered an especially heinous crime in Iraq. Victims rarely speak about it publicly, fearing shame or even death by male relatives seeking to save family honour. The woman in the Tal A'far case on Feb. 22 appeared on al-Jazeera TV, saying the soldiers asked her about certain individuals and accused her of lying to them when she insisted she did not know them. Asked why she did not report the attack immediately, she replied: "Who do I complain to? No one allows us to complain".

Maliki on Feb. 21 fired a top Sunni official after he called for an international investigation into Janabi's rape allegations. A statement by Maliki's office gave no reason in announcing the dismissal of Ahmad Abdul-Ghafour al-Samarra'ie, head of the Sunni Endowments, which cares for Sunni mosques and shrines in Iraq. In siding with the security forces, Maliki threatened to heighten the tensions surrounding the already highly charged case.

Sunni politicians rushed to Janabi's defence, accusing the government of revealing its true sectarian bias. Saleem Abdullah, a spokesman for the Tawafuq bloc of Sunni parties, which helped the woman come forward with her charges, said: The case "should not be dealt on a sectarian basis. She is a sister for all Iraqis". He went on to say the government's handling of the issue could undermine its credibility in directing the security crackdown.

With fears of violence pervasive throughout the country, many Iraqis stay inside their homes whenever they can. Satellite TV is their connection to the outside world and, just as often, their own country. On the two most prominent channels, al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, they would have heard the woman telling her story over and over. If she made up the story, it was an elaborate piece of propaganda and the contradictory statements by the government only added to its power.

The woman was lying on a bed as she was interviewed, with a light-pink scarf covering her hair and a black scarf covering her face. She said she was taken from her house in the morning on Feb. 18 by the national police while her husband was out, something no one disputes. She claimed she was raped at the garrison. A nurse who said she treated the woman after the attack said she saw signs of both sexual and physical assault. The nurse said she would speak only on condition of anonymity because she feared Shi'ite militiamen would kill her for speaking out.

US spokeswoman Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberle confirmed the woman had been detained by the Iraqi police in the morning of Feb. 18, but said everything which happened after that was under investigation, adding: "We know the...police who were involved and had the woman in custody".

The New York Times on Feb. 21 reported a "senior Iraqi official" as saying he had alerted US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad on the day the woman made her allegations, cautioning him that if the case was not handled delicately, it could further inflame sectarian passions.