Another victim of the surge

When the US invaded Iraq and took Baghdad some of the world's most important repositories of historical information and artifacts were looted ad destroyed. Since then there has been an effort to restore the museums, archives and libraries to some semblance of normality. Until now.

Thousands of rare books and manuscripts in Iraq's national library and archive, one of the country's most important cultural institutions, are in peril after the occupation of the building by Iraqi security forces, the library's director said yesterday.

Saad Eskander, a respected Kurdish historian who has run the library since 2003, told the Guardian that up to 20 Iraqi troops had seized the building at gunpoint yesterday, threatening staff and guards.

"They have turned our national archive into a military target," he said. "Tomorrow or the day after, the extremists will attack the Iraqi forces there."

He said the soldiers, who said they had occupied the building to defend Shia worshippers heading to the shrine of Khadimiya, about 15 miles away, had positioned themselves on the roof of the library. They had already started to dismantle the main gate, and had smashed doors and windows inside the main building, he said.

Eskander fears the troops will loot and burn the building.

Somebody really did a great job of training those troops, didn't they?