19 Dead In Violence Walkout In

19 Dead in Violence
Walkout in Parliament over Shiite Ringtone

The Iraqi civil war took at least 19 lives on Wednesday, including especially in the Baqubah area of Diyala province.

Five of Iraq’s most dangerous guerrillas fled the Susa Prison in Kurdistan yesterday.

that a Sadrist member of parliament had set her cell phone ringer to a Shiite religious tune caused an uproar that led to a walkout of some members of parliament.

Ahmad Hashim, one of our best analysts of the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement, explains that the low-intensity civil war has forced the US into a reactive mode. The ad hoc character of the whole enterprise is one of the things that dooms it. Hashim has a new book on counter-insurgency in Iraq.

Turkeyu and Iran are building up troops on the borders with Iraqi Kurdistan. That raises questions for me of what Iraqi Kurdistan is doing to Iran and Turkey.

Almost 1100 persons were killed in Baghdad alone in April, victims of faith-based ethnic cleansing.

Reuters reviews the significance of the anti-British Shiite mob violence in Basra on Saturday.

Ibon Villelabeitia of Reuters reminds us of the role of Gertrude Bell in creating Iraq and its problems.

The Friends Committee on National Legislation sponsored an anti-war press conference with regard to Iran, based in part on a petition signed by the foremost Iran specialists in the United States.