Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki offered an amnesty in Mosul to those guerrillas who lay down their arms and accept money from him. Also, a bombing in Fallujah killed 4 policeman and wounded 9 others. Mobile phone images of hanky panky are getting Iraqi women murdered in ‘honor killings.’ One reason that the Iraqi Shiite elite […]
McCain Unit Rolled out; Funeral Bombing Toll Rises to 25; Baghdad Governor’s Convoy Blown Up;
VOA reports that on May 15, ‘Clashes in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad’s Sadr City district have left at least seven people dead, despite a deal aimed at ending the bloodshed. Iraqi officials said Thursday the fighting between Iraqi security forces and Shi’ite militants loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr broke out overnight and in the […]
Is Obama the Apostate, or is Bush? A Reply to Luttwak
I’ve been traveling again and so only just saw Edward Luttwak’s ridiculous column about Barack Obama being considered an “apostate” in the Muslim world. It is just so discouraging that such an ignorant and illogical comment was made by a prominent American pundit, and that the New York Times leant its pages to this complete […]
Cole & the BBC Doha Debates
As I was setting off for some conferences in the UK last April, I got an invitation from Tim Sebastian to come participate in the Doha Debates on April 29. Sebastian for years ran a hard hitting interview program on the BBC. More recently, he has hosted the Doha Debates in Qatar. The debates are […]
Puzzle of Bombings in Jaipur
The bombings that shook Jaipur and killed 80 innocents are not immediately legible as ordinary politics. Most previous such bombings (Bombay, Hyderabad) have been in areas that have important Muslim minorities, or have been connected to separatist movements such as in Assam. Some appear to have been the work of Muslim radicals and intended as […]
11 Killed, 20 Wounded in Sadr City;
No sooner had the truce between the Mahdi Army and the US & Iraqi military been signed than it appeared to break down. Clashes broke out Monday night into Tuesday morning between the Mahdi Army militiamen and US troops, leaving 11 Iraqis dead and 20 wounded. The militia also targeted some government ministries with mortar […]
Dangers facing the World
As if Iraq was not enough to worry about, some important political developments in Lebanon, and even in the Yemen have raised the temperature of the Middle East . . . A roadside bomb targeted Abu Qutaiba, a local leader of an Awakening group a U.S. sponsored militia, in Al Lehaib area north east of […]
Cole in Salon: Obama and Clinton on Aljazeera
My column, “Clinton and Obama on Aljazeera,” is just out in Salon.com. It is based in part on an interview I did with the editor-in-chief of Aljazeera during my recent trip to Qatar. Excerpt: ‘ Many Americans incorrectly think of Al-Jazeera’s Arabic-language network as al-Qaida Central because it occasionally broadcasts excerpts from videotapes of the […]
Mosul Offensive Catches Residents Off Guard; Turks Bomb N. Iraq; New Bloc in Parliament?
The Mosul operation came so unexpectedly for residents of the major northern city that they did not have time to stock up on food. Alexandra Zavis interviews Mosulis who say that they have been living in fear. What is odd is that we weren’t having these stories of living in fear in Mosul 2 months […]
© 2025 All Rights Reserved