Juan Cole

50,000 US Troops to be Garrisoned in Iraq Shahwani Opposes Militias in Security Forces A suicide bombing at a checkpoint in Baquba killed 8 and wounded 4 late Sunday. The US will keep a garrison of 50,000 troops in Iraq for years to come, if it can. A difference in strategy is emerging between Iraqi […]

Zarqawi Autopsy Jordan Refuses Repatriation of Body The US is sending a forensics team to do an autoposy of Abu Musaba al-Zarqawi. Al-Hayat reports that his family is demanding to know the results [Ar.] , after a local villager at Habhub near Baqubah told a story to a Western wire service and other Western news […]

Heavy Fighting in Ramadi Anbar Mourns Zarqawi Al-Zaman reports that heavy street fighting broke out on Friday in downtown Ramadi between US forces and guerrillas. According to the al-Zaman correspondent in the city, the fighting was heaviest at 20th and at 17 Tammuz streets and the al-Kas district. Medium strength weaponry (i.e. more than just […]

Key positions Filled Guerrilla Movements Pledge to Fight on Iraq has filled the key positions of minister of defense, minister of interior, and minister of state for national security. Defense went to a Sunni who had been an officer in the old regime but broke with it in the early 1990s. National Security went to […]

Yale Affair I am not going to talk about the Yale affair per se. But I did want to clear up some misimpressions I’ve seen here and there. First, it should be remembered that senior professors are sort of like baseball players, and other teams look at them from time to time, as recruitment prospects. […]

Zarqawi Killed in Baquba Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced Thursday morning that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been killed, along with 7 aides, in a US airstrike. [Early press reports incorrecting reported the death came in a gun battle with US and Iraqi troops at Baqubah]. Zarqawi had been a significant leader of the Salafi Jihadi […]

Maliki Names Security Officials 27 dead in Civil War Violence Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki broke a nearly 6-month deadlock on fully forming a new government by naming three key security officials, who will be presented to parliament now that there is consensus about their acceptability among the four major parties. I suspect that Maliki’s release […]

Interview with Iraqi Speaker of the House The USG Open Source Center translates an important interview with Iraq’s Sunni Arab speaker of the parliament. ‘Speaker On Government Formation, Security, Sectariansim, Militias, Other IssuesInterview by Amir Ali al-Hassun with Representative Council Speaker Mahmud al-Mashhadani Al-Bayyinah Thursday, June 8, 2006 T06:57:47Z For the first time in Iraq’s […]

Iraqi Civil War leaves 22 Dead Iraqi Islamic Party Charges US with Massacres In the continuing Iraqi Horror Picture Show, police found 9 heads along a road at Hadid in Diyala on Tuesday, wrapped in plastic and stuffed in fruit cases. Guerrillas also targeted a funeral procession in southeast Baghdad with a car bomb, killing […]