Juan Cole

Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood Calls on Shiite Religious Authorities to Prohibit Attacks on Sunnis in Basra From the USG Open Source Center, an article on Jordan’s Islamic Action Front, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood there, calling on Khamenei, Sistani, Fadlullah and others to forbid attacks on Sunnis. The immediate context is the fears of […]

Maliki Declares State of Emergency in Basra 42 Bodies Found, Guerrilla Bombings Kill and Maim in Baghdad, Mosul US Troops Accidentally Shoot Pregnant Mother Reuters reports the following major violence in the Iraqi Civil War, along with many more smaller attacks in which only one or two persons died or were injured: In Mosul in […]

Deteriorating Security in Diyala From Reuters: reports on major violence in the ongoing Iraqi Civil War on Tuesday: ‘ BAGHDAD – A car bomb killed at least 25 people and wounded 65 in the northern Baghdad district of Husa[y]niya, police said. HILLA – A suicide bomber in a car killed at least 12 people and […]

Kabul under Curfew after Anti-US, anti-Karzai Riots 14 Dead, over 100 Wounded 50 Killed in US Airstrike “We have conducted a thorough assessment of our military and reconstruction needs in Iraq, and also in Afghanistan. I will soon submit to Congress a request for $87 billion. The request will cover ongoing military and intelligence operations […]

60 Dead, including US Major, 2 British Soldiers, CBS Crew Parliamentary Delegation Planned to Basra The FCC will investigate the placing by the Bush administration of “video news releases” full of “good news” about Iraq on US television channels, passing them off as real news. Having defeated the Soviet Union, the US government seems increasingly […]

55 Dead in Civil War Member of Parliament wounded in Attack al-Zaman/ DPA: An aide of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani called [Ar.] Sunday for the Iraqi tribesmen to convene a wide conference in order to find aways of stopping the shedding of blood in Iraq. US firms bidding on contracts to provide foodstuffs to Iraq […]

Iran Cleans up in Iraq Iran is perhaps the only unambiguous winner in the new situation in Iraq, and its foreign minister was basking in the glow on Saturday. On Friday, Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari defended Iran’s right to have a civilian nuclear energy program. That can’t be what Washington was going for in […]

3 GIs Dead So Far, 18,200 US Troops Wounded in Iraq See Nir Rosen’s important article, “Iraq is the Republic of Fear” in WaPo today. Reuters rounds up the civil war violence in Iraq on Saturday. By my count, at least nineteen were reported dead. Three GIs were announced dead, two in a helicopter crash […]

Italians to Pull Out nearly Half of Troops in June Sectarian struggle among Tribes at Suwayra Congrats to Mariam Karouny for an excellent story on how the Virtue (Fadhila) Party is staging what she calls a “go-slow” in Basra’s oil industry to protest the federal government’s refusal to appoint a member of Virtue as Minister […]