Juan Cole

Woman Bomber Unrepentant Al-Hayat: Sajidah Mubarak Atrus al-Rishawi, who attempted to detonate a belt bomb at the Radisson SAS hotel in Amman last Wednesday night is still unrepentant. She insists that she is fighting “the infidels and apostates from among the Muslims.” (Mainstream Sunni Muslim authorities frown on viewing other Sunnis as non-Muslims for lack […]

Muslims and the 5 Questions Somebody named Dennis Prager wrote a frankly bigotted op-ed for the LA Times asking “Muslims” 5 questions. The questions are fairly easy to answer in themselves, but the stupidity of the whole framework is what is objectionable. Why is it that our media personalities cannot think their way out of […]

The Strange Death of Moustapha Akkad; Zarqawi and “Halloween” The ironies and dangers of globalization are tragically epitomized in the death last week of Hollywood director Moustapha Akkad at the Radisson SAS in Amman at the hands of an Iraqi suicide bomber. Akkad was there with his daughter to attend a wedding. Akkad was born […]

Bombing at Green Zone; Exodus of Physicians from Capital Guerrillas detonated a roadside bomb outside an entrance to the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad, striking at a convoy of 3 vehicles and killing 2 South African security guards. Three other persons were wounded. In Ramadi, a bomb aimed at a US convoy instead killed 5 […]

Death and Revenge In Iraq Guerrillas killed two US troops on Sunday and a third died in a jeep accident. Mortar shells fell near the Iranian embassy in downtown Baghdad. A guerrilla bombing in Kirkuk wounded 5 Iraqi soldiers on Sunday. Hannah Allam says that there is some evidence that one of the four suicide […]

Bush Administration Lie about Iraq George W. Bush denied on Veteran’s Day that he had manipulated intelligence in order to take the country to war against Iraq. He said that the Democrats in Congress had seen the same evidence he had, and that the Clinton administration had also seen Iraq as a threat. Stephen Hadley, […]

Sister of Tawhid’s Anbar Cell Captured in Jordan Bombings Jordanian authorities have captured Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, the wife of suicide bomber Ali Hussein Ali al-Shamari, who detonated his belt bomb at the Radisson in Amman. She turns out to be the sister of the Anbar leader of the Monotheism and Holy War (al-Qaeda in […]

5 Dead in Baghdad Blast Sistani withdraws from Politics The 77 refitted T-72 Soviet-era tanks offered to Iraq by Hungary have finally arrived, at Taji base. The tanks were due in September. But in a larger sense the tanks are years overdue. There can be no effective Iraqi military response to the guerrilla movement without […]

Omani Embassy Killings Iraqis Suspected in Jordan Bombings First, Secretary of State Condi Rice called Friday for more Arab states to open embassies in Iraq. Then, guerrillas staged a drive-by shooting at the Omani embassy in Baghdad, killing 2 and wounding 4 persons. I think we may conclude a) that her visit is being monitored […]