Juan Cole

The Networks of the London Bombing: Shehzad Tanweer and Jaish-e Muhammad Anger over Guantanamo I have been trying to trace the influences on and organizational contacts of the July 7 bombers in London. Let me start with 22-year-old Shehzad Tanweer of Leeds. His family is originally from a Punjabi village near Faisalabad, Kottan (Chak number […]

20 Dead in Guerrilla Violence Sunnis Pull out of Constitution Drafting Committee Guerrillas abducted two Algerian diplomats on Thursday, in a continuing campaign to isolate the new elected government internationally. All the Sunni members of the Constitution-drafting committee have suspended their membership in the committee and are boycotting its meetings. They protest that the clerical […]

Jaafari and Shahrudi Alireza Doostdar writes: ‘ I just read your . . . article on Salon (The big winner is… Iran), and had a comment on the section on Iraqi PM Ja’fari’s meeting with Iran’s judiciary chief Ayatollah Shahrudi. Shahrudi had apparently called for Iraqi judicial cooperation with the “Islamic Human Rights Organization” in […]

Forensic Evidence Leads to 2 Arrests London police commissioner Sir Ian Blair announced that substantial forensic evidence had been recovered in relationship to Thursday’s bombings. Two arrests have been made, one of them near a bomb site, another near the Downing Street prime minister’s residence. Since there are eyewitnesses to the attempted bombings who saw […]

Blogging London from UK Blogger comment from Tim Worstall. And the Guardian news blog. AFP has an updated report that depends heavily on Sky News. Highlights: From Sky News: ‘ “They said the strong smell of acetone would have sparked fears of a chemical attack. And the smell indicated that the explosives had been made […]

More Bomb attempts in London The Wikipedia entry is already a useful starting place. One caution: UK authorities are denying the rumors of chemicals and say these were small conventional bombs. Around noon EST on Thursday I live-blogged the press conference by London officials: Sir Ian Blair says there are four scenes. At each of […]

Advantage Iran My article at Salon.com, “The Iraq War is Over and the Winner is . . . Iran” is just out online. Excerpt: ‘ the Bush administration cannot have been filled with joy when Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and eight high-powered cabinet ministers paid an extremely friendly visit to Tehran this week. The […]

State Memo on Plame Stamped “Secret” Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei have dug around and discovered that the State Department memo mentioning Valerie Plame (Wilson) as a CIA operative is itself stamped “Secret” and makes it clear she is undercover and that the cover should not be blown. The memo was on Air Force One […]

Four Sunnis pull out of Constitution Committee in Protest A Dozen Dead in New Attacks Arab News reports that ‘ Over a dozen more people lost their lives in Iraq yesterday, including eight killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the gates of an army recruiting center in Baghdad, the latest attack against […]