Juan Cole

Sistani Holds Political Meetings in Najaf Guerrilla War Continues in Mosul, Baghdad, Kirkuk Hundreds of residents of Najaf mounted a demonstration on Monday, for the second straight day, against Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army. Demonstrators shouted, “Take you hands off the city! The people of Najaf do not want you!” They also called the […]

AIPAC Spy Case involves Intelligence on Iranian WMD James Gordon Meek reports that both FBI investigations of leaks from the Pentagon concern in part secret US intelligence on Iranian weapons of mass destruction programs. The FBI suspects that this intelligence was leaked to AIPAC and the Israelis on the one hand, and to Ahmad Chalabi […]

Bombing Near Fallujah, Clashes in Najaf The Iraqi Guerrilla War of 2003-2004 continued apace on Sunday and Monday. Guerrillas detonated an enormous car bomb near Fallujah on Monday, killing 7 Marines and wounding a number of others, and killing 3 Iraqis. The rumors in Washington are that the Marines plan a major assault on Fallujah […]

Fighting in Tal Afar, Latifiyah1100 US Troops Wounded in August Heavy fighting raged in the northern city of Tal Afar, which lies west of Mosul, again on Sunday, according to ash-Sharq al-Awsat. The population of Tal Afar is largely Turkmen Shiites, and it is unclear why the US military is fighting there. [Actually they are […]

National Council Elects 4 Vice-Chairmen AP reports, ‘ In Baghdad, mortar rounds landed near a convention center where members of Iraq’s 100-member transitional assembly, known as the Iraqi Council, gathered for a meeting. Despite the explosions, delegates elected four vice chairmen of the National Council, which is intended to act as a watchdog over the […]

Iraqi Government Extends Ban on al-Jazeerah The caretaker Allawi government extended its ban on al-Jazeerah on Saturday. Al-Jazeerah itself reported that the government charged it with instigating attacks on its officials. Al-Jazeerah reports on Iraq quite extensively, and often manages to get better video and interviews than most Western news programs, so the closing of […]

Najaf: The Aftermath as Viewed by Iraqis Abbas Kadhim evaluates “Sistan’s triumph” at al-Ahram Weekly. He writes: The real winner at the end of the crisis was Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani. His return home from a trip to London for medical treatment accomplished a lot for him and for the disputants alike. First, his return cast […]

AIPAC Spy Case Update Knight Ridder’s Warren Strobel, who reported a week ago that the FBI investigation of Lawrence Franklin was part of a much larger probe of the pro-Likud Neocon clique in Washington (he didn’t put it exactly like that) is increasingly being vindicated as the papers of record pick up the story. The […]

Iraq War Continues into Month 17 Dozens Killed, nearly 100 wounded in Multiple Clashes, Bombings The events in Iraq on Friday and Saturday, stretching from Mosul in the north to Basra in the south, underline that the war in Iraq never ended, and that the country has now seen over seventeen months of virtually continual […]