Juan Cole

The Bombings at Kazimiyah and Karbala The day of Ashura’ is the holiest in the calendar of Shiite Islam, commemorating the brutal martyrdom of the Imam Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. In many ways, the tradition of Shiite mourning of this “passion” is similar to that witnessed in Mel Gibson’s recent film. For […]

IGC Approves Interim Constitution The Washington Post reports that the Interim Governing Council finally approved the Fundamental Law it has been working on, on Monday. It will be signed Wednesday after the holy day of Ashura’ or the 10th of Muharram. The WP article is celebratory, and quotes a Chalabi aide as representing the “Shiites.” […]

Disturbances in Kirkuk (AFP/ az-Zaman): Tension gripped the northern city of Kirkuk Monday after armed clashes betwen Kurds and Turkmen. There have been a number of violent incidents lately. On Saturday, 92 Turkmen returned from Baghdad after having protested the marginalization of their ethnic group. There was celebratory fire on their arrival on Saturday night, […]

US Permits Iraq Oil pipeline to Iran The Financial Times reports that the Interim Governing Council has concluded an agreement with Iran to build a pipeline across the Shatt al-Arab. The US civil administrator, Paul Bremer, is said to have approved the plan. The US has faced severe financial problems in Iraq, slowing the rebuilding […]

Thousands of Sadrists Demonstrate in Kirkuk AFP reports that nearly 2000 members of the Army of the Mahdi, the militia headed by young Shiite radical Muqtada al-Sadr, demonstrated in Kirkuk on Saturday. The demonstration coincided with a general strike by the city’s approximately 300,000 Turkmen residents. Even the police stayed home. Ibrahim Khayyat at al-Hayat […]

Sistani’s Representative in Karbala Rejects Referendum on Provincial Council> ash-Sharq al-Awsat/ AFP: Shaikh Abdul Mahdi al-Karbala’i, the representative in Karbala of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, rejected the suggestion by another cleric that the provincial council appointed by CPA official John Berry be submitted to a referendum. He said that an appointed council is by its […]

Vigilanteism in Basra Scheherezade Faramarzi of AP reports on the Shiite militias of Basra and the way they are imposing both law and order, and a puritan style of life on the population (though sometimes they do some kidnapping or coercion of their own). The militias pose a long-term problem for Iraqi security, since they […]

What a Document Looks like Jonathan Schanzer, writing in the Weekly Standard, notes that I had asked Bill Safire for even a single “document” that shows that Saddam Hussein’s government cooperated with al-Qaeda before September 11. He suggests that we might substitute for such a document his interview with Abdul Rahman al-Shamari, who he says […]

6 US Soldiers wounded in 24 hours Wire services quoted by al-Jazeerah report that guerrillas wounded three US soldiers with rocket-propelled grenade fire Thursday night near Tikrit. On Friday morning, guerrillas in Tikrit lightly wounded another two US troops in a bom blast. A third soldier was seriously wounded in an attack on his convoy […]