Juan Cole

High Baathist official Held in Najaf Bombing Kareem Ghatheeth, a Baath Party “Security Director,” was captured recently in Najaf by Badr Corps militiament in a firefight. They say that he is the mastermind behind the Najaf truck bombing of Aug. 29 that killed Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in […]

New Private Television Company in Iraq It was announced Monday that IBC, a privately owned corporation in Iraqi hands, would launch the first privately owned television network in Iraq. (Although Turkey has privately owned television stations, the rest of the Arab world with the exception of Lebanon does not. Media is a government monopoly in […]

Turkmen Choose Leader Sami Shabak, a prominent member of the governing council of the Iraq Turkmen Front, angrily resigned Monday, accusing the party of being under the influence of the Turkish government and of taking outside direction in pursuing confrontations with the local Kurdish population. (-al-Sharq al-Awsat). The Iraq Turkmen Front voted in Kirkuk on […]

Ayatollah Hussein al-Sadr Steven R. Weisman reports of the US Secretary of State in Baghdad, Colin Powell: “On Sunday evening he dined with the senior Shiite cleric in Baghdad, Saeed Hussein Al-Sadr, a member of a prominent family with some members of the family having opposed Saddam and others now opposing the US occupation.” I’ve […]

US Troops: One Killed, Three Wounded Guerrillas killed one US paratrooper and wounded three others on Sunday near Falluja with a roadside bomb that blew the back off their humvee.

5 Members of Interim Governing Council Press for Power Ahmad Chalabi, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, and three other members of the American-appointed Interim Governing Council are using the current difficulties of the Bush administration to press for greater immediate power for themselves. The French at the Security Council have argued for a quick return to Iraqi […]

Constitutional Preparatory Report at end of September Fuad Masum, head of the Preparatory Committee for the Iraqi Constitution, announced Sunday that his committee’s report would be out at the end of September. The committee sees two principal ways of proceeding toward an elected constitutional convention. One would be to hold town meeting style elections in […]

Iraq Petroleum Production Jumps Iraq is back to producing 1.5 million barrels a day, up from the 800,000 typical of August. With its present equipment, Iraq could produce 3 million barrels a day, and the US administration of the country had been hoping to reach that level by next spring. The low levels of production […]

Najaf Police Chief Dismissed for Corruption Haydar Mahdi Matar al-Miyali, the Governor of Najaf, announced Sunday that the city’s police chief, Husayn Yasin al-Juburi, had been arrested on corruption charges. Legal action against him is pending. Other sources said he had been dismissed for poor administration. The dismissal comes two weeks after a huge truck […]