Juan Cole

Guerrillas near Falluja targeted an American convoy with a roadside bomb late Monday, killing 3 and wounding 2. One of those killed was State Department employee Terrence Barnich. Strongly Sunni Arab al-Anbar Province was the most violent place in Iraq three years ago, and still witnesses guerrilla activity against US and Iraqi government targets. The […]

The Pakistani Army said Tuesday morning that, as part of its Swat campaign, it had taken control of another strategic center, Maalam Jabba, which had been a stronghold of and training center for the Taliban Movement of Pakistan led by Mawlana Fazlullah. The military said it continues a slow advance in Mingora, the largest city […]

The NYT reports that various attacks in Mosul and Falluja killed 22 on Sunday, including a suicide bombing targeting a US convoy in Mosul that missed and hit a restaurant instead. As many were wounded in the attacks as killed. There was also an assault on national police in Mosul, and a roadside bombing that […]

India and Pakistan are now sharing intelligence on extremists for the first time. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh won a second term and his Congress Party much strengthened its majority in the Indian parliament in the recent elections. As a result, the PM has a free hand to negotiate with Pakistan if he so chooses, […]

The BBC says that Iran has banned Facebook ahead of its presidential election. Reformist candidate Mir Husain Musavi’s supporters had created a Facebook page and were using it to campaign for their candidate. Last year Egyptians used Facebook to campaign for political reform in Egypt, and, of course, it was an important part of the […]

The Pakistani military has announced that it has taken the strategic hilltop of Biny Baba Ziarat that overlooks the Swat Valley. Some 150 Taliban were said to be killed in the hard fighting, in which they put up strong resistance even though the Pakistani military deployed helicopter gunships and much heavier firepower than the Taliban […]

There is something fishy about the Pakistani military’s reporting of its campaign against the Taliban in Swat, according to the Pakistani press. Dawn uses the phrase, “With scepticism growing about the progress of the month-old army offensive in the north-western region . . .” and notes, “From the air, there was little evidence of the […]

Veteran security reporters Jonathan S. Landay and Warren Strobel at McClatchy fact-check former vice president Dick Cheney’s speech defending torture and denouncing plans to close Guantanamo Bay Landay and Strobel catch the vice president in a whole series of falsehoods: The long and the short of it is that other high US officials doubt the […]

Bombings killed 23 persons in Iraq on Thursday, including, Iraqi officials maintain, 3 US soldiers. The attacks followed on a major bombing Wednesday that left 40 dead and 73 wounded in the largely Shiite, northern Shula district. In Baghdad, guerrillas carried out two significant bombings. One hit a market in Dora district, killing 9 Iraqis […]