Iraq

Al-Zaman (The Times of Baghdad) writes in Arabic that Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Sadr Movement, returned on Wednesday to Najaf after 4 years in Iran. An aide issued a communique saying, “Muqtada al-Sadr arrived in Najaf in the company of a number of his major aides, among them Mustafa al-Ya`qubi, Muhammad al-Sa’idi, and […]

Wikileaks has released the July 25, 1990 cable by US Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie in which she reported her meeting with Saddam Hussein over the Kuwait crisis. Saddam had summoned her. The cable’s text supports Glaspie’s accounts of the meeting and exonerates her from the charges by her political enemies in the US Congress […]

Al-Safir reports that 2 were killed and 14 wounded in a series of bombings extending over a two-hour period in Baghdad in the late afternoon on Thursday, which targeted Christians. The bloodiest attack took place in the district of of al-Ghadir in the center of the capital, where guerrillas attacked two Christian homes with bombs, […]

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki made news this week with his interview in the Wall Street Journal, in the course of which he insisted that all US troops would be out of Iraq by January 1, 2012: ‘ WSJ: Some American officials have spoken about contingency plans being drawn now in Washington for the possibility […]

Iraq has marked three milestones this fall. The formal military mission of US troops was ended by President Obama on August 31, and while about 50,000 troops remain, some of them occasionally engaged in combat at the invitation of the Iraqi government, there are no large US military campaigns. The remaining 50,000 troops are scheduled […]

Al-Hayat writes in Arabic that prospective Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki faced severe opposition on Monday to his insistence on announcing the formation of a government without naming all the cabinet members. Among the parties opposed to this step was the Iraqiya, the Kurdistan Alliance, and the Sadr Movement. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court issued a ruling […]