Middle East

In an interview on Aljazeera on Friday, Shaikh Harith al-Dhari of the Association for Muslims Scholars called on Iraqi tribal fighters to cease attacking “al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia.” He said that 90% of al-Qaeda in Iraq was Iraqi Sunnis and that ways should be found to dialogue and reason with them. He decried the willingness of […]

The USG Open Source Center translates passages from Friday sermons carried on Iraqi television: Round-up of Iraqi Friday Sermons 5 OctIraq — OSC SummarySaturday, October 6, 2007 . . . Within its 1800 GMT newscast, Baghdad Al-Iraqiyah Television in Arabic – government-sponsored television station, run by the Iraqi Media Network – is observed to carry […]

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that tensions have heated up in the Shiite South between the Sadr Movement and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (which maintains the Badr Corps paramilitary). The Sadr movement on Friday accused the Badr Organization of assassinating Sadr leaders. Sadrist MP Ahmad al-Masoudi accused the Badr Organization of having organized militias […]

The USG Open Source Center reports on the way that the United Iraqi Alliance, the largest Shiite bloc, led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, has attempted to distance itself from the Biden-Gelb plan for a soft partition of Iraq. (This attempt at distancing come despite the similarity of the […]

WaPo says that the Iraqi government has made a $100 mn. deal with China for the purchase of light weaponry, especially AK-47 assault rifles. Some observers are afraid that these arms will actually end up in the hands of sectarian militiamen or anti-government guerrillas, through graft or theft or because much of the Iraqi police […]

Guerrillas injured the Polish ambassador to Iraq on Wednesday with roadside bombs.Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki again insisted on Wednesday that the Blackwater security firm should leave Iraq. He accused its employees of having been trigger-happy on several occasions. Al-Maliki began making this demand soon after the September 16 shootings at Nisur Square, which left […]

Colin Kahl of Georgetown University writes: ‘There will be 100-130K troops in Iraq when Bush leaves. The number will depend largely on who wins the factional infighting between the White House and MNF-I (Petraeus) on the one hand, and CENTCOM, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary Gates on the other hand. The former want […]

British PM Gordon Brown, in Baghdad and Basra for consultations with PM Nuri al-Maliki, with British commanders, and with his US allies, announced that he would withdraw another 1,000 British troops from Basra by Christmas. A majority of the British public wants all the troops out now, but the US is putting enormous pressure on […]

Iraqi authorities are not only accusing Blackwater guards of an unprovoked shooting of 11 persons at Nisur Square on Sept. 16, but also of engaging in an hour-long firefight with Iraqi police later that day. The firm appears to have deployed attack helicopters in the firefights. The NYT reports that a new congressional report on […]