It Takes a Following to Make an Ayatollah My op-ed on Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and Muqtada al-Sadr is in Sunday’s Washington Post.

Why does the Mahdi Army fight? Mariam Fam of AP talks about the cultural dynamics around the Army of the Mahdi, the militia of Muqtada […]

Muqtada Press Conference: “No Ordinary Politics Under Occupation” The one-day truce in Najaf has collapsed. And, even the council of tribal chieftains in the Middle […]

US War Planes Bomb Samarra Al-Jazeerah also showed footage of the US bombing of the city of Samarra (north of Baghdad) on Friday night or […]

Muqtada to Allawi: Resign! In a press conference on Friday, Muqtada al-Sadr called on the caretaker government of Iyad Allawi to resign: “I advise the […]

Kadhim on the Najaf Crisis Abbas Kadhim, an Iraqi Shiite scholar who knows Najaf intimately, has published an op-ed that questions the common wisdom about […]

Muqtada Wounded by US Bombing Muqtada al-Sadr was wounded by US bombardment of Najaf on Friday morning, according to Reuters. Sadr spokesman Ahmad al-Shinabi told […]

223 dead, 500 wounded in clashes across Iraq US marines launch major assault on Najaf The headline, which is perfectly serviceable, is ripped off from […]

Endgame in Najaf? From Arabic and English radio and television broadcasts, including al-Jazeerah: The Marines have completely surrounded Najaf and cut off all the roads […]