*For my essay on the Shiite religious parties and factions in Iraq, see “Shiite Religious Parties Fill Vacuum in Southern Iraq” in Middle East Reports […]

*US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Monday, of the future of Iraq that he did not expect to see a theocracy there like that […]

*Breaking News US military forces arrested Shaikh Muhammad al-Fartusi and two other clerics at a Baghdad checkpoint. This arrest provoked a big demonstration of 5,000 […]

*Tens of thousands of Iraqi Shiites continue to make their way to Karbala, the site of the shrine of Imam Husayn, to commemorate the 40th […]

*The eight nations bordering Iraq met in Riyad and called for an early US withdrawal. They demanded that the US abide by the 4th Geneva […]

Some two million Shiites live in eastern Baghdad, and several factions are jockeying for influence with them. Press reports of local Shiite clerics in Baghdad […]

*Al-Hayat for April 18 has an interview with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf. It says that Sistani “affirmed his rejection of any foreign power […]

*I’ve just read several recent new reports on the Shiites of Iraq, and I am struck by how often people mention the authority they grant […]

AFP and ash-Sharq al-Awsat are reporting that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani (73) in Najaf issued a statement through is son, Muhammad Rida Ali Sistani, calling […]