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 […]

Iraqi Shiites in the slums of Baghdad, which were once called al-Thawrah Towship and then Saddam City, have now renamed their neighborhood Sadr City after […]

The Iraq war has resulted in many human casualties that make any humane person want to weep. I hope the human sacrifice will have been […]

*Khu’i appears to have been killed in Najaf by a mob of radical followers of the 22-year-old Muqtada al-Sadr. His father had been a supporter […]

The events around the assassination of Shiite leader Abd al-Majid Khu’i in Najaf a couple of days ago remain murky. From what I can tell, […]

*Madinat Saddam, a Shiite area of 2 million in Baghdad, had already tossed out the Iraqi militiamen two days ago, it turns out. These desperately […]