*Ayham al-Samarrai, the new minister of electricity, has said that Coalition troops should withdraw from Iraqi cities within six months. (AFP) Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, Shiite […]

*Guerrillas in cars sprayed machine gun fire at the headquarters of the Shiite al-Da`wa Party twice on Sunday. (Al-Zaman). No one was hurt. Four or […]

*About 5,000 Arab demonstrators rallied Saturday in Kirkuk, insisting that the US release Sheikh Hatam Al-Assy Al-Obeidi, a powerful tribal chieftain suspected in the sabotage […]

*Ex-Baathist provocateurs attempted to turn a peaceful demonstration by the unemployed in Basra into a violent riot on Saturday, but failed, according to al-Zaman. The […]

*Officials in the northern city of Mosul (pop. 1.7 million) are saying that they have struck a deal with Syria such that it will provide […]

*Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan angrily demanded a clarification from Iraq and the US about whether Turkish troops are wanted as peace enforcers. The new […]

*For an expert look at some of the recent rather polemical books about Saudi Arabia, see long time Foreign Service Officer David Long’s review in […]

*US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld blamed the Iraqis for their own lack of security, since they are not doing enough to tell the US […]

My National Public Radio interview on All Things Considered for Saturday, September 6, 2003, about my correspondence with the late Lt. Kylan Jones-Huffman, is now […]