The USG Open Source Center translates a broadcast by the Iranian Al-Alam satellite television station reporting on a new pact between the [Shiite] Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the [Sunni coalition, the] Iraqi Accord Front, especially the latter’s Islamic Iraqi Party. This alliance probably comes in response to the move of other parties to […]
OSC: Iraqi Kurd official says Kurds unequal US ally
The USG Open Source Center translates an opinion piece from a major Kurdish Iraqi newspaper containing quotes from a Kurdish official about the Kurdish-US relationship. The piece maintains that the alliance is one of convenience on the US side; is not as strong as that between Washington and Kuwait; and may not last if the […]
Maliki Announces Push on Mosul; ICTJ says Iraq Debaathification law Makes things Worse
According to al-Hayat in Arabic, Iraqi preachers on Friday expressed outrage over the Israeli siege of Gaza and condemned Arab governments for doing nothing about it. They also condemned the bombing in Mosul and the doomsday group, Supporters of the Mahdi, in the Shiite south. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the Iraqi parliament still has […]
Mosul Police Chief Killed; Karbala’i Escapes Assassination
The police chief of Mosul and two other officers were killed by a suicide bomber when they came to the site of the recent powerful explosion. The death toll from that bomb rose to 40. A bomb lightly wounded Abdul Mahdi Karbala’i, the representative in the holy Shiite city of Karbala of Grand Ayatollah Ali […]
Beinin Guest Op-Ed: The People in Gaza Challenge Sham Peace Process
by Joel Beinin About 3:00 am on Wednesday morning Jan. 23, well-coordinated explosions demolished the iron wall built by Israel to seal the southern border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt (the Philadelphi axis). Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed across the border and entered the Egyptian side of the town of Rafah, which had […]
OSC: HAMAS-Iraq Launches ‘Avenging Gaza’ Campaign Against US Forces in Iraq
The USG Open Source Center summarizes and translates a posting on a jihadi web site of Iraqi guerrillas vowing to “avenge Gaza” by targeting American troops and the Iraqis that cooperate with them. ‘HAMAS-Iraq Launches ‘Avenging Gaza’ Campaign Against US Forces in Iraq 19 JanJihadist Websites — OSC SummaryThursday, January 24, 2008 . . . […]
159 Killed or Wounded in Massive Mosul Blast; Dems take on Bush over Iraq SOFA
Guerrillas were stockpiling munitions in an unoccupied building in the Zanjabili district near the Houston-sized northern city of Mosul. Someone informed the Iraqi security forces of the stockpile, and apparently the guerrillas had good intelligence on such things, so they blew up the arms warehouse to deny it to their foes. It blasted surrounding apartment […]
Mr. Olmert, Tear Down this Wall!
The Egyptian government mounted a small demonstration of defiance of the Olmert government in Israel on Thursday. Palestinians destroyed the blast walls that artificially box them in to the tiny, slummy Gaza Strip and cut them off from their natural markets in Egypt. Perhaps a fourth of Gaza’s population then flooded into the nearby Egyptian […]
935 False Statements that Led a Nation to War
The Center for Public Integrity has published a study finding that ‘President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security […]