Juan Cole

Tribal/Fundamentalist Violence Guerrillas Economically self-sustaining That a tribal group and Sunni fundamentalists clashed in al-Anbar is believeable. That the tribe lost 9 and “al-Qaeda” lost 55 is not, unless it was a sneak attack. The NYT says that oil smuggling, antiquities smuggling, kidnapping for ransom, and fraud raise as much as $200 million a year […]

Dozens of Bodies Found Firefight at Taji Dhari Urges Arabs to turn on Maliki Police found 17 bodies in Baghdad on Saturday. They found 21 bodies of Shiites in Balad Ruz, a small Sunni city near Baquba northeast of the capital. US forces said they killed 22 Iraqis at Taji in a fight with guerrillas. […]

Peshmerga to Guard MPs: Mashhadani The USG Open Source Center translates this item from the Kurdistan press: ‘Iraqi Parliament To Entrust Kurdish Peshmerga With Guarding MPsUnattributed report: “Al-Mashhadani recommends the peshmerga to guard Council of Representatives’ members” Patriotic Union of Kurdistan WWW-TextSaturday, November 25, 2006 T20:56:20Z Iraqi Speaker Mahmud al-Mashhadani recommended entrusting peshmargas with guarding […]

Sunnis Set Afire, Mosques Attacked Nearly 100 Killed in Reprisals Muqtada Challenges Dhari The death toll in Thursday’s massive assault on Sadr City by Sunni Arab guerrillas has risen above 200. Trains of bodies have been delivered to the Valley of Peace cemetery outside Najaf, which is said to contain 2 million graves. Friday morning, […]

233 Dead in Civil War Carnage Health Ministry Besieged 3,000 Widows Created Each Month So as Thursday began, Sunni Arab guerrillas surrounded and attacked the Ministry of Health, which is dominated by followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The guerrillas trapped 2,000 employees in the compound and threatened to kill any who came outside. They […]

Breaking News: Mass Slaugher in Baghdad A string of car bombings in Sadr City and Kadhimiya (Shiite neighborhoods) wrought vast slaughter and destruction, leaving a death toll creeping toward 150 and over 200 wounded. Shiite guerrillas fired mortars at Sunni neighborhoods in response. I just saw the news conference of President Jalal Talabani, Vice President […]

36 Killed in Iraqi Civil War Britain may Leave Iraq British troops could withdraw from Basra by this spring. It is widely felt that the 7200 remaining troops are trapped in the south and probably cannot expect to achieve a great deal more in the way of providing security to the area. Late this coming […]

Revolutionary Guards Head: ‘US Forces in Middle East ‘Extremely’ Vulnerable The USG Open Source Center translates the following piece from Persian: ‘Iranian Guards Chief: US Forces in Middle East ‘Extremely’ Vulnerable Fars News Agency (Internet Version-WWW) Tuesday, November 21, 2006 T19:35:28Z The commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps has said: If America attacks Iran, […]

Bush’s Cedar Revolution Collapses in Yet Another Policy Failure The assassination of Lebanese cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel on Tuesday has thrown that country further into yet more turmoil. The crisis is a further testament to the bankruptcy of George W. Bush’s Middle East policy. Under the dishonest rhetoric of ‘democratization,’ what Bush has really been […]