Juan Cole

Shiite Workers Abducted 4 Marines Killed The US military announced that guerrillas killed four US Marines in al-Anbar Province. Some reports said that guerrillas abducted 85 mostly Shiite workers from a factory in a mostly Sunni district of Baghdad. Later reports by Iraqi officials said it had been 30 that were abducted, and that 25 […]

For Outgoing Senator Santorum: Top Ten Ways We Know Saddam Did not Have WMD “There are many Senators whom I hold in a certain respect and would not think of declining to meet socially, if I believed it was the will of God. We have lately sent a United States Senator to the penitentiary, but […]

Kirkuk Governor: Not a Cent from Baghdad! The USG Open Source Center translates an interview with the governor of oil-rich, ethnically turbulent Kirkuk city.

Bombings in Basra, Baghdad US Airstrike Kills 13 at Baqubah A suicide bomber targeted pensioners standing in line in Basra, killing 1 and wounding 5. In Baghdad, a bomber killed 7 and wounded 18 in a market. Al-Zaman/ DPA say that police found 16 corpses in various parts of Iraq. Al-Zaman reports that [Ar.] dozens […]

Rosser Guest Op-Ed: Innocent Kurdish-Americans Victimized by Patriot Act A Travesty of Justice: Oppressing the Kurds of Harrisonburg, Virginia J. Barkley Rosser, Jr. On June 26, three Kurdish men in Harrisonburg, Virginia (Rasheed Qambari, Ahmed Abdullah, and Amir Rashid) will be sentenced for sending money to Iraqi Kurdistan without a license to their families and […]

Iraq Intel Chief Decries Partisanship From the USG Open Source Center, a translation of an interview with Iraq’s intelligence head: ‘ Iraqi Intelligence Chief Al-Shahwani Warns of Danger of Partisan Politics Interview with Iraqi Intelligence Service chief Major General Muhammad al-Shahwani by Sa’d Abbas; place and date not given: “There Will Be Security in the […]

Open Source: Cole with Wright Here is the transcript of my appearance Monday evening with Lawrence Wright of the New Yorker on Chris Lydon’s PRI show, Open Source, to discuss radical Islamism and Iraq after Zarqawi.

Dems Back Phased Withdrawal Republicans: Stay and Stay, Spend and Spend Senate Democrats have come up with two resolutions, with most of the coalescing around the vaguer one. AP describes the more popular resolution: ‘ The resolution would urge _ but not require _ the administration to begin “a phased redeployment of U.S. forces” in […]

26 Dead in Civil War 3,000 Demonstrate in Karbala Japan has announced that it will withdraw its 600 troops from Iraq over the next few weeks. The announcement was probably prompted by the plan to turn security in Muthanna province, where the Japanese soldiers are stationed, over to Iraq. Japan joins Italy in this firm […]