Juan Cole

Khalilzad meets al-Hakim Reuters reports several bombs and attacks in Baghdad, as well as in Baqubah, Khalis, Kirkuk and elsewhere, leaving over a dozen dead. Significant items include the assassination of 3 members of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Militia in Baqubah; the blowing up of a Sunni shrine in Tikrit; and a mortar attack on the […]

Over 20 Dead in Guerrilla Violence Talabani’s Bid to call Parliament Fails The Iraqi general in charge of Baghdad security was killed by a sniper on Monday. I suppose it doesn’t need underlining that this is very bad news for Baghdad security. The assassinated commander, himself a Sunni Arab who led men during the Iran-Iraq […]

3 Mosques Attacked Kurdish Envoy Sees Sistani about Jaafari Mosque attacks continued in Iraq on Sunday, as sectarian violence refused to die down. There was guerrilla violence in Mosul, Baghdad, Baiji, Samarra and Ramadi. Amnesty International maintains that tens of thousands of Iraqis have been detained without trial or even formal charges for months and […]

Kirkuk at the Center of Kurdish-Shiite Struggles I find most reporting on the struggle between Iraq’s Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani and the current Shiite Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, to be awfully superficial and to allow itself to be led by Talabani’s talking points. What is really going on here has to do with Jaafari’s positions […]

Muqtada Warns Talabani on “interference” United Iraqi Alliance politicians continued Saturday to insist that the party would continue to back Ibrahim Jaafari as the new prime minister, despite attempts by Kurds (especially President Jalal Talabani) and Sunnis to push him aside. Jaafari has angered Kurds by his attempts to involve Turkey in Iraqi affairs to […]

Bush Greeted in Pakistan by Demonstrations, Nation-wide Strike Bush arrived in Islamabad to find it eerily quiet. The Islamic Action Council, which includes a group that helped train the Taliban, had called for a nation-wide strike to protest the visit. Streets of many cities were said to be strangely quiet, while in the northern Pushtun […]

Al-Hakim, UIA back Jaafari Sectarian Killings Raise Tension The killing, execution-style, of some 25 Shiite workers in a brick-making plant in Nahrawan by Sunni Arab guerrillas caused renewed ethnic tensions on Friday. Al-Zaman reports that [Ar.] Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the United Iraqi Alliance [Shiite religious parties] informed Iraqi president Jalal Talabani and […]

Friday Headlines to Make You Laugh and Cry at the Same Time “Rumsfeld Cautions against too Many Troops in Iraq”. I swear to God, that is what it says. “Iraq now ‘Less Safe’. Oh, I’d say so. “Pentagon Dismisses US Troop Poll”. A Pentagon spokesman actually said, “It shouldn’t surprise anybody that a deployed soldier […]

25 Dead in Sectarian Strike at Nahrawan Curfew in Baghdadd Sunni Arab guerrillas attacked Shiites in the town of Nahrawan. Some 25 are feared dead, with bodies being pulled out of a factory and some found in a field. I would say that a communal attack of this scale is symptomatic of civil war. Prime […]