Juan Cole

Iraqi Islamic Party Leader Released The US military has released Muhsin Abd al-Hamid, the leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party. The IIP runs the provincial council in Anbar and is the only major Sunni Arab religious party that has generally been willing to cooperate with the Americans. Abd al-Hamid served on the American-appointed Interim Governing […]

30 Dead, Dozens Wounded by Guerrillas In Response to Operation Lightning Guerrillas in Baghdad fought determinedly against the 40,000 Iraqi soldiers fielded to crack down on violence in Baghdad. AFP writes, “Four car bombs in and around the capital killed 16 people, most of them security personnel, Sunday, in a swift response to Iraq’s widest […]

No God But God Max Rodenbeck makes odd statements and basic errors in his review of Reza Aslan’s “No God but God” on the struggle between moderates and extremists in the Muslim world. Rodenbeck writes: “Aslan’s wish to emphasize the tolerant, merciful side of Islam can lead to pitfalls. It is not particularly comforting to […]

43 Iraqis Dead in 2 Days Shiite Pilgrims Massacred Killings in Sinjar, Hilla Wire services report that the unconventional sectarian civil war in Iraq continued on Saturday. Guerrillas in Qaim executed 10 Shiite pilgrims originally from Diwaniyah returning from Syria. The shrine of Sayyidah Zaynab, the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad and the sister of […]

Military Analysts Who Lived in Aluminum Fairy Land Rewarded Two Army analysts who mistakenly claimed that aluminum tubing bought by Iraq was for centrifuges to enrich uranium received job performance awards during the past 3 years. When the specifications of the tubing were finally shown to the International Atomic Energy Commission in March of 2003, […]

Muqtada: All Factions Must Participate in Constitution-Making The Herald Sun reports that late on Friday, ‘ “A suicide bomber blew up his vehicle near a police patrol, killing seven people, including three policemen and wounding 24 civilians,” Lieutenant Mahmud al-Azzawi said. ‘ Guerrillas assassinated a major Sunni Arab tribal leader, Shaikh Sabhan Khalaf al-Juburi (al-Jibouri), […]

US Helicopter Shot Down, 2 Soldiers Dead PM Jaafari launches a Campaign around Baghdad Guerrillas shot down a US helicopter near Baqubah on Thursday, killing two US soldiers. Stephen Kamarow explains the reservations many Iraqis have about what strikes them as an indecisive leadership style in Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari. His Minister of Defense, Saadoun […]

Blog-Casting and the Future of Blog Advertising Carl Bialik of the WSJ has an article on attempts to count various things about web logs, including how many there are, how many Americans read them, how much they are linked to, and what their readership is. Many of these questions are driven by Madison Avenue (i.e. […]

Bombings and Assassinations Continue US Military Sweep in Haditha Thursday morning’s 70 minutes of mayhem began at 7:20 a.m. Baghdad time. Guerrillas detonated two bombs, and carried out two drive-by shootings and a stabbing in a little over an hour. A roadside bomb targeted a US convoy, wounding at least one civilian. A bomb in […]