Juan Cole

Mysterious US strike in Irbil Condemned by Kurds The US military appears to have become convinced that Ansar al-Sunnah, a breakaway group from the largely Kurdish terrorist group Ansar al-Islam, has been operating from dormitories at the Salahuddin University in the Kurdish stronghold of Irbil. US special forces accompanied by Kurdish fighters and helicopter gunships […]

Murphy: Sunnis not Registered Dan Murphy of the Christian Science Monitor reports from Baghdad that many Sunni Arab families in Iraq are not registered to vote. In part, this situation derives from the poor security situation in their areas, and in part from the death threats received by the individuals who would ordinarily carry out […]

Car Bomb at Hilla Police Academy Kills at Least 20 Guerrillas detonated a car bomb outside a police academy in Hilla, a city of 500,000, largely Shiite, in the mixed Babil province an hour south of Baghdad. Numbers of wounded were not available but must run to the dozens. The Academy was holding a graduation […]

Baghdad Governor, 6 Bodyguards Assassinated 5 US Troops, 10 Iraqi Commandoes also Killed The pro-American governor of Baghdad and his convoy were ambushed on Tuesday by gunmen, who managed to cut down the governor and six of his bodyguards in only the latest of a spate of killing of provincial governing officials. The head of […]

Downsides of Partitioning Iraq Some readers asked me why I was so against partitioning Iraq. It is because it would cause a great deal of trouble to us all, not least Iraqis. Iraq is not divided neatly into three ethnic enclaves. It is all mixed up. There are a million Kurds in Baghdad, a million […]

Carnage continues With 27 Dead Bombings and assassinations resulted in at least 27 deaths in Iraq on Monday. Not only was a bomb exploded outside the headquarters of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s Iraqi National Accord party (killing four and wounding 24), but another blast went off outside the Green Zone that houses government offices […]

2 Killed, 14 Wounded at Allawi Party HQ Wire services and Lebanese Broadcasting Channel were reporting early Monday morning that guerrillas had detonated a car bomb near the headquarters of the Iraqi National Accord party. The party was about to announce its candidate list for the forthcoming elections. LBC reported that Allawi was on the […]

Middle Eastern Contributions to Tsunamic Relief in Context Someone on an email list drew my attention to the following exchange from last week, with Tucker Carlson talking to Leslie Gelb, a fromer president of the Council on Foreign Relations, shown at 10 pm on Weds. Dec. 29 on CNN Newsnight. Carlson, who doesn’t know anything […]

Postings Postings may sometimes be irregular this week, since I’m at a conference.