Juan Cole

Muqtada Under Siege, US Helicopters Patrol Skies above East Baghdad Sistani calls for calm In the aftermath of one of the most turbulent days yet in American-occupied Iraq, the London daily al-Hayat reports that American helicopters were deployed late Sunday against the Army of the Mahdi militia of Muqtada al-Sadr in East Baghdad. It said […]

Levine: Dark Side of Globalization Don’t miss Mark Levine’s excellent meditation on the US occupation of Iraq and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as elements of uncontrollable “globalization” from an Arab point of view. Mark, an excellent Arabist who teaches at UC Irvine, recently visited Iraq unembedded. He writes of Iraqi […]

Effect of Plus Ultra Casualties on Coalition? Agence France Presse reports that a human rights group and the main opposition party have called for the exit of the 380 Salvadoran troops from Iraq in the wake of bloody clashes at Najaf on Sunday. ‘ “The blood of our soldiers has begun to run, and that […]

2 Killed in Seizure of Sadrist Office in Baghdad; Muqtada Aide Had Called for IGC Resignation Two pieces of information from BBC world monitoring. First, it reports on Sunday April 4 that: Al-Jazeera TV, Doha, in Arabic 1450 gmt 4 Apr 04 said that US troops killed two and injured 7 when they stormed the […]

Muqtada Aide: Australia Out! According to Australian Broadcasting Co., Imam Amer al-Hussaini, an aide to Muqtada al-Sadr, called Sunday for an immediate withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq. ‘ “The Saddam regime (is) gone and … we know how to control our country,” he told ABC radio through an interpreter. ‘ Australian Broadcasting’s Peter Cave […]

Incompetence or Double-Dealing in Coalition Management of Iraq? The Coalition decision to provoke a fight with Muqtada al-Sadr’s movement only three months before the Coalition Provisional Authority goes out of business has to be seen as a form of gross incompetence in governance. How did the CPA get to the point where it has turned […]

Shiite Clashes in with Coalition in Najaf Baghdad: Phase II of the Anti-Occupation Struggle Begins Nine Coalition Troops Killed, Dozens wounded in Confronting Uprising [Updated] The always tense relationship between the Sadrist movement among Iraqi Shiites and the US and its Coalition partners has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Perhaps a third of […]

Iraq Information or Party Propaganda? The Guardian has a story on Sunday about how the Iraq Information Office is not just a Coalition Provisional Authority way of getting the news out about their activities, but is essentially an arm of the Republican National Committee dedicated to reelecting George Bush. The goal is to keep the […]

Thousands Protest Newspaper Closure in Baghdad Some 5,000 followers of Muqtada al-Sadr marched through largely Shiite East Baghdad on Saturday, protesting the closure of his al-Hawzah newspaper. The building demonstrations come against a backdrop of continued violence in Iraq. The night before, heavy fighting had broken out in Kufa, a town of about 120,000 near […]