Juan Cole

Gypsy Town Razed by Militant Sadrists as Den of Iniquity The Financial Times reports, a little belatedly, that Muqtada al-Sadr’s Army of the Mahdi militia raided and destroyed the town of Kawlia near Diwaniyah about 3 weeks ago. Kawlia was a center of Iraqi “gypsies,” dancing girls and prostitutes, and was a concern to the […]

Kaplan: Is Fallujah Mogadishu? See Fred Kaplan’s suggestive comparison of Fallujah to Mogadishu at the Slate weblog.

Deaths of Americans in Fallujah: In revenge for Sharon’s Murder of Sheikh Yassin? There is increasing evidence that the brutal attack on the American security guards in Fallujah, and the desecration of their bodies, was the work of Islamists seeking vengeance for the Israeli murder of Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Leaflets found at the […]

Kimmitt: Fallujah will be just like Baqubah On the killing of the US security personnel in Fallujah on Wednesday: ‘ GEN. KIMMITT: What I’m suggesting is that there is an incident that happened yesterday. It’s going to color the way that the town of Fallujah is looked at by the military authorities responsible for that […]

3 US Troops Wounded, 6 Iraqis Killed Wire services report that guerrillas near Fallujah wounded three US troops with a roadside bomb on Thursday. Also yesterday, guerrillas in northern Baghdad wounded at least one Iraqi when they set off two explosions near a US-escorted fuel convoy. In Ramadi, guerrillas detonated a car bomb at the […]

Tomdispatch: “Rice and Beans” Tom Engelhardt of Tomdispatch.com discusses the odd maneuvering of the Bush administration around the testimony of National Security Adviser Condi Rice and the president and vice president before the September 11 Commission. Rice will now testify in public and under oath, but Bush and Cheney will testify in private, together, with […]

9 Americans Killed in and around Fallujah; Bodies Desecrated The amount of violence against Americans on Wednesday was remarkable, with 5 US soldiers killed by a roadside bomb and four civilian security men killed in Fallujah. But what was really striking was the quality of the violence. An angry crowd dragged the bodies of the […]

Thousands of Shiites Protest in Downtown Baghdad It wasn’t in the headlines in US media because of the violence in Fallujah, but several thousand angry Shiites demonstrated in downtown Baghdad on Wednesday, protesting the closure of the al-Hawzah newspaper of Muqtada al-Sadr by the Coalition Provisional Authority. The young radical cleric, Muqtada, has only occasionally […]

Zubaidi: No right of Return, Compensation for Iraqi Jews The Iraqi minister of Housing and Rebuilding, Bayan Baqir al-Zubaidi, denied Wednesday that the current Iraqi governing council had passed laws giving Iraqi Jews the right to return and to reclaim their lost property. (Until 1948 there was a large Iraqi Jewish community, and in the […]