Juan Cole

The Situation in Najaf A kind friend who was able to get a phone call into Najaf reports as follows: ‘ I called my friend in Najaf today Thursday . . . Private internet doesn´t work. Messages bounce. There are though some institutional connections working, like hospitals and other. He told me there is a […]

Muqtada Calls for an End to Hostilities Back to Iraq has posted a link to the text of a proclamation by Muqtada al-Sadr that calls on his followers to cease military operations and to confine themselves to sit-ins in the Kufa mosque. My translation is as follows: ——————– trans. J. Cole: ‘ In the Name […]

Patel on Muqtada al-Sadr David Patel writes from Iraq concerning the allegation that Muqtada is being “run” by the Iran-based cleric Kadhim al-Haeri: ‘ I have been in Basra since Sep and know both Moqtada’s and al-Haeri’s representatives in town. Although al-Haeri is technically Moqtada’s marja and a picture of him hangs in every al-Sadr […]

Gunbattles Rage in Many Iraqi Cities on Wednesday az-Zaman reports ongoing gunbattles in Ramadi and Fallujah between Sunni Arab forces and US marines. It also notes that clashes have broken out in the Adhamiyah and Yarmuk quarters of Baghdad around Umm al-Qura Mosque (these are Sunni areas of the capital). The US killed 40 people […]

Militias Forbidden? And US Hypocrisy Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dan Senor, who has often attempted to peddle frankly false stories, was at it again on Wednesday. He said Muqtada al-Sadr was targeted because he maintained a militia. Let’s see: In April of 2003, the US Department of Defense flew Ahmad Chalabi into Iraq with over […]

Sistani Fatwa on Insurgency trans. J. Cole from Sistani.org Question: You know the cruel methods that the Occupation Forces are employing in the continuing clashes for several days in areas of Baghdad and in several provinces in the west, center and south–which have led so far to the deaths of numerous victims among civilians. Likewise, […]

12 US Troops Killed at Ramadi; Over 24 Wounded; 3 Killed at Kadhimiyah US troops died at the hands of Sunni Arab guerrillas at Ramadi on Tuesday, but also at the hands of radical Shiites in Kadhimiya, a suburb of Baghdad that is the site of the tomb of the 7th Imam. A two-front struggle […]

The Second Front: Multi-City Sadrist Uprising Continues The difficulty the United States and its allies are having in regaining control of the major cities of the Shiite south is breathtaking in its implications. There is little doubt that they can prevail eventually in a military sense. But if the Sadrist uprising were a minor affair […]

The Iran factor There has been a great deal of speculation about possible Iranian connections to the Shiite resistance to US occupation in Iraq. The connection is not straightforward. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf is originally from a town near Mashhad in eastern Iran, but has been in Iraq since 1952, much longer than […]