Juan Cole

Medact: Iraqi Health Situation Deteriorating Medact, a health professionals service organization, has issued a new report on the Iraq war and its aftermath. It alleges that between 21,700 and 55,000 people have died since the US/UK invasion, and that the casualties continue to mount. It estimates that at least 7,800 Iraqi civilians have been killed, […]

Iraqi Analyst: Resistance is Nationalist, Not Foreign According to al-Jazeera, Baghdad U. Political Scientist Salman al-Jumaili reports that the majority of attacks on Coalition forces in Iraq are carried out by Iraqi nationalist and Muslim radical groups. He adds, “It is important to mention nationalist resistance – among the dead we have found Turkmen and […]

References http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/ archives/week_2003_11_09.html#002196 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-dyn/articles/A28318-2003Nov11.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/ 0,2933,102823,00.html http://www.medact.org/tbx/pages/ http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2003/s987254.htm http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ 61180572-880F-4712-AC8E-CCC0E16BFDBE.htm”

Further instability in Iraq Guerrillas hit a convoy at Iskandariya, killing one American soldier. Guerrillas exploded an improvised bomb along the side of the street in Basra, killing 3 civilians at least. In Mosul, guerrillas killed a petroleum official and his son with machine gune fire on Monday.

British Fear Uprising after One Year The British authorities in the Iraqi south are desperately afraid that the Americans are going to dawdle around so long in creating an Iraqi government that they will provoke a massive uprising. The British want a return of sovereignty to Iraqis by summer of 2004 at the latest. The […]

Wave of Assassinations in Basra Dozens of prominent Iraqis have recently been assassinated in Basra, according to az-Zaman. The paper says that a few of these may be reprisal killings of former Baath officials. But many of those being mown down are just physicians or technocrats with no obvious Baathist past. Other assassinations may be […]

Hundreds demonstrate in Sadr City Against US American troops appear accidentally to have killed a municipal leader of a neighborhood in East Baghdad whom they themselves had put in power. In response, outraged Iraqis staged a demonstration of several hundred activists.

Islamic Party puts hopes in Syria Muhsin Abdul Hamid, leader of the Islamic Party of Iraq, gave an interview to al-Hayat about his meetings in Damascus with Bashar al-Asad. A member of the US-appointed Interim Governing Council, Abdul Hamid said his group had chose “peaceful opposition” to the US occupation. (It always takes me aback […]

US Ignorance Created the Quagmire in Fallujah Journalist Hazim al-Amin reports in al-Hayat that Fallujah and Ramadi strike him as almost identical in most ways. The same extended clan networks dominate both cities, both are Sunni, etc. Yet Ramadi hasn’t given the US nearly as much trouble as Fallujah. He thinks the difference is that […]