Juan Cole

IGC Considers New Elections and Democratic Trade Unions According to ash-Sharq al-Awsat, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim has revealed that the Interim Governing Council has still not finally come to a compromise on how to hold elections this spring for a transitional government. Al-Hakim wants general, one-person-one-vote elections, whereas the majority agrees with the Americans in wanting […]

Bomb blast in Baghdad kills 1 US soldier, 4 Iraqis, wounds 16 Guerrillas set off a bomb in Baghdad as a US military convoy was passing from one direction and an Iraqi civilian minibus from the other. At least 1 US soldier was killed, and eyewitnesses spoke of seeing others wounded. At least 4 Iraqis […]

Muqtada threatens General Strike In his Friday sermon, young Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatened to announce general strike if the US military did not release his followers from imprisonment. He said that the strike would be held on the anniversary of the assassination of his father, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr (mid-February 1999). Al-Sadr did […]

Guerrillas fire Artillery Shells at Spanish in Diwaniyah The Spanish Plus Ultra squad has come under fire numerous times during the past week from guerrillas in the southern Shiite city of Diwaniyah, but took no casualties. Az-Zaman reported that the most recent attack was the day before yesterday. The Spanish contingent includes 1300 troops from […]

Iraqi Women Broadcasters versus the Ayatollahs Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on Dec. 3 that officials of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq were launching a campaign of criticism against the television broadcasting (“the Iraqi Media Network”) sponsored by the US Coalition Provisional Authority. The Shiite clerics, who are close to the hardliners […]

Police Station attack in Ramadi wounds 6; US vehicle blown up in Baghdad Guerrillas attacked a police station in the western (Sunni Arab) town of Ramadi on Thursday. They wounded two police officers and four civilians with small arms and rocket-propelled grenad fire from a black BMW. In Baghdad, witnesses saw a field artillery ammunition-support […]

Census Plan bypasses IGC The Iraqi Census Bureau made up a plan that would have allowed a census to be completed by September 1, but the plan was immediately rejected by the US and did not reach the Interim Governing Council before their Nov. 15 vote on creating a transitional government through caucus elections. According […]

Revived al-Jihad al-Islami in Egypt Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that Egypt has arrested 27 members of a new splinter group from al-Jihad al-Islami, the militant Islamist organization that joined al-Qaeda in 1998. They are charged with plotting the overthrow of the Egyptian government and of attempting to damage Egyptian security. The Egyptian government believes that they […]

Israeli Intelligence Failures Contributed to Iraq War Fever Respected Israeli security thinker Shlomo Brom argues in the current Strategic Assessment that Mossad fell down on the job in realistically assessing the threat to Israel of Iraqi weapons programs and stockpiles. (I.e. there were no significant WMD programs and very, very few if any stockpiles, but […]