Juan Cole

*A Sunni group in Basra (pop. 1.3 million) is calling for massive Sunni demonstrations after Friday prayers today, in protest of the occupation on Wednesday by the Sadr Movement of a building housing the headquarters of the Sunni Pious Endowments administration (-al-Hayat). In a telephone call from Kuwait to al-Hayat, the Sunni activist warned of […]

*Another rocket propelled grenade attack killed one American soldier and wounded three others on Wednesday, near the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad. Also, in West Baghdad a guerrilla tossed a grenade into a US military vehicle that was guarding a bank, killing an 8-year-old Iraqi child and wounding the American driver. Yet more assailants […]

*US forces were ambushed while leaving an ammunition depot between the cities of Ramadi and Habbaniya on Tuesday, but took no casualties. They fought back, killing five Iraqis and capturing one. *There have been five attacks on US troops in the largely Shiite town of Miqdadiya (pop. 300,000), 50 miles north of Baghdad, in recent […]

*The Sadr Foundation issued a statement saying that the Shiite community cannot be entirely satisfied with the new governing council, since the US fears the establishment of a Shiite state and works against it. The spokesman expressed hope that the Governing Council would appoint ministers that would benefit the country rather than for their own […]

*Reuters & Australian News: A rocket propelled grenade badly wounded a US soldier early Monday morning as he drove his vehicle toward the Baghdad Airport. (By the way the airport’s opening has been postponed a month). Either in this incident or in another one, a US soldier was killed, and four were wounded. The news […]

*Breaking news (revised): The members of the new Iraqi Governing Council, which declared itself Sunday, are as follows, according to CNN. I have changed the presentation to make the breakdown clearer, and also added some information from az-Zaman and other Arabic sources. Note that I don’t include the Communist in the “Shiite” column. That’s a […]

*Assailants launched rocket propelled grenades at US MPs guarding a prison near Baghdad early Saturday morning, wounding a U.S. soldier. CNN reported that three explosions were heard by the 400th military police battalion at the prison (- UPI). Later on Saturday or early Sunday, anti-US forces threw a home made bomb from a pick up […]

*Attacks on US forces continued Thursday and Friday. In Samarra, four mortar rounds were launched at a US military base late Thursday, and three of our boys were wounded in that attack. The base in Ramadi was luckier–it received two mortar rounds Friday morning, but no one was injured. As a result of the constant […]

*Three US troops were killed on Wednesday, according to a military spokesman. In Tikrit, assailants hit a US convoy, killing one soldier and wounding another. In Mahmudiyah (which lies to the south of Baghdad), two soldiers were killed in an ambush by small arms fire on Wednesday evening. This must be a one-day record since […]