Juan Cole

Despite Paul Bremer’s earlier opposition to municipal elections, some form of urban self-government is being arranged by the British and American militaries. On Sunday it was reported by AFP that the Basra governing council of 31 delegates had elected a new interim mayor of Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city by secret ballot. The electee is Shiite […]

*Sunday evening witnessed another grenade attack on US troops in the Sunni belt, according to AFP: “Unknown assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a US patrol in the Iraqi town of Ramadi west of Baghdad Sunday night, witnesses said. Powerful explosions were heard in the town, located 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Baghdad, said the […]

*The Mail on Sunday in the UK reports that the UK Foreign Office has concluded that there just weren’t any chemical or biological weapons in Iraq: ‘Senior Government sources have told The Mail On Sunday that the Foreign Office has given up hope of finding chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. The source said: ‘We […]

*One US soldier was killed by a sniper in Baghdad on the US Independence Day, and 17 were wounded by a mortar attack in Balad. A little later Iraqi insurgents ambushed a US convoy near Balad, and the US took out 11 of the attackers. The low grade guerrilla conflict thus continued unabated. Indeed, it […]

My opinion piece in the Daily Star covers some of the same ground as postings here earlier in the week, but also makes some new points: Sistani throws down a gauntlet Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has intervened forcefully in Iraqi politics. In a fatwa, or legal ruling, issued on July 1, he denounced US civil […]

* A happy Fourth to all the Americans in Iraq, where I know I have some readers. Hope you can all be back home soon, safe and sound. And to my Iraqi friends, I wish you well with the sentiments we celebrate on the Fourth – We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all […]

*The US is bogged down in a low-intensity guerrilla war in Iraq, with daily attacks that for the most part go unmentioned in the Western press, including grenade, mortar and rocket propelled grenade assaults on Anglo-American military and on Iraqi police personnel and facilities. So reports Richard Sale, the intrepid terrorism correspondent of UPI. He […]

For some odd reason, my July 1 posting of Sistani’s fatwa is not being archived by the new blogger software, so I am attempting to repost it here so it can be linked to. Tuesday, July 01, 2003 *Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has entered Iraqi politics in an unexpectedly big way. He has denounced US […]

*Here is what Tuesday’s events in Iraq looked like to Kuwait’s Arab Times: “Six more American soldiers were wounded in Iraq on Tuesday and a fatal blast at a mosque fuelled Muslim anger toward US forces, all within hours of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insisting Iraq was no new Vietnam. Three soldiers were hurt near […]