Juan Cole

*The civil administration of Iraq under Paul Bremer plans to create a ministry of religious affairs that would promote dialogue among Iraq’s religious leaders, according to az-Zaman. It would also attempt to ensure that any legislation passed does not withdraw from them their religious rights. *Large fires burned at three Baghdad sites on Saturday, at […]

*Jews who buy land in Iraq should be killed, according to a fatwa or legal ruling issued by Sayyid Kadhim al-Haeri ( -Reuters). Al-Haeri is still in Qom, Iran, but he is said to be contemplating a return home to Najaf, in Iraq. He has been adopted as the elder statesman of the al-Sadr Movement, […]

*Someone sent me a link to a fascinating piece on battle fatigue among US soldiers by journalist Bob Graham that appeared back last June 19 in the Evening Standard. I thought I’d share it here. It is very chilling, does not bode well for US peace keeping efforts in Iraq.

*Muqtada al-Sadr, 30, the leader of the popular Sadr Movement in Iraqi Shiism, gave an interview today to al-Hayat’s Hazim al-Amin in Najaf. He said that in the religious establishment of Najaf, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Sayyid Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim, Shaykh Bashir al-Najafi, and Shaykh Muhammad al-Fayyad all supported one another and recognized that each […]

*Reporters on the ground in Majar al-Kabir, southern Iraq, have begun to piece together what may have happened there Tuesday when 6 British troops were killed and several more wounded in two distinct attacks. The story as I see it goes this way: Paul Bremer set a deadline of June 16 for Iraqi militiamen to […]

*The ambush of British troops near Amara that killed six of them on Tuesday was probably the work of bandits, according to Kim Sengupta and Patrick Cockburn of The Independent. The south of Iraq has been plagued by banditry for years. Under Saddam, some of it may have been social banditry, in which Shiite tribesmen […]

*From the BBC: “Text of report by Iraqi Shi’i group’s Iran-based radio station Voice of the Mujahidin on 21 June: “His Eminence Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq SCIRI , said in the Friday prayers sermon in Al-Najaf al-Ashraf city that the United States has proved that […]

*US civil administrator of Iraq Paul Bremer said Sunday that he may distribute profit dividends from the Iraqi petroleum industry directly to Iraqi citizens, along the model used by Alaska ( – Roula Khalaf, Financial Times). It is really good news that he is thinking along these lines, since one feared that the rightwing Bush […]

*Radical Shiite clerics in East Baghdad tried to get up a big demonstration against the American occupation on Saturday (they began organizing it after Friday prayers on Friday). But they were only able to get about 2000 demonstrators out in front of the US HQ in downtown Baghdad. They tried to organize a similar protest […]