Juan Cole

*It is wrong to attempt to force women to veil and to force men to wear long beards and “Islamic” dress in Iraqi public places and universities, according to Shaikh Muhammad Baqir al-Nasiri of al-Nasiriya in Iraq. He gave an interview to az-Zaman. He dismissed the Islamist fashion police as mere ignoramuses, of a sort […]

*One GI was killed Monday and another was wounded when armed men fired on their convoy near the town of Hadithah, which is about 120 miles north of Baghdad. One report I saw suggested that the locals taunted the US troops, saying “bye bye.” There is a lot of anti-American feeling in the Sunni Arab […]

*A huge march was staged yesterday in Casablanca, with tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of participants. Morocco’s Jewish community was among the marchers. But the rally, led by PM Driss Jettou, excluded members of Morocco’s largest Islamist party, Justice and Development. Apparently this was in part for fear that the Islamists would be attacked by […]

*The US has been pressing the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq to disarm its Badr Brigade fighters, according to Charlotte Edwardes of the Daily Telegraph. In a tense meeting this weekend, the deputy head of SCIRI, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, told the US military leadership that he would not disarm the Badr Brigade and […]

*Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Husain Fadlallah of Lebanon has complained about Muslims engaging in violence, saying that they are aping Marxists in so doing rather than sticking to Islamic principles. Daily Star quotes him as calling on the “educated elite to lead the way in safeguarding Islam’s intellectual heritage in the most dangerous period for the […]

*Belgium has begun the trial of 23 suspects it alleges have links to al-Qaeda. They belong to an obscure group that may have been involved in the bombings in Casablanca a few days ago. They include a former Tunisian football (soccer) star who admits knowing and admiring Bin Laden. Nizar ben Abdelaziz Trabelsi is accused […]

*Daniel Pipes, who has thrown around accusations that academics critical of American nationalism or Likud aggression are “pro-terrorist,” has now openly come out in favor of supporting the Mujahidin-i Khalq terrorist organization that had been based in Saddam’s Iraq and supported by the Baath. This group was among those that took US embassy personnel hostage, […]

*The US appears to be softening its stance toward UN participation in the rebuilding of Iraq, in return for a UN Security Council resolution that ends sanctions on Iraq and phases out the oil for food program in 6 months. The UN Secretary General will have a representative in the country, not just a coordinator. […]

*About 10,000 Shiites turned out for peaceful demonstrations in Baghdad Monday against continued US occupation of Iraq, and against the American slighting of the Shiite leadership. One organizer had predicted a million man march, so this result fell substantially short of his expectations. The US army did not interfere with the demonstrations,which was wise on […]