Juan Cole

*The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) may participate in some way in the leadership meeting called by Jay Garner for Monday in Baghdad. The last such meeting, in Nasiriya last week, was boycotted by all the major Shiite groups. The al-Dawa Party and the Sadr movement are determined to boycott Monday’s meeting. […]

*Craig Smith of the New York Times has reported very interesting and significant developments in the Sadr Movement in Iraq. It appears that the movement has now recognized Shaikh Kazim al-Haeri as its ultimate spiritual head. He is an older Ayatollah with the authority to issue authoritative rulings, and he favors a Khomeinist style government […]

*AP is reporting that at Friday Prayers in Nasiriya, a cleric giving the sermon to 2000 worshipers said, “We have to be ready in the long term to establish our own Islamic state.” The words were those of As`ad al-Nasiri, a prominent cleric who just returned from Syria. But like many Iraqi Shiites, he means […]

*Apparently two nights ago there was a major battle in the Mashtal quarter of New Baghdad between US troops and Arab volunteers who had gone there to fight them from all over the Arab world. The word is that 3 US soldiers were killed, but there are no details. – Asharq al-Awsat *Iran has allowed […]

*Some of you may have seen me on John Gibson’s The Big Story on Fox Cable News at 5:30 pm EST on 4/23. I may be able to get a transcript and will post it if so. Basically, I argued that we should not be sanguine about the way in which Shiite religious militias have […]

*For my essay on the Shiite religious parties and factions in Iraq, see “Shiite Religious Parties Fill Vacuum in Southern Iraq” in Middle East Reports Online. *Now some reporters for the Financial Times are saying that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution (SCIRI) in Iraq has taken over the largest theater and the Museum in […]

*US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Monday, of the future of Iraq that he did not expect to see a theocracy there like that of Iran. “‘There should be a country that is organized and arranged in a way that the various ethnic groups and religious groups are able to have a voice in […]

*Breaking News US military forces arrested Shaikh Muhammad al-Fartusi and two other clerics at a Baghdad checkpoint. This arrest provoked a big demonstration of 5,000 Shiites in front of the Palestine Hotel. I saw it on Fox Cable News, as reported by Jennifer Eccleston. I could see placards in Arabic saying “We demand the release […]

*Tens of thousands of Iraqi Shiites continue to make their way to Karbala, the site of the shrine of Imam Husayn, to commemorate the 40th day after his martyrdom (which took place in 681). In Muslim societies it is common to mourn someone at his funeral and then to hold another ceremony 40 days later. […]