Juan Cole

*Baghdad mosques are emerging as safe places for civil society dialogue, according to Abd al-Latif al-Sa`dun in al-Hayat. In the Mosque of Umm al-Tabul in the middle of Baghdad, men of religion, clan elders, and technocrats held a ‘foundational conference’ to set up an autonomous administration that would oversee the Karkh quarter in the West […]

*Iranian President Khatami praised Lebanon for its traditions of multiculturalism and its brave resistance to Israeli occupation. He said it was impossible for a major group supported by the Lebanese people to be marginalized by pressure. (This was a reference to US criticisms of the Lebanese Shiite political party/ paramilitary group, Hizbullah, which Iran supports). […]

*What I am hearing is that one of the targets of the Riyadh bombing was the Saudi Arabian National Guard, which is headed by Prince Abdullah and which guards the royal family. It had also been hit in July, 1995, by a group connected to Usamah Bin Laden. The SA National Guard was being trained […]

Update: The death toll of the Riyadh blasts is 20 noncombatants, with 194 injured. Nine of the dead are Americans. Nine bombers were killed by Saudi security.

*Four huge blasts shook an eastern suburb of Riyadh where many foreigners lived on Monday night/Tuesday morning. As I write, three are dead (reportedly two of them Americans) and over 60 wounded. About 40 of the injured were Americans; three Japanese were slightly wounded. Saudi security exchanged fire with the attackers, finally taking them out. […]

*The Shiite leader Ayatollah Baqir al-Hakim, newly returned from Iran, has said, “We reject an imposed government,” and, “I fear neither the Americans nor the British.” – Asharq al-Awsat. *A huge conflagration broke out at the central communications building in Baghdad. I fear this event is symbolic of the failure of the US to bring […]

*The American team in Iraq is being shaken up big time. Barbara Bodine, a long-time diplomat and Arabist, who has effectively been the US mayor of Baghdad for three weeks, is being sent back a desk job at State in Washington. Some reporters have speculated that Bodine was sacked by the incoming American pro-consul, Paul […]

*According to al-Hayat, Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, just returned from Iran, has called for a state in which all would feel secure and in which women would play a central role. He rejected, however, any possibility of continuing to live with Baathism (the former ruling ideology of secular Arab nationalism and “socialism,” i.e. an Arab […]

* Breaking news. Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim has returned to Iraq, stopping first in Basra with a hundred-vehicle convoy. He is reported to have addressed a crowd of 10,000. He spoke in his speech against Iraq having a “foreign-installed government” but did not mention the US by name. AP reported him saying, “I am a […]