Iraq

The USG Open Source Center translates Iraqi television reaction to the US Senate vote in favor of a soft partition of Iraq. ‘Roundup of Iraqi TV Channels Coverage of US Senate Resolution on IraqIraq — OSC SummaryWednesday, October 10, 2007 Biladi Television [Shiite Da’wa Party (Islamic Call)] . . . In its 1700 GMT newscast […]

Guerrilla violence left at least 57 dead in Iraq on Tuesday, with 22 killed in two truck bombings in the northern refinery city of Baiji. The violence left nearly 120 wounded. (The attacks in Baiji appear to have targeted a tribal sheikh allied with the US.) Guerrillas set off three major bombs in Baghdad. A […]

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged on Monday to pull 3,000 British troops out of Basra by March of 2008, leaving only 2500, with those to be withdrawn by the end of that year. Brown’s office says that the drawdown was approved by US Gen. David Petraeus. Military analysts point out that the effective force […]

According to the NYT, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s office on Sunday accused the Blackwater security company of deliberately murdering civilians. Spokesman Ali Dabbagh said that the private guards should be tried for the crime. Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has taken the lead in criticizing Blackwater and other private security firms in Iraq. He points […]

In an interview on Aljazeera on Friday, Shaikh Harith al-Dhari of the Association for Muslims Scholars called on Iraqi tribal fighters to cease attacking “al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia.” He said that 90% of al-Qaeda in Iraq was Iraqi Sunnis and that ways should be found to dialogue and reason with them. He decried the willingness of […]

The USG Open Source Center translates passages from Friday sermons carried on Iraqi television: Round-up of Iraqi Friday Sermons 5 OctIraq — OSC SummarySaturday, October 6, 2007 . . . Within its 1800 GMT newscast, Baghdad Al-Iraqiyah Television in Arabic – government-sponsored television station, run by the Iraqi Media Network – is observed to carry […]

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that tensions have heated up in the Shiite South between the Sadr Movement and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (which maintains the Badr Corps paramilitary). The Sadr movement on Friday accused the Badr Organization of assassinating Sadr leaders. Sadrist MP Ahmad al-Masoudi accused the Badr Organization of having organized militias […]

The USG Open Source Center reports on the way that the United Iraqi Alliance, the largest Shiite bloc, led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, has attempted to distance itself from the Biden-Gelb plan for a soft partition of Iraq. (This attempt at distancing come despite the similarity of the […]

WaPo says that the Iraqi government has made a $100 mn. deal with China for the purchase of light weaponry, especially AK-47 assault rifles. Some observers are afraid that these arms will actually end up in the hands of sectarian militiamen or anti-government guerrillas, through graft or theft or because much of the Iraqi police […]