Arab World

Fars News reproduces in Persian on May 24, 2008, another anti-American fatwa by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Najaf. It says that its correspondent in Najaf reports that an Iraqi Shiite submitted the following to Sistani: ‘I sell foodstuffs. Sometimes the Occupying Powers or their associates come to my establishment. May I sell them foodstuffs?’ […]

Al-Sharq al-Awsat writing in Arabic carries a follow-up article on the AP story regarding Sistani’s oral rulings on the permissibility of attacking multinational troops in Iraq. The article seems to me to reverse the best practices of journalism. It interviews two Sistani aides, one far away from Iraq in London and one in Najaf. It […]

Hamza Hendawi and Qassim Abdul Zahra of AP get the scoop: Their sources in Najaf tell them that young Shiite men belonging to the “Troops of the Ayatollahs” (Jund al-Marja`iyyah) militia that protects the leading Shiite clerics in the Middle Euphrates have been imploring Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani for a fatwa or formal legal ruling […]

Signs that things weren’t that calm in Baghdad on Wednesday: Guerrillas assassinated Colonel Abdul Kareem Muhsin, the director of the protection department in the ministry of transportation, in East Baghdad. An attempted assassination by car bomb of an Iraqi court judge who has his seat in Abu Ghraib left him severely wounded. Then “Four civilians […]

The Zogby news release, below, about a new poll demonstrates that Informed Comment is giving the American people what they want in the way of Iraq news: “When asked about the news coverage of the Iraq war, most (80%) say the coverage has been fair or poor. When respondents were asked to pick what coverage […]

The Iraqi Army moved into part of Sadr City without meeting resistance on Tuesday, according to McClatchy. Raheem Salman of LAT blogs the scene in Sadr City. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Iraqi security forces began their search of Sadr City (East Baghdad) in an operation aimed at imposing a rule of law on the […]

Sunni Arab guerrillas attacked a bus in northern Iraq on Monday, killing 11 persons, the policemen aboard and their driver. The attack may have been in response to the Iraqi government campaign against the Sunni radicals in Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city (pop. 1.7 million). Mosul is largely Sunni Arab and the governor of Ninevah […]

Flashback: Bush’s 2000 Republican Convention speech in retrospect:

The USG Open Source Center translates a transcript of al-Sharqiya Television interview with Sadr Movement official Salah al-Obeidi in which he charges that the Iraqi and US militairies have violated the recent ceasefire agreement. May 19, 2008 Monday AL-SADR TREND OFFICIAL SAYS IRAQI ARMY, OTHER FORCES VIOLATED AGREEMENT Text of report by Dubai-based Iraqi private […]