Arab World

The USG Open Source Center rounds up this week’s sermons at major mosques, mostly Shiite, in Iraq. The comments focus on the peace agreement between Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr, whose militias had been fighting with one another; on the danger posed by the Sunni tribal militias called ‘Awakening Councils;’ on the recent statements […]

The killing of two US soldiers and the wounding of 5 more in a mortar attack were reported on Saturday. Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim (leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq) returned to Baghdad from chemotherapy in Iran and was welcomed by a big crowd of admirers at his […]

The USG Open Source Center translates or paraphrases reports in the Iraqi press on the sermon of Abdul Mahdi al-Karbala’i, the representative in the holy city of Karbala of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, calling for parliament to regulate foreign security firms and ‘occupation forces’ (i.e. the US military) operating in the country. Al-Karbala’is sermons are […]

Retired Gen. Rick Sanchez lambasted the Bush administration’s Iraq War in a speech on Friday, as “a nightmare with no end in sight”. Sanchez implied that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld would have been court-martialled if he had been in the active duty military. The NYT reports him saying, ‘“There was been a glaring […]

The number of attacks in Iraq has increased in recent days, frustrating US military commanders who were hoping a corner had been turned and that violence would steadily be reduced. See below for Wednesday’s violence. Internally displaced Iraqis are finding it increasingly difficult to settle in another province, since provincial authorities do not want the […]

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 […]