Middle East

Bombers struck at Shiite pilgrims for the third straight day on Sunday, killing as many as six new victims. This despite extensive security measures in the holy city of Karbala. The city was divided into eight districts, with checkpoints and body searches. Teams of female inspectors checked women for bombs. US and Iraqi aircraft did […]

Colin Kahl, just back from Iraq, gave a briefing that Gareth Porter attended. He reports that: 1. US officials in Baghdad are genuinely worried that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has become “over-confident” about his military capabilities and has therefore become unreasonably difficult to deal with over the proposed status of forces agreement on the rules […]

A female suicide bomber targeted Shiite pilgrims south of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 26 and wounding 75. Pilgrims are streaming to the holy city of Najaf in honor of the anniversary of the birth of the hidden 12th Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, the Shiite messiah who many Iraqi Shiites believe will soon come to […]

There are approximately 2 million Iraqi refugees in the Middle East, mainly in Syria but with another big population in Amman. Their money is running out. NGOs have fewer resources for them over time, and visa restrictions are increasing in severity. Many are traumatized and were personally threatened by the militias that took over (and […]

McClatchy reports on the visit to Iraq of King Abdullah II of Jordan, . The king is the first Arab ruler to come on a state visit. The Jordanian press underlined that the visit was made possible in some ways by PM Nuri al-Maliki’s demand that the US set a timeline for the withdrawal of […]

A new wave of bombings and attacks in Iraq, especially one at Tarmiya targetting Awakening Council members that may have left nearly a dozen people dead and scores wounded (one US soldier was killed and 2 were wounded) Georgia is pulling its 2000 troops out of Iraq. They had been interdicting arms shipments from Iran […]

Outbreak of armed conflict in Kirkuk feared. Fighting between Russia, Georgia risks wider war. Iraq will try to ensure that its army is “self-sufficient” by summer of 2009, when the Iraqi government wants US troops out of its cities and stationed on bases. The CIA official who told Ron Suskind that the White House had […]

BBC Monitoring carries a translation of a discussion of the Kirkuk crisis on al-Iraqiyah televisions between a Kurdish and an Arab member of parliament.: August 8, 2008 Friday Iraqi MPs discuss problem of Kirkuk on Al-Iraqiyah TV discussion programme LENGTH: 1704 words [“Al-Iraqiyah and the Event” political talk show moderated by Abd-al-Karim Hamadi, interviews Iraqi […]

A huge bomb blast in the northern Turkmen city of Tal Afar killed 21 and wounded 70 on Friday. Tal Afar has been taken over by Shiite Turkmen, after having been dominated in the Saddam period by Sunnis, so there are a lot of Sunnis who want revenge. It also has Turkmen-Kurdish tensions, which are […]