Middle East

The USG Open Source Center translates an Aljazeera segment on the proposed security agreement with the US. Via BBC Monitoring ‘June 1, 2008 Sunday AL-JAZEERA TV DEBATES IRAQI REACTIONS TO PROPOSED SECURITY DEAL WITH USA Al-Jazeera Satellite Television at 1830 gmt on 30 May carries live a new 25-minute episode of its daily “Behind the […]

Barack Obama is considering a trip to Iraq this summer. I fear he has been forced into this visit by John McCain, who keeps taunting him on his limited foreign policy experience, saying he has not been to Iraq since 2006 and so does not understand how the “surge” was “victorious.” McCain’s taunts are ridiculous. […]

Robert Reid of AP reports that the Iraqi government is acknowledging differences with the US over the proposed security agreement intended to regulate the role of US troops in Iraq. The USG Open Source Center translates remarks last Friday of Jalal al-Din al-Saghir of the Buratha Mosque in north Baghdad. Saghir is a leading member […]

Helena Cobban, proprietor of the JustWorldNews web site, has been covering global issues as a professional journalist for 35 years, most recently for the Christian Science Monitor. She writes: ‘Five years into the still unfolding tragedy of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, it is clearer than ever that this intervention has inflicted significant […]

Thousands of followers of Shiite leader Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr peacefully protested across southern Iraq on Friday, according to McClatchy. They prayed and then stood silently in solidarity against the security agreement being negotiated by PM Nuri al-Maliki with George W. Bush. Sadrists Demonstrate in Kufa. Courtesy Amara.net, a Sadrist site. (On both the Iraqi and […]

At least 35 persons died in political violence in northern Iraq on Thursday. Suicide bombers killed 20 persons and wounded dozens in three attacks on police and recruits, with the largest attack at Sinjar. In Tikrit, Awakening Council tribesmen armed and paid by the US shot to death 15 jihadis in a tanker headed for […]

The USG Open Source Center translates the fatwa of Ayatollah Kadhim al-Ha’iri (Haeri) condemning any security agreement between Iraq and the United States (Via BBC Monitoring). Haeri, an Iraqi, lives in Qom because he refuses to reside under foreign military occupation. He is sometimes called Iraq’s ‘fifth grand ayatollah.’ The other four live in Najaf […]

CNN is reporting that Shiite leader Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr is demanding that any US-Iraqi security agreement be submitted to a national referendum. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that he is in good company: ‘ Sources close to the office of the Shiite Supreme Exemplar, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, told al-Hayat that he called on the Iraqi prime […]

On Wednesday, the Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front (IAF, Tawafuq) withdrew from talks on rejoining the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of the Shiite fundamentalist Islamic Mission Party (Da’wa). Despite the confidence of Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni, that his bloc would eventually rejoin the government, the development was a blow to […]