Middle East

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 […]

Robert Greenwald presents McCain clips, entertainingly.

The LA Times reports: ‘ A U.S. soldier was killed Sunday and another injured when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in Salahuddin province, the military said. At least 4,078 U.S. personnel have been killed since the Iraq war began in 2003, according to the independent website icasualties.org. A car bomb targeting an […]

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki offered an amnesty in Mosul to those guerrillas who lay down their arms and accept money from him. Also, a bombing in Fallujah killed 4 policeman and wounded 9 others. Mobile phone images of hanky panky are getting Iraqi women murdered in ‘honor killings.’ One reason that the Iraqi Shiite elite […]