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Al-Qaeda’s New Geostrategic Master Plan What do the new al-Qaeda videotape and audio speeches of Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri tell us about the hopes of the remaining top leadership of the organization? Because the US and Pakistan have managed to capture or kill about 2/3s of the top 25 al-Qaeda commanders, the middle managers […]

Protests against Disarming the Militias in Najaf The Marines in the holy city of Najaf had already announced that armed militiamen would be prohibited in the city after Saturday. But they suddenly announced on Wednesday that even now, gunmen in the streets would have to have official permission to carry a weapon. Muhammad Husayn al-Hakim, […]

Danish troops attacked Danish troops in al-Qurna in south Iraq took rocket propelled grenade and machine gun fire for the third time in two weeks. US commentators who keep saying that the South is calm haven’t been following the news on the ground. (The Bulgarians in Karbala have also been repeatedly attacked). (-al-Zaman)

Iraqi Negotiations in Ankara Ahmad Chalabi, the current president of the Interim Governing Council, led a delegation to Turkey on Wednesday for bilateral talks. A source in the delegation told al-Sharq al-Awsat that the IGC has decided to decline peacekeeping troops from any neighboring countries, including Turkey, so as to avoid complications. This decision would […]

*Guerrillas killed one American and wounded another northeast of Baghdad when they set off a homemade bomb near along a military supply route. In Irbil, guerillas wounded six American soldiers, killed one Iraqi, and wounded 41 others, when they set of a huge car bomb outside an office frequented by US soldiers in northern Iraq. […]

*US forces in Iraq are attempting to seal the Syrian and Iranian borders on intelligence that outsiders are planning a big terrorist operation in hopes of discouraging the United Nations from sending a peacekeeping force. -al-Zaman. If true, it would show that the canny enemies of the US realize that internationalizing the reconstruction of Iraq […]

*Germany and Russia are ready to train a new Iraqi police force, but they want the US to specify a firm timetable for turning Iraq back over to the Iraqis. Russia is flatly rejecting the idea of sending troops to Iraq under any circumstances.

*See Fawaz Gerges’s analysis of the Iraqi resistance in CSM. He makes more of the radical Sunni Muslims in Iraq than I would, though he is careful to say they only amount to a few hundred, and he is attentive to the continued appeal of Arab nationalism. http://www.csmonitor.com/ 2003/0910/p11s01-coop.html

*In the debate of the Democratic candidates on Tuesday evening here in the US, there were some sparkling moments. I thought Howard Dean acquitted himself well, but I was sorry to see him buy into Saudi-bashing. He accused the Saudis of systematically schooling their children to hate Americans. That such schooling exists in the kingdom […]