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*Belgium has begun the trial of 23 suspects it alleges have links to al-Qaeda. They belong to an obscure group that may have been involved in the bombings in Casablanca a few days ago. They include a former Tunisian football (soccer) star who admits knowing and admiring Bin Laden. Nizar ben Abdelaziz Trabelsi is accused […]

*Daniel Pipes, who has thrown around accusations that academics critical of American nationalism or Likud aggression are “pro-terrorist,” has now openly come out in favor of supporting the Mujahidin-i Khalq terrorist organization that had been based in Saddam’s Iraq and supported by the Baath. This group was among those that took US embassy personnel hostage, […]

*The US appears to be softening its stance toward UN participation in the rebuilding of Iraq, in return for a UN Security Council resolution that ends sanctions on Iraq and phases out the oil for food program in 6 months. The UN Secretary General will have a representative in the country, not just a coordinator. […]

*About 10,000 Shiites turned out for peaceful demonstrations in Baghdad Monday against continued US occupation of Iraq, and against the American slighting of the Shiite leadership. One organizer had predicted a million man march, so this result fell substantially short of his expectations. The US army did not interfere with the demonstrations,which was wise on […]

*Shaikh Muhammad al-Fartousi, the Friday prayers leader of the al-Hikmah Mosque in Shiite East Baghdad is one of many clergymen who have called for demonstrations against the US occupation in Baghdad and in the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. Al-Fartousi say he expects a turn-out of about a million demonstrators. This demonstration appears […]

*Three of the most senior clerics in Najaf–Ali Sistani, Muhammad Sa`id al-Hakim and Bahr al-`Ulum met for the past two days. They agreed that security needed to be returned to the entire country and that salaries needed to be paid if Iraqis were to repair the steep decline in living standards that has befallen them […]

The death toll of the bombings in Casablanca as I write is being given as over 20, with 60 wounded. Casablanca is the Mediterranean commercial center of Morocco, a center of tourism and French culture and internationalism. It has even been the site of a little culture war, between unemployed youth attracted to Goth music […]

*Baghdad mosques are emerging as safe places for civil society dialogue, according to Abd al-Latif al-Sa`dun in al-Hayat. In the Mosque of Umm al-Tabul in the middle of Baghdad, men of religion, clan elders, and technocrats held a ‘foundational conference’ to set up an autonomous administration that would oversee the Karkh quarter in the West […]

*Iranian President Khatami praised Lebanon for its traditions of multiculturalism and its brave resistance to Israeli occupation. He said it was impossible for a major group supported by the Lebanese people to be marginalized by pressure. (This was a reference to US criticisms of the Lebanese Shiite political party/ paramilitary group, Hizbullah, which Iran supports). […]