Such is the US’s sense of uncertainty in Iraq that they have not even been sure how to respond to persistent rumours that Musab al-Zarqawi, the self-proclaimed “Leader of Al-Qa’ida inIraq” has been wounded in action and may even have died.
The protracted negotiations and bitter wrangling surrounding the formation of Iraq's new government have focused attention on the complexities involved in establishing a political balance among the country's fractious ethnic, religious, tribal and partisan mixture.
In many ways, the results of the recent elections in Iraq have come as no surprise. The United Iraqi Coalition (UIC), the Shi’a Muslim slate sponsored by Grand Ayatullah Ali al-Hussayni al-Sistani, got 48 percent of the 275 seats in the new national assembly; a Kurdish alliance 25 percent; and US-backed interim prime minister Iyad Allawi’s list 14 percent.
The election campaign season began officially in Iraq last month. Like much else in the political life of modern Iraq, these elections, scheduled for January 30, have led to fierce competition. Nowhere can the intensity of electoral clamoring better be seen than in the number of electoral tickets competing for seats in the 275-member National Assembly.
The two car-bombs that rocked the Shi’a holy cities of Karbala and Najaf on December 20, killing at least 62 people and wounding 120, have focused attention once again on the deepening sectarian passions in Iraq that have opened the door to speculations about a looming civil war and the possible “Lebanonization” of Iraq.
Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward. Pub: Simon & Schuster, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney: 2004. Pp: 467. Hbk: $28.00 / £19.00.
As the Ummah has watched developments in Iraq since the US invasion, many have been aware of the potential for sectarian discord.
September 2004 was described as “a month of death in Iraq” by one Arab commentator after a series of major clashes in which at least a thousand Iraqis, many of them civilians, were killed...
Hundreds of Iraqis were killed, and the centre of the holy city of Najaf, the home of the shrine of Ali ibn Abi Talib (ra), devastated by a massive American assault on the city which lasted for most of August...
The US formally transferred responsibility for the government of Iraq to a sovereign interim government on June 28, two days before the scheduled handover date of June 30...
For a year after the US invasion of Iraq, it was the epicentre of military resistance to the occupation, becoming a virtual no-go area for Westerners until the US decided less than two months ago that it had to be pacified by overwhelming force...
Images of American troops committing appalling atrocities against Iraqi captives at the Abu Ghraib have causes outrage around the world and sparked a massive damage limitation campaign in Washington. ZAFAR BANGASH discusses the implications of the revelations...
Although the outcome is still unresolved, the ongoing stand-off between the US-led occupation forces and supporters of young Shi’i alim Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr can hardly be anything but ominous for the neo-conservative hawks in Washington...
The tortuous saga of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)’s inspection of Iran’s nuclear program finally reached a conclusion of sorts on November 25, when it was announced that the powers represented on the body and of the UN Security Council had agreed the text of a new resolution accepting the conclusions of an IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program...
Since the war on Iraq ardent calls for "change" have become fashionable in Arab countries. These appeals come from various quarters. However, the variety of the demands for change betray the nature and the extent of the power-war currently unfolding in the region.
The UN’s announcement on September 27 that it is withdrawing its international staff from Iraq for security reasons came as a massive blow to the country’s US occupation authorities, who have been desperately trying to convince the world that they have full control over Iraq and are succeeding in introducing freedom and democracy to a grateful population.
Eighty-three Muslim worshippers were martyred by the bomb that exploded outside the mosque at the Imam Ali mausoleum in Najaf immediately after juma prayers on August 29, but there was little doubt that its main target was Ayatullah Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim, leader of Majlis al-Aala l’il-Thawra al- Islami f’il-Iraq (The Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq).
ZAFAR BANGASH , director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT), discusses the challenges facing Iraqi ulama under American occupation and their responses to those challenges.
Three months after George Bush declared an end to "major hostilities" in Iraq, the US and Britain remain under pressure, both from resistance in Iraq and from questions at home about their reasons for going to war. In Britain the issue is now being debated in the framework of the Hutton enquiry, established to look into the apparent suicide of a weapons expert accused by the government of leaking information to the press.
American and British claims that Iraq was calm except for limited resistance by a few pro-Saddam stragglers were blown away on June 24, when six British soldiers were killed by angry people in Majar al-Kabbir, a small town north of Basra, in response to aggressive and intrusive anti-resistance operations.
