One Utah

Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri, Saddam’s successor, now claims the title, “leader of Resistance and Liberation, general secretary of the Socialist Baath Party.”
Al-Douri’s latest statement reiterates what the Iraqi resistance is fighting for: national self-determination. Despite a one-time alliance of convenience, he now regards the al-Qaeda agenda as a disastrous diversion. Bear in [...]

Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr is establishing a new fighting force to battle U.S. troops in Iraq, he said in a letter read in Iraqi mosques Friday. Bill Roggio has more on The Long War Journal.
“The resistance will be exclusively conducted by only one group,” Sadr said. “This new group will be defined soon by [...]

If you think things can’t get any worse in Iraq, think again. The Associated Press reports that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has issued fatwas encouraging armed resistance against the U.S. occupation. Assuming this is true (and it fits what we know of Sistani and the current situation), at the very least it ends [...]

There is still no end in sight after seven weeks of fighting Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Sadr City, reports Bill Roggio on The Long War Journal. U.S. Army units building a three-mile-long wall through Sadr City continue to meet heavy resistance.
The attacks occurred during construction on the barrier along Qods Street, the main [...]

Map of Sadr City and vicinity: Green lines indicate completed sections of wall, red is uncompleted wall. Blue diamonds are joint security stations (forts). Yellow symbols are checkpoints sealing off the area of operations, where more than two million people live.
From Bill Roggio on The Long War Journal:

US and Iraqi forces continue [...]

Via The Washington Independent we learn that Helen Thomas went to Tuesday’s White House press briefing with Dana Perino and asked the questions few dare to ask, even of the most unpopular administration ever:

THOMAS: Yesterday, according to The New York Times, we dropped a bomb on a home in Sadr City and burned alive a [...]

Think back to when President Bush and the neocons wanted to justify the invasion of Iraq. We heard the same words over and over. The Iraqis were “terrorized, tortured, and brutalized” by Saddam Hussein. Saddam “used weapons against his own people.” After it was clear that Iraq did not possess any [...]

According to a new report (PDF) from Refugees International, the Maliki Green Zone government’s failure to respond to the needs of an estimated 2.7 million internal refugees has provided militias with a valuable propaganda tool and a way to strengthen their respective bases of support.
Following the Hezbollah model, it’s Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army that [...]

The news from Iraq in recent days has gone from bad, to very bad, to extremely bad. Now it’s unbelievably bad. Here’s the headline: Secretary of State Rice Mocks Muslim Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr as a Coward. American diplomacy at work, as 107mm rockets and mortar shells rain down on the Green Zone.

“I [...]

While John McCain travels the campaign trail talking happily about how “al Qaeda is on the run,” Iraq is on the verge of a total breakdown. Americans are not even fighting al Qaeda in Iraq or anywhere else thanks to the incompetence of the Bush administration.
Anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr gave a final warning [...]

Juan Cole, almost alone among Iraq commentators, explains: Why al-Maliki attacked Basra. The entire article is a must-read, however here’s the bottom line:
If the Sadr Movement rules most Shiite-majority provinces, including Baghdad, that will make it difficult for the U.S. military to remain in the country.
Here are the facts:

Provincial elections, now scheduled for [...]

For the third straight day, the American and British war planes conducted air strikes in support of Iraqi security forces in Basra. About 30,000 Iraqi troops are fending off raids by Mahdi Army fighters, who control 70 percent of the city. British artillery batteries fired on Basra Saturday. The 1st Battalion Scots [...]