Juan Cole - May 30, 2005

Iraqi Islamic Party Leader Released

The US military has released Muhsin Abd al-Hamid, the leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party. The IIP runs the provincial council in Anbar and is the only major Sunni Arab religious party that has generally been willing to cooperate with the Americans. Abd al-Hamid served on the American-appointed Interim Governing Council.

His arrest had provoked major protests.

30 Dead, Dozens Wounded by Guerrillas
In Response to Operation Lightning

Guerrillas in Baghdad fought determinedly against the 40,000 Iraqi soldiers fielded to crack down on violence in Baghdad. AFP writes,

"Four car bombs in and around the capital killed 16 people, most of them security personnel, Sunday, in a swift response to Iraq's widest homegrown clampdown since the fall of Saddam Hussein over two years ago. Nine soldiers taking part in Operation Lightning died in a suicide car bombing at their roadblock just south of the capital, while two policemen were killed when a suicide car bomber targeted their patrol in southwestern Baghdad. In western Baghdad, a car bomb targeting police commandos killed three people and wounded 20, an interior ministry source said, adding that police had then fought a firefight with men in the area. An earlier suicide bombing near the oil ministry left two dead, while violence elsewhere claimed the lives of a British soldier and seven Iraqis."

No God But God

Max Rodenbeck makes odd statements and basic errors in his review of Reza Aslan's "No God but God" on the struggle between moderates and extremists in the Muslim world.

Rodenbeck writes:

"Aslan's wish to emphasize the tolerant, merciful side of Islam can lead to pitfalls. It is not particularly comforting to learn that when the prophet triumphantly returned to Mecca, the city of his birth that had rejected him, there were no forced conversions and ''only'' six men and four women were put to the sword."