Juan Cole - June 1, 2005

Fallujah Film

The Italian magazine Diario has posted to its web site a film of Fallujah made by Iraqis (apparently by Iraqi government workers sent in to help with clean-up) in early January of 2005, at a time when the international press was excluded from the city.


The Iraqization of Afghanistan

A suicide bomber walked into the Abd al-Rabb Mosque in the southwestern city of Qandahar, Afghanistan, at 9 am Wednesday morning and detonated his payload, killing nearly 20 and wounding dozens. The mosque was holding a commemoration for a slain cleric, killed last week, who opposed the Taliban.

The Good Israelis

Revered Israeli news anchor Haim Yavin has made a five-part documentary on the Israeli colonization of the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967, concluding that it has harmed Israel. He says, "Since 1967, we have been brutal conquerors, occupiers, suppressing another people." He adds,

"My intention was to get the personal feelings of the settlers, of the Palestinians . . . It has strengthened my former opinion that we have to come to terms with the Palestinians; they are not all terrorists . . . Some of my friends on the left hate the settlers. I don't hate them, I appreciate them. I even like them, but I say in the documentary that I think they are wrong and they are endangering us."

9 Dead in Crashes
Jaafari Pledges not to Contravene Islamic Law

A bomb wounded three on the road to the airport from Baghdad. The bombers had been gunning for a US military convoy. In Fallujah, a bomb destroyed a car. (-LBC)

Al-Hayat: The body of the governor of Anbar province, Nawaf Raja al-Mahallawi was discovered. He had been killed on Sunday during fighting between American forces and guerrillas. The same fighting had led to the deaths of 4 Arab guerrillas who had been holding him for the past few weeks. Reuters quotes a report suggesting that the fighting caused concrete in the building to collapse on him. Reading between the lines, it seems to me likely that al-Mahallawi was killed as the result of US military action against his captors, though it is not clear if they knew they were dealing with his kidnappers. That pro-American governors of provinces are still being kidnapped and killed at will suggests that President Bush may have been exaggerating slightly when he recently said that everything is going fine in Iraq.