Juan Cole - June 5, 2005

Bombings, Shootings in Balad, Tikrit, Samarra, Mahmudiyah
Sunni Clerics Condemn Marginalization of their Community, Protest US

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports a suicide attack on an Iraqi military checkpoint in Balad Saturday, which killed three Iraqi soldiers and wounded a third.

Guerrillas shot dead an Iraqi policemen from the rapid response team on a bridge in Samarra on Saturday.

Iraqi police undertook a sweep of Mahmudiyah and Latifiyah, south of Baghdad near Hilla. They killed 3 guerrillas, wounded 5, and captured 19.

The Zarqawi Myth

Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (actually Ahmad al-Khalayleh of Zarqa) has been elevated by the Bush administration to an almost mythic position as the fomenter of much of the violence in Iraq. It isn't true. Most of the violence in Iraq is being undertaken by Baathists or Iraqi nationalists trying to drive the US out.