Juan Cole - July 9, 2005

London Bombing by Less Sophisticated Group

London began digging out on Friday, dealing with the aftermath of the attacks. AP reports:

' Much of London was eerily quiet. Bombed stations were shrouded in security curtains, and refrigerated trucks waited outside to carry away bodies. Bouquets of fresh flowers and cards scribbled with thoughts for the victims of London's worst attack since World War II piled up outside the stations near the bombed lines. "Yesterday, we fled this great city, but today we are walking back into an even stronger, greater city," said one card near St. Pancras Church, near where a bomb shredded the bus. "The people who did this should know they have failed. They have picked the wrong city to pick on. London will go on." '

Italians to Begin Withdrawal
Roadside Bomb Kills US Soldier in Iraq

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced Saturday morning that the three thousand Italian troops would begin pulling out of Iraq in September. Some 300 will leave that month. The Italians have been stationed at Nasiriyyah, a Shiite area in the south that has been relatively quiet since the Sadrist uprisings of spring and summer, 2004. Italian commanders appear to be thinking as British ones are, that the Shiite south in Iraq simply no longer needs foreign troops to see to its security. Instead, the new, majority-Shiite government and the elected provincial councils should be able to maintain order, even if they have to rely on party militias.

Friedman Wrong About Muslims Again
And the Amman Statement on Ecumenism

Tom Friedman is a Middle East expert who knows a lot about Islam. Why, then, does he keep saying misleading things? He wrote in his latest column, "To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden."

Iraq and State Dept. Terrorism Watch List

Intrepid readers write about the checkered history of the US designation of Iraq as a state sponsor of terrorism: