Juan Cole - 11/15/05

The Strange Death of Moustapha Akkad;
Zarqawi and "Halloween"

The ironies and dangers of globalization are tragically epitomized in the death last week of Hollywood director Moustapha Akkad at the Radisson SAS in Amman at the hands of an Iraqi suicide bomber. Akkad was there with his daughter to attend a wedding.

Bombing at Green Zone;
Exodus of Physicians from Capital

Guerrillas detonated a roadside bomb outside an entrance to the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad, striking at a convoy of 3 vehicles and killing 2 South African security guards. Three other persons were wounded. In Ramadi, a bomb aimed at a US convoy instead killed 5 civilians and wounded 2 others. The US conducted a sweep of Dur, looking for Ibrahim Izzat al-Duri, a top Baathist official who has been among the masterminds of the Iraqi guerrilla war against the Americans and their Iraqi allies. Duri was reported dead by one Baathist internet site recently, but another, based in Jordan, denied the report. If al-Duri were really dead, it would have big implications for the guerrilla movement, but there is no good evidence of it (that is what the US is looking for).