A joint U.S.-Iraqi raid near Tikrit decapitated al-Qaeda’s Iraqi affiliate on Sunday. Two of the country’s most wanted terrorists, Abu Ayyub al Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, who have been responsible for thousands of U.S. and Iraqi deaths since 2006, were tracked by U.S. and Iraqi intelligence and special-operations More…
I spent most of my day at the J Street conference, but took a few breaks for recreation — in this case two impromptu roundtables with prominent aides to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who happened to be in town. This is a delicate moment in Iraqi politics: in addition More…
In one of the more bizarre subplots of the Iraq war, the United States has for years protected thousands of members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, an Iranian organization chartered by Saddam Hussein to carry out terrorist attacks against Iranian targets. The MEK has a cultish aspect to it — Elizabeth Rubin More…
Forgive me for getting a bit self-indulgent here, but I feel like I should reply to Juan Cole’s post saying Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s remarks yesterday that he’s open to a post-2011 U.S. troop presence is “not a story.” Since I was the one who elicited Maliki’s response, perhaps More…
Eli Lake at The Washington Times builds on yesterday’s comments from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that U.S. troops might be welcome in some form in Iraq after the 2011 deadline for their withdrawal set in the Status of Forces Agreement. He quotes Kenneth Katzman of the Congressional More…
Here’s a portion of a press release issued by Said Jawad, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Washington, to mark the recent rise in U.S. military fatalities in his country:
I would like to convey our most sincere condolences to the friends and families of each of those that have fallen in Afghanistan.
In advance of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s audience with President Obama tomorrow, Meghan O’Sullivan, the Bush White House’s Iraq director from 2004 to 2007, has some advice to the Obama administration: stop talking about Iraq’s political difficulties in sectarian terms.
A lot was made — both in Iraq More…
Just out from the White House:
Vice President Biden has arrived in Iraq to visit U.S. troops and to meet with Iraqi leaders, including President Jalal Talabani, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Speaker of the Council of Representatives Ayad al-Samarrai. The Vice President will reiterate the United States’ commitment to
Milestones don’t always mark what they should. Tomorrow all these things are true: there are 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq; procedures and circumstances and contingencies pertain whereby urban security will still be a U.S. mission; there is a U.S. combat mission, by binding diplomatic accord, for an additional 13 More…
Abu Muqawama’s pseudonymous guest blogger has a good post giving some reasons for not freaking out over the recent spate of high-profile Iraq bombings. S/he counsels that there’s really no good reason to slow down the pace of withdrawal, contending, “what the Iraqis need is more assistance in resolving More…
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