Article for The Washington Post: Anger in Iraq’s southern provinces has been building for months, now it’s boiling over
Below is a link to my latest for Washington Post’s The Monkey Cage on protests in south Iraq. The article can be found here!
Al-Baqiri al-Najafi: The curious story of the fall of hashd’s Walter Mitty “commander”
The last few days have seen a curious story unfold in Iraq culminating in the arrest of al-Baqiri al-Najafi after he was apparently exposed as an impostor pretending to be a commander in al-hashd al-shaabi. Al-Najafi was apparently rumbled when Iraqis began to question the quality of his written Arabic as he described various ‘official’ visits
ممثل المرجعية الشيخ عبد المهدي الكربلائي – الواجب الكفائي – al-Sistani collective jihad fatwa – al-Stistani’s representative Sheikh Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai delivered fatwa at Friday prayers
Dated: 13 June 2014 Original source (Video, Arabic): This is my attempt at translating the fatwa that initiated al-hashd al-sha’bi in June 2014. Delivered by Sistani’s representative Sheikh Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalai. Translation starts here: Oh brothers and sisters… The situation that Iraq and its citizens are going through is very dangerous, we must be aware of