Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

A teddy on sale in Sudan

Teacher charged over teddy row, BBC, November 28, 2007

A British teacher has been charged in Sudan with insulting religion, inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs.

The Foreign Office has confirmed that charges have been laid against Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool.

She was arrested in Khartoum after allowing her class of primary school pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said he will summon the Sudanese ambassador “as a matter of urgency”.

In a statement, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was “surprised and disappointed” at the charges.

A spokesman said the first step was to “understand the rationale behind the charge”, something which would be discussed by Mr Miliband and the ambassador as soon as possible.

‘Shameful ordeal’

“We will consider our response in the light of that,” he added.

Lawyers say Mrs Gibbons faces six months in jail, 40 lashes or a fine if convicted.

Sudanese state media said prosecutors had completed their investigation and decided to charge Mrs Gibbons under Article 125 of the Sudanese criminal code.

Female suicide bomber hits Sri Lankan capital | csmonitor.com, Nov. 29, 2007

A female suicide bomber struck Wednesday in Sri Lanka’s capital, Colombo, killing herself and one other person, but not the government minister who was the intended target. Authorities blamed the attack on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or Tamil Tigers, whose long-running separatist war flared up last year after the collapse of a Norwegian-brokered 2002 cease-fire.

The suicide bombing came one day after Sri Lanka warplanes bombed a LTTE radio station to stop the broadcast of an annual speech by rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. The group separately accused the military of planting a roadside bomb that killed 13 people, mostly students. In his speech, which was carried by other rebel media, Mr. Prabhakaran said it was impossible to make peace with the ethnic Sinhalese majority. For its part, the Sinhalese-dominated government has said it can defeat the LTTE in its northern stronghold and vowed Monday to kill Prabhakaran.

The suicide bombing took place near the office of Welfare Minister Douglas Devananda, reports Reuters. The minister’s personal secretary died and two other people were wounded in the blast, according to hospital officials. An officer of the elite police Special Task Force told Reuters that it was a suicide mission….

The LTTE has fought since 1983 for an independent Tamil homeland in northern Sri Lanka, in a war that has killed around 70,000 people. Tamils make up 11.9 percent of the island’s 20 million people, and almost 74 percent are Sinhalese, reports Bloomberg.

In July, Sri Lanka’s Army flushed the LTTE out of the island’s multiethnic east. Earlier this month, President Mahinda Rajapakse vowed in parliament to “eradicate” terrorism from the country and said that the LTTE had “demonstrated that they will never be ready to surrender arms and agree to a democratic political settlement.”

Unsurprisingly, the renewed conflict has driven away foreign tourists, reports Agence France-Presse. Arrivals fell 20 percent in the first 10 months of the year to 387,790. Tourism is the island fourth-biggest industry.

In an analysis last month in Asia Times Online, security consultant James Voortman said that having taken back the eastern region Sri Lanka now has the upper hand over the LTTE. But the cost of a military victory, if attainable, could be prohibitive.

Defense analysts are divided on whether or not the military can drive the Tigers from their northern stronghold. The proponents of an assault argue that the Tigers are currently weak. There is an element of truth in this, as is seen with the loss of the east and subsequent battles on the northern fringes…However, other defense analysts see this lack of activity as exactly what makes the Tigers even more dangerous. This theory claims that the rebel leadership has dedicated all of its manpower to defending the north. With the Tigers stronghold being heavily fortified, it will not fall easily, and the military is likely to suffer high casualties.

Daniel Levy, Keep the cynics at bay, Guardian, November 27, 2007

Olmert’s political problems must look like a cakewalk from the window of the presidential compound in Ramallah. President Abbas arrives at Annapolis as the head of a divided Palestinian polity and unable to even set foot in Gaza, where 1.4 million Palestinians live under siege and the threat of further punitive measures (their Israeli neighbours face daily, if largely ineffective, rocket strikes). Abbas needs political concessions from the folks in Jerusalem and Washington and, in particular, a prospect for the end of occupation in order to revive the fortunes of his Fatah movement and the path of negotiated non-violent conflict resolution. The Palestinians will be showered with kind words at Annapolis; three weeks later they will likely receive pledges of hard cash at a donor’s conference in Paris. Even if the Palestinians are presented with a horizon of real independence and statehood, it will likely be preconditioned on an unrealistic set of Palestinian security measures.

To really be credible, the Annapolis process will have to overcome two remaining taboos: that Palestinians can deliver ongoing security to Israel under conditions of occupation and that a divided Palestine can midwife a sustainable peace. The Hamas spoiler potential is not solely or even principally about its ability to deploy violence. It is also about the credibility and legitimacy of a process that excludes the party that polled most votes in Palestinian elections.

Which brings us back to our American friends. The Bush administration continues to view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of a global war on terrorism and as part of the momentous struggle of good against evil. The great irony of the Annapolis conference is that the framing narrative of its convener is the one thing that most undermines its chances of success. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is grievance-driven and its resolution is all about ending the occupation. Israel needs and deserves security and peace but those things don’t coexist cozily with occupation. Violent al-Qaidists and their copycat crews use the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to rally and mobilise support, to vilify America and to undermine America’s allies in the region.

Reporters say Baghdad too dangerous despite surge, Reuters, November 28, 2007

WASHINGTON, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Nearly 90 percent of U.S. journalists in Iraq say much of Baghdad is still too dangerous to visit, despite a recent drop in violence attributed to the build-up of U.S. forces, a poll released on Wednesday said.

The survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center showed that many U.S. journalists believe coverage has painted too rosy a picture of the conflict.

A separate Pew poll released on Tuesday showed that 48 percent of Americans believe the U.S. military effort in Iraq is going very or fairly well, up from 34 percent in June, amid signs of declining Iraqi civilian casualties and progress against Islamist militants such as al Qaeda in Iraq.

But most journalists said they believe violence and the threat of violence have increased during their tenures.

Much of the danger for journalists is faced by local Iraqis, who often do most of the reporting outside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, the data showed.

Fifty-eight percent of U.S. news organizations have had local Iraqi staff killed or kidnapped within the past year, the survey said. About two-thirds of news outlets said local staff face physical or verbal threats at least several times a month.

“Above all, the journalists — most of them veteran war correspondents — describe conditions in Iraq as the most perilous they have ever encountered, and this above everything else is influencing the reporting,” the authors said in a report that accompanied the data.

Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism surveyed 111 journalists who have worked in Iraq for 29 news organizations, all but one of them U.S.-based. The poll was conducted Sept. 28 through Nov. 7, Pew said….

But 87 percent of respondents said at least half of Baghdad remains too dangerous for a Western journalist to visit, with the capital’s Shi’ite-dominated Sadr City enclave rated the most dangerous spot in Iraq. Eighteen percent said the entire city of Baghdad is too dangerous for travel.

Conn Hallinan, The Algebra of Occupation, Foreign Policy In Focus, November 27, 2007In 1805, the French army out maneuvered, outsmarted, and outfought the combined armies of Russia and Austria at Austerlitz. Three years later it would flounder against a rag-tag collection of Spanish guerrillas.

In 1967, it took six days for the Israeli army to smash Egypt, Jordan, and Syria and seize the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula. In 2006, a Shiite militia fought the mightiest army in the Middle East to a bloody standstill in Lebanon.

In 1991, it took four days of ground combat for the United States to crush Saddam Hussein’s army in the Gulf War. U.S. losses were 148 dead and 647 wounded. After more than five years of war in Iraq, U.S. losses are approaching 4,000, with over 50,000 wounded; 2007 is already the deadliest year of the war for the United States.

In each case, a great army won a decisive victory only to see that victory canceled out by what T.E. Lawrence once called the “algebra of occupation.” Writing about the British occupation of Iraq following the Ottoman Empire’s collapse in World War I, Lawrence put his finger on the formula that has doomed virtually every military force that has tried to quell a restive population.

Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk has cited Lawrence to this effect: “Rebellion must have an unassailable base…it must have a sophisticated alien enemy, in the form a disciplined army of occupation too small to dominate the whole area effectively from fortified posts. It must have a friendly population, not actively friendly, but sympathetic to the point of not betraying rebel movements to the enemy. Rebellions can be made by 2 percent active in a striking force, and 98 percent passive sympathy. Granted mobility, security…time and doctrine…victory will rest with the insurgents, for the algebraical factors are in the end decisive.”

Dancers at Cosmos club in the West Bank.

Credit: Katherine Kiviat

Nissenbaum Blog: Checkpoint Jerusalem, November 26, 2007

Ladies up in here tonight
No fighting, no fighting
We got the refugees up in here
No fighting, no fighting
- Shakira, featuring Wyclef Jean, “Hips Don’t Lie”

In theory, the 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank are brothers and sisters with the 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

In reality, the gap between the two has probably never been wider.

Most Palestinians who live in the West Bank have never been to Gaza, and most Palestinians in Gaza have never been to the West Bank.

Gaza, now under Hamas control, is substantially more conservative than the West Bank.

That reality hit home Saturday night around 2 a.m. while grooving to Shakira on the dance floor at Cosmos, the West Bank’s only real disco.

The dance floor was packed. Women in short leopard-skin mini skirts and thigh-high leather boots with spiked heels were doing the shimmy-and-shake with their partners as strobe lights and smoke swept across the club. Two, young, thin gay Palestinians with spiked punk rock-style hair and matching black t-shirts felt free enough to get their groove on on the dance floor.

The DJ unartfully careened from Shakira to classic Egyptian dance tunes to Nancy Ajram to cheesy American disco classics, but no one really seemed to mind.

The bar served up a steady stream of vodka and Red Bull, Taybeh (the only Palestinian beer), and a traditional selection of cocktails.Cosmos

You see this across the Middle East in places like Beirut and Dubai. But not so much here in the West Bank. And certainly not these days in the Gaza Strip.

Being at Cosmos 48 hours after attending a sparsely-attended rap show in Gaza City made me acutely aware of the growing psychological gap between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The chances for couples to dance together in Gaza are virtually nil. And forget about serving alcohol. There are no restaurants in Gaza that serve booze and even those that serve non-alcoholic beer sometimes get stern looks from customers who think it’s really the Devil’s Brew.

The rift between the West Bank and Gaza has become more pronounced in the nearly six months since Hamas seized control of Gaza.

Scores of Palestinians, the few allowed out by Israel, fled to the West Bank where they became refugees again in their own nation.

Many were scorned as traitors or cowards for fleeing. Others from Gaza were shocked by the sight of Palestinian girls dressed in tight jeans and pink DKNY tops seen shopping every day in downtown Ramallah.

On the eve of Annapolis, Gaza remains under effective lock-down. And there is little reason to believe that things will get better after the peace conference.

If Annapolis leads to ongoing peace talks, there will be no incentive for PA President Mahmoud Abbas to renew talks with Hamas and create a new unity government - a move that would no doubt scuttle negotiations with Israel.

If Hamas decides to renew attacks on Israel after Annapolis, Israel is certain to respond with overpowering force in Gaza that would probably have at least the tacit backing from Abbas.

In a few days, Israel is planning to turn the screws again on Gaza by rationing power - a move widely viewed as a violation of international law.

“This is our life,” a friend of mine in Gaza told me last week. “Your life was better than your father’s, and your father’s life was better than his father’s life, yes? Here, my father’s life was better than mine, and my life will be better than my son’s.”

Broken Peace Process - CommonDreams.org, November 27, 2007

There’s little reason to hope for a breakthrough at the Middle East peace summit in Annapolis, unless there is a fundamental shift in U.S. policy in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And there’s little evidence to suggest such a change is forthcoming.

Indeed, Yossi Beilin, the Israeli Knesset member and former cabinet official who served as one of the major architects of the Oslo Accords, called for the conference to be canceled, fearing that it will only be “an empty summit that will only attract Arab ambassadors and not decision-makers alongside an Israeli leadership that prefers [appeasing Israeli hardliners] over a breakthrough to peace.” As a result, he argues that the meeting is doomed to fail and, as a result, would “weaken the Palestinian camp, strengthen Hamas and cause violence.”

The reason for such pessimism is that ever since direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks began in the early 1990s, U.S. policy has been based on the assumption that both sides need to work out a solution among themselves and both sides need to accept territorial compromise. As reasonable as that may seem on the surface, it ignores the fact that, even if one assumes that both Israelis and Palestinians have equal rights to peace, freedom and security, there is a grossly unequal balance of power between the occupied Palestinians and the occupying Israelis. It also avoids acknowledging the fact that the Palestinians, through the Oslo agreement, have recognized the state of Israel on a full 78% of Palestine and what Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is asking for is simply the remaining 22% of Palestine that was seized by Israel in the 1967 war and is recognized by the international community as being under belligerent occupation.

International Law

However one may respect Israel for its democratic institutions (at least for its Jewish citizens), its progressive social institutions (like the kibbutzim), and its important role as a homeland for a historically oppressed people, the fact remains that the Palestinians have international law on their side in demanding, in return for security guarantees, an Israeli withdrawal from all of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The U.S. position, however, is that 22% is too much and that the Palestinians must settle for less.

Gush Shalom - Israeli Peace Bloc, November 27, 2007

Following is the transcript of the discussion at the Gush Shalom Forum, on the subject “Is Annapolis Relevant?” held on Nov. 21 Evening at The Kibbutz Movement House, Tel Aviv, with the participation of Gideon Levy, Moria Shlomot, Uri Avnery, Gadi Elgazi and Netta Golan and with the moderation of Teddy Katz

Teddy Katz (Moderator, Gush Shalom): Thanks to all the people who came on such a rainy night. Before I let the speakers take the floor, I would like to put some brief questions which the speakers might refer to.

Is Annapolis purely a George Bush event, which everybody else comes merely to provide a background, in face of Bush’s present and future fiascos in Iraq and Iran?

There is no talking about the core issues, nor a timetable for the next stages after the conference, and it is not sure who would come and for what purpose, other than to be photographed. Is the aim of getting photographed worthy of making of so much fuss?

There is so much disastrous between the Israeli and Palestinian bridegrooms and brides, that even small differences would loom large. And if the worst happens and there will be no agreement achieved, what then? We already have bitter experiences of earlier occasions.

Munson: Although the Hindu nationalist BJP has not controlled the Indian government since 2004, it remains powerful, as do related Hindu nationalist movements.

Smita Narula, “Overlooked Danger: The Security and Rights Implications of Hindu Nationalism in India,” Harvard Human Rights Journal, 2003

As a region, South Asia has gained significant prominence in the eyes of the international community as a focal point for the U.S.-led war against terrorism. So-called Islamic fundamentalism in South Asia and the Middle East is the subject of much debate and analysis and the justification for racially and religiously charged immigration and detention policies in the West. Much overlooked is the dramatic rise of Hindu nationalism in India and the dangerous and even violent policies espoused by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (“BJP”) and its sister organizations—policies that have already resulted in considerable violence against India’s Muslim, Christian, and Dalit, or “untouchable,” minorities.While madrassas, or Islamic schools, have come under scrutiny for their recruitment and training of future jihadis in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and more recently Bangladesh, the mushrooming of hundreds of thousands of shakhas, or Hindu training camps in India, has been dangerously overlooked. India’s shift away from secular democracy and toward the militarization of a growing Hindu nationalist cadre poses a significant threat to the human rights of India’s lower castes and religious minorities and, in a region with two long-term and now nuclear foes, to the security of the region as a whole. If the activities of these groups remain unchecked, violence may spread to other parts of the country. When compounded with the growing political influence of the Islamic right and the military in Pakistan and Bangladesh, Hindu militarization may destabilize the region as a whole.

Maher Najjar - Fire and Water in Gaza - washingtonpost.com, November 27, 2007

GAZA CITY — On Sept. 19, the Israeli government declared the Gaza Strip “hostile territory” and authorized steps to punish its civilian population. It decided that every Qassam rocket fired into Israel would carry a price tag: cutting the supply of electricity and fuel that Israel sells to Gaza. This assumes that disrupting civilian life in Gaza will have positive political results for Israel.

Gaza’s 1.5 million residents have been living with collective punishment for some time. We have endured years of border closures, aerial attacks and military operations — measures Israel has always explained as militarily necessary. But now, Israeli politicians claim it is legitimate to deprive all of Gaza’s civilians of basic needs.

A goat is rescued from a sewage flood after a cesspool embankment collapsed in Gaza in March.

Israel controls Gaza’s borders and the movement of all people and goods. Since Hamas came to power in June, Israel has tightened its siege. It has banned raw materials for manufacturing and construction; only basic foodstuffs are permitted into Gaza, and exports have been halted. Gaza’s economy is suffocating: Since June, 85 percent of its factories and 95 percent of its construction projects have been paralyzed. More than 70,000 people have lost their jobs. A million and a half people are locked in a pressure cooker in one of the world’s most densely populated areas.

Hatem Moussa/Associated Press

JERUSALEM Thousands of Israeli demonstrators gathered Monday to show their opposition to concessions to the Palestinians.

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

GAZA Two of Hamas’s top leaders, Ismail Haniya, center, and Mahmoud Zahar, right, at a Palestinian conference on Monday.

Hamas Urges Taking Hard Line Against Israel, New York Times, November 27, 2007

By ISABEL KERSHNER and TAGHREED EL-KHODARY
Published: November 27, 2007

JERUSALEM, Nov. 26 — The leaders of Hamas espoused a hard line against Israel at a conference that they and the militant Islamic Jihad faction convened in Gaza on Monday, the eve of the American-sponsored Middle East peace gathering in Annapolis, Md.
Also on Monday, Israeli right-wing activists stepped up their campaign against possible concessions to the Palestinians with demonstrations in Jerusalem.

In Gaza, Ismail Haniya, Hamas’s leader, said, “Let the whole world hear us: We will not relinquish a centimeter of Palestine, and we will not recognize Israel.” Mr. Haniya, who is usually associated with the more pragmatic wing of the Islamic movement, was responding to a refugee from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war who came up to the podium showing the deed for land he had left behind in what is now Israel.

Hamas: Abbas has no right to give up one inch of Palestine, Haaretz, November 27, 2007

Hours before the start of a U.S.-hosted Middle East peace conference, Gaza’s Hamas rulers stepped up their attacks on Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, calling him a traitor and saying they would reject any decisions that come out of the international gathering.

“The Land of Palestine … is purely owned by the Palestinians,” senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar said in a speech. “No person, group, government or generation has the right to give up one inch of it.”

“Anyone who stands in the face of resistance or fights it or cooperates with the occupation against it is a traitor,” he added. He spoke at a conference, held in Gaza City, attended by some 2,000 activists from local militant groups opposed to the U.S. conference.

Hamas and other militant groups have been holding a series of protests this week against the U.S. peace conference, underscoring the challenges Abbas faces at home as he tries to make peace with Israel.

In Annapolis, Conflict by Other Means by Robert Blecher and Mouin Rabbani, Middle East Report Online, November 26, 2007

At an intersection in front of Nablus city hall, a pair of women threaded a knot of waiting pedestrians, glanced left, then dashed across the street. “What’s this?” an onlooker chastised them. “Can’t you see the red light?” Not long after, his patience exhausted, the self-appointed traffic cop himself stepped off the curb and made his way to the other side of the boulevard. Such is life in the West Bank on the eve of the meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, where the Bush administration intends to create the semblance of a “peace process” between Israel and the Palestinians for the first time since it assumed office. There is excitement in Palestinian towns about the urban order newly emerging from years of chaos; there is a willingness to play by the rules even as many remain convinced that doing so will not get them very far; and, lastly, there is the reality that when the waiting grows tiresome, people will again take matters into their own hands. As for the Annapolis meeting itself, it is being greeted with indifference, with few believing it will lead to either meaningful change in their daily lives or substantive progress toward the end of an Israeli occupation now in its fifth decade.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are also once again playing by the rules, cajoled by the United States to return to the table following the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip in June and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ subsequent formation of an interim government in Ramallah. This would be no small feat, as negotiations over the core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for which the Palestinian leadership has long been clamoring, have been frozen for more than six years. But today, with Palestinians deeply divided and the international community deeply invested in perpetuating their division, negotiations have become a venue for struggle as much as a means for reaching a settlement. The current talk of peacemaking is thus an exercise in conflict by other means, raising opposition — among Israelis and Palestinians alike, though in different ways — to what was already a contentious process.

Tony Karon, Rootless Cosmopolitan » Blog Archive » The Grinch Who Stole Annapolis, November 23, 2007

Two months into my daughter’s first year at school, she sat with her frieds, on oversized chairs, for the obligatory class photo that will forever serve as the official memento of her 2007-2008 Pre-K year. The school year may be barely two months old and still have some 80% of the way to go, but we already have the memento.The analogy to President Bush’s much vaunted Middle East peace even in Annapolis should be obvious: Having heard the warnings from all and sundry that a failed conference is far more dangerous than no conference at all, the Bush Administration has acted prudently to avoid the danger of failure — by making the objectives of the event so nebulous as to make anything short of a fistfight between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas a sign of success. A “peace conference” designed to last less than 24 hours and whose official objective is now simply to launch a year (or more, depending on who you ask) of ongoing negotiations on the shape of a two-state peace plan really amounts to nothing more than a class photograph taken at the beginning of a year — except, of course, unlike a school photograph, there’s a lot less clarity over what, if anything, will happen at the end of the that year. In its most ambitious objective, right now, the Annapolis conference is for Israelis and Palestinians to joinly sign on to a suitably vague set of general principles and good intentions (or reiterating principles covered years ago) to launch that year (or more, depending on which side you ask) of conversation. Even that, we are told, is in doubt, and the two sides may have to issue separate statements of good intention and vague principles — although it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that this was simply good media management, i.e. diminishing expectations to such a point that a joint declaration of vague principles and good intentions will be treated as a “breakthrough.”

Some of my colleagues whose views I respect and who pay close attention to these things see grounds for optimism: My friend Scott MacLeod sees the event as signaling a turnabout by the Bush Administration, in which the U.S. will now turn belatedly but seriously to its long-neglected responsibility to see the parties through to a viable peace agreement. He notes the potential pitfalls, but argues, along with the International Crisis Group that if the Bush Administration does the right things in the year after the event to keep the process going, Annapolis could be the beginning of a decisive turn for the better.

A man suspected of Mahdi Army activity is detained during a recent raid in Baghdad. General David Petraeus has singled out Ghazaliya,a mostly Sunni district in the western part of the city, as an area where the military has made progress. Photograph by Johan Spanner.

Letter from Iraq: Inside the Surge: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker, Nov. 19, 2007

Joint Security Station Thrasher, in the western Baghdad suburb of Ghazaliya, is housed in a Saddam-era mansion with twenty-foot columns and a fountain, now dry, that looks like a layer cake of concrete and limestone. The mansion and two adjacent houses have been surrounded by blast walls. J.S.S. Thrasher was set up last March, and is part of the surge in troops engineered by General David Petraeus, the American commander in Iraq. Moving units out of large bases and into Joint Security Stations—small outposts in Baghdad’s most dangerous districts—has been crucial to Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy, and Thrasher is now home to a hundred American soldiers and a few hundred Iraqis. This fall, on the roof of the mansion, amid sandbags, communications gear, and exercise equipment protected by a sniper awning, Captain Jon Brooks, Thrasher’s commander, pointed out some of the local landmarks. “This site was selected because it was the main body drop in Ghazaliya,” he said, indicating a grassy area nearby. “There were up to eleven bodies a week. Most were brutally mutilated.”

The Mother of All Battles Mosque, with its unmistakable phalanx of minarets shaped like Scud missiles, is nearby. Saddam Hussein hid in Ghazaliya during the American bombing in the first Gulf War, and built the mosque to show his gratitude to the neighborhood. (“Ghazaliya used to have—still does—a lot of retired Saddam military people,” Brooks said.) In April, 2004, wounded gunmen taking part in the battle for Falluja took refuge in the mosque. Ghazaliya borders the eastern edge of Anbar province, the center of the Sunni insurgency, and it became a strategic gateway to Baghdad for insurgents and foreign jihadis. On a previous visit to Ghazaliya, in December, 2003, I had met insurgents at a safe house in the neighborhood. They told me that they were intent on killing Americans. Since those days, with few exceptions, Ghazaliya had been a no-go area for Westerners, including journalists, who ran the risk of being kidnapped and killed. American patrols in Ghazaliya were regularly ambushed.