Looking for the price of black market goods in Baghdad or a Slate-style daily round-up of Iraq’s newspapers? IraqSlogger has that and more, from a "Kirkuk Police Blotter" to categories about insurgents and journalists that are more substantitive than anything in the newspapers quoted on Slate. For example:
The site went up recently and splits much of its content as "StateSde" anad "IraqiSide." Most of all, the latter includes an "Iraqi Diary;" the most recent post is from a woman in Baghdad writing about her 22 year-old cousin, a Sunni, who was killed because his fiance was Shia. To the question of why it also includes a "humor" link, the editors say they based the decision "in part because Iraqis and U.S. troops have a wickedly morbid sense of humor."The Sunni fundamentalist website Islam Memo reports that joint U.S.-Iraqi forces are raiding civilian residences in Fallujah and breaking up TV sets of families who are caught watching the banned Zawraa TV satellite channel. At least one resident, Kamel Ahmed Hamadi, of Nazzal district in Fallujah, was detained. One person reportedly asked the raiding force in English about freedom of the press and as a result got a slap in the face by an American soldier, Nazzal district residents said.
"Safavids are Forbidden to Enter" was scrawled under a sign that reads "Welcome to Baghdad" at the Mahmudiya intersection, south of Baghdad, according to an Islam Memo correspondent. Safavid is a reference to the Persian Safavid Empire that invaded Iraq during the 16th and 17th centuries and massacred thousands of Sunnis. It is a derogatory term used by Sunni insurgents and fundamentalists to describe the Shia, their militias, and even Iraqi security forces. Two IEDs that were placed under the sign exploded when a police commando force attempted to wipe out the graffiti, killing and wounding several policemen.
Graphic via Iraq Slogger.
