Conflicts Forum

By Mark Perry and Paul Woodward, Asia Times, May 16, 2007
On April 30, the Jordanian weekly newspaper Al-Majd published a story about a 16-page secret document, an “Action Plan for the Palestinian Presidency” that called for undermining and replacing the Palestinian national-unity government.
The document outlined steps that would strengthen Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, build up […]

From our Baghdad correspondent, May 17, 2007
American troops entering Baghdad on April 9, 2003 noted the strange quiet that enveloped large parts of the city. While Baathist gunmen continued to launch spoiling raids north of the the city, large segments of the population remained calm. This was particularly true in the largest Shia neighborhoods to […]

By Paul Woodward, Conflicts Forum, May 10, 2007
On May 4, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an account of a U.S. security plan for Gaza along with “Acceleration Benchmarks for Agreement on Movement and Access” that would govern travel inside the West Bank. The American plan would remove dozens of roadblocks to ease internal Palestinian travel, […]

From our Baghdad correspondent, May 8, 2007
The establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq — an al-Qaeda inspired organization that threatened to split the Sunni resistance and sparked high-profile attacks against American and Iraqi targets in Baghdad — has had the unintended consequence of uniting non-al-Qaeda Sunni resistance movements into a new umbrella organization, the […]

From our Baghdad correspondent, May 7, 2007
After the declaration of the Islamic State in Iraq, founded by al-Qaeda leader Abu Hamza al-Muhajir in January of this year, several Islamic resistance groups based in the western part of Iraq expressed their support for the new state. The announcement of the establishment of the ISI was made […]