News from Iraq this morning is of more bloodshed: 60 dead in five separate bomb attacks. Along the Syrian border, U.S. Marines encountered enemy positions last week and are still fighting the most pitched battle since the fall of Falluja. The U.S. military is rethinking its Iraq strategy. An insurgency once thought to be run by former regime loyalists is now being labeled as “Iraqi jihadists and foreign troops” — young men and old money streaming across the borders. But why? To fight against the infidels and prove the Americans are either unable or unwilling to secure the peace? Or is it something more sinister, Sunni Arabs using the confusion to make specific attacks against Iraqi Shiites? Identifying the opposition, the holy and the unholy alliances of the Iraq insurgency.
Guests:
Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor reporter in Baghdad
Hiwa Osman, Training Director for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Molly Bingham, photographer, World Picture News Agency
Ali Al-Ahmed, political analyst and Director, The Saudi Institute
Salameh Nematt,Washington Bureau Chief of Al-Hayat International Arab Daily