Iraq

So, the redeployment of the Queen’s Own Hussars battle group from Abu Naji to the border. How’s that going? Ellen Knickmeyer of the Washington Post goes to the non-front and finds out. A few hundred British troops living out of nothing more than their cut-down Land Rovers and light armored vehicles have taken to the…

Read More Test the theory

This is the kind of good news that only illuminates how terrible your problems are. Yeah, it’s cracking that the Iraqi spooks (supposedly) got to hear about a plot for the Final Shootout, but it’s pretty bad news that the speaker of parliament’s bodyguards were behind it. Worse, it looks like a hell of a…

Read More Near-miss

That MR post also raises an interesting point of language. Out of 50,000 acknowledged private security personnel in Iraq, their trade group, the PSCAI (for Private Security Companies’ Association in Iraq, a nice echo of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq or SCIRI) describes them as follows: 3,000+ Americans, 15,000+ third-country nationals…

Read More Geographies of mercenarism

Jamie K thinks the UNTSO post was bombed to prevent them observing a possible Israeli flank movement from the northern tip of the country, around Kiryat Shmona, down the Litani valley to the sea, with hopes of cutting off the retreat, which means going further into Lebanon. He quotes me, in comments, suggesting that this…

Read More Right flank