Faiza sheds more light on recent events, and shares gossip from the shop; "an American tank was hit and burned, but an American helicopter took it away so that journalists won’t see it.â€‌

Healing Iraq has another update, including such gems as; I was standing outside with neighbours yesterday afternoon gossiping when a car drove by, threw a couple of fliers at us, shouting "read them, may Allah increase your reward".

Back to Iraq also has more, Iraq Hack has published and Iraqi Spirit follows a review of the Falluja incident with these observations;
~ Ever since the creation of Iraq, it has been like a pressure cooker that is waiting to blow up.
~ At the end of the day there are some underlying problems that have been there since before Saddam has come to power and they simply need to be fixed.
~ Iraq and Iraqis need to have a long period of peace and tranquility, to heal them internally as they have never experienced this kind of life for any sustained period of time.

And from where i am? These two quotes extracted from a paper today;

1. An (un-named) senior pentagon official focusing on al-Sadr and his followers; "We are going to focus on dis-banding them, de-arming them and we'll do that deliberately and with a plan". (Aye? As opposed to without a plan? Accidentally?)

2. Abu Musab Zarqawi, quoted as an Al Qaeda operative, in an audio tape aired on an Islamic web site; "We will not let you off, you snakes of evil, until you lift your hands off our mosques and stop shedding the blood of Sunnis".

Well, what a swell party this is. I can see things are going swimmingly and expect peace shall be restored in no time at all, with the efficiency, tact and diplomacy that we all know and trust so.