Series of Explosions Kill At Least 32 in Baghdad

Blasts occur during Ramadan dawn-to-dusk fast

The mother of Mohammed Esam, 19, cries over his body as it is washed before burial in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Iraq, Monday, Sept. 29, 2008. Mohammed was one of 22 victims in a car bombing central Baghdad. (Photo credit: Alaa al-Marjani / AP)

September 28, 2008

BAGHDAD — Police said a series of explosions in Baghdad on Sunday have killed at least 32 people and wounded nearly 100. …

Officials said the deadliest blasts occurred in the Karrada neighborhood, where a parked car loaded with explosives blew up in a commercial area about 7 p.m. At least 19 people were killed and more than 70 wounded. …

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Spotlight on Foreign Policy, Iraq War at St. John’s University

Demonstrators display anti-U.S. placards during a protest in Kufa, 75 miles south of Baghdad, Sept. 26, 2008. The placards read: “Iraq will not become a U.S. colony.” (Photo credit: Reuters / Ali Abu Shish)

“ ‘An Assured Peace’ or ‘A Victory Hoped For’? Iraqi Realities and American Politics”

Juan R.I. Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Michigan, speaks on “‘An Assured Peace’ or ‘A Victory Hoped For’? Iraqi Realities and American Politics” at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 29, in the Stephen B. Humphrey Theater, St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minn.

Cole has written extensively about Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and South Asia. He has given numerous media and press interviews on the War on Terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001, as well as concerning the Iraq War and the building conflict with Iran after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He has a regular column at Salon.com.

Cole continues to study and write about contemporary Islamic movements, whether mainstream or radical, Sunni, Salafi, or Shi`ite. He speaks Arabic, Persian, and Urdu and reads some Turkish, knows both Middle Eastern and South Asian Islam, and lived in a number of places in the Muslim world for extended periods of time.

For three decades, Cole has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context, and his most recent book is Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). He also writes on current events, and his articles on contemporary Sunni radicalism include “Muslim Religious Extremism in Egypt” in Middle East Historiographies (University of Washington Press, 2006) and “The Taliban, Women, and the Hegelian Private Sphere” in Social Research (Fall 2003).

The presentation, part of the Global Awareness Lecture Series at the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University and co-sponsored by the Islamic Studies Task Force and the University Chair in Critical Thinking, is free and open to the public.