Greetings, everybody. Apologies for the lag between posts. Since I last wrote, I've left Baghdad, spent a couple of days in Cairo and now I'm in the United States for a week or so. I'll try to keep the blog updated, but the next week might have only sporadic postings.

Meanwhile, I'll be in Mama Amrika, happy to accept your story ideas, news tips, blog items, etc. Back in the first week of May, inshallah.

Thanks!

Hannah

Please take a moment to study the photo to the left.

It was taken in the aftermath of yesterday's bombing in a speck of a village called Albu Mohammed, in the Diyala province northeast of Baghdad. The families were waiting in line for the gravedigger, who had a busy day with up to 60 people killed in the blast.

If any old picture is worth a thousand words, this one must be worth at least a million. This image, one moment frozen in time, encapsulates the heartbreak of Iraq. Apologies because it's so small, but this blog platform can't support larger images.

Still, you can see that the woman in black in the foreground is not wailing or beating her head in grief. She appears stricken and silent. There's a barefoot little girl in the background. The woman standing solemnly near the truck has her eyes closed, as if in prayer. The young boy in the camouflage vest and scarf is carrying a gun; he looks like a miniature mujahid. The men in the scene appear unsure of what to do -- one just gazes at the scene with his arms crossed while the other offers an embrace. Do they feel ashamed, emasculated because there is nothing they can do to stop the slaughter of their relatives? And look at the top of the photo, toward the desert. There's an Iraqi soldier, gun cradled to his chest, unable to do much more than watch. What crime did they commit to deserve this, these villagers from a place so remote we couldn't find it on any of our maps?

Other photos came in from the bombing scene last night, much bloodier images with someone's hand here, someone's foot there. But it was this image that mesmerized me. I wish I could tell you about the brave and intrepid photographer who drove 70 perilous kilometers to the village so we could bring these pictures to you.

But I can't tell you about him. I can't even tell you his name. He's already spent 17 days in captivity after militants from al Qaida in Iraq caught him with a camera. Unlike Western colleagues who've been kidnapped for even a few hours, his abduction never made the news. And still he continues to report.

Our Diyala correspondent is one of several "stringers" hired by our bureau chief Leila Fadel and dispatched to every corner of Iraq. Stringers are local journalists who don't work in the main Baghdad bureau and, while some are on retainer, they mainly work on a story-by-story basis. Most do not want their names attached to their work for fear of retaliation. Exceptions are the excellent stringer in Kurdistan or the fearless young stringer in Najaf, places that are relatively calm.

But from the violent southern Shiite city of Basra to the bloody Sunni triangle north of Baghdad, we get our news from men who call themselves nicknames such as Abu Iraq, which is Arabic for "father of Iraq." They visit morgues, dodge militias and insurgents, count body parts at bombing scenes, attend tedious political meetings and then call in their notes by phone, or send them via email if they can make it to an Internet cafe.

Our core Iraqi staff members in the Baghdad bureau are peerless in their institutional knowledge, their compassion for ordinary Iraqis and their contacts with every group that matters. But we would not be able to bring you news from outlying provinces without the cadre of stringers, our own militia of courageous Iraqis who know words and images can be just as powerful as guns.

Baghdad is swathed in a cloud of dust today as the sandstorm season begins. The entire capital is an eerie orange color, with fine particles of sand that leave everybody feeling icky and grainy. At times, the roaring winds even drown out the perpetual hum of electrical generators and the booms of roadside bombs.

On my way to an interview this morning, I saw an endearing scene at a checkpoint. An Iraqi soldier who was inspecting cars held a box of tissues in one hand and his gun in the other. After making sure drivers weren't suicide bombers, he handed out tissues for them to blow their noses and wipe the orange grime from their faces. He got surprised smiles and thank yous in return.

Such a storm makes it hard to breathe, much less pound the streets reporting, so I'm holed up indoors for the rest of the day, dousing my eyes with Visine and sorting through press releases and regional headlines. Here's some of the more notable items:

Tehran police chief arrested in sex scandal
Wire services and Iranian media are following up on the arrest last month of Tehran Police Chief Gen. Reza Zarei, who was in charge of fighting vice in the Iranian capital. Authorities wouldn't elaborate on reasons for the detention of Tehran's top cop, but Iranian media are reporting that he was busted in a raid on an underground brothel, where he was reportedly caught with six nude women. The AP reports that Zarei was in charge of a program to clean cities from corruption and in recent months had reported arrests of young men and women for illicit relationships or not respecting Iran's mandatory Islamic dress code. The report goes on to note that young Iranians have been jailed and flogged for offenses such as dancing together at birthday parties. Full AP story is here.

Yemeni judge dissolves marriage of 8-year-old girl
A Yemeni judge has ruled in favor of an 8-year-old girl who, over the apparent objections of her parents, contacted authorities to get out of a forced marriage to a 30-year-old man. The girl's lawyer was reported as saying the girl -- whose case has grabbed regional headlines for the past week -- is just one of thousands of minors who've been forced into early marriages in impoverished Yemen. The girl told reporters Wednesday that her husband, identified as Faiz Ali Thamer, repeatedly beat her and had sex with her during their two-month marriage. The judge dissolved the marriage, ruling that the girl had not reached puberty.

Kuwaitis charged over mourning for Hezbollah militant
Seven Shiite Muslims from Kuwait are expected to stand trial in connection with a letter they sent to Lebanese and Iranian TV stations in which they expressed sympathy for the death of Hezbollah militant Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a car bombing in Damascus two months ago. Wire services are reporting that the seven Kuwaitis were charged with "spreading false news about the situation in the country." An attorney for the men was quoted as saying his clients deny involvement in the statement. Shiites make up about 30 percent of this mostly Sunni nation of 1 million.

ETC.
-- The Guardian newspaper published this profile of Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman. The Angry Arab blogger criticized it as "glowing." Suleiman's name is included on the short list of possible successors to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who's been in power since 1981.

-- A release from the Council on American-Islamic Relations reprinted a story from a Texas student newspaper about an increase in the number of Muslim women participating in the Olympics. No figures were given, but this article timed to the 2004 Olympics says a record 50 or more Muslim women participated in those Games. That was also the first year women from Afghanistan competed; Egypt fielded 15 female athletes that year. I'd be interested in seeing the numbers for Beijing. Anyone know where I can find them?

Hearings began in Baghdad today in the case of the first civilian contractor to face court-martial proceedings since a 2006 decision by Congress that gave the military the authority to prosecute crimes committed by civilians working for the armed forces. The AP noted that this is the first such military prosecution since the Vietnam War.

For the past five years, we've heard (and sometimes reported) stories about civilian contractors -- almost always Americans -- acting out of bounds. Sure, plenty of contractors are just here to do their jobs, serve their country and bring home six-figure paychecks. But there's no shortage of stories about contractors stealing cash and jewelry from Iraqi homes during raids, using deadly force against civilians, brawling on base with fellow contractors, breaking fraternization orders by soliciting prostitutes, embezzling funds and abusing detainees.

Who's the unlucky first contractor to stand trial on charges related to such behavior?

An Iraqi.

Specifically, he's an Iraqi-Canadian named Alaa "Alex" Mohammad Ali, a military interpreter who is accused of stabbing a fellow translator four times on Feb. 23 at a combat outpost in the city of Hit in the western Anbar province. The man survived, with chest wounds. Ali was charged with aggravated assault and has been detained at Camp Victory since Feb. 29, according to a U.S. military statement released today.

"Ali is being afforded all the same rights, protections and privileges servicemembers receive in military court, including the right to counsel, right to speedy trial, protection against self-incrimination and presumption of innocence," the release stated. The pre-trial hearing resumes tomorrow.

The sounds of sobbing drifted from the open door of a rundown home in Sadr City today. Inside, dozens of black-draped women sat cross-legged on the floor, weeping and beating their chests over the latest death to shake this besieged Baghdad slum with a population of about 3 million.

The focus of this somber gathering was a slight grandmotherly figure whose tears splashed onto her mourning cloak. Only her tiny face, dotted with the indigo tattoos of a tribeswoman, was visible. She sat under a portrait of the Imam Hussein, mouthing prayers and embracing each woman who came to share her grief as a martyr's mother.

It's not hard to imagine that many of the women in the room could empathize with the searing pain of losing a son; hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Iraqi men have perished here in bombings, crossfire, targeted killings, or while fighting against U.S. and Iraqi troops as part of the Mahdi Army.

But this time, the slain son was no ordinary militiaman. He was one of the closest aides and friends of the rebel cleric Muqtada al Sadr. Riyadh al Nouri, head of Sadr's office in Najaf, was gunned down by unknown assailants as he made his way home from midday prayers Friday. No group has claimed responsibility for the killing, a brazen strike at Sadr's inner circle, though leaders of the movement blame the U.S. military occupation for the violent landscape where bullets too often settle political disputes.

I ended up sitting on the floor with Nouri's mother and her friends because of Ahmad Chalabi, who had invited two Western reporters and an Iraqi television crew to accompany him as he paid his respects at the funeral in Sadr City. (Another funeral was going on down in Najaf, where Nouri was killed.) When Chalabi and the cameras disappeared into the men's tent, the rest of us -- a female American reporter for another U.S. newspaper, my Iraqi colleague Sahar and me -- decided to visit the women's area.

This was the first time in nearly two years that I've walked around in Sadr City, and the first time I've ever visited without our company's own drivers to watch our backs. A young plainclothes guard led us through garbage-strewn alleyways to the home where the women had gathered in solidarity with Nouri's mother.

During the pins-and-needles walk to the home, I scanned rooftops for snipers and saw none. My eyes locked with those of a menacing-looking young militiaman with a Sadr badge pinned to his shirt. He offered a half-smile and said, "Welcome" in Arabic. Naked, filthy children peeked out of their squalid homes. Little boys played soccer in the dirt. A father held his daughter's tiny hand as they crossed the street and stopped at an ice-cream stand. Life was going on as usual in Sadr City, a place that manages to be simultaneously dismal and vibrant.

But with all the U.S. air strikes and clashes here in the past couple of weeks, Sahar and I were keenly aware of the myriad dangers that still lurk in the warrens of Sadr City. Walking alone in this volatile territory left me feeling more exposed than perhaps at any time during my five years of covering Iraq. Sahar whispered for us not to say a word in English, but of course it was obvious we were outsiders. The baby-faced guard who led us to the home said that we need not worry, and it turned out that he was right.

Believe what you will about Chalabi being a has-been (or worse); precious few other Iraqi politicians can sail into Sadr City with foreigners in tow and receive ironclad guarantees of safety from the feared Mahdi Army. The militiamen greeted him with embraces, just a day after Sadr issued a statement that discouraged the targeting of Iraqis unless they have helped the occupation.

You might wonder, as I do, how Chalabi, the onetime Pentagon darling who fell out of American graces, the man who ushered U.S. forces into Iraq, the secular intellectual with dubious associates around the globe, is able to preserve such close ties to the Shiite Islamist, anti-American Sadr movement. We might never know the full story.

Critics will say that Chalabi's trip to Sadr City today amounted to grandstanding; supporters will counter that it's about time an Iraqi official, any Iraqi official, dropped in to see firsthand the suffering of Sadr City's embattled residents. Whatever the case, I was just grateful to tag along and finally be able to soak up the dizzying sights of Sadr's sprawling Baghdad stronghold without the usual wrangling with local militia commanders or U.S. military embed coordinators.

Cold, stunned stares greeted us as we arrived at the home where Nouri's mother sat crying among her relatives and supporters. Mourners packed two large rooms that had been emptied of furniture. I asked a female official from the Sadr office if I could take pictures. "No" was the answer. I asked again, offering to show her the photos on my digital camera. She agreed, but only after she returned with an extra layer of black cloth to cover even more of Nouri's mother's face, including her beautiful traditional tattoos. The mother is a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, the woman warned, so no photograph should show her unveiled.

Feeling highly conspicuous, we only stayed for a few minutes -- just long enough to snap a few photos, mumble our condolences to the mother (who kissed us and thanked us for coming) and listen to the low-pitched mourning chants of some of the women. Arabic condolences can sound a bit unkind when translated into English, but they are based in the Islamic tradition of limiting mourning to a set time period and then moving on with life, knowing that the deceased is in a better place.

"He was taken! He was taken!" sobbed a woman sitting next to Nouri's mother.

"May God take him from your heart as he was taken from your eyes!" another woman cried.

As is customary, we'd taken off our shoes at the door and had to fish them from a jumble of women's sandals on our way out. As we exited, Sahar noticed an Iraqi man staring at our American colleague, who had some stray reddish-blond hair sticking out from under her headscarf. Sahar heard him sputter, "An American, one with blue eyes, has the nerve to show up here?" It was time to go.

We rejoined Chalabi's convoy without incident and thanked our sweet young guard for his protection. We made a quick stop at a food warehouse where Chalabi and the deputy trade minister inquired about rations shipments, electricity and other sorely lacking basic services. Sahar and I hung back to chat with a bystander, 21-year-old Ali Mohamed.

We asked Ali what Sadr City residents wanted from the Iraqi government.

"Water, electricity, rations," came the quick reply. "Where is the future? From Saddam's time to now, what future do we have?'

We asked Ali what the residents sought from Sadr himself.

"We want him to get rid of the occupation," Ali said. He added that he hasn't yet fought alongside the Mahdi Army, but wouldn't hesitate to take up arms if Sadr issued the call.

"Of course I would go," Ali said. "Who is defending Iraq except him?"

During the drive back to Chalabi's compound I busied myself with taking photos from the tinted windows of our armored SUV. At one point, Sahar nudged me.

"I don't want to frighten you," she said, "but I've counted seven IEDs on this road so far. Look, you can even see the wires coming out."

I put down my camera and gazed at the streets, which were marked with craters from previous roadside bombs. We passed piles of trash, animal carcasses and street vendors' stalls that would have been perfect hiding places for IEDs. But I still didn't see any of the ominous wires Sahar was talking about.

Then I glanced to my right and a brightly colored popcorn stand caught my eye. In front of the stand, very close to the road, was a pile of boxes with a telltale wire snaking out. I alerted Sahar.

"That's number eight," she said.

Well, I'm back in Baghdad, this time on a brief trip to fill in while our Baghdad bureau chief, Leila Fadel, heads Stateside to pick up her much-deserved George Polk award for best foreign reporting.

Is Leila spending her last couple of days in Iraq polishing her acceptance speech and settling on an outfit for the awards banquet? Nope, she's in a rat-infested home in Sadr City with U.S. troops, eating MREs and staying out of the way when they come under fire, as they did yesterday. (In short, Leila rocks.)

Looks like another familiar face will be in Baghdad soon -- my best friend and college roommate, J, is now in Kuwait awaiting transfer to Iraq as part of the National Guard. I've been posting her letters home on the blog in hopes of showing the transformation of a soldier-mother on her very first deployment. Already, she's taken us through Humvee rollover training, courses on meeting tribal sheikhs, the heartbreak of kissing her daughter goodbye.

So, this is it. J is one step closer to war; she might even be here by now. In this most recent letter, she describes landing in Kuwait amid sandstorms, intense heat and a swarm of lady bugs. There is very little editing, only slight changes for curse words or identifying details.

Pakinam Amer, an intrepid Egyptian journalist who has worked with several international media outlets, just wrote a brave and candid blog post called: "To veil or not to veil, that is the goddamn question."

She has worn the headscarf for seven years, though her posting takes the reader through the prying questions, outright rudeness, stereotypes, pressure from Islamists and other daily hassles that have forced her to rethink the scrap of fabric that shields her hair from public view.

Pakinam is a go-getter who recently joined the Associated Press bureau in Cairo. I know her through mutual frends in the Egyptian journalism world, and we once discussed the veil over lunch. One of my favorite anecdotes she recounted at that meeting was how she posed for a photo, in her veil, amid beer bottles during a trip to Germany. She doesn't drink, but wanted to poke fun at the stereotypes Westerners have about uptight Muslims. Instead, the backlash came from her Muslim friends, to the point where Pakinam no longer felt comfortable having the photo posted on her Facebook page.

Now, Pakinam tackles all the intensely personal questions she fields every day about her decision to wear the veil. Here's an excerpt:

In short, I often find myself having to explain my personal choices in life to people that I meet for the first or second time.

But just to humor them, I do answer every single question.

Yes, I wore the headscarf by choice.

No, my parents didn’t make me. My dad actually hated it at first. And my mom is supportive of my decisions in general so she never pushes me in any direction.

No, it wasn’t peer-pressure. Most, if not all, my friends at AUC were not veiled at the time. Some did not support it. Some kept their distance when I took it on because they simply didn’t understand it.

Yes, it is in line with the wave of religiosity – however true or hypocritical that is- that has been engulfing Egypt during the past few years. So what?

Yes, it’s very convenient in a culture like mine. Does this make it bad?

No, it doesn’t affect how I work. I cover any and every story that I’m assigned to, often forgetting that I’m Muslim or Arab or veiled.

It was confusing. Cairo's notorious traffic snarls were gone, many shops and businesses were closed, the universities were empty. Riot police fanned out across the sprawling capital. And yet most of the demonstrations that had been scheduled to accompany Sunday's general workers' strike never really got off the ground, either because of low attendance or security concerns.

Even in Mahalla el-Kobra, home to the restive workforce at Egypt's largest state-owned textile factory, things were quiet until the late afternoon because a sit-in was aborted after security forces showed up en masse ahead of shift change. After that, however, wire reports say rioting broke out as angry demonstrators set fire to two schools, a tourism company and a truck carrying subsidized food. More than 150 were reported injured. Scores of people have been arrested, and other activists are on the run.

So, in the end, was the strike a success or failure? Was this a triumph for Egyptian workers demanding their rights, or another example of the government quashing dissent with embarrassing ease?

Here's what a few Egyptian and regional bloggers are saying:

Hatshepsut: State security and the Interior Ministry have not only succeeded in aborting today's scheduled demonstrations...but they have been arresting activists all over the country since this morning."

3arabawy: "Pigs abort Mahalla strike, HELL BREAKS LOOSE"

Tadamon Masr: "The wind of Mahalla blows"

6april08 mostly in Arabic; blog updated throughout the day

Sandmonkey: "Aftermath" (very good inside information on the security crackdown)

Egypt is roiling with a dire food crisis, impending local elections and a massive general strike planned for the weekend.

The political atmosphere is extremely tense, and police have rounded up more than 800 members of the powerful Islamist opposition group the Muslim Brotherhood ahead of the vote Tuesday in municipal polls. Thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of Egyptian workers are staging a strike Sunday to protest low wages, the bread shortage and government neglect.

Given the extremely volatile climate and the notoriously brutal Egyptian brand of crowd control, there is widespread fear that the demonstrations could turn violent, even deadly. I'll be covering the strike Sunday and elections Tuesday, so check back for updates.

For background on the bread crisis, click here and listen to a report by the talented, Cairo-based Ursula Lindsey, a radio reporter for The World.

And the writers over at Oxford Analytica had this very good summary of what's brewing in Cairo:

Egyptian democracy is an iron first in a velvet glove.

Plainclothes state security forces have been roughing up hundreds of opposition Islamists in recent weeks, ostensibly an attempt to smooth the ruling National Democratic Party's path to future presidential elections.  Local council elections take place on Tuesday and Egypt's authoritarian government has already detained more than 800 members of the Muslim Brotherhood -- the country's largest, oldest and best organised opposition group -- including at least 148 would-be candidates in the council vote. The Brotherhood's case is becoming a cause celebre in Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak is facing growing domestic and international pressure to democratise.

Underpinning the heavy-handedness is some sound Egyptian political calculus. Seats on local councils are important if political groups want to line up an independent candidate for a presidential run in the future. Independent candidates for the presidency need endorsements from 140 members of local councils, as well as support from members of both houses of parliament.  The strong showing of the Brotherhood in parliamentary elections in late 2005 will have made the Mubarak regime nervous it could achieve this figure. The Brotherhood, whose version of democracy has distinctly divine overtones, currently holds a fifth of the seats in the lower house of parliament through members elected as independents.

If you could pose a question to al Qaida's No. 2 leader, what would you ask?

Do you consider the killing of women and children to be jihad?

What is it that makes legitimate the spilling of the blood of even one Muslim?

Don't you think that al Qaida provides great services in ways it could never imagine to American intelligence by deeming permissable the blood of Muslims in the states of the Arab world?

Where is the jihadi action against the usurping Jews in Palestine?

Why haven't we heard you attack Iran in the same way that you attack other states of the East and West?

What do you expect to happen in Iraq after America's withdrawal?

When will there be a wing of the organization in Egypt. And if it is actually there, how can one join the caravan?

What is al Qaida's position vis-a-vis Egypt, in which the dogs of Mubarak rule tyranically and which has been misplaced by the defeatist ideology of the Muslim Brothers, and whose youth are eager for sacrifice and the beginning of a new round against the regime?

What is your stance towards the Shiite laity in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Azerbaijan and the Gulf states?

The defeat of the Americans began in Kabul, and is passing by Baghdad today, so where will it end?

The Egyptian physician-turned-militant Ayman al Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's top deputy, answers all those queries and many more in the first installment of his answers to letters sent to al Qaida's publicity wing, Sahab Media. Download the entire first installment here.