• Healing Iraq is providing a three-part explanation: [Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3] (so far) on the role of tribes from an Iraqi perspective. Tribes are an essential part of society and politics in that part of the Middle East (as we have noted here before) and I would definitely recommend reading these and any other pieces of information he puts online.

• Norway has dropped all charges against Ansar al-Islam founder Mullah Krekar. If they do end up deporting him, I do hope it's to northern Iraq. I'm certain that the PUK would be more than happy to put him on trial for all the bloodshed he caused back before he ended up in the Netherlands.

• AEI recently had one of our regular conferences on the transfer of sovereignty on Iraq. It's quite interesting and I had a fascinating discussion there with Karim Kawar, who is listed by the State Department's 2003 website as the Jordanian ambassador to the United States. Also in attendance were Francis Brooke, an Iraqi National Congress advisor (there were a number of INC folks present including their spokesman Entifad Qanbar) who currently has an arrest warrant issued against him by an Iraqi judge. You can access the video of the conference on the website and without getting any further into the whole Chalabi matter let me just say that it certainly provides a great deal more on context on questions of how the transfer of power should occur.

• There is a report today in al-Sharq al-Awsat that Iran is massing 4 battalions at the Iraqi border. Iran denying these reports, though I'm not exactly sure why - 4 battalions is hardly a massive horde and Iran already has an entire army corps (3 divisions) stationed along the Iraqi border, which is much larger than the several thousand troops that 4 battalions are likely to consist of. The only reason I can think of as far as why this would be a big deal is if the 4 battalions in question are an elite unit like Qods Force or its counterparts that are accountable only to Khamenei, in which case they're likely up to no good (well, more so than usual). Ukrainian forces recently apprehended as many as 40 Iranian troops trying to sneak into Iraq and it's entirely possible these battalions may have been mobilized in order to facilitate similar infiltration - Polish troops have killed Baseeji fighting alongside the Mahdi Army in Karbala, for example. A more ominous explanation would be that this is the suicide army that the IRGC formally established at a conference on June 2.

• The situation is continuing to degenerate in Saudi Arabia to the point where Westerners are now being killed or taken hostage with reckless abandon. Understanding that Saudi Arabia is a totalitarian state that is heavily dependent on expatriate workers, these random killings that are apparently going unpunished should not be occurring. My belief is that we're witnessing some kind of a power struggle between Crown Prince Abdullah and the Nayef/Sultan wing of the House of Saud, the latter of whom certainly sympathize with al-Qaeda and its cause. They control the security forces and the military, so this could easily turn very ugly very fast, but until then it basically looks like al-Muqrin's al-Qaeda contingent ("al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula," al-Muqrin's preferred name for his group, is al-Qaeda fi al-Jazeera, by the way) is the preferred means through which Nayef and Sultan hack away at Abdullah. I don't see this ending nicely, which is one of the reasons why I suspect a number of the less stringently religious princes are quietly making preparations to leave Saudi Arabia in the event the situation heads south.

• Two of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's murderous relations have been arrested in Pakistan in recent days. This is exceedingly good news because just one of Mohammed's earlier nephews, Ramzi Yousef, was the man responsible for the first World Trade Center bombing as well as the proto-9/11 plan Oplan Bojinka that involved the destruction of over a dozen US commercial airliners as well as the assassination of President Clinton and Pope John Paul II in 1994. In this particular case, Mosaib al-Baluchi appears to have headed up the latest al-Qaeda effort to destabilize Pakistan in retaliation for the recent (abeit unsuccessfully) military operations in Waziristan, while Dawood Badini is a leading member of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a notorious Sunni sectarian group that has killed dozens if not hundreds of fellow Pakistanis simply on account of their Shi'ite religion.

To end on a happy note, let me just say that today marks my 21st birthday as well as fairly close (by like a month, but who's counting?) to my initial WoC debut in May 2003. I just hope that you guys have enjoyed reading this stuff as much as I have writing it.

And with that, in the style of the great Red Skeleton, good night and may God bless.