XDA

Yesterday, 100 'insurgents' staged a raid on a jail in Muqdadiyah (about 25 miles from the Iranian frontier and 60 miles northeast of Baghdad), and in two hours they lost 10 dead, killed 20 fellow Iraqis and freed 33 prisoners of which 18 were formerly incarcerated fellow 'insurgents.'

This morning in Madain, about 14 miles southeast of Baghdad, 60 of the same sort of fighters attacked a police station, killed 4 Iraqi policemen, but were hung up by strong opposition, and then were trapped by combined US/Iraqi troops coming to the rescue and most (around 50) were captured, apparently without much of a fight, as none were killed. Which of these two actions will capture the lion's share of press coverage over the next few hours and days?

But here is the pretty undeniable proof of the bias in the overall coverage of the Iraq front, the story not covered. On Monday nearly 4 million Iraqis completed their travels from all over Iraq (but mainly from Baghdad 80 miles away) to Karbala for the final day of the 40 days of mourning for Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Unto Him). We've seen these guys over the years--they cut their hairlines with big knives; they whip themselves with chains. In 2004, coordinated explosions of planted bombs, mortar attacks and suicide bombers killed at least 180 of the pilgrims. This year, a drive-by shooting wounded 5. This is an overwhelming success for the Iraqi security forces guarding the pilgrims and a huge indication that Civil War is not actually, well, happening. So of course it doesn't get nearly the coverage the jail raid did.