Word: abu
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Sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Risha was gloomy when I met him at his compound in Ramadi last December. A few days earlier a friend of his had died, U.S. Army Capt. Travis Patriquin, the military's tribal liaison for the area. Patriquin and Sattar had worked closely together late last year, when Sattar first emerged as the leader of a band of tribes around Ramadi coming together to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq. Sattar, like other tribal leaders of Anbar Province, had fallen out with al-Qaeda in Iraq after years of complacency and cooperation with insurgents targeting U.S. forces...
Whether or not the tribes who followed Sattar will remain working with the U.S. military in the wake of his death remains unclear. Sattar's brother, Ahmed Abu Risha, is poised to take over leadership of Sattar's movement. But his ability to hold tribal factions together is uncertain, and military officials may have to win loyalties all over again...
ACQUITTED A military court cleared Lieut. Colonel Steven Jordan, 49, the only officer to go to trial for abuses at Abu Ghraib, of all responsibility for the events, leaving the harshest punishments to low-ranking soldiers. The former director of the prison's interrogation center and the last of 12 to be tried, Jordan was found guilty on one count of disobeying an order not to discuss the investigation, for which he faces a maximum of five years in prison. "After today," said Jordan, "I hope the wounds of Abu Ghraib can start to heal...
...spokesman, known only as Abu Hala, said the Ba'ath leadership under Saddam's deputy, Izzat al-Douri, were "more than willing to work with Allawi, because we see him as a nationalist and Iraqi patriot, and not a sectarian figure." He said the party didn't agree with all of Allawi's policies when he headed a transitional Iraqi government in 2004, but "we have no doubt that he would represent the interests of Iraq, not of Shi'ites or Sunnis or any other group...
...Abu Hala said the Ba'ath leadership has had several meetings with Allawi, and "we found him open-minded and fair." Allawi has previously told TIME that he has for some time had channels open to exiled Ba'ath leaders, many of whom live in Jordan and Syria. Allawi has criticized the government of current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for its de-Ba'athification policies, saying they hurt many blameless Iraqis. But he has never called for the party's return to Iraq's political stage...