Word: als
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...explanation is that it's unreasonable to expect a brand-new army and police force to stand up in such a short time. Iraqi soldiers get just six weeks' basic training, cops only eight--hardly the best preparation to do battle with a bewildering array of enemies, ranging from al-Qaeda terrorists and Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias to well-armed criminal gangs. Motivation is another problem: soldiers get starting salaries of $375 a month, policemen $95 a month. Iraqi commanders also complain that they are poorly equipped: they lack airpower and heavy weapons...
Throughout southern Iraq, members of the police and army are drawn largely from the Badr Organization, the chief rival of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. That's why it was no surprise, said Lieutenant Ryan Lawson, who is based in Hilla, that the Shi'ite town's Badr-dominated forces were "chomping at the bit to go after [the Mahdi Army]" in recent fighting. In areas where al-Sadr's militia dominates, many soldiers simply deserted, either out of loyalty to the cleric or out of fear. "Most of the officers are scared that if they attack the militias...
American commanders would like to see more Sunnis in the Iraqi forces and are pressing al-Maliki to recruit more of the former insurgents to fight alongside U.S. troops; there are now some 90,000 such fighters, and their salaries, paid by the U.S., start at $300 a month. But the Iraqi government regards their loyalties as suspect and has dragged its feet in recruiting them...
...missile strike that killed Somalia's most notorious Islamist insurgent, Aden Hashi Ayro, has dealt a major blow to al-Qaeda's allies operating in East Africa. The deaths of Ayro and up to 10 others were announced early Thursday by spokesman for his al-Shabab militia, while the U.S. military confirmed it had struck what it called an al-Qaeda target in Somalia, but offered no details. Al-Shabab spokesmen said the men were killed early Thursday by a U.S. air strike on a house in Dusamareeb, a few hundred miles north of Mogadishu. "Infidel planes bombed Dhusamareb," Shabab...
...Ayro had been trained by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, where he later fought alongside the Taliban against the Northern Alliance and the U.S. before returning to Somalia in 2003 to join - and quickly come to lead - a group of Somali and foreign radical militants that had been established by Osama bin Laden in remote swamps in the southeast of the country. It was this group that Washington blames for the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and for the 2002 attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya, as well as several other...