Word: amara
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Indeed, despite a low profile, Harbia says the support provided by the U.S. forces has been a key component in Amara's success. And having learned their lesson from Basra and Sadr City, Harbia says, the Mahdi Army is now on the run, and Iraqi forces are using the campaign to pave the way for smoother provincial elections in October - or as members of the Sadrist movement allege, to weaken support for Sadrist-allied candidates ahead of the elections...
...every member of the police force is so direct about who the target is. Amara's city police chief, Colonel Kazim Nema Mohammed al-Moussawi, is one officer who survived the operation's purge of local officials and he, unlike Harbia, has held his post since 2007. Politically, it shows. "There are militias who call themselves the Mahdi Army, but they are not the Mahdi Army," al-Moussawi says, when asked to identify a target of the operations. "The real Mahdi Army is staying in their homes...
Despite his powers of discrimination, al-Moussawi has a leading role in the general crackdown on al-Sadr's militia. On Friday morning, he led a convoy of four police trucks into downtown Amara, their sirens breaking up traffic as they sped down a packed central-market street. The day's mission: to arrest two men whom he said have been linked by a court to intra-Shi'ite revenge killings. Down a side alley, the trucks ground to a halt and the police stormed a small concrete house, arresting a young...
...offensive has been tough, Amara's commanders say, but they're not going it alone. Shortly after the morning's mission, four American soldiers visited al-Moussawi's station to inquire about progress made in dismantling an office used by the Sadrists. One of the soldiers, who said they were under orders to prohibit the press from photographing them, put the number of American troops brought into the area since last month at around 1,000. They are also building a new forward operating base in the area...
...operation was to create the atmosphere for proper provincial elections. One of the goals is to make the election go smoothly," says Harbia. "Now with the outstanding position of al-Maliki in Basra, Amara, Mosul and Sadr City, people are looking to him as an honest and nationalist man." And are Maliki's rivals in the Mahdi Army weaker now than they were a month ago? "This is for certain," Harbia says. "They are outside...