Word: amara
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...imposing figure with a mustache to match, Harbia has been the police commander of Maysan province for just 20 days. Harbia, who was handpicked by the Prime Minister to head the police side of the Amara operation, says the last commander "was transferred to the Interior Ministry in Baghdad because his administration was too weak...
Harbia isn't the only new face in Amara's forces. Since the initiative began, the city's forces have seen some reshuffling, he says, and Interior Ministry officials from Baghdad have been positioned in every major department. The campaign has also seen the arrests of 134 people and several local officials, most notably the city's acting deputy governor, Rafea Abdul Jabbar, an al-Sadr supporter, and at least 20 police, he says. "There was an order from the court to arrest [Jabbar] because he was cooperating with the fighters," he adds. Those Mahdi Army members who have avoided...
...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...