Word: baathist
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...strike rate of the insurgency in the run-up to the election suggests that despite such large-scale U.S. military operations as the recapture of Fallujah, Iraq's insurgency continues to grow in size, scale and momentum. Where the Bush administration once dismissed the insurgents as "Baathist bitter-enders" and "foreign terrorists" who would be crushed by the U.S. and its Iraqi allies, it is now more common for U.S. officers to admit they are unlikely to defeat the insurgency any time soon. Henry Kissinger once famously noted that while a counterinsurgency campaign wins only when by eliminating the insurgents...
...population of 1 million--Sunni, Kurd and Turkoman--and for months after the invasion was viewed as one of the occupation's few success stories. But locals warn that the city is slipping out of control. Foreign terrorists streaming across the border from Syria have joined forces with a Baathist resistance stocked with unemployed ex-soldiers. Insurgent attacks have grown significantly in number and lethality in recent months, and at least two or three assassination victims arrive each day at al-Salaam Hospital, the city's largest, doctors say. After insurgents staged attacks against six police stations in the city...
Victims of oppression seldom have a chance to face their tormentors. But Ahmad Jamal gets the opportunity nearly every day. He can usually spot them by their cars - late-model Toyota Avalons, Peugeots, Mercedes and BMWs issued to Baathist leaders, with Iraqi license plates. These former officials from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, the mukhabarat (Iraqi secret police) and other parts of the Iraqi state apparatus cruise Amman's streets, roam its malls and enjoy its restaurants. "Two years ago, they brought us misery," Jamal says. "Now they're living it up in exile in Amman and we have...
...kinds of criminals and terrorists come into Mosul from Syria. It's like the Super Bowl for them," says Salim Kako, a top official of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, which represents many Christians in Mosul. The outsiders have mixed with Mosul's homegrown fundamentalist Islamic opposition and a potent Baathist resistance fueled by the city's large number of unemployed soldiers. This stew of local and outside insurgents is stepping up attacks on American and Iraqi security forces - and anyone suspected of collaborating with them. Week after week, car bombings, improvised explosives and shootings take a steady toll of Iraqi...
...believes, Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's chief operative in Iraq. The U.S. has tried to find Iraqis willing to root out the militants who are imposing Taliban-style rule in the city, bringing miscreants before a strict Islamic court. The Fallujah Brigade, a group of former Baathist officers whom the Marines armed and outfitted after the April standoff, has collapsed. Marine commanders say the unit is aiding the same rebels it was formed to fight. As a result, the city has become the country's most conspicuous "no go" zone for U.S. troops. American commanders can do little...