Word: baghdad
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...Minister Nouri al-Maliki parted ways with his Shi'a allies in the ruling Iraqi National Alliance, everyone expected the wily politician, who has led Iraq since April 2006, to come up with a political bloc of his own. On Thursday, Maliki took the stage in the ballroom of Baghdad's upper-crusty Al-Rasheed hotel, before a crowd of more than 500 guests - including American, European and Asian diplomants - and, one by one, 55 leaders of his new "State of Law" coalition came up to join him. It appeared to be a veritable national unity slate, composed of Sunnis...
...Former Iraqi Baathists in Syria have become the subject of an escalating dispute between the Iraqi and Syrian governments that began when suicide bombers blew up government buildings in Baghdad in August, killing 95 people. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki blamed the bombings on former Baathists in Syria and accused Damascus of harboring and supporting groups that are orchestrating attacks in Iraq. Syria denied the allegations and offered to turn over any suspects in the bombings if Iraq could provide evidence of their guilt. A standoff ensued, dampening the slowly warming relations between the two countries and putting cooperation...
...Following the August bombings in Baghdad, al-Douri's faction has also shown signs of moderating. In an interview with TIME earlier this month, the unofficial spokesman for the group, Nizar Samra'y, said it is more concerned about the growing Iranian influence on Iraq's government than in forcing U.S. troops out of the country. "We need to have a strong state in Iraq that works [toward] an Iraqi agenda not an Iranian one," he says. "We know America has an interest to return Iraq as a strong country and to stabilize the region. If America withdraws from Iraq...
...Karzai government has grown more unpopular, the situation in Kandahar has deteriorated. The Taliban own the night, slipping death threats under the doors of those who would cooperate with the government. In Iraq the military's counterinsurgency strategy turned around a similarly bleak urban situation - notably in Baghdad, where U.S. troops helped the Iraqis regain control of neighborhoods by setting up and staffing joint security stations. But the troops who should be securing Kandahar are fighting an elusive enemy in Helmand. (See pictures of the war in Afghanistan's Kunar Province...
...With Baghdad and Tehran getting increasingly close, some observers think the raid was an attempt to appease Iran's ayatullahs, who consider MEK members terrorists. "This situation was predictable the day Saddam's regime fell," says Karim Pakzad, a Middle East expert at Paris' Institute of Strategic and International Relations (IRIS). "It's understandable that the Iraqis want to extend their sovereignty to a camp of former militants, whose presence they can no longer stand. But it's also become a humanitarian question: what to do with these people...