Word: baghdad
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last Saturday, Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, according to one of his aides, warned the U.S. ambassador that he was "not America's man in Iraq." On Tuesday he drove home the point, ordering an end to the U.S. military cordon around the Baghdad Shi'ite stronghold of Sadr City - a demand with which the U.S. military complied. Although U.S. troops don't take orders from the Iraqi government, refusing to heed the writ of that democratically elected government would make the U.S. military presence in that country untenable. The U.S. did point out that it had been...
...Maliki's concern for his Shi'ite political base - which includes Moqtada al-Sadr, whose sectarian militia, the Mahdi Army, is believed to be the target of the U.S. operation in Baghdad - drives his objections to U.S. plans. Without the backing of that base he becomes simply another Iraqi politician backed by Washington but rejected by his own electorate - like Washington's erstwhile "man in Iraq," former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Maliki agrees in principle that Shi'ite political militias must be disbanded or brought under government control. But he also believes this can't be done as long...
...deepening the alienation of even those Sunnis closest to the political process. Tariq al-Hashimi, the Sunni Vice President of Iraq, for example, condemned Maliki's intervention to lift the security cordon around Sadr City, warning that this would ease the movement of Shi'ite death squads around Baghdad...
...rapidly deteriorating conditions that underlie the political arm-wrestling recall the opening months of the wars that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia. "Ethnic cleansing" has continued apace inside Baghdad, as Shi'ite militias extend their control over mixed neighborhoods by violently forcing out Sunnis. But if the Shi'ite militias control much of the capital, reports suggest that Sunni insurgent groups are tightening their grip along road-transportation routes into and out of the capital. Such tactics have previously allowed the Sunni insurgents to choke fuel supplies into the capital. With that kind of virtual stalemate prevailing, Maliki...
...AUDIO: A new clash between the U.S. military and Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army now looks inevitable, says TIME Baghdad reporter Mark Kukis