Word: basra
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...unruliness is being fueled by militant religious political groups, many of which oppose secular education and what they perceive as Western cultural influences. In March, extremist Shi'ite followers of the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr beat up several hundred engineering students in the southern city of Basra. Their offense: attending a picnic at which both sexes were present. Female students have been harassed for "inappropriate" clothing; a majority now wear the hijab, or head scarf, to school-a sharp contrast to the prewar period when Islamic dress was rarely seen on campus. "We see it as our duty...
...study says 48 academics have been assassinated. Taher al-Bakaa, who was Iraq's Minister for Higher Education under former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, puts the number at 66. Just last week a deputy dean at Baghdad's Mustansiriya University was killed along with three bodyguards, and a Basra University professor of agriculture was kidnapped and killed. Scores of teachers have been kidnapped for ransom, and many more have received death threats simply for doing their jobs. Many top professors have quit and fled the country. As a result, only 28% of those now teaching have a Ph.D., according...
...Shiite leaders are now suggesting it may be a poisoned chalice, and that their own leaders should only be put forward once a new constitution is in place and the U.S. is on the way out. Incumbency has certainly proven to be a burden for the Shiite parties in Basra, where popular discontent at their failure to provide basic services appears to be turning voters against the Shiite list...
...from going to the polls will be their Sunni strongholds in the provinces named above, including the capital, Baghdad. But they have also shown considerable ability to strike far from their home turf, through terror strikes in Najaf, Karbala, Hilla and other Shiite population centers as far south as Basra. In those areas, however, their threat will be countered by the strong sense among the long-marginalized Shiites of the election as an opportunity to claim the power of the majority, and the edict by their supreme spiritual authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani proclaiming voting a religious duty...
...insurgent target areas north of Baghdad. And while Baghdad, Mosul and the Sunni areas north and immediately south of the capital have born the brunt of the violence, insurgents have shown an ability to wreak havoc far from their home bases in such Shiite strongholds as Najaf, Karbala and Basra...