Word: basra
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...many Americans to have been wrong from the start. The crisis has erupted at a distinctly inopportune time, with the Administration trying to reduce the size of the U.S. presence in Iraq, even as military commanders are reporting backsliding in places as diverse as Ramadi in Anbar province and Basra in the south. "We are in trouble in Iraq," says retired Army General Barry McCaffrey, who was recently invited to the White House to share that assessment with President George W. Bush. "Our forces can't sustain this pace, and I'm afraid the American people are walking away from...
...WILKERSON I'm principally a strategist, and from that perspective the war has been a disaster. First, the foremost winner has been Iran: it rid itself of its greatest threat, Saddam and his military, without firing a shot; won the Dec. 15 Iraq elections; owns the south, particularly Basra; and has felt the freedom to elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who, in turn, has felt the freedom to reclaim leadership of radical Islam, leadership Osama bin Laden claimed on 9/11. Second, the foremost loser--after Iraq itself--has been Israel, whose leaders must now fear more than ever the new strategic maneuver...
...February 22, 2006: The bombing of a sacred Shi'ite shrine in Samarra sparks sectarian violence that leaves more than 200 dead, including a group of foreign Arab prisoners in Basra...
...reactions were swift and violent. Mobs from the predominantly Shi'ite Shu'lah neighborhood in western Baghdad attacked Sunni mosques in Ghazaliya, a nearby Sunni area. Gunmen were out on the streets of Sadr City, home base for rebel cleric-and parliamentary power broker-Moqtada al-Sadr. In Basra, there were reports of heavy street fighting between Sunni and Shi'ite gunmen. Elsewhere, Sunni political party offices were attacked...
...These days, Basra is practically run by Shi'ite militias, with the British only intervening when their own soldiers get into trouble - as they did last fall, when two soldiers were "arrested" by militiamen, requiring the British to mount a rescue operation. I have not been to Basra for some time, but friends there routinely report instances of British soldiers behaving in a hostile manner, even with those once-friendly tea vendors...