Word: basra
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Sunnis have traditionally been strongly opposed. Among the Shi'ites, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) has favored the idea a super region in the south, but the movement of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has insisted on a strong central state. But the proposal to turn Basra into an autonomous region is comes not from the Supreme Council, but rather from a coalition of Shi'ite independents and the small Fadila Party, which dominates in the province. (See TIME's pictures of the week...
...supremacy among the Shi'ites. Shi'ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki recently called for amendments to Iraq's constitution to strengthen the central government's power at the expense of the country's 18 provinces. This week, Maliki's rivals in the southern Shi'ite bastion of Basra submitted a petition demanding a referendum in the oil-soaked province aimed to turning it into a semi-autonomous federal region akin to Kurdistan...
...While the Supreme Council - whose idea of a super-region is far more expansive than just Basra, and whose concern would obviously be to create a political entity in which it could rule - is sitting on the fence in response to the Basra autonomy proposal, the Sadrists are furious. "It's playing with fire that could engulf all of Iraq," says Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi, a spokesman for Sadr's movement in the southern Shi'ite holy city of Najaf. "The result might be the division of Iraq if it's forced now, during this period...
...Obama received his first on-the-ground briefing in Iraq on the morning of July 21 at a military base adjacent to the Basra airport. During the briefing, said a senior U.S. military official, then-Senator Obama seemed "receptive" and "asked good questions." The hope among senior officers in Iraq is that President-elect Obama will make good on another promise he's made over an over again from the stump: "We must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting...
...occasionally die--on a cavernous expanse of stage nearly half a football field wide. In their dress-up uniforms, they're an exotic-looking bunch: wearing kilts, playing bagpipes, sporting tam-o'-shanters with a red feather. This Scottish army regiment seems out of place in Iraq, transferred from Basra to bolster U.S. troops bogged down in the "triangle of death" near Baghdad. But their plainspoken, Highland-accented gripes about the war have a familiar ring. "You're no' really doing the job you're trained for," says one soldier. "You're no' defending your country. We're invading their...