Word: cleric
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...occupation--at the lack of jobs and the frustrating pace of the promised transition to Iraqi rule, a transition that promised to bring them to power. That simmering discontent last week turned into a full, chaos-inducing boil. Following a call to arms by a radical, power-hungry cleric named Muqtada al-Sadr, thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites declared war against a military that had freed them from a heinous dictator. In cities across Iraq, Shi'ite militants united behind the goal of casting off the yoke of occupation by killing or capturing any foreigner, military or civilian, they came...
When political ambition coincides with popular disillusion, the mix can be combustible. And so it proved last week in the mean streets of Sadr City, a neighborhood filled with poor, disgruntled Shi'ites, when the young rabble-rousing cleric decided to roll the dice. Since the day a year ago when U.S. soldiers pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein, symbolizing the regime's fall, al-Sadr has railed against the American occupation. He built up a network of civilian supporters and recruited fighters for his Mahdi Army, named for the 12th, or Hidden, Imam, whom Shi'ites believe will...
Among the many questions that remain unanswered is whether the horror in Fallujah represented an isolated spasm of mob violence or a more corrosive, widespread streak of anti-American hatred. On Saturday, Shi'ite followers of firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr marched and burned American flags, promising if asked to be the hand of Hamas and Hizballah in Iraq. But galling as the images in Fallujah were, U.S. commanders say the city and the surrounding area remain a uniquely difficult problem, with little bearing on what's happening in the rest of the country. The military continues to believe that...
...Prophet Muhammad prohibited even the mutilation of a dead mad dog ... What happened in Fallujah is a distortion of Islamic principles, and it is forbidden in Islam." SHEIK KHALID AHMED, senior Islamic cleric in Fallujah, condemning the mutilation of the corpses of four U.S. civilians by Iraqis...
...only the scale of resistance in Fallujah that has shocked U.S. officials in Iraq. The Shiite insurrection launched by the radical cleric Moqtada Sadr has proven surprisingly tenacious, and U.S. military actions against Sadr supporters in the Shiite slums of Baghdad have also provoked widespread outrage in Iraq's majority ethnic community. The two-front insurrection and the tough response by the U.S. has even had an ironic nation-building effect, as the plight of the besieged city has become an anti-American rallying point across Iraq's traditional Sunni-Shiite divide. Thousands of impoverished Shiites in Baghdad's Sadr...