Word: clerics
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...Sunni leaders appeared to be unraveling, Thursday, as insurgents failed to meet the U.S. demand that they surrender their heavy weapons. But a renewed outbreak of fighting there would likely further polarize Iraqi public opinion against the Coalition. In the Shiite holy city of Najaf, meanwhile, the wanted rebel cleric Moqtada Sadr appeared to be mimicking the Fallujah insurgents' taunting of the U.S. military, breaking off negotiations in the expectation that the Coalition would pay a heavy political price for going into the city with guns blazing...
...decision," said Brigadier General Hertling, whose units lost eight men in the initial fire fight with al-Sadr's men last week. An aide to an Iraqi Governing Council member called the timing of the U.S. move "sheer incompetence." But now that U.S. officials have provoked the upstart cleric into battle, they face this trickiest of challenges: to quash his rebellion without making things worse. --Reported by Brian Bennett, Vivienne Walt and Hassan Fattah Meitham Jasim/Baghdad; Scott MacLeod/Cairo; and Massimo Calabresi and Mark Thompson/Washington
...Bush Administration has long suspected Iran of trying to stir up opposition to U.S. forces in Iraq. Since the beginning of the occupation, the U.S. has monitored the moves of Iran's most powerful Shi'ite clerics, who supported the ouster of one longtime enemy, Saddam Hussein, but now bristle at the presence of another one, the U.S., on their doorstep. Muqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American Iraqi cleric who launched the Shi'ite revolt, has ties to some conservative Iranian clerics. Current and former U.S. officials say Iran has also funneled money and weapons to other Shi'ite militias...
...stable, democratic Iraq. That means, above all, restoring the security situation. We can't hope to meet the June 30 deadline unless the country is relatively secure. This will require decisive removal of the groups that have taken over certain towns. It will require decisive defeat of the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and of anyone else willing to take up arms against the coalition. We must commit the armed forces necessary...
MUQTADA AL-SADR: A young militant cleric calls upon his followers to "terrorize your enemy...