Word: iraq
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Taliban is predominately based among Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group. Increasing Pashtun power in government would exacerbate ethnic tensions in the capital and in the relatively stable north, where Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara groups that helped Karzai into power are in the majority. Success in Iraq, moreover, was based on the presence of security forces numbering some 600,000 troops and police officers (Iraqi and foreign), whereas in Afghanistan, which is larger both in land mass and population, there are only 160,000 troops. The moderate Sunni insurgents in Iraq could be confident that they would be protected...
Tuesday's strike was the second major attack in a week, raising fears of a return to Iraq's bad old days when such deadly blasts were daily occurrences. On Sunday, a suicide bomber wearing an explosives belt and riding an explosives-laden motorcycle targeted recruits outside Baghdad's Police Academy, leaving some 28 dead. The spike in violence comes as the U.S. prepares to reduce its troop numbers here from 140,000 to 128,000 by September. It also follows Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's attempt to cobble together a semblance of pan-Iraqi political solidarity...
...Sheikaly, a government spokesman for the Baghdad Security Plan, said the renewed violence was in response to al-Maliki's reconciliation efforts as well as U.S. President Barack Obama's plan to withdraw all combat troops by next year. "It appears all these things are not welcomed by Iraq's enemies, and so they are disturbing the security situation," al-Sheikaly said. "But when such pockets of terrorism do something, we follow them and we capture them. In the next few days, you'll hear that we've captured the people who have done these things...
...hand, and remnants of Saddam?s former secular Baathist regime on the other. The two sides were united by their common enemies: U.S. troops and the Iraqis who worked with the ?occupiers,? like al-Maliki, but little else. (See a who's who of combatants in Iraq...
Major General David Perkins, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, told a press conference in Baghdad on Sunday that al-Qaeda was increasingly desperate to maintain relevance in Iraq. The source close to the insurgency told TIME that al-Qaeda was regrouping and recalibrating its focus. "The politics of the attacks have changed," the source said. "They don't want to attack the Americans because they know they are leaving. They are targeting the Awakening councils and the tribes because they are working with the government," he said, referring to the mainly Sunni councils that turned against the insurgency...