Word: iraqi
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...loyal Mahdi Army fighter since the Shi'ite militia was established in 2003, Abbas is now wanted by the Iraqi government. But his story echoes those of many of Iraq's young fighters; it's one not of cold-blooded murderers but of avengers. "Al-Qaeda killed my brother. They kidnapped him from a street near his home in 2006. They wrapped his head in plastic until he suffocated to death," he says. "He was 23, and his wife was five months pregnant. Those people [who killed him] were his neighbors - his friends." (Abbas later caught and killed them...
...Abbas hasn't been killing any fellow Iraqis lately - or even Americans, his group's primary target. In fact, the vast militia of radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has been relatively well-behaved since al-Sadr called on his followers to stand down and allow Iraqi government forces to enter Sadr City peacefully in May. Some U.S. and Iraqi military commanders in Baghdad say al-Sadr's call for his men to remain peaceful in order to prevent "more bloodshed" served a tactical purpose, as he began to see a losing battle in the face of an empowered...
...movement. He blasted the American occupiers and the security deal being negotiated between the U.S. and al-Maliki's government. Worshippers laughed when asked, rhetorically, who controls the neighborhood, which is home to some 3 million of Baghdad's poor. "This area is controlled by the Sadrist movement. The Iraqi army only watches over Friday noon prayer - no more and no less," says worshipper Ali Kate'a, 31, as soldiers with rifles peered at the crowd from nearby rooftops. Says Abbas: "Of course they're nervous. They're not comfortable here...
Indeed, Kate'a may be right, or the Iraqi army's resources were too focused on the sermon and subsequent political demonstration to pay much mind to the rest of the neighborhood. But police and army checkpoints become noticeably fewer and farther between as one moves from the outskirts to the center of Sadr City. And in the heart of the slum, Mahdi Army fighters in yellow shirts operate checkpoints alongside Iraqi soldiers. "But it's not cooperation," laughs Mohanid, a Mahdi Army fighter. Most of the Iraqi soldiers have their faces covered to conceal their identities. At another intersection...
...Look how you got in here today, as a foreign journalist. Did you get permission from the Iraqi National Guard?" Abbas asks. "No. If anything, that's evidence they don't control this place." As he speaks, a car riddled with bullet holes, carrying four young men, pulls up next to him at a street corner. Above it, a billboard on the median depicts four young martyrs - all killed fighting the Americans, according to Mohanid. One holds a gun and is draped in ammunition, and like most other martyr billboards around the neighborhood, al-Sadr's picture floats next...