Word: iraqi
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...Brown delivered his promised announcement on Iraqi troop levels on Oct. 8, the day MPs finally returned to work after a long recess. The green benches of the Commons, often sparsely populated, were crammed, with well-upholstered MPs spilling into each others laps and those too slow to claim their seats forced to stand to listen to Brown's plans. "Let me affirm," Brown told them, "as I told [Iraqi] Prime Minister Maliki last week, and as I have agreed with President Bush and our other allies, we will meet our obligations, honor our commitments and discharge our duties...
...fall of 2005, U.S. troops handed bases in Karbala and Najaf to Iraqi military units. As of late 2006, the only U.S. soldiers in Karbala were a small team of Army trainers and civil affairs officers working with local officials and area police. That ended in January, however, when an attack by unknown gunmen left five U.S. soldiers dead. Since then, all the population centers in southern Iraq have become virtual blind spots for U.S. forces struggling to keep tabs on the weapons and fighters thought to be moving through the area. The military's provincial reconstruction teams carry...
...recent months, U.S. military officials overseeing southern Iraq have gotten sketchy information indicating that Iranian operatives may be entering Iraq to train Iraqi guerrillas at sites in and around Karbala and Najaf. American commanders in Iraq have long asserted that Iran operates guerrilla training facilities for Iraqi militants near Tehran. Indeed, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, says the Iranian ambassador in Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, is in reality a member of the Revolutionary Guards. Increasingly, U.S. soldiers are wondering if handlers from Iran's elite security forces have begun schooling and organizing fighters in the very...
Outwardly, the main cities in the south are in the hands of Iraqi authorities answering to the central government in Baghdad. In reality, Karbala, Najaf, Basra and the provinces they sit in are now a struggling ground between the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade, a rival Shi'ite militia also though to have links to Iran. American forces remained on the sidelines as the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade waged bloody campaigns against one another across southern Iraq this summer. On August 28, gunmen from the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade battled in the streets of Karbala...
Last weekend Sadr and the leader of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, announced a truce. In a statement aired with much publicity, the two leaders pledged to cease violence. Whether the pact holds remains to be seen, especially in Basra. Tensions between the two factions there have lately been especially high following the British pullout to the airport outside the city. Regardless, U.S. forces are unlikely to play a meaningful role in shaping the outcome. With no evident plans to reenter southern areas, the U.S.-led coalition leaves the fate of some of Iraq's most...