Word: ite
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...been linked to some of the worst attacks in Iraq, homegrown Iraqi insurgents have shown themselves perfectly capable of building and deploying the improvised explosives that continue to bedevil and kill fellow citizens and U.S. troops. The sectarian violence al-Zarqawi helped spark with brutal attacks on Shi'ite "infidels" has taken root in the lawless country, with illegal militias and death squads murdering thousands of Iraqis in the past six months...
...feuding parties, al-Maliki comes to the job with considerable liabilities. For one, he lacks a public profile. Most Iraqis had not heard of him when he was named a candidate for al-Jaafari's job. More damaging is the fact that his party is allied with powerful Shi'ite groups that control the very militias he says he wants to crush. Criticizing U.S. troops will help him gain some street cred--if Iraqis believe he is serious. In the 10 weeks since the Haditha incident was made public, he showed little interest in the alleged massacre--until his outburst...
...real test of his resolve will come in the Shi'ite heartland city of Basra. Before he spoke out on Haditha, the Prime Minister's anger was directed at the city's warring Shi'ite gangs. Promising to use "an iron fist" against them, al-Maliki declared a state of emergency in the city. But it will take more than rhetoric to bring the gangs to heel. They too are connected to Shi'ite parties and militias, and the local security forces that are expected to enforce the emergency are infiltrated by partisans...
...miles from the Iraqi capital in an old flatbed truck. Sheathed in powder-blue body bags are the remains of 72 men, many of them bearing signs of terrible torture--holes in the skull made by power drills, mutilated genitals, burns. They are the signature of the shadowy Shi'ite groups that have been kidnapping and murdering hundreds of men and boys, most of them Sunnis, in a campaign that has terrorized Baghdad's neighborhoods...
Certainly in recent months, most of the violence has been Iraqi-on-Iraqi, with civilians being killed by Shi'ite death squads or Sunni insurgents and jihadis. U.S. forces often find themselves trying to prevent Iraqis from killing one another. On the same day that Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced that the government would launch an investigation into the 24 Haditha killings and called U.S. attacks against Iraqi civilians "a regular occurrence," at least 18 Iraqis died at the hands of their countrymen. The rate of sectarian killings has escalated sharply since the Feb. 22 bombing...