Word: ite
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...steps onto the streets of Baghdad's Shi'ite slum Sadr City, Saed Salah chambers a round into his pistol and shoves it into the back of his pants. A mid-ranking commander in the Mahdi Army, one of the most potent of the armed militias that have carved Baghdad into fiefdoms, Saed Salah has little to fear from the authorities. The whole neighborhood knows who he is. Motorists are aware that his fighters man the makeshift checkpoints that dot the neighborhood. Even though he has attacked U.S. troops countless times, no one will touch him. If the G.I.s could...
...Baghdad today, the militias are consolidating their power. A wave of sectarian killings since the Feb. 22 bombing of a holy Shi'ite shrine in Samarra has left hundreds--possibly thousands--of Shi'ites and Sunnis dead across the country, with more tortured and dismembered bodies turning up each day. The U.S. military is pinning its hopes on the Iraqi army and police to stand between the two sides and bring calm to a volatile situation, but in many parts of the capital, the U.S.-backed forces wield less authority than the forces taking their orders from men like Saed...
What no one denies is that the violence is becoming more brutal. U.S. officials say 25 bodies are found each day, although it's unclear how many are victims of sectarian killings. Unlike the terrorist attacks committed by al-Zarqawi, sectarian violence rarely bears a calling card. Shi'ite and Sunni militants interviewed by TIME say the worst killings are carried out by small, secretive death squads that the militants conveniently describe as rogue elements. Windows into the machinations of the death squads are rare, but U.S. and Iraqi forces have gained some intelligence on them. Some operations have been...
...past, al-Hashimi's group has claimed to speak for the Sunni insurgency and it still has ties to myriad groups, so his photo op with Carroll, 28, was somewhat predictable. Sunni groups are in a political knife-fight with the dominant Shi'ite groups, who have claimed that only they can provide security and, as a result, must retain control of the ministries of Interior and Defense. Al-Hashimi's public presentation of Carroll, who was kidnapped Jan. 7 in western Baghdad, seemed to be his way of saying that while Sunnis may have taken her, they were also...
...this climate, seeking Sistani's support for slapping down the Shi'ite coalition may be a risky gambit. The Ayatollah is leery of cooperating with the U.S. in the best of times, and if he perceives its objective is to limit the Shi'ites power won at the ballot box, Sistani may push back. It was, after all, pressure from the Ayatollah that originally forced the U.S. to abandon plans to handpick an Iraqi government and instead allow it to be chosen in a democratic election.? And if the Shi'ite political leaders are beginning to turn...