Word: itely
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...year since the Shi'ite group provoked a 34-day war with Israel that left more than a thousand dead and large parts of Lebanon in ruins, Hizballah is rearming. Interviews with Hizballah officials and fighters and other Lebanese close to the party show that the group's battle-hardened military wing is stockpiling weapons, digging positions and training new fighters - despite resolutions passed by the U.N. Security Council last summer calling for it to disband. What's more, the Shi'ite party appears to be preparing for battles on two fronts: against Israel and against Hizballah's sectarian rivals...
...Hizballah soon came under intense domestic and international pressure to disarm, but it has managed to replenish its arsenal with the aid of its patrons, Iran and Syria, according to Lebanese officials and Hizballah members. There is some evidence, too, that Hizballah may be sharing its skills with Shi'ite insurgents in Iraq. U.S. military officials have claimed that in March they arrested a senior Hizballah bomb expert who had been training Iran-backed cells in southern Iraq...
...each province is different in terms of its mix of tribalism and sectarianism. In predominately Shi'ite southern Iraq, tribal authority is weak these days. Militia leaders like Moqtada al-Sadr and religious figures such as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani hold sway over sheiks. Diyala province is largely Sunni, like Anbar and Salahuddin, but not nearly as homogenous as those two western areas. And Baghdad, despite ferocious sectarian cleansing campaigns on both sides, remains a stronghold for both camps...
...strategy has potential pitfalls that have kept military commanders like Owens and some policymakers leery. Sheik Sittar, the Sunni Chieftain, has vowed to work with the central government in Baghdad led by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite partisan. But so far no meaningful cooperation between the two has emerged. And some fear that today's tribal alliances will become tomorrow's Sunni militias, bands of experienced and well-equipped fighters ready to attack Iraq's Shi'ite factions in a clash that could leave the country in open civil...
...could work in Baghdad if the Americans empower them equally," said Edham Fayadh al-A'amiree, the leader of a large tribe in the Baghdad area with both Sunni and Shi'ite followers. But he offers a warning to U.S. strategists dabbling in tribal politics: "They should be very careful and think of what the future will be like after they...