Word: ites
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...summer, clearing Sunnis from the area house by house (see story). U.S. forces hope to halt the Mahdi Army's advance, which shows no signs of slowing. American soldiers are throwing up roadblocks around the front-line area in an effort to stop southward incursions by Shi'ite death squads using cars. Platoons patrol the area in Humvees and on foot as well trying to deter both sides from fighting. But the patrols can only cover so much ground, and gunfights often erupt along the streets, marking Ghazaliya's no-man's land...
...with an attack by the Mahdi Army. A bookish officer who grew up in northwest Indiana, Peterson has made a study of the Mahdi Army over the past several years. Shortly after the U.S. invasion, Peterson was a commander in a tank company that oversaw Sadr City, the Shi'ite slum on the east side of Baghdad the Mahdi Army calls home. Later Peterson spent time in Najaf, where U.S. forces and the Mahdi Army clashed openly in 2004 in battles many on both sides see as unfinished. Peterson says the Mahdi Army, as an organization, has grown more sophisticated...
...forces can do now to thwart the ongoing rise of Sadr's forces remains uncertain as the White House mulls its next move in Iraq. More than a few U.S. soldiers would welcome a chance to take the fight against the Mahdi Army into Sadr City, where Shi'ite death squads find safe harbor. Many troops feel the only way to deal with Sadr's army is to take it apart. But the Mahdi Army is only one part army anymore. The political wing of Sadr's ranks includes 30 parliamentarians and four ministry heads from the government of Iraqi...
...that Saddam's sentence be administered at a less fraught moment - and in a less rushed manner. But being the ones to kill Saddam was a political prize for at least a section of the current government - the ultimate gesture of vengeance on behalf of the long-suffering Shi'ite majority, clearly calculated to boost the political standing of those who administered it. And so, as the video makes clear, Saddam faced death to the sound of chants proclaiming Shi'ite victory and extolling the name of the anti-American radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr - not exactly the healing...
...follow a U.S. script in dispatching Saddam, because it hasn't been inclined to follow a U.S. script on the fundamental questions of national unity - reconciling with the Sunnis, making concessions to the insurgents to draw former Baathists back into the fold, and most importantly, reining in the Shi'ite death squads. Nor is this problem a unique failing of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki - who, in an interview in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday made clear that he no longer wants the job. The U.S. had no greater joy with his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari...