Word: ites
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...forces. When he appeared, they made their move. Seeing a pistol raised, the informant had turned to run, but too late. Three shots left him dead, blood flowing from wounds in his chest as the gunmen disappeared into the web of narrow streets that form the Shi'ite warren known as Washash...
...more than a million and with the police often unwilling or unable to even register such cases, officials say kidnapping has become an increasingly lucrative business. It helps the kidnappers that their criminal activity is often confused with the routine hostage taking by both sides in the Shi'ite-Sunni civil war. "Kidnapping for ransom is an industry," says Dan O'Shea, former coordinator of the U.S. embassy's Hostage Working Group. "It is governed by the profit motive, not religion or race or politics...
...Waddah overheard the guards talking about the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, one of the holiest sites for Shi'ites. They also spoke of the wave of sectarian violence that followed, with Shi'ite mobs wreaking vengeance on Sunnis. "It sounded like Sunnis were being slaughtered in the streets of Baghdad," Waddah says. "I was worried about my family. They were new to the city and had no influential relatives who could protect them." While waiting to use the toilet over the next few days, the captives whispered rumors of how their Sunni kidnappers were taking revenge...
...older men, heads of important families that had lived there a long time and could be tapped for local knowledge and advice. Their first piece of advice: Stay away from the local police. The police in the neighborhood were known to be members of the Mahdi Army, the Shi'ite militia often blamed for the kidnapping and murder of Sunnis in Baghdad. "One of the sheiks--and he was a Shi'ite--said the police may themselves have been involved in taking Waddah," Haseeba says. "And even if they weren't, they would not help a Sunni family. They would...
...that Iran is being unhelpful or is somehow helping the Sunni insurgency has no basis in reality. Tehran does not want Iraq to break up: They're as worried as Turkey is about the Kurds becoming independent. They want a united Iraq, a democratic Iraq in which the Shi'ites' majority makes itself felt. They obviously want their preferred Shi'ite leaders, such as Maliki and Hakim, to be in power, rather than, for example, a former Baathist Shi'ite such as Iyad Allawi [the former prime minister installed by the U.S.], or Moqtada Sadr, who is viewed by Iran...