Word: ites
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari announced Thursday that he would refer his nomination for a second term back to the United Iraqi Alliance, the dominant Shi'ite bloc in the new legislature. That opens the way for the Alliance to select a new candidate and break the deadlock created by the refusal of the Kurdish, Sunni and secular blocs, backed by the U.S., to accept a second Jaafari term...
...slowed rather than expedited his ouster. Washington's pressure, especially Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip to Baghdad, appeared to only have hardened Jaafari's resolve to remain in power. The decisive intervention may have been the reported signal from, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's leading Shi'ite spiritual authority. Sistani had refrained from intervening on the question of the nominee, although he had insisted that the Shi'ite bloc remain united at all costs. But a meeting Wednesday by UN representative Ashraf Qazi with the cleric, who refuses to talk to U.S. officials, may have prompted...
...lost control of swaths of Iraq, including parts of the capital, where insurgents roam with near impunity. While Allawi says 15 of 18 provinces are controlled by forces friendly to the new Iraqi government, that grip is shaky in Sunni areas. Even in the relatively subdued Shi'ite south, coalition forces and their Iraqi recruits face daily harassment from militants loyal to rebel cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. And the military believes that the al-Zarqawi-led insurgency is becoming more ruthless and resilient. "If we don't kill or capture them," says a U.S. general in Iraq, "they move...
...First, there's growing resentment among Shi'ite leaders at the perceived Western "meddling" in Iraq's politics, which may make the recent feting of Abdul Mahdi by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw during their Baghdad visit something of a kiss of death. More importantly, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, to whom the Shi'ite bloc turned for guidance on resolving the standoff, has insisted that it resolve the issue both speedily and unanimously. That demand will likely translate into a compromise candidate, and Abdul-Mahdi doesn't necessarily fit that bill: not only...
...Just as the Sunni politicians complain that their community is under attack from Shi'ite militias operating with a wink and a nod from Jaafari's government, so the main Shi'ite parties complain that their people are under daily terror attacks by Sunni insurgents who, they claim, are encouraged by the positions of the main Sunni political parties. Moreover, the Shi'ites claim that U.S. pressure on them to do more to accommodate the Sunnis further emboldens those insurgents. And the failure of Coalition and Iraqi security forces to protect Shi'ite communities from terror attacks leads many...