Word: ites
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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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...
...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...
...Mindful of Sunni concerns and the danger of sectarian warfare, the U.S. has begun to act against Shi'ite militias, particularly those accused of abuses. But the Shi'ite leaders see the militias as their best defense against the Sunni insurgents, and are not in any mood to disband them. In the wake of last weekend's controversial joint U.S.-Iraqi hostage rescue, Shi'ite politicians briefly broke off talks over a new government; they claimed the raid was a massacre of innocent civilians praying at a mosque, while the U.S. and Iraqi commanders said it wasn't a mosque...
...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...