Word: ites
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...policemen, planned to grow to a force of 1,500, have also dealt effectively with sectarian tensions, says deputy police commander General Adnan al-Saadi. "When we first came here, al-Qaeda spread rumors that we were here to occupy the city, and that we are [Shi'ite] and were going to treat [the residents] badly. But then the people started to realize that we were dealing with them in a professional way," he said. Attacks in Samarra have dropped 95% over the past year, according to the U.S. military...
...Samarra's residents are quick to confirm that assessment, directly confronting the security forces with their frustration. On the market street near the shrine, civilians blame the Shi'ite-dominated government in Baghdad, and the police force it has sent to the city, for failing to provide jobs. "Unemployment is high. We apply for jobs with the police and they reject us," yelled one shopkeeper in a crowd of angry civilians - many of whom echoed his grievance. "How could you secure the town without the people of the town?" called another. "Each [commander] has his own people...
...water." But as residents reveal, it's a sizable obstacle. And given its centrality to both sectarian conflict and the prospects for reconciliation in Iraq, Samarra has a lot riding on its success. "What they should do is take away all these concrete barriers and let all the [Shi'ite] pilgrims come and go. To hell with sectarianism. They are welcome," said one shopkeeper - a reassuring voice in a cloud of tension on the street. The others, who had been yelling, nodded in agreement and for a moment, the mood quieted. But with few customers visiting his clothing store, which...
...over the past four months. "We don't think they will try to fight again, because they are too weak now," says an Interior Ministry official. "If they start, it will be their end." Says Ali Saadi, a medical professor in the Hay al-Banook district, where the Shi'ite militia has been popular and which lies adjacent to Sadr City: "The Mahdi Army was hit hard [by the military operation]. They are very weak these days, and a lot of them escaped to other areas...
Along one block, about 35 displaced Iraqi Shi'ite families from other neighborhoods occupy makeshift homes built with monetary help from the Sadr office. Most of them fled predominantly Sunni neighborhoods in and around Baghdad like al-Dora and Abu Ghraib when a rash of sectarian killings broke out in 2006. "This house was built by the Sadr office, not by the government," says Mohanid proudly...