Word: ites
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...other surge." Known as Concerned Local Citizens groups (CLCS), these militias serve as watch groups, police forces and eyes and ears for U.S. forces all over Iraq. But while American commanders are delighted to have help, not all Iraqis are comfortable with the CLCS. Many in the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government worry that the citizens groups?which are mostly Sunni and in some cases are little better than street gangs?will eventually morph into antigovernment militias. Lately al-Qaeda has stepped up attacks on Sunnis who take up arms with the Americans...
...former Sunni insurgents have made common cause with the U.S., one of Iraq's largest Shi'ite factions has been eerily quiet. In late August, for reasons that are still a little mysterious, Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army to desist from attacking U.S. forces. U.S. officials believe al-Sadr's move was less about helping the U.S. than about purging unruly elements from his 60,000-man militia. Another interpretation is that al-Sadr is simply waiting out the surge and that his fighters will return to the fray when U.S. troops have withdrawn. Whatever the reason, Odierno...
...latter three groups are armed, organized and funded by the Shi'ite-dominated Ministry of Interior, while the CLCs have the backing of the Americans. Not present are the Kurdish Pesh Merga (numbering 1,200 in Baghdad), Shi'ite strongman Moqtada al-Sadr's Jaish al-Mahd (JAM to U.S. soldiers, the Mahdi Army to most others), al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Badr corps (the Shi'ite militia that rivals al-Sadr's) and the Iraqi Army. The list goes...
...When will Iraq get better?" asks Mohammad rhetorically. "Every 100 meters there is a checkpoint for a different group: Iraqi police, Pesh Merga, Badr corps. Most Iraqis have two ID's, one [so they can pass for Shi'ite] and one [so they can pass for Sunni]." The checkpoints serve at least one purpose, says Sheikh Ali, the Shi'ite CLC Godfather of Saha market: the guards burn the neighborhood's trash at night to keep warm. "The goats are starting to complain about that," he jokes...
...case of Sheikh al-Shuhaib, he and the village's other families - all Shi'ite Muslims - had been kicked out in November 2006 by al-Qaeda fighters, who commandeered the sheikh's house, using it as their headquarters until they were routed by American firepower this past August. Now, after filing a claim with the U.S., he has come back to retake his property and to rebuild. The sheikh is confident that he will get the help he needs from the U.S.: "I do trust [the Americans] helping me rebuilding my house and my village again, and they will...