Word: ites
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...Iraqi politics. Last week, the Accountability and Justice Commission, the remnant of a de-Baathification committee set up by the Americans, banned 499 Iraqi politicians from running in the national parliamentary election on March 6. Not only does the move damage the fragile reconciliation process between Sunni and Shi'ite factions, but it also throws the country's democratic process into disarray just as a landmark election is scheduled to take place a few weeks from now. (See pictures of life inside a Baghdad prison...
Because several top Sunni leaders - including Saleh al-Mutlaq, head of a secular coalition that includes former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi - are among those now banned from running in the election, the move is being widely perceived by the country's Sunnis as an attempt by the Shi'ite-dominated government to limit the expected gains by Sunni parties in the coming contest. And it also appears that the targets of the commission are more than just Sunni politicians but also rivals of President Nouri al-Maliki and his supporters on the Accountability and Justice Commission (including its co-chair...
Pity poor Yemen. Three armed conflicts are being fought in the nation that hugs the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula: there is a separatist insurgency in the south and a fight between the mostly Sunni government forces and Shi'ite rebels in the north, while in the east, home of Osama bin Laden's ancestors, the local affiliate of his network is plotting to undermine the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh...
Pakistan's minority Shi'ite community was rocked by a suicide attack on a religious procession in Karachi during the holy festival of Ashura. The Dec. 28 bombing, which killed at least 40 people, was the third in a week to target Shi'ites. Sunni extremist groups were accused of orchestrating the attack, and government officials have asked Shi'ite clerics to delay upcoming processions for safety reasons. Critics of President Asif Ali Zardari pointed to the events as evidence of his inability to combat increasing sectarian violence in the country...
...Islam is a 1,400-year-old passion play of political succession: the hero is Hussain, grandson of the Prophet; the villain is Yazid, the usurper of the Caliphate; and each year on the holy day of Ashura, their bloody conflict is re-enacted as a Shi'ite cri de coeur. Iran, the pre-eminent Shi'ite nation, commemorated Ashura amid its own power struggle. Tens of thousands took to the streets, chanting, "We are the army of Imam Hussain ... supporters of Mir-Hossein." Hussain had become Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the declared loser in last June's presidential election...