Word: karbala
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Sadr's men leave the shrine cities. But they're also calling on the U.S. to do the same, and have shied away from armed confrontations with the Sadrists. The rebel cleric clearly believes he can make the U.S. strategy work to his advantage because military actions in Karbala and Najaf deepens the hostility of ordinary Shiites towards the Coalition, potentially undermining the standing of Sistani and those Shiites working in the Governing Council, while burnishing Moqtada's own appeal. Sadr is clearly using his fight with the Americans as his campaign platform to eclipse rivals in the battle...
...month-long standoff with Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi militia, however, has thus far defied all efforts at a mediated solution. Fierce clashes provoked by Sadrist fire this week drew the Americans ever closer to fighting outside the sacred shrines in Najaf and Karbala. Sadr appears to be riding on the U.S. campaign against him as a means to eclipse his rivals in the battle for Shiite support. His tactics appear to involve goading the U.S. into increasingly risky actions around the holy sites, and then publicly lambasting Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani for failing to act on his warning...
...Sadr is playing a three-way game, using his confrontation with the Americans to challenge his political rivals in the Shiite community. Even as negotiations continue, his forces are clashing with U.S. troops at Karbala, Kufa and Baghdad. The U.S. objective may be to weaken the Mehdi militia and raise the pressure on Moqtada, but the firebrand cleric appears to be using that pressure to his own ends - particularly to challenge his more moderate rivals, chief among them Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. Sadr has long rejected what he sees as Sistani's quiescence toward the occupation, and he cleverly judged...
...south, U.S. forces reclaimed the city of Kut from the short-lived control of al-Sadr's militia. But Pentagon officials warned that the conflict against al-Sadr and his supporters might drag on: the Shi'ite festival of Arbaeen on Sunday attracted hundreds of thousands of worshippers to Karbala and Najaf, where al-Sadr was holed up. U.S. troops would tread carefully there until at least early this week, when the pilgrims would begin leaving...
...their position in the town--and, more important, their control over the money donated by visitors to its holy sites. Al-Sadr now controls the lockbox at the Imam Ali mosque, worth millions of dollars a year. Last October his militia attempted to seize shrines in another holy city, Karbala, but were turned back by Sistani...