Word: karbala
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...Mahdi militia regarded the new forces as a rival gang on its turf. Two weeks ago, government security men arrested one of al-Sadr's closest aides in nearby Karbala, and the truce unraveled from there. Al-Sadr's militiamen then accused U.S. Marines, who have recently taken over responsibility for policing Najaf, of breaking the cease-fire's rules by moving into parts of the city that were supposed to be off limits to them. U.S. officials put the blame on the militia: in the early hours of Aug. 5, Mahdi fighters assaulted a police station with such ferocity...
...mission that was turning into a mounting political disaster for Washington. Petraeus's brief visit had been billed as an "assessment" of the Iraqi forces. But its mission was far more serious. Weeks of all-out armed revolt in Fallujah and the Shiite southern cities of Najaf and Karbala had left hundreds dead, and made key towns virtual no-go areas for both U.S. soldiers and the fledgling Iraqi forces. Worse, time was running out. U.S. officials had made the June 30 date for transferring sovereign authority an inviolable deadline. The terms on which U.S. forces would operate...
...soldiers who heard about the millions of antiwar marchers in the streets wondered how they would be viewed when they came home. In the midst of the prison-abuse scandal, the concern emerges again. "Now we wonder what people back home think of us," a young officer in Karbala told the New York Times last week. "Will it be like Vietnam, where everyone who's fought there is labeled a baby killer?" If nothing else, Vietnam taught us the price of fighting wars whose original noble purpose itself becomes a casualty...
...past six weeks, Kufa and the two cities that house the holiest shrines of Shi'as, Najaf and Karbala, have been the center of al-Sadr's revolt. His militia claim to be protecting the shrines from U.S. forces that have besieged the cities. U.S. commanders insist al-Sadr is a small-time threat whose appeal is limited to a ragtag bunch of angry young men. But judging by the number and intensity of worshippers thronging the mosque in Kufa last Friday, the U.S. may be underestimating the rebel leader. In fact, the more the U.S. aims its guns...
...part of the problem. President Bush doesn't tell his audience the whole story when he notes, in reference to Sadr's militia, that "ordinary Iraqis have marched in protest against the militants." It is certainly true that the confrontations in the Shiite holy cities of Najaf and Karbala prompted thousands of Shiites to march demanding that Sadr's Mehdi army withdraw from those cities - but in most cases, those protesters were equally, if not more, insistent that the U.S. troops withdraw...