Word: mahdi
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Iraqis digested the news of their government's major military offensive against the Mahdi Army in Basra, there were mixed reactions. There was anger and resentment among poor, long-oppressed Shi'ites, like the 2 million residents of Baghdad's massive Sadr City slum, for whom the black-clad Mahdi militia are heroes providing protection from Sunni terrorists and civic services like medical clinics and free schools. Their leader, Moqtada al-Sadr, has called for nationwide protests, and his supporters have clashed with Iraqi and American forces in several cities. Security forces are bracing for massive protests in Sadr City...
Outside the Shi'ite underclass, however, there is little sympathy for Sadr and his cohorts. Most Iraqis wonder why it has taken so long for the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to take on the Mahdi Army. Inevitably, many are asking whether Maliki will go whole hog, pursuing the Mahdi Army until it is completely destroyed. Failure to do so could cost Maliki his political life, and leave Iraq to reckon with a wounded, more dangerous animal. On Wednesday, he gave the militias in Basra 72 hours to surrender their weapons...
...last serious attempt to defeat Sadr's fighters was in the summer of 2004, when Iyad Allawi, at the time the interim Prime Minister, authorized U.S. forces to attack the Mahdi Army in Baghdad and the holy city of Najaf. Then a poorly armed and ill-trained band, Sadr's men were easily routed, but Allawi didn't have the stomach to deliver the coup de grace: he allowed Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the senior Shi'ite cleric, to broker a peace that allowed Sadr to keep his fighters and, more importantly, his freedom...
...political force in Iraq's parliament, controlling the second-largest bloc of MPs in the Shi'ite alliance that brought Maliki to power. And his militia regrouped, acquiring arms, training and a modicum of discipline with help from Iran and Lebanon's Hizballah. By the end of 2005, the Mahdi Army had grown into a formidable force. Allawi's political fortunes, meanwhile, had faded. Religious Shi'ites never forgave him for attacking the militias, and secular Iraqis accused him of leaving the job unfinished; in two general elections, he was barely able to muster 14% of the vote...
...house and retake the reins of his splintering movement. However, Sadr's devoted rank and file seem to be itching for a fight now as the Iraqi government and their American backers take sides with rival factions and continue to crack down on Sadr's Jaish al Mahdi, or JAM. "Sadr has had an interest in making sure everyone knows he's still around," Nasr said. "He's not going to go down without a fight...