Word: mahdi
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...cleric's demand, issued late Saturday night in Iraq, amounted to his toughest talk yet in the crisis, which began late last month when Iraqi forces attacked al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia in a bungled Basra operation. Fighting continued since then in Baghdad and areas of southern Iraq where the Mahdi Army has a strong presence. Officials in the Maliki government said Iraqi security forces swept into the section of Basra controlled by the Mahdi Army without resistance Saturday as U.S. and British bombs fell in the area in support of the operation...
Sadr's political power appears to be growing even as the crisis wears on. A new report by Refugees International says the Mahdi Army ranks are swelling with new recruits drawn from internally displaced people who've gotten aid from the militia. "Displaced men have joined armed groups," said the report, which put the number of internally displaced people in Iraq at 2.7 million. "As a result of the vacuum created by the failure of both the Iraqi government and the international community to act in a timely and adequate manner, non-state actors play a major role in providing...
...soldiers Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki fired for refusing to fight al-Sadr's militia be reinstated "after honoring them." On Sunday, Maliki's government announced the dismissal of more than 1,300 security personnel who deserted last month when fighting broke out between Iraqi government forces and the Mahdi Army in Basra. Sadr reacted swiftly to the news by issuing a statement from the Shi'ite holy city of Najaf Monday that said those who refused to take up arms against his militia were only doing their religious duty...
...demand, which came before another burst of Sunni insurgent violence north and west of Baghdad, is unlikely to be heeded by Maliki. Still, it underscored the political weight of Sadr's voice. Sadr's Mahdi Army has effectively stopped an advance by U.S. and Iraqi forces into its strongholds in Baghdad and Basra after weeks of fighting. On Monday Maj. Gen. Jeffery Hammond, the commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad, said American troops operating at the edge of Sadr City in support of Iraqi troops would not press deeper into the area. That means any decisive push into the heart...
...American and Iraqi officials had been casting around for some sort of political solution to end the violence since Sadr's forces fended off an assault by Iraqi government troops last month. Those clashes were sparked after a failed campaign by Iraqi security forces against the Mahdi Army in Basra. During the fighting in Basra an estimated 1,000 men from Iraqi security forces either refused to fight or outright switched sides and joined the Mahdi Army, leading the Iraqi government on Sunday to announce the dismissal of some 1,300 soldiers and policemen...