Word: mahdy
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They could hardly have picked a more provocative one than al-Askari. It is associated with three venerated Shi'ite imams, including the Mahdi, or Hidden Imam, who is believed to have disappeared in 878 into a tunnel directly under al-Askari. The two imams buried in the shrine were the Mahdi's father and grandfather. Most Shi'ites believe that the Mahdi will one day reappear as a messiah to bring justice to the world. That makes al-Askari one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest sites, exceeded in veneration only by the shrines of Najaf and Karbala. Even...
...authenticity of the allegations mattered less than their effect on a scared and sullen population. Omar Saad, 73, saw his Sunni mosque in the northern Baghdad district of al-Shaab being attacked twice on the same day by armed Shi'ite militias dressed in black--the uniform of the Mahdi Army. The mosque's guards fought off the attack until they ran out of ammunition. The militias then entered the premises and trashed it, torching everything inside. They returned in the evening with explosives and leveled the building. "Now there isn't a mosque anywhere near us, so we haven...
...battles, but emerged each time politically stronger than before. The areas around Kut, Karbalah and Najaf to the south of Baghdad have seen hit-and-run attacks on American forces, the most recent on Monday resulting in the destruction of a Humvee and the death of an American soldier. Mahdi Army forces loyal to Sadr are widely blamed for these attacks...
...Abdul-Mahdi succeeds Jafaari, don't expect any real change. He has switched directions so many times in his career, it's hard to know which way he's going. He has been a Communist, a Ba'athist and a liberal-secular democrat; these days, he represents the Shi'ite-fundamentalist Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which, like Jafaari's Dawa Party, is beholden to Tehran. Halfway through last year, Mahdi told TIME he was about to bolt from SCIRI and form his own party. He changed his mind-likely because he knows he has no grassroots...
...Allawi, Washington's idea of a secular alternative to Jafaari and Mahdi, is not exactly an inspiring figure, either. During his brief spell as Prime Minister last year, he showed little capacity for administration and no political vision beyond his own survival. He failed even to rally like-minded secular parties. Despite the liberal use of state resources during the election of campaign, he was soundly defeated last January; his vote base doesn't seem to have grown in the recent election, either...