Word: mehdi
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...Radicals The Players: Although there are a number of smaller players at the radical end of the Shi'ite political spectrum, the key radical leader is Moqtada Sadr, whose support base in the Shi'ite urban slums has been organized in the Mehdi militia, which has been skirmishing with Coalition troops since the U.S. first tried to arrest Sadr in April on murder charges. While Moqtada lacks the clerical status to compete with Sistani in the religious sphere, he is first and foremost a politician - while purporting to accept Sistani's leadership in the spiritual sphere, Moqtada is plainly competing...
...Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and beleaguered police stations have suddenly received shipments of new weapons and vehicles. Last week, Petraeus dispatched thousands of rounds of ammunition and hundreds of bullet-proof jackets to the Najaf police station - whose officers recently fled in terror from the Shiite militia of the Mehdi Army. With only 287 American police advisors in Iraq, the training for the country's critical new force is still patchy. That will finally catch up, says Petraeus. Meanwhile, gleaming new weapons and ceramic-plated vests will boost the officers' morale. This time around, Petraeus is also using a cherished...
...still remain high-profile, relatively soft target in most parts of the country. And although a deal has been brokered with a number of political parties to dissolve their militia and integrate them into the new military, Petraeus has hit the wall with the fiercest militia of all: the Mehdi Army of the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr. "The truth is, I think the Iraqi political leaders are going to have to determine the way ahead on that one," he says...
...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...
...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...