Word: militiaization
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...evidently thought they knew the answer as they presented him with a list of demands, starting with a complete withdrawal of coalition forces from Najaf and setting terms that would effectively leave Najaf's security in the hands of Shi'ite forces under clerical control. Iraqi officials insisted the militia had to be disbanded but offered to let the movement join the political process. Al-Sadr did not even bother to attend the talks and told al-Jazeera television Saturday morning that the interim government must resign. After round-the-clock sessions, negotiations broke down Saturday evening. The talks, concluded...
...supplied with cash, but his death substantially reduced the cut received by al-Sadr's family. The Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani, who now holds the purse strings, is leery of giving much to al-Sadr. He is worried that al-Sadr will use the money to strengthen his militia and eventually take over as the next Grand Ayatullah. And Sistani's moderating influence was sorely missed last week: the senior Shi'ite cleric, 73, was in London to undergo angioplasty to open a blocked artery...
...origins, which had always set the al-Sadr line apart from the Iranian-born Shi'ite ayatullahs like Sistani. For radicals who want to see religious power in the hands of an ethnic Arab, al-Sadr has the right pedigree. Soon he was recruiting Shi'ites into an armed militia, the Mahdi Army, named for the messiah the Shi'ites await. Their stated aim was to drive foreign infidels from the holy cities. But al-Sadr also wanted to deter aggressive Sunni militants from leaving Shi'ites out in the cold and to counter the militias belonging to other...
Since then, al-Sadr has unleashed his militia on the U.S. military and Iraqi authorities when he has felt his claims to power were being ignored. He was angered again during the formation of the interim government last spring, when his demand for control of two ministries was rebuffed. After his newspaper was shut down in late March and the Coalition Provisional Authority revealed that a warrant had been issued for his arrest on murder charges, he sent his fighters into the streets of Najaf and Sadr City for two months. He eventually accepted a favorable truce in June that...
...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...