Word: militiaization
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...trip is inspiring as equal measures of hope and suspicion. The French president kicked off his three-nation swing through the Great Lakes region in Kinshasa, where he praised President Joseph Kabila for reaching agreement in January with leaders of neighboring Rwanda to launch joint military operations against militia groups fighting both regimes from strongholds in eastern Congo. The result, Sarkozy noted, has been an a halt to the massacres that have forced tens of thousands of civilians to flee the area. (See pictures of war and displacement in Congo...
...stake is the control of disputed territories. Kurds say they are reclaiming areas like the oil-rich city of Kirkuk that was theirs until Saddam Hussein forcibly removed them from it. Arabs say the land wasn't Kurdish to begin with. In the meantime, Kurdish peshmerga militia forces, which operate independently of Baghdad and answer to Kurdistan's regional government, have steadily pushed south of their United Nations-delineated border into contested zones...
...they were worried about - Sunni Nationalists, members of the former regime, officers in the Iraqi Army - also told me that they and the Peshmerga are unified. "We are one army," Col. Ali of east Mosul's 1st Brigade told me. "But," he added, in contradiction, "the Pesh is a militia...
...days after the meeting in Wana, I attended the transfer of control over the Sons of Iraq - which was definitely a militia - from the U.S. to the Government of Iraq. Many of the Sons of Iraq (SOI) were former Sunni fighters, drawn and brought into the fold after their alienation from the more radical elements of the insurgency. Their attending Major, Ibrahim Mohammed Abdullah, told me that "we are very happy that our good friends the Americans are leaving...
...bigger goal than pursuing Islamic extremism for its own sake. He has consistently sought alliances with other non-Islamist leaders. A former teacher, he helped found the ICU to try to restore law and order after one of his students was kidnapped by one of Somalia's marauding militia. And he has broken with al Shabaab, formerly the militant wing of the ICU and the main Islamist force in Somalia. That last prompted more extreme ICU leaders, such as Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, to denounce him - a condemnation seemingly endorsed by bin Laden's on Thursday. (See pictures...