Word: muqtada
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...unruliness is being fueled by militant religious political groups, many of which oppose secular education and what they perceive as Western cultural influences. In March, extremist Shi'ite followers of the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr beat up several hundred engineering students in the southern city of Basra. Their offense: attending a picnic at which both sexes were present. Female students have been harassed for "inappropriate" clothing; a majority now wear the hijab, or head scarf, to school-a sharp contrast to the prewar period when Islamic dress was rarely seen on campus. "We see it as our duty...
...majority, the U.I.A. includes the country's strongest Shi'ite parties, among them the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (S.C.I.R.I.) and the Dawa Party, which have close links to Iran. It also includes such wild cards as former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi as well as representatives of Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shi'ite leader whose militias were fighting pitched battles with U.S. troops less than a year...
This case is not the only shooting in Iraq under U.S. investigation. Several soldiers have been charged in connection with the death of an injured teenager in Baghdad last August. An Army captain is accused of murder for finishing off the wounded driver of an aide to militant leader Muqtada al-Sadr. One of his men has called it a mercy killing...
Sistani proved his authority in August, when Najaf had sunk into chaos. As the fighting began, he abruptly quit the city to seek medical treatment abroad. The rumors started: Sistani was dying; Sistani was afraid; Sistani was losing influence to Muqtada al-Sadr, the brash young cleric whose militiamen were battling U.S. troops to a standstill. But on Aug. 26, as the Americans were on the verge of assaulting one of Iraq's most sacred Shi'ite shrines, Sistani showed he was still the Man. Straight from medical treatment for a heart condition in London, he was driven into Najaf...
...School for Insurgency "The Lessons of Najaf" [Aug. 30] described the flip-flops of the rebellious cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army. Slowly but surely, Iraq is becoming a Shi'ite theocracy like that of Iran. There is absolutely nothing the U.S. can do about it. That change is due in part to the ever growing influence of Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani, to whom the Iraqi government turned in order to broker an end to the rebellion in Najaf. Isn't that ironic, since it was Iran and not Iraq that sheltered al-Qaeda operatives...