Word: muqtada
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...scale back the U.S.'s combat operations and force Iraqi troops to take over the job of maintaining security. As it did in Fallujah in April, the U.S. last week chose to deal instead of fight, this time accepting a truce with the Shi'ite militia loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, 30. The U.S. Army's 1st Armored Division agreed to pull back from the holy city of Najaf in a deal pushed by Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani, the most respected Shi'ite leader in the country...
...Muqtada! Muqtada! Muqtada!" The chants of the faithful drown out the gunfire around the mosque in Kufa. Thousands have gathered to hear Muqtada al-Sadr, Iraq's best-known rebel cleric, lead Friday prayers. A fire fight is raging for control of a nearby bridge, between members of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and U.S. forces. There's another battle up the road in al-Sadr's hometown, Najaf. As the mosque broadcasts reports of glorious victories over U.S. tanks, the worshippers seem unmoved by the fighting. "The U.S. troops do this every Friday," says one of the faithful, Sheik...
...sense of itself has taken a stunning blow. We are still recovering from the last week of April, when the Abu Ghraib photos were revealed and the U.S. military chose not to fight the Islamic radicals in Fallujah (a retreat compounded by last week's decision not to pursue Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army). Taken together, those events represent a coherent pattern of behavior-that of a schoolyard bully, who tortures the weak and runs away from the strong. This is, sadly, the way Abu Ghraib and Fallujah are perceived by our enemies. I was traveling through the Middle...
...scramble to sort out two critical questions--Who will run the country after June 30? And will the U.S. be able to leave Iraq anytime soon?--is close to a sprint. While U.S. troops launched an all-out, high-risk offensive to destroy Shi'ite militia loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr last week, the U.N. envoy responsible for forming a new Iraqi government, Lakhdar Brahimi, huddled with aides and dignitaries in the Republican Palace in Baghdad to plot the shape of Iraq's political future. Bad as the past two months have been, U.S. officials believe that if the military...
...Thugs On The Block" [APRIL 19], on the insurgency of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Shi'ite militiamen: After years of diplomacy failed to bring Iraq into compliance with U.N. resolutions, the hard decision was made to employ military intervention. In international relations, humanitarian military intercession can be justified. The U.S. took a bold step in Iraq, even if it was also strongly driven by its national interests. It is unfair for European countries to condemn every U.S. action in the Middle East. Thugs like al-Sadr prove that people are ready to destroy their homeland for personal gain...