Word: najaf
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...Kufa. Now U.S. officials are claiming the firebrand anti-American cleric fled to Iran two or three weeks ago, along with several commanders of his dreaded Mahdi Army militia. But senior Sadr officials in Baghdad have dismissed those claims as propaganda, and maintain he is still in his Najaf headquarters...
...Sadr City, the giant Baghdad slum that is his stronghold, there is confusion about his whereabouts. A group of supporters said they met him in Najaf as recently as last week. ?He told us, 'I would rather die here than flee,'? said one resident who was part of that group. But other Sadr City residents say they have heard that Sadr is out of the country, exact location unknown. The main Shi'ite radio station broadcasting from Sadr City has studiously avoided the subject...
...cult led by a charismatic messiah figure who believed that it could bring about the end of the world. Indeed, the man who was hailed as the Mahdi - an Islamic figure who arrives with the cosmic apocalypse - wasn't just defending a military encampment in the holy city of Najaf from the Iraqi Army. He and his followers were protecting land that had been the cult's home for well over a decade...
...Iraq's first war with the United States, with the country's southern provinces devastated and the Baathist regime engaged in ferocious repression of Shi'a, Iraqis migrated throughout the area looking for work and safety. In this environment, migrants from the city of Hilla bought the land near Najaf and built a miniature community complete with bakery and infirmary. It also included a school where the sect taught its beliefs. The arrival of this new group raised few eyebrows. It's not unusual in rural areas of Iraq for extended families to buy property and then bring their more...
...they get the massive amounts of weapons, some quite sophisticated, that they used against the Iraqi military and American air power? One of the group's former neighbors in Najaf used to be the Al Quds Army - a militia Saddam had organized supposedly to liberate Jerusalem from the Israelis. In the aftermath of the American invasion of 2003 the al Quds Army abandoned its base. In a scene repeated across Iraq in 2003, that Iraqi military installation was looted by the Army of Heaven, which helped itself to Kalashnikov rifles, grenade launchers and surface-to-air missiles. During the battle...