Word: najaf
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Rooftops in the old city are crowded with spectators; a tin roof buckles under their weight. Police have closed down the streets; Afghan National Army soldiers guard intersections - Ashura rituals have often attracted Shi'ism's most violent sectarian foes, as the violence that has in recent days wracked Najaf in Iraq, and Karachi and Peshawar in Pakistan, where 14 were killed on Sunday in a suicide bombing. But here in Kabul, the only blood spilled is that collecting at the feet of the participants. "We are all Muslim. It is not important whether we pray with open hands...
...Sadr seldom appears in Sadr City. He normally resides in the southern Shi'ite holy city of Najaf, where U.S. forces battled the Mahdi Army in 2004. U.S. troops stage occasional raids in the sector against Mahdi Army operatives, which the Pentagon now considers a greater threat to security than al-Qaeda. But al-Maliki has consistently stopped American forces from waging an all-out assault on the Mahdi Army or its leadership out of fear of alienating his political base. "The Iraqi leadership has prevented us from targeting some leaders," says a senior military official. "Our understanding is that...
...think Iran will be different. The formula for dealing with Iran, it will be different. But I do know that if Iraq emerges as a stable Shi'a-led, non-theocratic democracy, but that's a real problem for Iran. It's a real problem for its legitimacy, with Najaf being in Iraq and it's a real problem for its narrative about what it is because one thing that is common between the two is the Iranians have a narrative about Iran's role in Islam...
...thinly veiled threat to the Mahdi Army. But Maliki has issued similar statements before without offering any action. It's been difficult to tell whether Maliki lacks the will or simply the ability to launch military attacks against Sadr's militia, which clashed openly with U.S. forces in Najaf...
...jihadist groups. Some of the Shi'ite anger that fuels the current sectarian war can be traced to the mass murder of Shi'ites that the dictator ordered in the 1990s. Saddam's malevolence indirectly begat al-Sadr, who was destined to a quiet life in the seminary of Najaf until Saddam in 1999 ordered the murder of his father and two older brothers, thrusting Muqtada into the limelight. But Iraq's sectarian hatreds are rooted in religious, social and economic resentments stretching back over 1,000 years. Like rulers before him, Saddam exploited the Shi'ite-Sunni divide...