Word: najaf
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...Sadr as the one visible face of opposition to American efforts in Iraq. A Pentagon report released in December described the Mahdi Army as the main threat to stability in Iraq. And the U.S. military upped the stakes with Sadr during a recent raid against the Mahdi Army in Najaf, where U.S. forces killed a senior Sadr aide, Sahib al-Amiri, in the same Shi'ite holy city where the cleric lives. But Sadr's forces continue to show their strength throughout Baghdad even so, driving the daily rhythm of sectarian violence in the city with orchestrated attacks against Sunnis...
...made a study of the Mahdi Army over the past several years. Shortly after the U.S. invasion, Peterson was a commander in a tank company that oversaw Sadr City, the Shi'ite slum on the east side of Baghdad the Mahdi Army calls home. Later Peterson spent time in Najaf, where U.S. forces and the Mahdi Army clashed openly in 2004 in battles many on both sides see as unfinished. Peterson says the Mahdi Army, as an organization, has grown more sophisticated politically and tactically over the years, morphing from a band of thugs led by a reckless young cleric...
...Assad's regime in Damascus were not friendly, despite the political genetics that linked their ruling parties. But he was also an enemy of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Iranian cleric who had fled the Shah's persecution and sought refuge in Iraq's holy Shi'a city of Najaf in 1965. Saddam did not make it a comfortable stay and Khomeini moved on to exile in Europe. When the Ayatollah became the supreme leader of Iran's Islamic revolutionary government in 1979, a clash was inevitable. In 1980, Saddam ordered the invasion of a southern province of Iran, sparking...
...Sadr City was a cauldron from August through October ['04]. The problem was pushed to the side because everything was building toward the operation [against Sunni insurgents] in Fallujah and the fight [against the Mahdi Army] in Najaf. Sadr City was constant problem at that time, but everyone was looking at the big fight in Fallujah...
...think the end of the fighting in Najaf was in some ways the impetus for many of the problems we're having today. That's when al-Sadr decided to join the political process. But that's also when the rogue militias really got started, because [some of al-Sadr's supporters] said, "No, we're not going to do that...