Word: qaeda
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...when a suicide bomber targeted a Shi'ite neighborhood in Baghdad. The tactics and the targets are both hallmarks of the Sunni insurgency. The American troop surge and the defection of some insurgent groups to the American side has put tremendous pressure on radical religious insurgent groups like al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). American commanders still call AQI the biggest threat to Iraqi security. Just as their nemeses in the Shi'ite militias seem to have weathered the storm of the American troop surge, the Sunni insurgency has proven resilient as well. With reporting by Bobby Ghosh/Baghdad
...presence. That would involve draining the concentration of surge troops around Baghdad and the Sunni triangle. It might even require more troop extensions or additional deployments to hold ground and maintain modest gains. Moving against the Shi'ite strongholds could then open opportunities for the Sunni fighters of al-Qaeda to strike Iraqi and U.S. targets in the Sunni triangle as the American heat turns south...
Sadr's ceasefire did allow U.S. forces to concentrate on hunting al-Qaeda in Baghdad, Mosul and Diyala without having an open front in the south. But it also allowed the cleric to rearm, clean his own house and retake the reins of his splintering movement. However, Sadr's devoted rank and file seem to be itching for a fight now as the Iraqi government and their American backers take sides with rival factions and continue to crack down on Sadr's Jaish al Mahdi, or JAM. "Sadr has had an interest in making sure everyone knows he's still...
...into the White House at the beginning of next year. For McCain, it was a chance to burnish his foreign affairs credentials, not least after tarnishing them at a press conference in Jordan two days earlier where he suggested that Shi'ite Iran was giving succor to Sunni al-Qaeda...
...that occasion the independent Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, traveling with McCain as part of a congressional delegation, was quick to intervene. "I'm sorry; the Iranians are training the extremists, not al-Qaeda," said McCain, after Lieberman whispered a correction. In Downing Street, Lieberman also flanked the veteran Senator, along with another member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina. Lieberman and Graham said little - and what they did say was in praise of their "plain-speaking" companion McCain - but they enunciated their few words clearly. McCain's voice, by contrast, proved...