Word: samarra
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...fierce resistance to their presence in southern Iraq. But Sistani's repeated appeals for peace lost their weight as sectarian violence rose in Iraq, with Sadr leading the Mahdi Army militia in an inexorable year-long quest for Shi'ite revenge following the bombing of a revered shrine in Samarra in early 2006. As a result, Sadr, a mere cleric, towered as the most powerful Shi'ite figure in Iraq, eclipsing the more senior Sistani's prestigious status as ayatollah. Sistani became a voice in the wings on Iraq's political stage as the country's armed factions, including...
...model approach for the rest of Iraq. But Petraeus' successes largely disappeared soon after the 101st Airborne left the city in early 2004; Mosul's U.S.-trained police force collapsed, and insurgents drifted in and out of the city as they staged fights in other places, such as Ramadi, Samarra, Baqubah and Baghdad. Now the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Petraeus has spent the past year battling the insurgency in those areas, leading many militants to gather in Mosul again. And so troops like Sergeant John Fleenor, who was seriously wounded by a roadside bomb outside Mosul during his first...
That means tens of thousands of people like Hadi Shaker Hamadi are left to fend for themselves in what remains one of the world biggest humanitarian crises. A Shi'ite, Hamadi was working as a farmhand in Samarra four years ago when he began getting threats from Sunni militants in the area. Several of his friends had already been murdered in sectarian violence, he said. So he decided to move his wife and seven children out. They headed to Baghdad, where they had no family who might help them. Arriving in the city, they looked around for areas where they...
...launched two uprisings against the U.S. occupation. He then outmaneuvered his Shi'ite rivals in the political process and became the kingmaker who installed Maliki as Prime Minister. His militia was instrumental in carrying out thousands of reprisal killings after the February 2006 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, bringing Iraq to the verge of all-out civil...
...These frustrations are at the heart of the drama in Redacted. The Iraqis are not guys in different uniforms, or women one might woo; they are walking frag bombs, more animal or mineral than human. And when the members of one squad stationed in at a checkpoint in Samarra see their sergeant blown up while sweeping a dump site (his severed arm lands in front of Salazar's camera), they gradually go a little nuts...