Word: samarra
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...They think all of them are militia," said Thabit, the commander personally appointed by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to clean up Samarra in the wake of a second bombing of the Shi'ite Askariya mosque June 13. Immediately after the bombing, Maliki ordered roughly 900 national police to Samarra, where the local police force had collapsed. And more are supposed to be coming. As many as 1,500 new national police could be inside the city in the next few weeks. So far, they have not been well received by the people of Samarra. "To be honest, they...
...know what makes someone do that," said Capt. Buddy Ferris, the commander of the small U.S. outpost in Samarra. "Hatred...
...Ferris, whose compound adjoins the police headquarters. The forces from Baghdad were difficult to control, Thabit said. They had weak officers and undisciplined rank-and-file men. And Thabit feared that the incident would only worsen the image problem already troubling the predominantly Shi'ite national police in Samarra, an overwhelmingly Sunni city where the outsiders are widely suspected of ties to the Mahdi Army of militant Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al Sadr...
...Samarra, a flashpoint of sectarian and insurgent violence in years past, is dangerously close to erupting again. Insurgent violence driven by Sunni extremists is on the rise in the city. In the past two months, insurgent attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces in Samarra have nearly doubled, U.S. commanders say, rising to an average of roughly two per day. And U.S. troops who patrol the city say insurgents are operating in greater numbers than in months past...
...Previously fighters would move through the streets of Samarra in twos and threes. These days groups as large as a dozen or more gather to stage attacks, sometimes driving pickup gun-trucks. U.S. commanders fear that the arrival of the security forces from Baghdad could lead to even more violence in the city, as sectarianism takes root alongside increasing insurgent activity. The weeks ahead could be pivotal. On June 16, Sadr urged Shi'ites to join an annual Shi'ite pilgrimage to Samarra the first week of July. Since then rumors that Sadr himself may appear in Samarra have circulated...