Word: sectarian
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...impatient again-we rushed to war, without sufficient preparation and sufficient allies. Today we face a very difficult situation in Iraq. The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is riddled with Islamic radicals. This week elements of the Iraqi army were attacked and defeated in Diwaniyah by a sectarian militia led by the radical Shi'ite Muqtada al-Sadr. This is the same al-Sadr who attacked U.S. forces in 2004, the same al-Sadr who controls 30 seats in the Iraqi parliament-and who is the linchpin of al-Maliki's governing coalition. I say this to Prime...
Saudi diplomats say the fence is intended to stop weapons and drug smuggling and illegal immigration. But they admit they fear that Iraq's sectarian fighting and jihadi militancy could spill south. "We're worried about the war in Iraq coming into Saudi Arabia and spreading into the whole region," says Nail al-Jubeir, a spokesman for the Saudi embassy in Washington. "Having some of these guys heading toward the Saudi border is something we want to make sure doesn't happen...
...willingness to bide their time during major US operations only to resurface when the American troop presence inevitably declines. So the real (and more difficult) question is not what the operation accomplishes in the short-term, but whether there is any genuine hope of stemming insurgent violence and sectarian strife in the long-term...
...Babikir emphatically declared that no one with sectarian loyalties had a place in the Iraqi armed forces. Yet beyond the high walls and earthen barriers that make Iraqi officers and politicians prisoners in their own country, many militiamen operate - sometimes openly - within the Iraqi security forces. And in neighborhoods like Sadr City militias, and not the government, command the support of the people...
...poorly trained and equipped but is also thoroughly infiltrated by militiamen more loyal to their Shi'ite religious leaders than to the Interior Ministry that pays their salaries. U.S. officials concede that several of the national police brigades that operate in Baghdad are led by officers of criminal or sectarian tendencies...