Word: sectarianism
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...Baghdad police, faced with scores of murders every day, rarely bother to investigate. Even though Al-Rawi insisted that his membership of the Association of Muslim Scholars had more to do with his faith than his politics, his killers may simply have seen him as a Sunni activist, the sectarian enemy...
...Maliki's concern for his Shi'ite political base - which includes Moqtada al-Sadr, whose sectarian militia, the Mahdi Army, is believed to be the target of the U.S. operation in Baghdad - drives his objections to U.S. plans. Without the backing of that base he becomes simply another Iraqi politician backed by Washington but rejected by his own electorate - like Washington's erstwhile "man in Iraq," former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Maliki agrees in principle that Shi'ite political militias must be disbanded or brought under government control. But he also believes this can't be done as long...
...reality, Maliki has no good options. The U.S. wants him to do more in pursuit of national reconciliation, tackling the sectarian militias that strike fear into Sunni communities and offering amnesty to Sunni insurgent fighters. But many Shi'ite leaders see the U.S. demands as signs that Washington has tilted in favor of the Sunnis. Mindful of Shi'ite objections, Maliki is moving slowly, and that is deepening the alienation of even those Sunnis closest to the political process. Tariq al-Hashimi, the Sunni Vice President of Iraq, for example, condemned Maliki's intervention to lift the security cordon around...
...Tigris. Until now, the militia's base in the capital has been Sadr City on the east bank of the river, a sprawling slum that houses some 2.5 million Shi'ites. The Mahdi Army's expansion across the river complicates the efforts of U.S. forces to quell sectarian violence...
...Monday morning that killed at least 26 Shi'ite day laborers and wounding at least 60 people will only escalate the tension. One reason Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has castigated the U.S. for recent raids against the Mahdi Army is the fact that in Shi'ite communities, sectarian militias are often seen as a necessary level of self-defense against insurgent terror. Monday's bombing will be seen by many in Sadr City as a reminder of why they need the Mahdi Army...