Word: sheiking
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Sean MacFarland, the commander of U.S. forces in Ramadi, knows another powerful man when he sees one. MacFarland understood immediately the sway Sheik Abdul Sittar holds in Ramadi when he met the tribal leader for the first time in August. "The walls were just lined with guys in the sheik robes," MacFarland says, describing the scene at Sittar's compound when he arrived for a formal meeting with the sheik shortly after assuming command in the area. Among Sittar's guests that day were local police officials who often fail to turn up for meetings called by the governor...
...help with the fight since they arrived in the summer as Ramadi became an urban battleground. Seemingly from nowhere Sittar, the leader of the Albu Risha tribe, volunteered himself - and the thousands of followers loyal to him. Shortly before MacFarland met Sittar, a tribal alliance led by the sheik had come together and issued a manifesto denouncing al-Qaeda in Iraq and pledging support to American forces. MacFarland had heard about Sittar and his movement, which the sheiks call the "Awakening." And after a few meetings with Sittar, MacFarland felt he had a friend he could trust...
...estimated 500 recruits joined the revamped police training program for Ramadi in November, bringing the number of overall new volunteers to around 1,500. Compare that figure to enrollment in May, when roughly 40 men signed on to a police force then numbering only about 150 officers in Ramadi. "Sheik Sittar has delivered on every single thing he has promised me," says MacFarland. "He's a leader...
Whether Hizballah succeeds depends on how long it can capitalize on the p.r. boost it gained from waging war with Israel. Among Lebanon's downtrodden Shi'ites, Hizballah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah now enjoys mythical status. The many faces of Nasrallah appear everywhere. At times he is portrayed as a jolly preacher, a wise scholar or a glowering warrior with his turban like a black storm cloud overhead. When a starstruck woman requested the abaya, or robe, that he wore during the war, Nasrallah obliged, and since then TV crews have been following the woman across Lebanon as she displays...
Australia's most senior Islamic cleric, Sheik Taj Al-Din Hilali, was justly slapped down by the community after he described women who did not wear the hijab (headdress) as "uncovered meat." In a Ramadan sermon in September, the mufti also told his flock that women, by the way they dress and act, were to blame for sexual assault. When the comments were reported in late October by the Australian newspaper, the nation's leaders condemned Hilali. After he apologized, claiming his words were taken out of context, Hilali fell into the arms of his physicians. He rode...