Word: shia
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...They?ll certainly be hoping the security situation improves. There was no let-up in rampant insurgent violence Wednesday, and a bomb that killed seven people and wounded a number of others outside one of Shia Islam's holiest shrines in Karbala may have been a reminder that some among the Sunni insurgents harbor a viciously sectarian agenda that sees naked violence against the Shiite majority as an integral part of destabilizing Iraq's transition. Whether they're attacking Shiite civilians or U.S. troops or Iraqi National Guardsmen, the insurgents have left little doubt that they're going...
...degradation of these tribes was completed during the Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein, after quelling a rebellion of the Ma’dan (who are Shia Muslims), ordered the construction of a large canal and several dams that in effect were forced to abandon their homes and their culture...
...mind when it expanded a fledgling parathletics foundation to include wounded veterans returning from the front. Hundreds of thousands of Iranian soldiers died in the eight-year war, and more than 400,000 were injured, many by land mines. The celebration of martyrdom, a tenet of Islam's Shia branch, provided the backbone for a revolutionary rhetoric that idealized sacrifice?an important propaganda tool for a young theocracy struggling to justify an ongoing war and a harsh Islamic regime. Veterans who had risked life and limb to defend their country were hailed as living martyrs. But for many, such...
...Indeed, the major problem facing the Coalition in response to the insurgencies is that there is no Iraqi leadership of significant standing among either the Sunni or the Shia speaking unambiguously in support of the Coalition's goals. Some on the Iraqi Governing Council have denounced Moqtada and his calls for violence. Others have focused their ire at Coalition responses. But the U.S. long ago recognized that the IGC has limited support among Iraqis. Far more important than the Coalition military effort eliminate the Mahdi militia will be the stance adopted by Grand Ayatollah Sistani. Even if Moqtada himself...
...Forget, for a moment, Wolfowitz's wildly optimistic predictions for Iraq; what concerns us here are the assumptions he derived from his reading of the Sunni-Shia distinction. In many ways, they're a mirror image of the thinking in Washington two decades ago, when Shiite radicalism centered in Iran was deemed the most threatening. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the U.S. cooperated with Saudi Arabia in recruiting and arming hundreds of Sunni Muslim radicals to wage jihad. One unintended consequence of that program, of course, is the international jihadist brigade known today as al-Qaeda. But the operating...