Word: shied
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...least in the presence of the Reuters photographer did not beat him. 4) Two brigadier generals from Karbala's provincial police were in charge of the scene. 5) The weapon: a Toyota Mark sedan (costs $6,000 when new). Likely target: the nearby Imam Hussein Shrine, one of Shi'ite Islam's holiest sites...
...Although the Iranian officials with whom U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has met in recent months have shown little flexibility, Crocker has lately begun to suspect that Iran may have begun to heed U.S. demand that it desist from supporting and training Shi'ite militia fighters. Speaking to reporters in Baghdad, Crocker cited a virtual cessation of mortar and rocket attacks on the Green Zone - strikes that military officials had claimed were becoming more accurate because of help the shooters were getting from Iran. Crocker also pointed to the announcement by Shi'ite militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr calling...
...days, in recent weeks, when even Baghdad approached a tolerable level of urban violence and criminality. "And the Ramadi meeting wasn't at all unique," a senior U.S. diplomat told me. "You've had mass meetings of tribal leaders from Anbar and Karbala provinces," which are the Sunni and Shi'ite heartlands, respectively. "The governors of those provinces were literally building trenches on their border, and they are now meeting regularly. You had the highest-ranking Sunni politician in the country, Tariq al-Hashemi, go to Najaf to meet with the leading Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani...
Here's one catch: there is a missing player in all this hugging and goat eating. He is Muqtada al-Sadr, the leader of the Mahdi Army militia and, quite possibly, the most popular Shi'ite political figure in the country. Al-Sadr is less accessible, a fuzzier figure than al-Hakim. The U.S. intelligence community has only a vague sense of how much control he has over his disparate movement, which includes everything from Iranian-trained guerrillas, referred to as "special groups," to ragtag teenage criminal street gangs who claim the Mahdi mantle. He has been spending...
...everything else in Iraq, it's not that simple. There is, for starters, the perception problem of an apparent U.S. double standard with regard to Kurdish insurgents. The Bush Administration, in its effort to force Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program and stop arming and funding disruptive Shi'a parties in Iraq, has not attempted to hide its sympathy for Iranian Kurds - the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, or PJAK. The PJAK operates from Iraqi Kurdistan and reportedly has been making regular forays into Iran, attacking Iranian army units, and returning to Iraq. The PJAK operates with...