Word: shied
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...Wednesday, members of the country's parliament are scheduled to vote on a replacement for Emile Lahoud, whose term ends midnight Friday. By unwritten agreement in this deeply sectarian nation, the President must be a Maronite Christian (the Prime Minister must be Sunni; the speaker of the assembly Shi'ite). Lahoud was an advocate of the policies of neighboring Syria, which until 2005 was the overlord of Lebanon...
...Lebanon's powerful Shi'ite political party Hizballah, which possesses its own military, is using its influence to press for a new President friendly to its agenda and the interests of its Syrian and Iranian backers. Meanwhile, pro-Western, anti-Syrian politicians threaten to elect a President from their own camp if the opposition rejects a consensus candidate. Hizballah and its allies say they will not recognize an anti-Syrian President and hint they will form a rival government instead...
...been quiet until dawn on Sunday. As the sun began to rise, Lieutenant-Colonel Jeffrey Sauer's soldiers in eastern Baghdad, based in the shadow of the Shi'ite milita stronghold of Sadr City, were hit with a series of rockets. The attacks were well-coordinated and sophisticated; they were also the first heavy shelling of U.S. bases in the area in several months...
...with sectarian violence waning for the time being, the stage may be set for an escalation of the simmering battle among Shi'ites for control of southern Iraq. In Najaf, the spiritual center of Shi'ite Iraq, public displays of respect and cooperation mask an often violent competition between rival factions. Since shortly after the American invasion The Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) - known until May 2007 as the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI - has clashed, often violently, with followers of the Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. This summer Sadr announced a "freeze...
...deference to law and order, though, are rarely the strong suit of a militia. And the Sadrists, in particular, have little motivation to genuinely embrace the government. Sadr rose to prominence in 2003 and 2004 as an outsider claiming parties like SIIC did not represent poor and marginalized Shi'ites. After bloody fighting in 2004 he agreed to join the political process, and the Sadrists are power brokers in the national legislature. But they say they are still marginalized in regional governments...