Word: shying
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...informant for U.S. forces. When he appeared, they made their move. Seeing a pistol raised, the informant had turned to run, but too late. Three shots left him dead, blood flowing from wounds in his chest as the gunmen disappeared into the web of narrow streets that form the Shi'ite warren known as Washash...
...Sutton was one of the few Army officers who personally knew the informant, believed to be about 19 years old, with family in the neighborhood. For roughly four weeks, Sutton and other Army officers had worked with him to gather intelligence on the local activities of militia loyal to Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr...
...dollars to more than a million and with the police often unwilling or unable to even register such cases, officials say kidnapping has become an increasingly lucrative business. It helps the kidnappers that their criminal activity is often confused with the routine hostage taking by both sides in the Shi'ite-Sunni civil war. "Kidnapping for ransom is an industry," says Dan O'Shea, former coordinator of the U.S. embassy's Hostage Working Group. "It is governed by the profit motive, not religion or race or politics...
...Waddah overheard the guards talking about the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, one of the holiest sites for Shi'ites. They also spoke of the wave of sectarian violence that followed, with Shi'ite mobs wreaking vengeance on Sunnis. "It sounded like Sunnis were being slaughtered in the streets of Baghdad," Waddah says. "I was worried about my family. They were new to the city and had no influential relatives who could protect them." While waiting to use the toilet over the next few days, the captives whispered rumors of how their Sunni kidnappers were taking revenge...
...sheiks"--older men, heads of important families that had lived there a long time and could be tapped for local knowledge and advice. Their first piece of advice: Stay away from the local police. The police in the neighborhood were known to be members of the Mahdi Army, the Shi'ite militia often blamed for the kidnapping and murder of Sunnis in Baghdad. "One of the sheiks--and he was a Shi'ite--said the police may themselves have been involved in taking Waddah," Haseeba says. "And even if they weren't, they would not help a Sunni family. They...