Word: shying
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...could. Unlike many other southern cities where fighting has escalated in recent weeks, Maliki has built an independent power base among the security forces there. But Tuesday's sweep of Basra could turn sour in other southern cities where the central government's power is weak. Indeed, many Shi'ites are seeing this not just as an example of the Shi'ite Maliki taking on other Shi'ites (including Sadrists) but of America backing the Prime Minister up in a de facto Shi'a civil war. Iraqi government forces have attacked Shi'ite militias and gangs in at least seven...
...progress in Iraq. They also come as he and Defense Secretary Robert Gates waffle over whether to withdraw five combat brigades by July, reducing troop levels down from about 158,000 to 140,000 - the pre-surge peak. If the fighting spreads to other southern cities and attacks by Shi'ite militias increase, intra-Shiite violence may be the wrench that jams the whole works of a meaningful reduction of troops...
While the focus this weekend on attacks on Baghdad has now turned towards Basra, violence has surged for weeks throughout the Shi'ite south, where Americans have suffered fresh losses in old haunts in the cities of Nasiriyah, Hilla and Diwaniyah. Meanwhile, the Shi'ite infighting in Basra has forced British forces to stall the planned withdrawal of some 1,500 troops. Some 4,000 British troops have been hunkered down at the Basra airport after turning the city over to Iraqi forces last year. So far they have not been drawn from their base into this week's fighting...
...decides to actively go after the Shi'ite forces in the south, it would mean reopening a southern front where American forces once fought some of the Iraq war's fiercest battles against Sadr but now have only a shadow presence. That would involve draining the concentration of surge troops around Baghdad and the Sunni triangle. It might even require more troop extensions or additional deployments to hold ground and maintain modest gains. Moving against the Shi'ite strongholds could then open opportunities for the Sunni fighters of al-Qaeda to strike Iraqi and U.S. targets in the Sunni triangle...
This week's violence in Baghdad and Basra followed several days of bloodshed in the Shi'ite city of Kut, some 100 miles southeast of the capital, where Sadr loyalists clashed with police forces largely controlled by their Shi'ite rivals, the Badr Corps militants of the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, and with government troops affiliated with Maliki's Da'awa party...