Word: southern
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...Mailiki's government because the Prime Minister refused to press for an American withdrawal. Tensions between the two formerly allied Shi'ite factions built until open clashes erupted in Basra in March, when Iraqi forces attacked Mahdi Army havens there. The move sparked months of fighting that spread across southern Iraq and Baghdad - and offered Maliki a chance to prove his political critics wrong...
...camps stayed away from the last elections in 2005. But since then both the Sadrists and various Sunni factions have displayed a new interest in gathering political power at the polls even while keeping a hand in Iraq's ongoing violence. The Sadrists are poised to win broadly in southern Iraq, while members of the Sunni Awakening Council will likely clinch victories in Anbar Province. That will leave Maliki, with a cabinet without Sadrists and Sunnis, struggling to make the case for having a national mandate...
Qmatiyeh is one of two predominantly Shi'ite villages nestled in a mainly Druze area at the northern end of the Chouf mountains. The village's isolation from the densely Shi'ite-populated areas of southern Beirut, clearly visible from here and where Hizballah holds sway, is a source of unease for the residents who look to the Shi'ite group for protection. "I don't think it's calm enough yet to feel confident," says Hussam Najjar, a criminal court magistrate. With his pressed gray suit, blue tie, sunglasses and neatly trimmed mustache, Najjar looked out of place among...
Sources close to Hizballah said that dozens of the group's fighters deployed from southern Beirut to the Qmatiyeh area on Monday night, taking up position in the woods and dense undergrowth surrounding the village to protect its residents from Druze incursions. Hizballah is thought to have lost 13 fighters in the battle with the Druze militants, a significant number for one of the world's most professional guerrilla armies. Hizballah militants told TIME that the Druze fighters had fought them from dug-in positions prepared well in advance of last week's outbreak of violence between the supporters...
...sect and unity against the outsider. "We are believers in peace and co-existence, but we will not accept any aggression against us," said Shawki Zeidan, a veteran Druze militia commander who led some 300 fighters against Hizballah on a 6,000-foot-high mountain ridge in the southern Chouf on Sunday night. Hizballah held off the Israeli army for 33 days in summer 2006 and doubtless would prevail in a full battle with the Druze. But as both sides brace for more fighting, Hizballah's leaders may well ponder whether the cost is worth another round...