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That's apparently the case with the region around the Iraqi town of Mahmudiyah, a district on Baghdad's rural southern fringe, which until recently was best known for its place in the Triangle of Death. Mahmudiyah was where five U.S. soldiers were killed and three kidnapped in May. But local Iraqis there are now trying to soften its violent reputation and even make Mahmudiyah and its surrounding political district a model for peace and reconciliation among Iraqis and with Coalition troops...
...playing out here. This is the capstone of the first phase of tribal reconciliation in the region," said Col. Mike Kershaw, the commander of the 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, the Fort Drum, New York-based unit which has worked among some 400,000 mostly Sunni Iraqis in the southern portion of Baghdad Province since last year. "Am I saying the war's over? No way. But I am saying that this is an opportunity that we didn't have before...
Amid reports of mounting Shi'a infighting there, officials in the Southern city of Diwaniyah, about 100 miles south of Baghdad, say that not only Iran but other neighboring countries in the Gulf may be involved in stoking the violence. Two incidents this week have ratcheted up their concern. On Wednesday, seven Iraqi police officers were killed by a bomb in the nearby village of Afak. That followed bloodshed on Monday, when at least six civilians were killed and dozens wounded in a mortar barrage on the Polish-run Coalition base in town...
Although the two groups recently pledged to work together in an accord signed by Sadr and SIIC leader Abdul Aziz al Hakim two weeks ago in Iran, the power grab plays out daily on the streets of southern cities such as Diwaniyah. "What's happening in this town is like a political duel over who's going to govern," said Ali al Mayali, a Sadrist member of the Iraqi Parliament. "It's a fight to control the street." Fueling that fight, Mayali said, is money and other support from neighboring countries. He would not point fingers. While U.S. officials point...
Still, to mark 21 years since the Assisi gathering - to be held in the southern city of Naples - Benedict made sure to offer not only his written words, but his physical presence. Indeed, the Pope's positive RSVP means that some of the most influential leaders of other faiths will arrive as well, including Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, Israel's chief rabbi, Yona Metzger, and the rector of the Al-Azhar University in Egypt, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb...