Word: sunni
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...dictator's spies. Returning to Baghdad in 2003, Maliki seemed no different from the legion of Shi'ite partisans who took up posts in the U.S.-installed interim government. He brought vigor and venom to his job on the committee responsible for purging the government of Saddam's mainly Sunni elite. He also spoke of reordering Iraq according to the fundamental principles of the Koran. In a couple of years, however, he had taken on a more conciliatory mien, speaking of communal harmony. In 2006, this earned him crucial U.S. backing as a compromise candidate for Prime Minister...
...three years into his premiership, the real Nouri al-Maliki may finally be revealing himself. Emboldened by his popular campaign against the Shi'ite militias, and by the U.S. military's success in turning the Sunni insurgency against al-Qaeda, Maliki has begun to project a persona instantly familiar to Iraqis, and to Arabs in general: the strongman. He has ordered the arrest of a number of prominent Sunnis, pushed aside rivals and undermined allies. In speeches, his language has grown increasingly belligerent, accusing those who disagree with his policies of working against Iraq. (See pictures of life returning...
...Nouri alarms many who knew the old Jawad. Sunni and Kurdish leaders have accused him of employing tribal councils to shore up his personal standing at the expense of rivals, just as Saddam did. Vice President Adel Abdel-Mahdi, a prominent Shi'ite, has openly criticized the centralization of power in the Prime Minister's office. "We don't want another dictator in Baghdad," says Maysoon al-Damluji, a secular Member of Parliament. "It worries us all that [Maliki] is beginning to behave like a tyrant...
Most discussion about the security dangers of U.S. withdrawal from Iraq tends to center on the threats of jihadist insurgents, friction between the Sunni Awakening militias and the Shi'ite-led government, and intra-Shi'ite power struggles. But U.S. commanders in Diyala province believe that mounting tensions between Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in the north could produce one of the most dangerous flash points...
...Baghdad A DEADLY CAMPAIGN As Iraq's Jan. 31 provincial elections near, violence against politicians has escalated. Hassan Zaidan al-Luhaibi, a Sunni leader and former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, was killed by a suicide bomber on Jan. 18, just two days after Shi'ite candidate Haitham Kadhim al-Husaini was fatally shot. The murders come as influential Shi'ite cleric Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani has urged Iraqis to vote despite dissatisfaction with previous elections...