Word: sunni
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...bold style of leadership, which has upset both friends and foes alike. In recent weeks, he has antagonized his Shi'ite and Kurdish allies in the ruling coalition by setting up tribal councils that are widely viewed as a direct challenge to their power on the ground. Maliki's Sunni allies in the Tawafuk Front, the largest Sunni parliamentary bloc, have branded the Shi'ite prime minister as "another dictator". And Maliki remains at odds with Shi'ite opponents such as Moqtada al-Sadr, whose bloc of 28 lawmakers vociferously rejected the SOFA vote on Thursday, chanting...
...Iraq over the future presence of American troops has unified Iraq in unexpected ways. Politicians agree that the U.S. military must withdraw, and soon--and while they disagree fiercely about whether the end of 2011 is soon enough, the debate has brought together some unlikely bedfellows. Sunni hard-liners joined Shi'ites loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in opposing the deal, while Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki won enthusiastic backing from Anbar province sheiks ordinarily scornful of his government...
...been slated for Monday, but was rescheduled for 11 a.m. Wednesday, and then pushed back to 3 p.m. Just before 4.30 p.m. the shrill bell calling lawmakers into the assembly chamber shrieked across the stained thin carpeting of the halls of the Parliament building. But senior members of the Sunni Tawafuk bloc refused to enter the session, leaving the Speaker with little choice but to reschedule the vote for Thursday. "We want our demands met, and they have not been," said Omar Abdel-Sattar al-Karboole, a member of Tawafuk, as the bell rang. (See photos of five years...
...withdrawal from Iraq, and to make other concessions. Nationalist opponents led by firebrand Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr reject the agreement in principle, because it gives an Iraqi stamp of approval to the U.S. military presence in Iraq, which is currently authorized by the U.N. Security Council. The Sunni Tawafuk bloc, meanwhile, does not reject the pact in principle, but wants to squeeze more concessions out of Maliki - Tawafuk has demanded a referendum on the security agreement be held next year once it has been adopted by parliament, and more immediately, it seeks amnesty for the (mostly Sunni) detainees...
...Maliki and his allies have the numbers to push SOFA through the parliament, but without overwhelming Sunni approval, the agreement would be tainted by its lack of national consensus. And so, the frenetic horse-trading over the security agreement has become a game of brinkmanship. On Wednesday, the prime minister personally lobbied recalcitrant parliamentarians at the nearby Rasheed Hotel, in exchanges that degenerated into fiery rows, according to a Maliki aide who was present...