Word: sunni
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...reforms and well designed economic programs, were unequivocally positive. In fact, Turkey gave women voting rights before Spain or France, two current EU nations. Yet, amidst the decaying ruins of the once-mighty Ottoman Empire, he vanquished many other defining characteristics of the Turkish culture. In a 99.8 percent Sunni Muslim nation, the fez (conical hat worn by Muslim men) and headscarves were banned from all public buildings and cultural life in general. Just a couple of years ago, Prime Minister Erdogan’s wife was banned from public events because she wore headscarves...
...struggle for power in Damascus would be messy. Syrians say their worst nightmare is a political vacuum that leads to a civil war between the country's Sunni Muslims, who constitute 74% of the population, and its Alawites, a minority sect that claims 12% of Syrians, including the Assads. Many Sunnis harbor bitter memories of the regime's killing of 20,000 people in Hama in 1982, while the Alawites fear that Islamist groups will someday seek to avenge the slaughter. "It's a scary thing," says Joshua Landis, an American professor who has spent the past 10 months...
...Allawi, a tough guy, secular Shi'ite and former CIA client, was the White House's covert favorite in last January's election, but he received only 14% of the vote. Allawi is trying to be a better politician this time, building a coalition slate with prominent Kurds and Sunnis. And he has credibility-and contacts-with the less extreme elements of the Sunni insurgency. But Allawi has limited appeal among religious Shi'ites, and therefore the Bush Administration has hopes for two other possible leaders. One is Adil Abdul Mahdi, said to be among the more pragmatic religious...
...political one, playing to Arab resentment toward the U.S. invasion both inside and outside Iraq. Izzat says that when he visits Aziz, who is being held in the same facility as Saddam, the bombs and gunshots of the insurgency are easily heard. By further stoking resentment among Iraqi Sunnis' nationalist and in the wider Arab world, Saddam aims to rally support for the Sunni-led insurgency and make the American stay in Iraq even more painful...
...Mosul, in Nineveh Province, that the Sunnis may have their best reason to cry foul. Early numbers from the Associated Press - which aren't endorsed by the Electoral Commission - showed almost twice as many "yes" votes for the constitution as the total number of voters in January's elections for the National Assembly, meaning that every new voter and then some voted for the constitution. Nineveh is generally considered a majority Sunni province, and Mosul was the hometown of many of Iraq's generals and other officers before the 2003 invasion...