Word: sunni
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...question-and-answer session after that followed the discussion, panelists downplayed the difficulties posed by ethnic differences, characterizing Sunni-Shiite-Kurdish tension as largely the invention of the Western media...
...hard-line triumph in Iran is already causing deep anxiety in neighboring Iraq, which is riven by Sunni and Shi'a factionalism. Now some Iraqis worry that whatever remains of their fragile détente may be shattered by pro-Shi'a Iranian interventionism. Says Isam al-Rawi, an outspoken Sunni cleric in Baghdad: "Ahmadinejad is a man with narrow religious views, and he wants to export these." But Iraq's Shi'a establishment, which has deep ties to Iran, is nonplussed. "Ahmadinejad is a young man, a new player," says Rada Jawad Taqi, a Shi'a member of Iraq...
...general who conquered Syria for Islam. The sincerity of his desire to make himself a "martyr" was attested to by several figures-- a member of his organization, al-Qaeda in Iraq; a Baghdad-area commander of an insurgent unit that provides logistical support for al-Qaeda bombers; and a Sunni imam who is sometimes brought in to counsel bombers during their premission spiritual "purification"--whom TIME consulted through Iraqis with contacts inside the insurgency. His account provides a rare glimpse into the mind-set and preparation of one aspiring suicide bomber...
Unlike many other Sunnis in Fallujah, Marwan had little love for Saddam's Sunni-led regime. Yet once the dictator fell, he turned against the Americans. "We expected them to bring Saddam down and then leave," he says. "But they stayed and stayed." Insurgents approached disaffected Fallujis like Marwan and urged them to join the resistance against the Americans. Many signed up, including one of Marwan's older brothers. Marwan joined the insurgency in April 2003 when U.S. soldiers fired on a crowd of demonstrators at a school, killing 12 and wounding many more. Marwan, who took part...
FROM WARRIOR TO "MARTYR" Marwan says waiting is the hardest aspect of a jihadi's transformation into a suicide bomber. Volunteers have to undergo a program to discipline the mind and cleanse the soul. The training, supervised by field commanders and Sunni clerics sympathetic to the insurgency, is mainly psychological and spiritual. Besides the Koran, he says, "I read about the history of jihad, about great martyrs who have gone before me. These things strengthen my will." One popular source of inspiration for suicide bombers is The Lover of Angels, by Abdullah Azzam, one of Osama bin Laden's spiritual...