Word: sunni
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...violence make the prospect of a credible election being held four months from now increasingly remote. While U.S. and Iraqi officials continue to insist that the elections will go ahead on schedule, they acknowledge the difficulty presented by the fact that some of the major urban centers of the Sunni heartland are in insurgent hands. Prime Minister Allawi's proposal that a poll could be held without voting in those areas where violence precludes it could essentially break up the country. Already the Kurdish northeast is showing every intention of cutting ties to an increasingly chaotic center, and allowing...
...June. The U.S. returned there in August for a second, inconclusive battle and then, in September, found itself once again bombing Fallujah in preparation for another frontal assault. The Sadrists have also created flashpoints in Basra, Nasiriya, Karbala, Samawa, Kut and elsewhere throughout the Shiite south, while the Sunni insurgents have added Ramadi, Samarra, Baquba and others to the list of no-go areas for U.S. troops. And both Sunnis and Shiites continue to wreak havoc on the streets of Baghdad on a daily basis...
...officials now concede that the insurgency is far larger than they first imagined, and it is growing both in numbers of fighters and also in the range and boldness of their attacks. And they acknowledge that whole towns in Sunni heartland, such as Fallujah, Samarra, Ramadi and Baqubah have been turned by insurgents into no-go areas for coalition forces. One measure of the depth of the security crisis in Iraq is the Bush administration's plan to spend money earmarked for reconstruction instead on urgent security priorities...
...them on the battlefield, however, is based on morale and confidence - in other words, on motivation. The Sadrists are motivated by a strong nationalist sentiment and emboldened by a religious faith both in the righteousness of their cause and the celestial rewards of their "martyrdom." So too are the Sunni insurgents. And thus far, efforts to deploy Iraqi units in the frontline of pitched battles at both Fallujah and Najaf have proven largely ineffective - not because they lack the training to do battle, but because in many instances they lack the motivation to fight under U.S. command against fellow Iraqis...
...make Iraq safe for voting, the U.S. and its Iraqi allies would have to launch frontal assaults to retake the "no-go" areas of the Sunni triangle. U.S. commanders are already saying it was a tactical mistake to have left the insurgents in control of towns that have become sanctuaries. But the reason for doing so in each instance was that U.S. military actions had the effect of turning more of the civilian population against the American presence - and, by extension, weakening the legitimacy of the government it installed. It's worth remembering that each time U.S. forces pulled back...