Word: sunni
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...citizen fighters and local watchmen, divisions of the U.S.-backed Awakening movement around Iraq, have been critical to the taming of the insurgent-infested areas since 2006. As a consequence, they have faced regular assassination attempts from militants aligned with al-Qaeda in Iraq, the umbrella organization for Sunni insurgents. Al-Obeidi said four of his men had been killed since the beginning of the year. And, just about a month after speaking with TIME, al-Obeidi himself was dead. On August 17, a suicide bomber walked up toward al-Obeidi and a team of his bodyguards as they gathered...
Farooq al-Obeidi sensed his killers were near. "We have been penetrated by al-Qaeda," said al-Obeidi, a top commander of the Sunni Awakening group in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Adhamiya...
...Obeidi's death marked yet another blow dealt against the Sunni Awakening movement. Awakening fighters, many of whom once worked with the insurgency before switching sides, played a vital role in bringing Iraq's violence down to levels that leadership in Washington and Baghdad now consider low enough for significant U.S. troop withdrawals. But future prospects for the movement's members are growing dim as their insurgent rivals keep up a gruesome murder campaign and the Iraqi government maintains its distance...
...seems to be ending in what the Bush Administration will argue is victory. Granted, it's not the kind of fledging democracy that will spread like wildfire to neighboring nations in the Middle East. And Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's recent move against elements of the Sunni Awakening Councils, which have been instrumental in helping American forces secure order, could reignite violence. But it is amazing how much things have changed...
...strengthening his own political footing. Through a series of battles earlier this year, the improved Iraqi security forces nearly managed to marginalize the Mahdi Army militia of powerful Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the Prime Minister's chief rival. Moreover, the Iraqi army has shown new muscle in Sunni areas of Iraq like Diyala province, even as the Prime Minister shored up Sunni support for his government in Baghdad - a delicate political process involving force and cajoling but little compromise on his part...