Word: sunni
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...Iraq told TIME that turning over Hashem for execution would be a "gross miscarriage of justice." The CIA officer also confirmed longstanding reports that the U.S. had, in fact, sought to bring Hashem into a senior role in a post-invasion Iraqi government because of his identity as a Sunni, and as a "soldier's soldier" who was respected by a broad spectrum of the military...
...sentence was upheld by an appeals court, but several Iraqi politicians, including President Jalal Talibani have spoken out against hanging Hashem. Although Talabani has consistently opposed the death penalty on principle - even in the case of Saddam Hussein - other politicians may be concerned that the execution of a respected Sunni soldier could be disruptive to national reconciliation in an Iraq deeply divided along sectarian lines...
...volunteer militias sprang up here in Babil province over the last two months under local leadership after the tribes saw successes scored by Sunni tribesmen in adjacent Anbar Province. Those homegrown groups in Anbar turned on al-Qaeda and teamed up with American forces to clear their regions of extremists, or at least put them on the run, reaping a windfall of American aid money in the process. What has surprised military officials about the groups around Musayyib, though, is that they are Shi'ite or of mixed sect, containing both Sunnis and Shi'ite residents who rejected the excesses...
...violence and the lowest casualty rates since the battalion arrived a year ago. "Fewer of my guys have been killed than at any time before," Lt. Col. Robert Balcavage told TIME. Balcavage, commander of the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 25th Division, said the locally organized Sunni groups have already driven al-Qaeda out of the urban areas and into a rough no-man's land to the north, sandwiching them precariously between his paratroopers and elements of the 10th Mountain Division. In and around Musayyib to the south, the Shi'ite groups have manned checkpoints along...
...measure of skepticism is built into the program. Sunni and Shi'ite insurgents who once fought or still fight the Americans are surely among the new militias - as they are in the police and army. But deputizing them allows the Americans to gather personal information, take fingerprints and track their whereabouts for a least part of the time. The volunteers sign three-month contracts, wear only special armbands instead of uniforms and use their own weapons, but they get paid three-quarters of what Iraqi police recruits receive and are given preference for joining the police and army. "It gives...