Word: sunniness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...fact, there seems to be more hostility in Ghazaliya's Sunni districts towards the Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi security forces than mistrust of the U.S. Residents told Brooks stories of fear and intimidation - a mother who drives her son everywhere for fear that a lone young man with an obviously Sunni first name will disappear at a checkpoint; an old man who accused the Iraqi Army of murdering his son; a shopkeeper who said children swarm around American soldiers on patrol but scatter at the approach of the Iraqi Army...
...Sunni civilians hope the expanded U.S. presence, in fact, will rein in the Iraqi security forces. One young man, noting that many Iraqi soldiers are loyal to Shi'ite militia, pleaded with a U.S. sergeant: "You need to keep an eye on them...
...leave the area soon, to be replaced by a unit run by one of his prot?g?s. But beyond the fairness and effectiveness of individual Iraqi units is the political reality of a Shi'ite-dominated government that sends Shi'ite soldiers, some of dubious affiliation, to operate in dangerous Sunni neighborhoods. Ghazaliya is calmer now because Sunnis are putting their faith in the U.S. military, a force destined to leave as soon as it possibly can. When the Americans are gone, however, the mistrust between Iraqis will remain...
...Qaeda has lost its most powerful friend in Iraq: Harith al-Dari, the country's most influential Sunni cleric and a prominent anti-American figure, has rejected al-Qaeda's vision of an Islamic state, telling TIME that Iraqis "will not accept such a system." In a sharp departure from his long-standing view of the terror group, al-Dari now says al-Qaeda has "gone too far." He also repudiates recent statements on Iraq by Osama bin Laden's deputy, saying: "Ayman al-Zawahiri doesn't represent Iraqis...
...Dari's change of heart on al-Qaeda is not necessarily good news for the Bush Administration. The Sunni cleric remains an implacable foe of the U.S. occupation, and of the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. He is dismissive of the "surge" in Baghdad, insisting that no solution to Iraq's problems is possible while American troops remain - and rejects as "insincere and meaningless" al-Maliki's efforts to reach out to the Sunnis...