Word: sunnis
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...According to figures compiled by the Brookings Institution at the end of May, the number of sectarian murders, carried out mainly by Shi'ite death squads against Sunnis, has risen noticeably in recent weeks after a drop-off that began in the latter part of February. Sectarian deaths are often described as "extra-judicial killings" (EJKs) and involve the abduction, torture and murder of the victim, with the body usually left on the street. In May, says the Brookings report, citing Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Peter Pace, there were roughly 700 EJKs across Baghdad. While still lower than...
...time - that a deadly insurgency was building, and that the United States was frittering away, mainly through ineptitude and a lack of manpower, whatever goodwill was there in the wake of Saddam Hussein's fall. (And there was a reservoir of goodwill at the beginning, even among the Sunni community in Baghdad, in the summer right after the invasion...
...Contrast this with Iraq, which is the opposite of simplicity itself. At minimum it's the combat equivalent of three-dimensional chess. The working assumption for the Korea analogy appears to be that al-Qaeda and its remaining Sunni allies would be the bad guys threatening the U.S. bases...
...security risk in maintaining bases in Iraq is, to put it mildly, wishful thinking. What of Moqtada al Sadr and his Shi'ite radicals, who insist on the U.S. leaving lock, stock and barrel? And what of Iran, which apparently continues to aid and abet both Shi'ite and Sunni insurgent groups with IEDS and other weapons...
...Over 200 foreigners and possibly tens of thousands of Iraqis have been kidnapped since the fall of Saddam Hussein. But it is unusual for the Mahdi Army to kidnap foreigners - that tends to be the work of Sunni terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. And Shi'ite militias typically don't target ministries run by their fellow-sectarians. The Ministry of Higher Educaton was run by a Sunni. But the Finance Minister is a prominent Shi'ite, Bayan Jabr Solagh. What is more, he's the former Interior Minister under whose watch the Iraqi police was thoroughly infiltrated...