Word: sunnis
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...search for sanctuaries from which they can stage attacks in the city, American troops are looking for ways to block an elusive enemy. As tens of thousands of additional American soldiers began patrolling Baghdad this summer, Madain, to the southeast of the capital, was an obvious fallback position for Sunni and Shi'ite militants. Until this spring, the U.S. presence there had consisted of only a couple of companies that patrolled in Humvees, but a brigade was assigned to the area in anticipation of a rise in insurgent and militia activity in response to the surge...
...Gathering intelligence isn't the only challenge; Sunni militants are well practiced at basing themselves in areas where it is difficult for the U.S. to operate. Thompson says that the Sunni insurgency in Madain - as elsewhere in Iraq - is divided between nationalist elements and the jihadists of al-Qaeda in Iraq. The al-Qaeda group has based itself in a bend in the Tigris River dominated by fish farms, and the dike roads that criss-cross the area cannot carry the weight of U.S. vehicles...
Saudi sources have told Time of numerous other instances of disturbingly routine abuse. One involved a female Shi'ite Muslim student at King Saud University in Riyadh who was allegedly badly beaten last year for being in the company of a Sunni Muslim boy. Because Wahhabi doctrine regards Shi'ites as infidels, they have frequent run-ins with the mutaween over their religious practices. Non-Wahhabi Sunnis also regularly run afoul of the mutaween, who - in accordance with Wahhabi doctrine - bar them from celebrating the Prophet Muhammad's birthday or performing certain rites during burials...
...Just as Iraq's team includes Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds, so did the victory celebration span all of Iraq's divisions. Not only were Shi'ite and Sunni communities celebrating with equal intensity in the capital, many had risked life and limb to watch the game together with old soccer pals from opposite sects. For Shi'ite education ministry employee Abdul-Rahman Abdul-Hassan, 40, the tournament had prompted a reunion with three Sunni friends and former teammates he hadn't seen in two years because sectarian violence had forced them into different neighborhoods. "None of our politicians could...
There are more strategic differences, of course, between the pre- and post-Petraeus eras. Lieutenant-Colonel Jack Marr, who commands 1-15, was stationed outside Fallujah with the 82nd Airborne in 2003 and early 2004. Back then the immediate problem for American forces was the Sunni insurgency. Four years later sectarian divisions in Iraqi society and the mainly Shi'a Iraqi security forces are largely driving the conflict. Marr, a 20-year Army veteran, confronts that problem with the heavily Shi'ite police unit he works with in this dusty farming community 20 miles southeast of Baghdad. "It is difficult...