Word: militiamen
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Undercover Basij militiamen - many with slicked-back hair, wearing dress shirts and holding walkie-talkies - patrolled the main city arteries, in proportionally larger numbers than past protests. Although officially under the supervision of the Revolutionary Guards, they have in the past month become a fearsome force in quashing dissent. The reported killings of dozens of protesters last month has sufficiently intimidated many would-be protesters, as has Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's continued threats of a "brutal" response to any public demonstrations. On July 20, he declared that "anybody who drives the society toward insecurity and disorder is a hated...
...Ahmadinejad - was the result of fraud, the regime organized a partial recount, which on June 29 reconfirmed Ahmadinejad's victory, a finding the opposition continues to reject. Simultaneously, the regime worked to put down the widespread street demonstrations that followed the disputed poll, sending in police and pro-government militiamen to beat up and disperse demonstrators. Now, with the street protests dying down, the regime has attempted to rescue its legitimacy by casting the unrest as the work of "foreign instigators...
...changed in ways that may make a resurgent Mahdi Army less welcome than before to average Iraqis. During the worst of the sectarian violence, much of the Sunni community held a completely rejectionist stance toward the Iraqi government and U.S. forces. In the minds of many Iraqis and militiamen and their passive supporters, that left virtually all Sunni communities complicit in insurgent violence and therefore fair game for bloody reprisal attacks like the bombings Thursday and Friday. But today, many key Sunni factions work with the government and U.S. forces, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has made some...
...crisis levels for more than a year starting in 2006. At that time Shi'ite militias, chiefly the Mahdi Army, drew much of the blame for widespread torture and executions as Sunni militants developed a reputation for killing with bombs. But torturing has not been an activity just for militiamen and militants in Iraq. The Iraqi government has consistently faced accusations of torture and maltreatment of prisoners through the years - and still does. The most recent human rights report from the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq cites "continuing reports of the widespread and routine torture or ill-treatment of detainees...
...more often than not Sulhani's family has been caught in the middle. Abdullah's 59-year-old daughter Ahlam is still picking shrapnel out of wounds she received from artillery fire in 1975. The family survived the infamous Shatila massacre of 1982 by sheer luck, fleeing from Lebanese militiamen almost as soon as the slaughter began. When they returned afterwards, most of their neighbors were dead, and there was a body in the living-room closet. One of Ahlam's brothers was later shot in the head by a sniper while washing his hands in their entryway. Their building...