Word: militiamen
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Death had been taking something of a holiday in Iraq, but it seemed to come back from vacation with a vengeance on Easter, with ominous implications for American strategy. Sunday dawned in Baghdad's Green Zone with a barrage of mortars courtesy of Shi'ite militiamen. Several more mortars poured in throughout the day. Meanwhile, attacks across Iraq on Sunday killed dozens of people, including four American soldiers in a deadly roadside bombing in southern Baghdad. That last incident raised the number of U.S. military fatalities in Iraq to 4,000. While an American military spokesman pointed out that...
...military officials view such cells as rogue elements of the Mahdi Army, making them viable targets of attack despite the prevailing cease-fire declared by Sadr. But the lines between Sadr's militiamen and Iranian-backed operatives who emerge from those ranks are blurry at best in the murky world of Iraq's guerrilla movement. Ali, himself a mainline Mahdi member, says he was taken to Iran for training and, in fact, continues to receive financial support from operatives linked to Iranian intelligence. During his interview with TIME, he did not discuss whether his Mahdi Army superiors knew...
...Maliki government has promised to integrate more militiamen into government forces, but that's hardly reassuring. Adnan Awadi's former colleagues have told him that the Mahdi Army men who threatened him all now have jobs in the Health Ministry. "If I show my face there again ... my son's eyeballs will end up in a bottle," Adnan says...
...Sauer says, could have responded with house-to-house searches and other heavy-handed tactics. But, he says, "That would be the exact example of what [the attackers] want me to do so they can turn the population back in their favor." Now, U.S. troops, not local Shi'ite militiamen, have the initiative and set the tone in this area of Baghdad. Sauer and his men have set to work pursuing leads to track down the militants behind the attack - a process more focused on analyzing evidence and gathering intelligence than on overt displays of force...
...Violence escalated Tuesday, with Mahdi Army fighters scattered amongst angry crowds firing assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at Badr militiamen. That fighting reportedly began with Mahdi Army attacks on the local police. But in Karbala, as in many cities in southern Iraq, the local police are simply uniformed members of the local militia...