Word: thabit
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...They think all of them are militia," said Thabit, the commander personally appointed by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to clean up Samarra in the wake of a second bombing of the Shi'ite Askariya mosque June 13. Immediately after the bombing, Maliki ordered roughly 900 national police to Samarra, where the local police force had collapsed. And more are supposed to be coming. As many as 1,500 new national police could be inside the city in the next few weeks. So far, they have not been well received by the people of Samarra. "To be honest, they...
...American troops found the body hanging from an electrical pole a short distance from the office of the new Iraqi security forces commander for the city, Gen. Adnon Thabit. Foot soldiers from the Iraqi national police sent to Samarra in recent weeks had killed the man that morning during a firefight with insurgents, roped him to the back of one of their blue and white trucks by the feet and then dragged him through the city for all to see before stringing him up. The Americans, who've been working with the national police to check sectarian tensions here...
...Later that day, Thabit expressed frustration over the episode to Ferris, whose compound adjoins the police headquarters. The forces from Baghdad were difficult to control, Thabit said. They had weak officers and undisciplined rank-and-file men. And Thabit feared that the incident would only worsen the image problem already troubling the predominantly Shi'ite national police in Samarra, an overwhelmingly Sunni city where the outsiders are widely suspected of ties to the Mahdi Army of militant Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al Sadr...
...Despite all this, Thabit believes he can quickly regain control of Samarra, where gunfights break out almost daily as insurgents target U.S. and Iraqi forces. Thabit says he needs 20 days to get the situation under control. But already he is losing ground...
...away from the American base is a small outpost in the city center called Uvanni, an old school building strewn with trash and junked vehicles. Ferris and some of his men visited the police station Sunday and organized a joint patrol, which he felt went well. Still, Ferris doubts Thabit's ability to turn things around in Samarra as soon as he hopes...