Word: yusufiyah
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Three previous trials have established this much: on March 12, 2006, a small group of junior soldiers slipped away unnoticed from a lightly defended traffic checkpoint just outside the insurgent-infested town of Yusufiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad. Nursing a hatred of Iraqis stemming from heavy losses their unit had suffered, and fueled by several bottles of Iraqi whisky, they embarked upon a premeditated crime of gruesome barbarity. Donning black long-underwear outfits as disguises, even though it was the middle of the day, they traveled a few hundred meters to an isolated farmhouse where they gang-raped Abeer...
...weekly Yusufiyah area government council meeting is about to start, and the heavily fortified front gate of the local community center is a crush of activity. U.S. Soldiers and Iraqi police call the men forward one by one, and pat them down for weapons before letting them inside. It is a scene replicated thousands of times a day all over the country. Except for one difference: here, the security detail includes a team of eight Iraqi women checking all of the females attempting to enter as well...
...ever, searched due to cultural norms that forbid public touching between men and women. That hole in the safety net was made abundantly clear on May 14, when a female suicide bomber successfully eluded several checkpoints and assassinated an Iraqi Army captain just a few miles from the Yusufiyah Community Center...
Responding to an Army-wide directive in February to involve more women in community affairs, Captain Michael Starz, the U.S. officer in charge of the Yusufiyah area, hit upon the idea of creating a female security force, an idea he thought could solve several problems at once. "It is a critical security issue that we find a way to have women searched at high-traffic areas," he says. "Secondly, this is an employment program. After years of war and sectarian violence, many of the women around here are widows and have no way of supporting themselves." Working with community groups...
...Marines created a similar force, called the Sisters of Fallujah, in December, but the Army unit in Yusufiyah is hoping that this initiative takes hold throughout the country. That is a long way off, however. "There are not going to be women manning all the checkpoints along with the men any time soon," says First Lieutenant Joshua Snyder, who helps oversee the program. "Right now, we can only have them working when there is a significant coalition force presence nearby. Even women searching women can be controversial to some more conservative types...