Word: militiaization
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...Bush administration's main goal in Iraq at the moment is to halt the sectarian killings - blamed in large part on Shi'ite militias, including the armed wing of Hakim's own party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Known as the Badr Organization, the militia was formed in Iran during the Saddam era, and it is known to take guidance (and, some of its critics allege, perhaps even its orders) from Tehran. U.S. officials have been pressing the Iraqi government to disarm such militias. The President brought up that suggestion at his breakfast meeting with...
...failed. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence for this. There were two spectacular-one might even say suspicious-front-page news leaks in the New York Times in the days before the summit. First there was the report that Hizballah was training members of al-Sadr's militia. This placed in one bull's-eye almost all Bush's favorite evildoers-Hizballah; Iran and Syria (which support Hizballah); and al-Sadr, whose Shi'ite organization has been responsible for much of the recent violence against Sunnis in Iraq. The slap-Sadr scenario had some powerful covert supporters, especially among...
...There is a small, but not insignificant, faction in the U.S. military that thinks the only way to stabilize Baghdad is to forcibly disarm al-Sadr's militia. The Hizballah story may have been unofficial, second-tier military lobbying. And the Hadley memo? "A parting gift from Don Rumsfeld," guessed an Iraq expert with close ties to the White House. "He's the only one who had access and motivation. The memo proves his point: it's the political process, not the military operation, that's the problem in Iraq." Would Rumsfeld be so spiteful as to embarrass the President...
...complete with showers and dining halls, honeycombing the limestone hills for miles near the Israeli border. Many of its field commanders were killed in the fighting, and according to Lebanese and Israeli sources, Hizballah inquisitors are now weeding out and shooting suspected collaborators who helped the Israelis by pinpointing militia targets. And every Hizballah office in Beirut was sledge-hammered by Israeli warplanes. The rubble of concrete slabs, steel and scraps of clothing was scooped up by bulldozers into heaps; it has added a dozen large hills to the coastal landscape south of Beirut...
...Western diplomats in Beirut say they are trying to persuade the Israelis that killing the Hizballah boss is no longer a good idea. His murder could spark reprisals across the Middle East. Hizballah has ways of taking revenge. After Israelis targeted a previous Hizballah leader in 1992, the militia blew up the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. Should Nasrallah be killed, Israeli missions today would be similarly at risk--as would U.S. interests around the world. But these sources say that the Israelis may be willing to court that danger if they have a chance to take out Nasrallah, whom...