Word: militiaization
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...several weeks, and he has not kept up his usual practice of leading Friday prayers at the Great Mosque in Kufa. Now U.S. officials are claiming the firebrand anti-American cleric fled to Iran two or three weeks ago, along with several commanders of his dreaded Mahdi Army militia. But senior Sadr officials in Baghdad have dismissed those claims as propaganda, and maintain he is still in his Najaf headquarters...
...American officials are right, it could potentially be a big boost for the military commanders in charge of the new security plan for Baghdad. Sadr's militia is the main vector of sectarian violence in the Iraqi capital, and it is bound to be weakened by the departure of its spiritual leader as well as some top commanders...
...unusual for Sadr to drop out of sight for long spells, and he has previously traveled to Iran without much warning. If he is there now, it would seem to confirm reports that the Mahdi Army is seeking to avoid confrontation with American and Iraqi troops. In recent days, militia commanders have said they had received orders from Sadr's office in Najaf to stand down...
...majority of EFP attacks, the officials said, came from "rogue" elements of Moqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army. The officials would not go further than that to associate the leader of the powerful Shi'a militia to Iran. This is the same line the U.S. walks when attributing militia violence and death squad murders to the Mahdi Army. Sadr is the highest-profile - and likely the most effective single opponent - of the American presence in Iraq. But he is also a power broker in Iraq's government and a key supporter of the Iraqi prime minister. It is therefore politically tricky...
...they reached Scandinavia, according to Swedish Migration officials. (Some Iraqis have been returned to other countries under European rules requiring refugees to claim asylum in the first E.U. country in which they arrive.) As a consequence, Iraqis in Sweden range from Shi'ites like Alaa, who are fleeing Sunni militia, to Sunnis who for decades belonged to the Baath Party and supported Saddam's regime. Until the volume of Iraqis began to overwhelm Sweden's bureaucracy, most Iraqi refugees received Swedish residence rights within a year, allowing them to bring other family members into the country. But Swedish immigration officials...