Word: sects
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...majestic experience. Over the past few weeks, however, the temple has become a formidable fortress. Religious symbols mix with modern rifle muzzles, automatic weapons, swords and battle-axes. Even women are armed, and some children as young as five have daggers hanging from their belts. The Sikhs, a sect of 12 million that broke with Hinduism at the end of the 15th century, are known equally for being charitable hosts and aggressive warriors. Today they seem solely the latter, as they are preparing for what may be the battle of their lives. Their increased demands for political and religious autonomy...
Cost concerns can also completely finish off a case. Last month an Arizona judge dismissed riot and assault charges against 19 members of a black religious sect after officials of sparsely populated Cochise County refused to continue paying for their legal defense. The 19 were charged after a 1982 melee with police. By the time six of the defendants were ready for trial in February, the county had doled out its entire $300,000 indigent defense fund, and officials decided they could not afford to pay any more...
...flat coastal strip. Bombing and strafing runs by two subsonic Hawker Hunter jet fighters, part of Gemayel's tiny air force, could not stop the Druze even momentarily. After linking up at Khalde with their allies, the Amal militia of Lebanon's dominant Shi'ite Muslim sect, the Druze drove the Fourth Brigade 3½ miles south to the vicinity of Damur. The militiamen stopped there only because they were confronted by Israeli soldiers who had moved north to prevent the Muslims from getting any closer to the Israeli occupation zone south of the Awali River. Some...
...broke out in 1980, Assad, who has long been bitterly opposed to the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, rushed to support the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. Aside from giving Damascus an estimated $600 million in cheap oil, the Ayatullah has bestowed his blessing on Assad's minority Alawites, a sect that most Sunnis consider heretical. In return, Damascus has shut down the Iraqi oil pipeline that slices across Syria to the Mediterranean, thereby slowing the flow of petrodollars to the financially strapped Baghdad government...
Despite their radically different habits, Rifaat and Hafez Assad share the same political goals. As members of the Alawite branch of Shi'ite Islam, both are determined to preserve the sect's control. The Alawites have dominated Syria for 13 years, mostly because of the adamantine grip of Hafez