Word: sunni
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...justifying wars, have been subverted by the U.S. It is time to withdraw the illegal army of occupation and devise a timetable for a multinational U.N. force of peacekeepers. Stephen Liddle Napier, New Zealand Perhaps we are looking in the wrong direction for the antidote to violence in the Sunni-dominated areas of Iraq. When Saddam Hussein was in power, he suppressed most resistance through sheer force and an aggressive, overwhelming response to any uprising. I'm sure that the Kurds and the Shi'ite majority, with the support of the U.S., could deal with the Fallujah insurgents. Sometimes...
...operatives like Abu Abdullah, who retains ties to some of his former Baathist comrades, that nationalist groups have newfound influence with al-Zarqawi. "What he's now having to do is balance the hard-line ideology with the softer line of the Iraqis within his group," says Abu Marwan. Sunni insurgent leaders say it was their insistence on voting in the October referendum that discouraged al-Zarqawi from disrupting the poll. For now, the nationalists say they will be voting again on Dec. 15, and they expect al-Qaeda to once more hold its fire. But so far no announcements...
...liberation and one of global holy war. "Insurgency and terror are two different things," says Khalilzad. The divide was evident in Fallujah last year, when al-Zarqawi's foreign fighters dominated the city and the insurgency at large. They took over local militias' checkpoints and neighborhoods, even "arresting" leading Sunni insurgent figures. When the local clerical body, the Association of Muslim Scholars, refused to endorse his suicide bombings and beheadings of Western hostages, al-Zarqawi branded the association's leader, Harith al-Dhari, a coward. "In Fallujah [al-Zarqawi's] leaders were foreigners who'd come to be martyred," says...
What does that mean for the U.S.? Ambassador Khalilzad says, "There is a reaching out to noncriminal Baathists." Evidence of shifts within the insurgency in some ways presents the U.S. with its best opportunity since the occupation began to counter parts of the Sunni resistance. Adopting the long-standing attitudes of secular Baathists, some Sunni leaders tell TIME they have lost patience with al-Zarqawi and would consider cutting a political deal with the U.S. to isolate the jihadis. "If the Americans evidenced good intent and a timetable for withdrawal we feel is genuine, we will stand up against...
That's still a long way off. The willingness of moderate Sunnis to pursue a political solution could easily crumble if the next government in Baghdad fails to improve conditions in Sunni areas and clamp down on sectarian excesses by Shi'ite militias. And even if the U.S. can lure some guerrillas to the negotiating table, it still faces a seemingly inescapable quandary: so long as U.S. troops are involved in combat in Iraq, there's every reason to believe the insurgency will be able to recruit sufficient numbers of motivated new fighters to do battle with them. Rhode Island...