Word: sunni
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...trying to take back enough rebel-held areas to hold credible elections in January. The U.S. does not have enough soldiers in Iraq to crush a growing insurgency in multiple locations at the same time. But officials believe they won't actually face that challenge. As messy as the Sunni triangle and Mosul now appear, so long as the insurgency doesn't ignite a nationwide conflagration, the Pentagon believes it can contain the threat. "What we're trying to do in the short term, through the elections, is make sure that there are no no-go zones," says a senior...
...whack-a-mole strategy may already be getting its first test in Mosul. The city is home to a heterogenous population of 1 million--Sunni, Kurd and Turkoman--and for months after the invasion was viewed as one of the occupation's few success stories. But locals warn that the city is slipping out of control. Foreign terrorists streaming across the border from Syria have joined forces with a Baathist resistance stocked with unemployed ex-soldiers. Insurgent attacks have grown significantly in number and lethality in recent months, and at least two or three assassination victims arrive each...
...risk for the U.S. is that, rather than make the Sunni triangle secure for democracy, the assault on Fallujah may instead inflame Sunnis and scatter insurgents across a wider area, which could scuttle hopes of broad Sunni participation in the voting. The Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni political party in Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's interim government withdrew last week, saying it could not abide the attack on Fallujah. Meanwhile, the influential Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni group, has called for a total boycott of the elections. The association's leader, Harith al-Dhari, told TIME...
...even after the violence and inflammatory rhetoric of the past week, not all Iraqis are convinced the Sunnis will sit out the vote. Sunni leaders are acutely aware that the majority Shi'ites--who make up 60% of Iraq's population--seem united in their desire for elections. Optimistic U.S. and Iraqi officials believe that as elections draw near, at least some Sunni leaders will recognize their interest in having a say in Iraq's first elected government. As Sarmad Mohammad, a Sunni fruit vendor in Baghdad, says, "If there are no Sunni leaders in the new government...
...major combat operations against the insurgency, the victory at Fallujah will likely see their focus shift elsewhere - to Mosul, Ramadi and other new flashpoints. And while counterinsurgency operations will likely to continue for months ahead, both before and after January, the election date now makes the political battle for Sunni hearts and minds, rendered ever more challenging by the fact of ongoing combat, a race against the clock...