Word: sunni
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...involved. President Pervez Musharraf, who has cracked down on Islamist militancy under U.S. pressure, is reluctant to further annoy Pakistan's well-armed radicals. Already, police and several investigators have been threatened. An attack on a police bus carrying 20 militants left one dead, and gunmen believed to be Sunni Muslims slaughtered 11 Shi'a worshippers at a mosque in Rawalpindi. The U.S., for its part, has ample reason not to rush the extradition of Pearl's murderers. Some in the Administration are worried that forcing the issue would be counterproductive, exacerbating anti-Americanism and offending nationalist sensibilities by suggesting...
...candidate is Ahmad Chalabi, Shi'a leader of the Iraqi National Congress, an opposition group in exile. But Chalabi has little personal following inside Iraq, is distrusted by many U.S. officials and is opposed by key Arab states like Saudi Arabia. Washington is increasingly looking for an exiled Sunni from Saddam's professional army to rally the country against him. An emerging candidate is Nazar Khazraji, a former Iraqi chief of staff who defected in 1996 and is living in Copenhagen. Khazraji can rally the professional military against Saddam, experts say, and would reassure the Saudis and others that Iraq...
...Indeed, the strategic calculations that restrained Washington from pursuing Saddam's ouster in 1991 have not changed significantly. Saddam's regime is based on a Sunni Muslim minority that constitutes some 15 percent of the population. Around 60 percent of Iraqis are Shiite Muslims, who share religious ties with Iran. And the remaining 25 percent are ethnic Kurds, whose inclination is to seek autonomy or even full independence from Baghdad. Simply put, the concern is that destroying Saddam's regime could presage the breakup of Iraq itself, dramatically expanding Iranian influence while a breakaway Kurdish region in the north proves...
...onetime religion teacher has been in and out of detention since he returned to his native land after India released him. Within weeks, he was in Karachi delivering fanatical speeches and exhorting several thousand armed supporters to destroy India and the U.S. Azhar joined hands with a hard-line Sunni sectarian group and broke away from Harkat-ul-Mujahideen to found the even more fanatical Jaish-e-Muhammad. His new group was the first to favor suicide attacks in India. It has been responsible for grenade and car-bomb assaults on civilian targets, and took responsibility for a devastating bomb...
This new interpretation is taking shape in different places at different speeds. Although non-Muslims often view Islam as a monolithic bloc, the religion is characterized by its diversity. With over a billion believers scattered across every continent, as well as separate Shi'ite and Sunni traditions, the Muslim community (or ummah) has long been a philosophical construct rather than a demographic reality. That's true in Europe, where Muslims are divided by country of residence as much as by country of origin. "The problems Muslims are facing here are deeply influenced by the institutions of the countries where they...