A stepped-up campaign by Iraq's prime minister against Saddam Hussein loyalists is alienating Sunni Muslims and stoking tensions between them and the majority Shiites ahead of key national elections.
Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the scion of a revered clerical family who channeled rising Shiite Muslim power after the fall of Saddam Hussein to become one of Iraq's most influential politicians, died Wednesday in Iran, the country that was long his key ally. He was 59.
Sunni Muslims are bitter and fearful after Shiite Hezbollah's triumph in Beirut, watching their backs on the streets and some even moving to safer spots.
A Turkish high court ruled Monday that religious education classes geared toward Sunni Muslims should not be compulsory, a major victory for a Shiite branch of Islam.
Sunni Muslims marked the beginning of the Eid al-Adha holiday Wednesday, with thousands of worshippers gathering in mosques around Baghdad in an atmosphere of optimism after months of declining violence.
When Iraq hanged Saddam Hussein, furious Sunni Muslims in the militant group Hamas held mourning ceremonies. That did not sit well with Shiite Muslim Iran, one of Hamas' key backers but also a strong Saddam foe.
Gunmen burst into two houses belonging to Sunni Muslims northeast of Baghdad on Thursday and killed at least 10 males after pushing the women and children aside, Iraqi authorities said.
The United Nations said Tuesday that more than 34,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in sectarian violence last year, nearly three times the number reported dead by the Iraqi government.
More than 30 prominent Islamic clerics from Saudi Arabia on Monday called on Sunni Muslims around the Middle East to support their brethren in Iraq against Shiites and praised the insurgency.
Violence rattled the center of Iraq on Monday when a bomb exploded in a minibus in Baghdad's largely Shiite Shaab neighborhood, killing at least 20 people and wounding 18. Elsewhere at least 10 other Iraqis died violently, including a member of the Diyala city council.
Hundreds of thousands of Shia Muslims have gathered in the Iraqi city of Karbala for the climax of the religious festival of Ashura. Final processions will take place under tight security with more than 20,000 police deployed and marksmen placed on buildings.
Many young people in Iraq have grown disillusioned with religious leaders and skeptical of the faith that they preach.
The unsettled situation in northern Iraq continued Wednesday as Iraqi troops gathered in Mosul to fight Sunni Arab extremists.
American military officials said the Iraqi government had yet to develop a plan to absorb an influx of refugees returning to Baghdad and prevent it from setting off a new round of violence.
It seems to me that if the Middle East could use more of anything these days it is more mingling — if not between the sexes then at least between the sects.
The Bush administration does not expect quick progress on major goals like regional elections and a plan to share oil revenues.
Saudi Arabia and Libya were the source of about 60 percent of the foreign fighters who came to Iraq in the past year to facilitate attacks.
In the neighborhood of Bab al Sheik, Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds and Christians live together with unusual ease.
Efforts to recruit Sunni policemen have been met with halfhearted support and outright resistance from the Shiite-dominated national government.
The alternative Western view of Middle East strategy--so influential in academic, media, and to some extent diplomatic circles--has a six-point program that boils down as:
Iraq cannot be reconstructed as a unitary state, and the sooner we face up to this reality, the better.
Syria is hoping to gain influence in Iraq before what it sees as the inevitable waning of the American presence there, diplomats and political analysts say.
Years of war and murder had left Iraqis so thoroughly degraded, Makiya argued, that, once freed, they would throw off the tired orthodoxies of Arab politics and, in their despair, look to the West. "The removal of the regime of Saddam Hussein presents the U.S.
Sunni Arab extremists have begun a systematic campaign to assassinate police chiefs, police officers, other Interior Ministry officials and tribal leaders throughout Iraq.
A vast ethnic and sectarian displacement, as revealed in new data, could make a partition of the country more difficult.
About 70% of Iraqis believe security has deteriorated in the area covered by the US military "surge" of the past six months, an opinion poll suggests.
The U.S. troop "surge" has slowed, but far from stopped, Iraq's civil war, repeated visits to Baghdad neighborhoods show.
In a Sunni stronghold just south of Baghdad, the U.S.military has been persuading militants to switch sides. But it's not at all clear that the enemy's new enemy is really a friend.
The announcement on Sunday has been hailed as evidence of movement toward national reconciliation by the widely-criticized Shiite-led administration.
WASHINGTON — One way to look at the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq released this week is to review what it describes as the best-case scenario.
Bush administration officials are expressing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia's counterproductive role in the Iraq war.
PBS defines Jihad as "striving in the way of God; this striving can take a number of forms, including the daily inner struggle to be a better person. However, jihad is often used to refer to an armed struggle fought in defense of Islam."
The attacks were days ahead of a planned march of devout Shiites through Sunni heartlands to the remnants of a revered shrine.
An arrest warrant accused the Iraqi culture minister of masterminding the attempted assassination of a member of Parliament, who was once a top aide to Ahmad Chalabi.
Commanders are arming groups that have promised to fight militants who have been their allies in the past.