Muqtada Sadr

Stephen Everhart was brought to Iraq by the U.S. Agency for International Development to assist the University of Baghdad's business college in qualifying for international accreditation. He was killed Thursday outside the gates of the university when a powerful bomb commonly used by Shiite Muslim militias detonated. The attack highlighted the precarious position of contractors for the U.S. government and Embassy as the American military prepares to leave the country. Militia groups, some with ties to the Iraqi government, are intent on hitting U.S. diplomats, soldiers and contractors employed by the embassy.

A string of explosions targeting Shiite Muslims that killed at least 71 people bore the hallmark of Sunni Arab insurgents who have a history of trying to capitalize on tensions among Iraqi politicians to reignite the communal violence that nearly tore the country apart. The bombings Thursday in the south of Iraq and in mainly Shiite neighborhoods of the capital, Baghdad, were the second major wave of attacks since the last U.S. troops departed from Iraq less than three weeks ago. Sectarian tension has escalated sharply as a political dispute threatens to unravel U.S.-backed power-sharing arrangements among the country's Shiites, Sunni Arabs and ethnic Kurds.

The Shiite movement loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr may seem an unlikely standard bearer for democracy in the new Iraq. It owes fealty to a leader whose stature derives from his religious lineage. It boycotted Iraq's first democratic election. And its Mahdi Army militia was held responsible for much of the mayhem that reigned a few years back. But on Friday, the Sadrists held Iraq's first primary election to choose candidates in January's crucial nationwide elections.

After nearly nine years of war, the loss of more than 100,000 lives and hundreds of billions of dollars spent, the U.S. military mission in Iraq has formally ended. But violence continues to roil the Mideast nation, and its political destiny is far from certain. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and other top U.S. officials conducted a low-key ceremony on a military base at the Baghdad airport Thursday, furling the flag to signal the official conclusion of one of the most divisive wars in American history.

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They're a ragtag team of about 1,000 young, impoverished men who sometimes shoot one another by accident or stick machine guns out windows and spray the area without looking. Yet they've also set up clever ambushes, demonstrated surprising resilience and executed defensive maneuvers that have impressed the U.S. military. After a week of butting heads with Muqtada Sadr's Al Mahdi army, U.S.

In the latest example of waning American influence in Iraq, anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada Sadr returned home from Iran, where he had gone in 2007 after his Shiite Muslim militia engaged in years of on-and-off battles with U.S. troops and was blamed for some of the country's worst sectarian violence. Sadr's surprise homecoming comes months after his supporters won 40 seats in the Iraqi parliament, allowing the Iranian-backed cleric to play a decisive role in Prime Minister Nouri Maliki securing a new term late last year after a lengthy period of political deadlock.

The U.S. military Wednesday released a senior member of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr's movement at the request of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. The decision, officials said, was made with the hope of easing tensions between Sadr's Al Mahdi militia and U.S.-led forces in Iraq. Sheik Ahmed Shibani, who had been in prison for 2 1/2 years, was handed over to the office of the Shiite prime minister.

The Mahdi Army fighter gets nervous every time he passes an Iraqi army checkpoint in Sadr City. He has even shaved his beard, a sign of his piety and his fealty to the Shiite Muslim militia, so the soldiers won't recognize him. "I am hunted. I can't stay home. The neighbors are informing on us," 28-year-old Bassem said at a recent rally for his leader, cleric Muqtada Sadr. Using a derogatory term for the Iraqi army, he added, "Four times, the dirty division has raided my house."

U.S. soldiers and Shiite militiamen exchanged heavy fire Sunday on the streets of Sadr City, a sprawling neighborhood in eastern Baghdad that is a stronghold of militant cleric Muqtada Sadr. Sadr's forces appeared to make a concerted effort to seize control of parts of the district, witnesses and officials said. U.S. authorities said the attempt was repulsed, though continued fighting was reported. U.S.

Iran has just defeated the United States in Iraq. The American withdrawal, which comes after the administration's failure to secure a new agreement that would have allowed troops to remain in Iraq, won't be good for ordinary Iraqis or for the region. But it will unquestionably benefit Iran. President Obama's February 2009 speech at Camp Lejeune accurately defined the U.S. goal for Iraq as "an Iraq that is sovereign, stable and self-reliant. " He then outlined how the U.S. would achieve that goal by working "to promote an Iraqi government that is just, representative and accountable, and that provides neither support nor safe haven to terrorists.

By declaring that the last American troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year, President Obama signaled the official close to one of the longest, most politically contentious wars in U.S. history — and the end to an American attempt to transform the Middle East with military might. The soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines will leave behind a stumbling young democracy, still beset by sectarian violence and tilting closer to its neighbor, Iran, a bitter U.S. foe. They will return home to a country that has largely turned inward to face its own economic problems, and which long ago lost heart in a war fought in the name of protecting the world from weapons of mass destruction that were never found.

Insurgents launched four attacks early Wednesday against Iraq's security forces, killing 27 people as the Persian Gulf nation prepares for the departure of U.S. troops at the end of the year. A car bomb exploded outside a restaurant where police officers were dining in Madhatiya, near the city of Hillah. The blast killed a dozen people and wounded 43, according to security and health officials. In Baghdad, a drive-by shooting at a police checkpoint in the Qahira neighborhood left two police officers dead and two wounded.

Anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr called on followers not to launch attacks on U.S. troops who are scheduled to leave Iraq by the end of the year, but warned that the violence would resume if they were not gone. Sadr's statement comes as U.S. and Iraqi officials are considering a plan to keep a small number of American troops in the country. More than 40,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq, but under an agreement between Iraq and the Bush administration in 2008, virtually all should leave by the end of 2011.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki announced Saturday that Iraq plans to buy 36 U.S. fighter jets, signaling his intent to seek a long-term American military training presence in the country. But in an indication of the risks for the American military here, a U.S. watchdog group said that Iraq had become more hazardous. "Iraq remains an extraordinarily dangerous place to work," Stuart Bowen, chief of the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said in a report. "It is less safe, in my judgment, than 12 months ago. " The report notes that 44 Iraqi government and security officials have been assassinated since April.

In an illustration of its growing muscle in Iraq as U.S. influence wanes, anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr's movement has won pardons for at least 50 prisoners jailed for crimes including murder, kidnapping and attacks on U.S. troops. The amnesties come at a time when U.S. forces remaining in Iraq have faced an increased number of attacks, many by Shiite Muslim militias associated with the Sadr movement. And they have angered some senior Iraqi officials, who charge that the law is being applied selectively and bent to fit a hidden political agenda.

A five-hour gun battle erupted Friday in palm groves along the Euphrates River between U.S. troops and militiamen loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr, the first major combat engagement between the two sides since U.S. forces converged on the area to capture or kill Sadr. Two U.S. soldiers were wounded in the engagement. A third was shot in the head in an earlier fight nearby and was not expected to survive.

U.S. and British forces have recently inflicted heavy casualties on Muqtada Sadr's militia, but the Shiite cleric is bracing for a showdown with a more familiar foe: moderate Shiites who do not support his uprising. A senior Shiite leader, Sadruddin Qubanchi, allied with the powerful Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has called for a mass demonstration Friday in the holy city of Najaf to expel Sadr's private army.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said Sunday that weapons supplied by Iran are behind a rash of attacks against American forces in Iraq, part of an escalating campaign of violence ahead of the planned U.S. troop withdrawal by the end of the year. "We're seeing more of those weapons going in from Iran, and they've really hurt us," said Panetta, who arrived in Baghdad on an unannounced visit after a two-day stop in Afghanistan. U.S. officials said 15 U.S. troops were killed in June, the most in any month in two years.

Stephen Everhart was brought to Iraq by the U.S. Agency for International Development to assist the University of Baghdad's business college in qualifying for international accreditation. He was killed Thursday outside the gates of the university when a powerful bomb commonly used by Shiite Muslim militias detonated. The attack highlighted the precarious position of contractors for the U.S. government and Embassy as the American military prepares to leave the country. Militia groups, some with ties to the Iraqi government, are intent on hitting U.S. diplomats, soldiers and contractors employed by the embassy.