Shiite Muslims

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki traveled Saturday to Iran on a mission to improve relations between the countries at a time when U.S. officials have accused Tehran of arming Shiite Muslim militia groups fighting the Americans and Iraqi security forces. Maliki, who was expected to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today, is on his third visit to Iran since taking office in May 2006. His trip comes after fighting this spring in Baghdad and the southern city of Basra pitted Iraqi security forces against the Mahdi Army militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr.

A cousin and top deputy of executed former President Saddam Hussein denied opening fire on Iraqi civilians during a Shiite uprising in 1991 but acknowledged executing an Iranian national accused of sabotage. Ali Hassan Majid is known as "Chemical Ali" for ordering poison gas attacks on Kurds, a crime for which he has been sentenced to death. He is among 15 Hussein-era officials on trial for the 1991 crackdown that led to the killing of tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims. Majid disputed witness accounts that he and Iraqi soldiers opened fire on peaceful Shiite protesters in Basra, saying he targeted gunmen.

The government may be in Baghdad and the oil reserves in Basra, but the smaller city of Najaf, halfway between Iraq's two centers of power, has a treasure that could be the envy of them both. "Our oil here is tourism," said Abdul Hussein Abtan, the deputy provincial governor in Najaf. Najaf and its neighbor Karbala hold some of Islam's holiest monuments. If they could, Shiite Muslims from around the Middle East would flock to the city to pray at the shrine of Imam Ali, the cousin and companion of the prophet Muhammad and his rightful successor according to the Shiite branch of Islam.

A popular Sunni Muslim cleric with a television show and a website that churns out religious edicts and dieting tips agitated centuries-old animosities in the Islamic world recently by referring to Shiite Muslims as heretics seeking to invade Sunni societies.

Falling into a depression after her husband was killed last year, Iman immersed herself in religious studies and became fixated on a Shiite Muslim saint. Soon, a secretive group of worshipers tried to recruit the young widow, telling her that she could help bring the holy figure back to Earth. All she had to do was sleep with the group's male followers. Horrified, Iman, now 20, refused.

Iraq presents Barack Obama with the complicated task of bringing troops home from a deeply unpopular war and determining the role America will play as the devastated country struggles to rebuild. American forces are slated to pull out of Iraq's cities by June and leave Iraq by the end of 2011, according to a yet-to-be ratified security agreement between the two countries. The U.S.-led invasion began nearly six years ago and has resulted in 4,190 American deaths.

Tariq Jawrani inspected his brother's corpse. Blood crusted the nose and mouth, his skull was fractured, and bruises covered his stomach, back and legs, he said. Holes were gouged in Bashir's flesh. Baqubah police said the marks were from tubes inserted because of kidney failure, but his family said the 34-year-old had been in good health before police officers detained him at a checkpoint late last month.

About 1,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops launched a major offensive at dawn Thursday in Diyala province, an increasingly violent zone east of Baghdad that has become a haven and training ground for Sunni Arab insurgents. The target of the strike is an isolated landscape of farms and irrigation canals riddled with weapons caches, safe houses and training ranges, U.S. military officials said. The insurgents, however, appeared to be well prepared for the slow-moving assault.

President Bush's plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq has inflamed passions among the restive Sunni Arab minority, bringing new recruits to insurgent cells and outpourings of popular anger toward the U.S., the spokesman for the country's most hard-line Sunni clerical group declared Sunday. "Iraq is like a fire," said Mohammed Bashar Faidi, spokesman for the Muslim Scholars Assn. "Instead of putting water on the fire, Bush is pouring gasoline."

At least 70 Iraqi college students were killed and more than 170 others wounded Tuesday when a pair of car bombs exploded almost simultaneously at a Shiite-dominated university in the capital, apparently the latest salvo in the civil war between Sunni Arab insurgents and Shiite Muslim militants. The first bomb blew up a minivan filled with students leaving Mustansiriya University for the day.