Sunni Arab

Nearly two months after most of them sat out Iraq's historic election, 200 Sunni Arab leaders gathered to consider a belated plunge into democratic politics. It was not a civil discussion. As a legal scholar was explaining how they could help write a new constitution, a tribal chief cut him off, shouting, "Long live the resistance!" The chief, Mazin Jaber Nima, said the Sunni Arab-led insurgency against American troops would falter if Sunni Arabs joined in the U.S.

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.

A surge in violence in this oil-rich city divided among Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Turkmens vying for power has alarmed Iraqi officials amid intensifying sectarian warfare in central and southern Iraq. Kirkuk has been contested ground since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, when Kurds displaced by Saddam Hussein and previous Sunni Arab-dominated governments began returning to their former homes.

  Sirens wailed, smoke billowed and blood pooled on the pavement. The scenes of devastation were all too familiar after more than a dozen explosions ripped through the Iraqi capital Thursday, killing at least 60 people and injuring nearly 200, just days after the last U.S. troops left the country. The attacks, some of the worst in Iraq this year, came in the midst of a political standoff between the country's main Shiite Muslim and Sunni Arab factions. The dispute threatens to unravel a U.S.-backed power-sharing government, and is spreading anxiety over the prospect of a return to the sectarian bloodletting that devastated the country in recent years.

Fighters allied with Al Qaeda battled Iraqi civilians and a nationalist insurgent group in the Amariya neighborhood of west Baghdad this week, in the latest indication of growing internal strife in Iraq's troubled Sunni Arab community. The clashes in the suburb, home during Saddam Hussein's rule to elite civil servants and military officers, appear to be a spillover from the fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq in the neighboring province of Al Anbar and Baghdad's western suburb of Abu Ghraib.

The Iraqi National Assembly's rush to finish a new constitution by mid-August ran into more trouble Wednesday when the drafting committee's Sunni Muslims halted their work after the assassination of a colleague. The suspension of Sunni Arab participation came on top of continuing deep divisions among committee members over such key issues as the independence of the governorates, control of the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk and the status of women.

There are no red states or blue states. Ballots won't have hanging chads. But the fight over Iraq's constitution appears headed for an election day showdown that -- similar to recent U.S. presidential elections -- will be decided by one or two battleground provinces. A draft of the charter is almost certain to win approval this week in the transitional National Assembly, which is dominated by Shiites and Kurds.

Iraq's Kurdish president and Shiite Muslim prime minister hailed a governing alliance forged Thursday as a major stride toward reuniting the country's ethnically fractured leadership. But with Sunni Arabs refusing to take part in the coalition, it remained doubtful that significant progress toward resolving Iraq's myriad problems would come soon. The political maneuvering in the capital promised to further frustrate efforts by U.S.

Sunni Arabs across the political spectrum closed ranks Saturday, proposing a flurry of amendments to a draft constitution they have condemned, while some officials said negotiations could drag on until a nationwide referendum on the charter scheduled for the fall.

Abu Mujahid brags that he bombed a U.S. Army Humvee and wounded two American soldiers just last month. Now he's stumping for Sunni candidates and talking matter-of-factly about the importance of safety as Iraqis head to the polls today. "This is something like a truce so the elections will be implemented in a secure environment," said Abu Mujahid, an active member of the 1920 Revolution Brigades, an armed Sunni Arab group.

Mohamed Albuflasa was different from everyone else taking the stage on the second day of Bahrain's protests. He was a Sunni Muslim. The 34-year-old Salafist favored government reform, and he believed he should speak at the rally to promote unity among the country's Shiite Muslim majority and Sunnis at Manama's Pearl Square. Within hours, a security agency had detained him, and he has not been seen since. Even as hundreds of political prisoners were freed this week by King Hamed ibn Isa Khalifa, Albuflasa remains jailed and his whereabouts a mystery.

Sheik Sabah Janabi wears a painful-looking metal brace on his left hand, its rods pressing into the puffy flesh like the spring on a mousetrap. He fumbles a Marlboro from a pack with his good hand, sucks in the smoke and frowns. In this farming town that was a center of extremism when Iraq fell into its nihilistic civil war, Janabi sits in a darkened room, his white shirt half tucked in and his blue tie slightly askew. He talks about how gunmen tried to kill him three months ago and describes himself as a leader under siege.

It has been a month now and still there are no answers. There is just a father gripping the photographs of his son. In one, 21-year-old Ali Mohammed Fakher is in Japan, dressed in his white judo robe; in another, he's on a boat in Turkey with his coach and teammates. Fakher had gone further than any of his family imagined, rising from the rough streets of west Baghdad to become the star player on Iraq's national judo team. On the day before he was to leave Iraq to train for tournaments, he was shot to death as he walked down the main street of his neighborhood.

A Sunni paramilitary leader, his wife and two of his sons were assassinated Thursday as attacks continued against members of the groups that helped U.S. troops defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq militants and bring an end to the country's sectarian war. Gunmen opened fire before dawn on the house of Khudair Hamad Saad, a prominent member of the Sunni Arab Awakening movement, in an area outside Fallouja in the western province of Anbar, police said. Saad had been a member of Al Qaeda in Iraq but broke away from the radical group three years ago and joined the Awakening movement in its fight against the insurgents, police said.

Militants launched attacks on security forces and Shiite Muslim civilians across Iraq on Monday, killing nearly 100 people in a spree of shootings and bombings that rattled the country and worsened tensions among its political elite. At least 92 Iraqis were killed and more than 300 were injured. The number of dead and wounded rose steadily in the evening as reports trickled in from Mosul in the north, Basra in the far south and points in between. News channels broadcast familiar images of weeping women cloaked in black abayas , mangled vehicles and pools of water tinged with blood.

Militants launched major bomb attacks in Baghdad and a western province Friday, killing at least 67 people and raising fears that the deaths of the two leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq would not quell sectarian violence. Bombs ripped through Shiite Muslim sections of Baghdad after Friday prayers and in western Anbar province, where Sunni Muslims first successfully revolted against Al Qaeda in Iraq four years ago. There were no immediate claims of responsibility, although the coordinated bombings bore the hallmarks of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Erroneous U.S. raids targeting Sunni Arab political organizations were the result of bad intelligence mistakenly linking the groups to insurgent activity, a senior U.S. military official said Thursday. Raids on the two Sunni offices last month inflamed sectarian tensions and sullied the U.S. image as the Bush administration and Iraqi officials try to reach out to the disenfranchised Sunni Arab minority, which forms the core of the insurgency.

The Amariya neighborhood has won a reputation as the most fearsome quarter of the capital, with car bombs, snipers and frequent clashes between U.S. forces and hardened Sunni Arab fighters. But over the last few weeks, U.S. officials and Iraqi residents say, life has improved markedly in the notorious district, thanks to an American-led effort to improve security and services. On a tour of the largely Sunni Arab district with U.S.

An Iraqi judicial panel on Monday ordered a manual recount of about 2.5 million ballots cast in Baghdad in last month's national elections, an action requested by Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's alliance, which had filed allegations of vote fraud. The legal decision raised Maliki's hopes that his Shiite-dominated coalition would be awarded more parliamentary seats than his rival Iyad Allawi's secular bloc, which had stunned the nation by winning a slim plurality in the March 7 vote.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, battling for another term in office, lashed out at Iraq's neighbors Monday for meddling in its affairs as political leaders negotiate the composition of a new government. The tough comments were broadcast on state TV and came as representatives of Iraqi parties tour the region. Some Middle East countries have issued statements in recent days on Iraq's ongoing negotiations. Without naming any neighboring countries, Maliki warned them not to intervene in Iraqi affairs.