The Shiite south was initially expected to be quiet.

His followers are the unemployed young men of the Shiite south and the Baghdad slums.

Meanwhile, the fighting continued in the Shiite south.

The reported plan is to divide the country into three sectors - the largely Kurdish north, the Sunni center and the Shiite south.

Consequently, reconstruction is lagging even in the relatively secure Shiite south and Kurdish north.

Most of Iraq's crude oil reserves lie in the Shiite south and Kurdish north.

But the destruction was far less than what journalists have seen in other cities in the Kurdish north and Shiite Muslim south.

The other four provinces that the inspector general recommends essentially abandoning are also in the Shiite south.

Baghdad's control over the Shiite south was seen as a strategic bulwark against a fundamentalist Iran.

Areas that are not mixed - Iraq's Kurdish north and portions of its Shiite south - were far safer.