| Western democracies have had their own experience of rotten boroughs and tribal strongholds. |
| The government deployed additional military forces to attack terrorist strongholds. |
| As well as being defensible strongholds and elite private residences, most castles were also the hubs of estates. |
| The insurgents still had strongholds in the north-western district of Jolan, a warren of narrow streets. |
| Millions of pilgrims are expected to walk between Najaf and Karbala and other Shiite strongholds in Iraq. |
| They blew defensive positions out of the living rock, and turned stone-built villages into strongholds. |
