Sectarian Warfare Gets Worse in Iraq
The sectarian violence in Iraq worsened on Sunday, with attacks against the Baghdad neighborhood which is a stronghold of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
A series of powerful explosions ripped through a Shiite Muslim slum in Baghdad on Sunday evening, killing about 50 people and wounding more than 200, as top Iraqi politicians vowed to redouble efforts to form a national unity government and ease a recent surge in sectarian violence...
Hazim al-Araji, a spokesman for the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose followers maintain a large presence in Sadr City, said on al-Jazeera satellite television that 50 people had been killed and more than 295 injured in the explosions. He also said the blasts appeared to have been coordinated.
The series of attacks was the deadliest since the Feb. 22 bombing of the Shiites' revered Askariya mosque in Samarra, north of Baghdad, unleashed days of sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunni Arabs that left at least 1,000 people dead. Sunni leaders have said many of the deaths resulted from retaliatory attacks on Sunnis by Sadr's Mahdi Army, a well-armed militia that the U.S. military estimates has about 10,000 members.
Sadr's spokesman specifically attributed the violence Sunday to Sunni extremists and the U.S. military's three-year occupation of Iraq, not Sunni Arabs in general.
"We accuse Zarqawi, the occupation and the Baathist Saddamists," Araji said...
Other attacks Sunday in and around Baghdad left at least 22 people dead and 32 wounded, according to police and other security officials.
Iraqi political leaders, meanwhile, agreed to expedite negotiations on forming a new national unity government that would include all the main political parties...
In a sign of urgency, and to avoid conflicts with a Shiite holiday, the parties agreed to move up the opening day of parliament by three days, to this Thursday. It was previously scheduled for Sunday.
Not exactly true. It was previously scheduled, according to the constitution, for yesterday, March 12, and had to be postponed because of political disputes between Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish politicians.
Iraq's main means of controlling the factions -- the U.S.-backed government and its new military -- are themselves fractured along sectarian lines. Three months after national elections for what is to be the first full-term government since Hussein's overthrow, Iraq's leaders missed a deadline Sunday for parliament to meet. Bickering over the reappointment of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari, a Shiite, has divided even the Shiite governing coalition...
"Sectarian violence now has become the No. 1 problem in Iraq, more than the insurgency. Or on a par" with the insurgency, said Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, the U.N. envoy to Iraq. Gen. John P. Abizaid, the head of U.S. Central Command, said last week that "sectarian violence is a greater concern for us security-wise right now than the insurgency."...
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld last week said the United States would look to Iraqi forces to quell any civil war that broke out. But voting patterns on army bases in December's elections suggested that the majority of Iraq's armed forces were either Shiite Arabs or Kurds, although the United States is promoting efforts to recruit and keep more Sunni Arab soldiers. Interior Ministry police forces are predominantly Shiite as well. When Shiite militia fighters poured out of Baghdad's Sadr City after the Samarra bombing, police stood aside for the vehicles carrying men holding rocket launchers and automatic rifles...
If it turns out that it is too late to prevent a civil war, the International Crisis Group warned late last month, Iraq's minders and neighbors should look ahead to the next worry.
"The international community, including neighboring states, should start planning for the contingency that Iraq will fall apart, so as to contain the inevitable fallout on regional stability and security," the international foreign policy group wrote. "Failure to anticipate such a possibility may lead to further disasters in the future."
U.S. policymakers are having a hard enough time facing the fact that a civil war is currently being fought in Iraq.
John Burns, the Baghdad bureau chief for the New York Times for the entirety of the Iraq war, now upon his return to the U.S., is saying "It's always been a civil war," adding that it's just a matter of extent.
With our leaders in denial, does anyone believe that we are "planning for the contingency that Iraq will fall apart, so as to contain the inevitable fallout on regional stability and security"?
A series of powerful explosions ripped through a Shiite Muslim slum in Baghdad on Sunday evening, killing about 50 people and wounding more than 200, as top Iraqi politicians vowed to redouble efforts to form a national unity government and ease a recent surge in sectarian violence...
Hazim al-Araji, a spokesman for the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose followers maintain a large presence in Sadr City, said on al-Jazeera satellite television that 50 people had been killed and more than 295 injured in the explosions. He also said the blasts appeared to have been coordinated.
The series of attacks was the deadliest since the Feb. 22 bombing of the Shiites' revered Askariya mosque in Samarra, north of Baghdad, unleashed days of sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunni Arabs that left at least 1,000 people dead. Sunni leaders have said many of the deaths resulted from retaliatory attacks on Sunnis by Sadr's Mahdi Army, a well-armed militia that the U.S. military estimates has about 10,000 members.
Sadr's spokesman specifically attributed the violence Sunday to Sunni extremists and the U.S. military's three-year occupation of Iraq, not Sunni Arabs in general.
"We accuse Zarqawi, the occupation and the Baathist Saddamists," Araji said...
Other attacks Sunday in and around Baghdad left at least 22 people dead and 32 wounded, according to police and other security officials.
Iraqi political leaders, meanwhile, agreed to expedite negotiations on forming a new national unity government that would include all the main political parties...
In a sign of urgency, and to avoid conflicts with a Shiite holiday, the parties agreed to move up the opening day of parliament by three days, to this Thursday. It was previously scheduled for Sunday.
Not exactly true. It was previously scheduled, according to the constitution, for yesterday, March 12, and had to be postponed because of political disputes between Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish politicians.
Iraq's main means of controlling the factions -- the U.S.-backed government and its new military -- are themselves fractured along sectarian lines. Three months after national elections for what is to be the first full-term government since Hussein's overthrow, Iraq's leaders missed a deadline Sunday for parliament to meet. Bickering over the reappointment of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari, a Shiite, has divided even the Shiite governing coalition...
"Sectarian violence now has become the No. 1 problem in Iraq, more than the insurgency. Or on a par" with the insurgency, said Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, the U.N. envoy to Iraq. Gen. John P. Abizaid, the head of U.S. Central Command, said last week that "sectarian violence is a greater concern for us security-wise right now than the insurgency."...
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld last week said the United States would look to Iraqi forces to quell any civil war that broke out. But voting patterns on army bases in December's elections suggested that the majority of Iraq's armed forces were either Shiite Arabs or Kurds, although the United States is promoting efforts to recruit and keep more Sunni Arab soldiers. Interior Ministry police forces are predominantly Shiite as well. When Shiite militia fighters poured out of Baghdad's Sadr City after the Samarra bombing, police stood aside for the vehicles carrying men holding rocket launchers and automatic rifles...
If it turns out that it is too late to prevent a civil war, the International Crisis Group warned late last month, Iraq's minders and neighbors should look ahead to the next worry.
"The international community, including neighboring states, should start planning for the contingency that Iraq will fall apart, so as to contain the inevitable fallout on regional stability and security," the international foreign policy group wrote. "Failure to anticipate such a possibility may lead to further disasters in the future."
U.S. policymakers are having a hard enough time facing the fact that a civil war is currently being fought in Iraq.
John Burns, the Baghdad bureau chief for the New York Times for the entirety of the Iraq war, now upon his return to the U.S., is saying "It's always been a civil war," adding that it's just a matter of extent.
With our leaders in denial, does anyone believe that we are "planning for the contingency that Iraq will fall apart, so as to contain the inevitable fallout on regional stability and security"?
posted by Effwit at 9:23 AM
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