Civil war spreads throughout Iraq

In the past two weeks, the sectarian civil war in central Iraq has taken a decisive turn for the worse. On July 25, President George W. Bush agreed to send more US troops into Baghdad to help the Iraqi government attempt to curb the escalating violence now claiming an estimated 100 lives a day. The increased US involvement in Baghdad was an acknowledgement that an earlier plan to gain control of the city had failed to contain worsening sectarian bloodshed between Shia and Sunni militias. US military spokesman Major General William Caldwell said there had been an average of 34 attacks a day involving US and Iraqi forces in and around the capital since July 14–up 40 percent from the daily average of 24 registered between June 14 and July 13. US and Iraqi officials have recognized in recent weeks that the violence between Shia and Sunni groups is now worse than the insurgency against US forces. In the past sectarian militias have carried out massacres by rounding up individuals in Sunni or Shiite neighborhoods and executing them. But the massacre of Shiites by Sunni gunmen in Mahmoudiya on July 17, in which as many as 58 people were killed and 90 wounded, was a military attack on civilians by Sunnis using heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades mounted on pick-up trucks. The attackers were apparently a new Sunni militia group calling themselves "Supporters of the Sunni People," but many of the troops wore Iraqi security uniforms. The group which took responsibility said the attack was in revenge for the slaughter of at least 40 Sunni civilians by masked Shiite gunmen in Baghdad which went on for several hours on July 9. In a further sign of a loss of confidence in the Iraqi government's tactics, the leader of the largest party in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's ruling coalition called for residents to be allowed to form self-defense units to protect themselves against sectarian attack. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a leading Shiite and the head of the powerful Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution, said that "people's committees" should be formed to create local protection units. Daily sectarian massacres are leading observers to fear a level of killing approaching that of Rwanda immediately before the genocide of 1994. On a single spot on the west bank of the Tigris River in north Baghdad, between 10 and 12 bodies have been drifting ashore every day. On July 22, Iraqi leaders met in an attempt to display sectarian and ethnic solidarity, but some were pessimistic about the chances of tackling rising sectarian bloodshed. The biggest party from the Sunni Arab community did not join the talks. As one of the bloodiest weeks of the war neared an end, Iraqi officials told Reuters reporters that despair was setting in and chances of averting all-out civil war were now thin. The leaders have all but given up on holding the country together and talk in private of "black days" of civil war ahead. Signaling a dramatic abandonment of the US-backed project for Iraq, there is even talk among them of preempting the worst bloodshed by agreeing to an east-west division of Baghdad into Shiite and Sunni Muslim zones, senior officials told Reuters. "If this is not civil war... then I don't know what is," a senior government official told Reuters, dismissing complaints from others that media are exaggerating the dangers of violence. "Iraq as a political project is finished," one top government official told Reuters. "The parties have moved to Plan B," another official said, saying Sunni, ethnic Kurdish and majority Shiite blocs were looking at ways to divide power and resources. "There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into east and west," said the official, who has long been a proponent of the present government's objectives. "We are extremely worried." Other senior leaders echoed this view. With thousands fleeing areas where their sect is in the minority, Iraqis fear Baghdad is being transformed into a Sunni west and a Shiite and Christian east–divided by the Tigris River that flows through the center of the city. It has become very easy to be killed anywhere in central Iraq through belonging to the wrong sect. Many people carry two sets of identity papers, one forged, so they can claim to be a Sunni at Sunni checkpoints and Shia at Shia checkpoints. "The situation is terrifying and black," said Rida Jawad al-Takki, a senior member of parliament from Maliki's dominant Shiite Alliance bloc, and one of the few officials from all the main factions willing to speak publicly on the issue. "We have received information of a plan to divide Baghdad. The government is incapable of solving the situation," he said. A senior official from the once dominant Sunni minority concurred: "Everyone knows the situation is very bad," he said. "I'm not optimistic." Tens of thousands of Iraqis have fled their homes as sectarian violence has turned increasingly bitter since the US-backed government was formed two months ago. Sattar Nowruz, the Migration Ministry spokesman, said that there was a rise of about 32,000 internal refugees over the past three weeks, taking the total to about 162,000 over the past five months. "We consider this to be a dangerous sign," Nowruz said. The US ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, has said the government, hailed by Bush as a major success for US-installed democracy in the Middle East, has just months to prove itself. In private, however, one of Maliki's top officials confided earnestly: "To be honest, it's all over. I'm just still doing this job because it's the only way to fight my depression." "It is actually a civil war," said Ayad Samaraie, a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party. "It is action and reaction. And it is increasing day after day."