Sectarian violence sweeps Iraq

Sectarian strife has continued to wreak havoc in Iraq as a series of car bombs, suicide attacks and mortar barrages have claimed hundreds of lives, despite calls for calm and solidarity from Sunni and Shia leaders. Up to 1,300 people have died in violence triggered by the destruction of one of the country's holiest Shia shrines, although the government put out a statement to insist that the death toll was much lower. The bomb attack on the Askariya mosque in Samarra on Feb. 22 plunged Iraq into the worst week of sectarian violence since the 2003 invasion. Within two days of the attack more than 200 had been reported killed. In the worst single act of violence, 47 men who had joined a joint Shia-Sunni demonstration on Feb. 23 against the mosque bombing were stopped by gunmen after leaving the protest in a convoy of buses. All were shot dead and dumped in a ditch at the side of the road beside their burnt-out vehicles. Dozens of bodies, many with their hands tied, have been found riddled with bullets in Baghdad and Basra. The Iraqi prime minister's office issued a statement on Feb. 28 putting the total death toll over six days at 379 and denied reports that it was well over 1,000. But the morgue in Baghdad alone said it received 309 bodies since Feb. 22, most victims of violence. Morgue data showed this was double the daily average. In the 48 hours following the destruction of the shrine in Samarra, 168 Sunni mosques were reportedly damaged or destroyed and 10 imams had been murdered. Thousands of Iraqis protesting the Askariya bombing have joined demonstrations in the last week, many of which have breached the Sunni-Shia sectarian divide that threatens the country with all-out civil war. Sunnis were quick to demonstrate solidarity with the Shias in Samarra and to condemn the mosque bombings. Demonstrations of solidarity between Sunnis and Shias followed all over Iraq with some of the bigger demonstrations being held in Basra, Diwaniyah, Nasiriyah, Kut and Salah Al-Din. Thousands of Sunnis also joined Shia demonstrations in Baghdad despite moves by the Iraqi security forces to seal off Sunni areas. Despite some moves towards solidarity between the two Muslim sects, many protests remained fiercely sectarian. In Sadr City, hundreds of protesters surged through the streets waving swords, guns and pictures of Shia clerics. Some carried signs dubbing Sunni politicians "political terrorists" and called for their death. In Kirkuk, about a thousand Shiites marched in the streets, chanting against members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and Takfiris, a word used to describe militant Islamic fundamentalists who denounce other Muslims as infidels. Much of the Shia anger was also directed at US forces. In the primarily Shia city of Kut south of Baghdad, thousands marched through the streets burning US and Israeli flags. The infuriated response among Iraqi Shias to the bombing of the Askariya mosque in Samarra stems from the shrine's religious and historic significance. The golden-domed 9th-century mosque is the burial site of two imams related to the Prophet Mohammed; it is one of Iraq's four holiest sites and sacred to millions of Shias throughout the world. Muslim tradition says the shrine, which draws Shia pilgrims from all over the Islamic world, is near the place where the last of the 12 Shia imams, Mohammed al-Mahdi, disappeared. Although the explosion at the shrine occurred at 6:55am on the morning of Feb. 22, preparations began earlier. "According to initial reports, the bombing was technically well conceived and could only have been carried out by specialists," construction minister Jassem Mohammad Jaafar said in a statement. He also said it must have taken at least 12 hours to place the charges. Jaafar, who toured the devastated mosque a day after the bombing which brought down its golden dome, said "holes were dug into the mausoleum's four main pillars and packed with explosives." "Then the charges were connected together and linked to another charge placed just under the dome. The wires were then linked to a detonator which was triggered at a distance," the minister added. To drill into the pillars would have taken at least four hours per pillar, he estimated. Other information concerning the bombing suggests that unknown black-clad men dressed in the standard style of Shia police commandos seized the shrine the evening before the blast and held it until just before the explosion. Rival Shia leaders, all involved in government, deny sending their respective militia forces against Sunni targets following the attack. Members of the Mahdi militia, loyal to the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, have been blamed for much of the fighting last week, despite orders from al-Sadr to stop. Key Sunni leaders walked out of government negotiations on Feb. 23, accusing their Shiite counterparts and the government of Prime Minister Ibrahami al-Jaafari of inciting the reprisals. Al-Jaafari and other Shiite leaders strongly denied the charges, although US officials expressed concern over the failure of police and other security forces to even try to restrain Shiite militias. Officials and analysts also expressed great concern over the suggestion by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most influential cleric, that Shiites may have to depend on their own forces to defend against insurgent attacks. "If the [government's] security apparatuses are unable to safeguard against this crisis," he warned, "the believers are able to do so, by the aid of God." That even Sistani, whose repeated calls for restraint in the face of previous insurgent attacks on Shia targets have been seen as indispensable to preventing civil war, was losing patience and considering giving formal dispensation to sectarian militias–at precisely the moment when Washington is trying to purge the security forces and the interior and defense ministries of sectarian influences–added to the sense that Iraq was teetering on the edge of civil war.