Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Houston Chronicle
November 11, 2006
Shiites, Sunnis increasing split of neighborhoods
By Bassem Mroue, Associated Press
BAGHDAD, IRAQ — Mortar battles have erupted between Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad, and the once-mixed city is reeling as the two sides adopt the weapons and tactics of urban civil war.
Throughout the capital and in towns and villages within a 50-mile radius of Baghdad, whole populations have shifted as Shiite and Sunni flee violence from death squads and suicide bombers to the safety of places where their Islamic sect is the majority.
The highly portable though inaccurate mortar is increasingly the weapon of choice as Shiite and Sunni populations separate, because it allows sectarian fighters to fire into a district from a distance.
Mortars can be quickly pulled from the trunk of a car and fired over several miles, causing death and destruction without the dangers of close-quarters combat or the sacrifice of a suicide bomber.
For Arkan Maher, a 28-year-old electrician and father, it was just another workday this week when mortar rounds crashed to earth in a market in the Sunni enclave of Azamiyah. He fell wounded in both legs, an eye and one arm.
Maher was near the Abu Hanifa mosque, Sunni Islam's holiest shrine in Iraq and a regular target of Shiite mortar teams.
"I saw dozens of wounded people on the ground around me," he said, sitting in his house with bandages on his arm and legs. "Azamiyah has been hit with mortars every day for a week now."
Across the Tigris River, in the Kazimiyah neighborhood — site of the most important Shiite shrine in Baghdad — retaliatory mortar rounds have rained down daily as well.
Other Shiite strongholds in eastern Baghdad, the Shaab neighborhood and Sadr City, are regularly bombarded as is the dangerous Sunni stronghold of Dora, in south Baghdad.
The attacks that have driven the two Muslim sects away from each other in the capital skyrocketed after the Feb. 22 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra.
The destruction of the golden-domed mosque enraged Shiites, particularly members of the Mahdi Army militia. The militia, loyalists of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, stormed out of their Sadr City stronghold and have been on a rampage of revenge killing ever since. Sunnis have fought back with equal vengeance.
The Mahdi Army and the larger, Iranian-trained Badr Brigade of Iraq's largest Shiite political bloc, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, also have sunk deep roots in the police and security forces.
The militia members and offshoot death squads have been largely responsible for running Sunnis from neighborhoods where they were a minority. Sunni insurgents, meanwhile, have been attacking Shiites throughout Iraq, in what looks increasingly like a successful bid to ignite a civil war.
November 11, 2006
Shiites, Sunnis increasing split of neighborhoods
By Bassem Mroue, Associated Press
BAGHDAD, IRAQ — Mortar battles have erupted between Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad, and the once-mixed city is reeling as the two sides adopt the weapons and tactics of urban civil war.
Throughout the capital and in towns and villages within a 50-mile radius of Baghdad, whole populations have shifted as Shiite and Sunni flee violence from death squads and suicide bombers to the safety of places where their Islamic sect is the majority.
The highly portable though inaccurate mortar is increasingly the weapon of choice as Shiite and Sunni populations separate, because it allows sectarian fighters to fire into a district from a distance.
Mortars can be quickly pulled from the trunk of a car and fired over several miles, causing death and destruction without the dangers of close-quarters combat or the sacrifice of a suicide bomber.
For Arkan Maher, a 28-year-old electrician and father, it was just another workday this week when mortar rounds crashed to earth in a market in the Sunni enclave of Azamiyah. He fell wounded in both legs, an eye and one arm.
Maher was near the Abu Hanifa mosque, Sunni Islam's holiest shrine in Iraq and a regular target of Shiite mortar teams.
"I saw dozens of wounded people on the ground around me," he said, sitting in his house with bandages on his arm and legs. "Azamiyah has been hit with mortars every day for a week now."
Across the Tigris River, in the Kazimiyah neighborhood — site of the most important Shiite shrine in Baghdad — retaliatory mortar rounds have rained down daily as well.
Other Shiite strongholds in eastern Baghdad, the Shaab neighborhood and Sadr City, are regularly bombarded as is the dangerous Sunni stronghold of Dora, in south Baghdad.
The attacks that have driven the two Muslim sects away from each other in the capital skyrocketed after the Feb. 22 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra.
The destruction of the golden-domed mosque enraged Shiites, particularly members of the Mahdi Army militia. The militia, loyalists of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, stormed out of their Sadr City stronghold and have been on a rampage of revenge killing ever since. Sunnis have fought back with equal vengeance.
The Mahdi Army and the larger, Iranian-trained Badr Brigade of Iraq's largest Shiite political bloc, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, also have sunk deep roots in the police and security forces.
The militia members and offshoot death squads have been largely responsible for running Sunnis from neighborhoods where they were a minority. Sunni insurgents, meanwhile, have been attacking Shiites throughout Iraq, in what looks increasingly like a successful bid to ignite a civil war.