Screaming Penguin

Purple goddamned fingers...

Political instability in Iraq causes some to form militias By Tom Lasseter Knight Ridder Newspapers BAGHDAD, Iraq - The rumors spread quickly last month around the central Baghdad neighborhood of Sab'ah Nisan that Salem Khudair's nephew had insulted the name of Imam Hussein, one of the most important historical figures in the Shiite branch of Islam. It fell to Khudair, the eldest son of a family from the Sunni branch, to meet with local Shiites and explain that his 26-year-old nephew had said no such thing. A day later Khudair's family received a note insulting them as Sunni Muslims, calling them sons of whores. On March 27, Khudair was kidnapped. What came next has become typical for Iraq as sectarian tension and violence rise. Khudair's family formed an armed group of more than 20 relatives and neighbors who demanded Khudair's release and vowed to kill those responsible. "If something happened to my brother, no Shiite would be safe," Khudair's brother, Sameer, said at the time, convinced that Shiite militia members were behind the kidnapping. Khudair's body was found on Saturday, dumped in the street. He'd been shot in the face, and there was evidence of torture. At the family home later that day, Sameer Khudair said there would be no funeral celebration until his brother's death was avenged. Young men stood on the rooftop with AK-47s, and others stuffed their guns into bags. The political instability in Iraq and the ethnic divides behind it are pushing Iraqis toward gang-like violence that many worry could start a slide toward civil war. For decades, Saddam Hussein, Iraq's former dictator from the Sunni minority, ruled the nation harshly, sometimes brutally suppressing the majority Shiite population. In January, Shiite leaders swept Iraq's national assembly election. The recent unrest, though, rather than coming from the top leadership of political and religious parties, is springing largely from the grass-roots of Iraqi society. It involves neighborhood-based forces, with Sunnis and Shiites seeking to protect themselves from each other or to exact revenge, and it chips away at Iraq's national unity. More than eight months after the interim Iraqi government announced that the nation's largest Shiite and Kurdish militias would disband, they're still functioning. Sectarian suspicions about the nation's official security forces also spur the urge to take up arms. Many Sunnis view the Iraqi National Guard, the main component of the nation's army, as working for the Shiite political elite. Many Shiites, in turn, are deeply suspicious that officers loyal to Saddam and his Baath Party have infiltrated the Iraqi police. Between the neighborhood militias and a general distrust of security forces, Iraq is a tinderbox waiting for a spark, said Hassan al Ani, a Baghdad University political professor and analyst. "We can't forget what happened in Lebanon," he said, referring to the 15-year civil war there that killed thousands in vicious fighting between religious sects and their militias. The nation's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, issued an edict last month telling his followers to obey and cooperate with Iraqi troops. While al Sistani didn't give a reason for the guidance, a representative explained that, "without the help of the people, it's going to be hard for the security forces to keep any security in the country." Last Friday, the Association of Muslim Scholars, one of Iraq's most influential Sunni Muslim organizations called on Sunnis to join Iraq's security forces in an apparent effort to prevent Shiite domination. It said that Iraq would be safe only through "the formation of the police and army with the loyal and honest people . . . these forces are for the entire nation and not for a particular militia." Sectarian political squabbles and the inability to form a national government have exacerbated the tension, many Iraqis say. Low Sunni voter turnout in the election resulted in a landslide win by the main Shiite political group, the United Iraqi Alliance, a strong showing by a Kurdish slate and a near-complete electoral failure by the Sunni political community. The alliance has 140 seats in the 275-member national assembly. Arab Sunnis have 17, and that figure includes a handful who ran on the alliance ticket. The groups disagree loudly over how to form a government, and the assembly's second meeting fell apart over the question of making a Sunni the speaker. "The center may not hold. If it survives the political process it may not survive the negotiations over the drafting of a constitution," said Joost R. Hiltermann, the Amman-based Middle East project director of the International Crisis Group, a think tank that tries to prevent and resolve global conflicts. "If that happens we're talking about civil war and the breakup of the country." ... KR

Anybody remember that we still have a big clusterfuck there? I know the Jackson, Shiavo, Pope "Axis of Distration" dominate the media. Kudos to KR though. I don't know when they stopped sucking but more and more I am noticing KR putting out some of the best written journalism I have seen. I have been saying for years now that the best Iraq could hope for is Balkanization.