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03/21/2006:

"Death squads on the prowl in a nation paralysed by fear"

Iraq is a country paralysed by fear. It is at its worst in Baghdad. Sectarian killings are commonplace. In the three days after the bombing of the Shia shrine in Samarra on 22 February, some 1,300 people, mostly Sunni, were picked up on the street or dragged from their cars and murdered. The dead bodies of four suspected suicide bombers were left dangling from a pylon in the Sadr City slum.

The scale of the violence is such that most of it is unreported. Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, said yesterday that scores were dying every day. "It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more," he said. "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."

Unseen by the outside world, silent populations are on the move, frightened people fleeing neighbourhoods where their community is in a minority for safer districts.

There is also a growing reliance on militias because of fears that police patrols or checkpoints are in reality death squads hunting for victims.

Districts where Sunni and Shia lived together for decades if not centuries are being torn apart in a few days. In the al-Amel neighbourhood in west Baghdad, for instance, the two communities lived side by side until a few days ago, though Shias were in the majority. Then the Sunni started receiving envelopes pushed under their doors with a Kalashnikov bullet inside and a letter telling them to leave immediately or be killed. It added that they must take all of their goods which they could carry immediately and only return later to sell their houses.
independent.co.uk


10 bodies found in Baghdad, including 13-year-old girl
Iraqi authorities today reported finding 10 more bullet-riddled bodies dumped in the capital Baghdad, one of them that of a 13-year-old girl.

The 10 bodies were the latest gruesome discoveries tied to the underground sectarian war being conducted by Shiite and Sunni Muslims as they settle scores in the chaos that grips the Iraqi capital.


Iraqi Insurgents Storm Police Station, Killing 15 Officers
BAGDHAD, Iraq, March 21 -- In a bold raid at daybreak, a band of at least 100 insurgents stormed a police station in the town of Muqdadiya northeast of Baghdad today, killing at least 18 police officers, wounding four others and freeing all of the 33 prisoners being held in the station, officials in the Interior Ministry said.


Iraqi president rejects civil war talk
The Iraqi president has discounted the risk of a civil war in response to remarks by Iyad Allawi, the former premier, that the country was in the midst of such a conflict.

"One can completely rule out the threat of a civil war," Jalal Talabani, the president, told reporters after a meeting of political parties discussing the formation of a unity government.

"The Iraqi people cannot accept a civil war. We are passing through a difficult period right now, but the attachment of Iraqis to their country will prevent such a war," he said.

"We are a long way from a civil war and we are working towards a formula for a national accord."


Chalabi blames Bremer for Iraq's unraveling
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi blamed former US civilian administrator Paul "Jerry" Bremer for failing to anticipate the violence in Iraq.

Asked by CNN television's "Late Edition" program who was responsible for "blunders" in Iraq, Chalabi said: "I will give you a name. I would not have given the name if he had not published a book -- Ambassador Jerry Bremer."

Chalabi slammed Bremer "for not appreciating the situation, appreciating the size of the threat from anti-US insurgents.

"He kept, for months and months on end, to say, those are die-hards who have no coordination and no plan to move forward," he said.

"He refused to accept the obvious. He refused to believe what was right in front of him," Chalabi said.

"In general, this is largely responsible for what we are seeing now," he said, speaking of the sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

Chalabi also dismissed as "great fiction" a recent book by Bremer which pinned some of the blame for the violence on poor military planning by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

A CIA flunkie to the end...