Possible civil war? Looks likely now, especially since both the Sunni former Ba'athists/local resistance/foreign terrorists and the Shi'as are now carrying out targeted assasinations of each others' leaders/clerics/politicians. Al-Zarqawi is one ambitious, brutal mothaf*a, that's for sure. I am not sure it would be smart of him at all to go directly after the largest militia in the country, backed by the largest ethnic group in the country, who are backed by the 800 pound gorilla next door called Iran. This should get interesting.. http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=13948 Badr commander killed in Baghdad Rahim Amin gunned down around midday in southern Dura district of Iraqi capital. ------------------------------------ BAGHDAD - A commander with the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Badr Shiite militia was gunned down in Baghdad Wednesday after a purported message from Al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi warned the group would be targeted. Rahim Amin was gunned down around midday in Baghdad's southern Dura district, a source at the defense ministry said, adding that he carried a badge on him that identified him as a member of Badr. Yarmuk hospital confirmed Rahim's killing. In an Internet-posted voice message attributed to Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted fugitive who has never made secret his hatred for the country's majority Shiites said he was creating the Omar Brigade to eliminate Badr members. The Iranian-trained militia is the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Both SCIRI's head Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and Badr's chief Hadi al-Ameri are senior deputies in parliament from the dominant Shiite bloc. Badr changed its name last year to Badr Organisation from Badr Brigade and claims to be a political party now. Many Sunni Arabs accuse Badr of killing their clerics and former members of ousted leader Saddam Hussein's security apparatus allegedly according to a hit list compiled by the militia.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=vn20050706110918108C693665 Al-Qaeda boss Zarqawi forms 'Omar Brigade' Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, says his group has formed a new armed wing to fight the Shi'a militia Badr Brigade, according to an audio tape attributed to him and posted on the Internet on Tuesday. "We in al-Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq announce the formation of a military brigade named Omar Brigade, to cut off the symbols and factions of the treacherous Badr Brigade," said the voice on the tape, which sounded similar to previous recordings attributed to Zarqawi. Hadi al-Amery, the leader of Badr Brigade, a powerful Shi'a militia which fought Saddam Hussein from exile in Iran, has denied running hit squads against Sunnis and said peaceful politics was the only way forward for his group. Although the group now calls itself the Badr Organisation and says it is a political movement, many Iraqis believe it is still a fighting force. Iraq's al-Qaeda wing has claimed some of the deadliest attacks against United States forces, the Iraqi government and forces and Shi'a Muslims. Zarqawi, who in his last audio tape in May denied to Osama bin Laden being seriously injured, lambasted the Iraqi army as apostates and vowed to continue attacking them. - Reuters
Former Iraqi interim PM thinks Iraq might be heading towards a nasty civil war. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1687910,00.html Allawi: this is the start of civil war Hala Jaber, Amman IRAQ’S former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi has warned that his country is facing civil war and has predicted dire consequences for Europe and America as well as the Middle East if the crisis is not resolved. “The problem is that the Americans have no vision and no clear policy on how to go about in Iraq,” said Allawi, a long-time ally of Washington. In an interview with The Sunday Times last week as he visited Amman, the Jordanian capital, he said: “The policy should be of building national unity in Iraq. Without this we will most certainly slip into a civil war. We are practically in stage one of a civil war as we speak.” Allawi, a secular Shi’ite, said that Iraq had collapsed as a state and needed to be rebuilt. The only way forward, he said, was through “national unity, the building of institutions, the economy and a firm but peaceful foreign relation policy”. Unless these criteria were satisfied, “the country will deteriorate”. Allawi’s concern comes amid signs of growing violence between Shi’ites, who make up 60% of Iraq’s estimated 26m people, and the Sunni minority who dominated the upper reaches of the civilian bureaucracy and officer corps under Saddam Hussein. The Shi’ites, who endured decades of oppression, are threatening to purge members of Saddam’s former Ba’ath party from the army and the intelligence services, a move that would provoke fierce retaliation from the Sunnis. Since the execution-style killings of 34 men whose bound and blindfolded bodies were found in three predominantly Shi’ite areas of Baghdad in May, other tit-for-tat murders have followed, with clerics among the targets. Tension has increased in the past two weeks following the return of Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Zarqawi left the country in May to seek medical treatment for a chest wound suffered in an American airstrike, but has now recovered sufficiently to resume his activities. Earlier this month he claimed that his supporters had killed Sheikh Kamaleddin al-Ghuraifi, a senior aide to Iraq’s most influential Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Zarqawi has now released an audiotape in which he announces the formation of a new militant unit, the Omar Corps. Its avowed aim is to “eradicate” the Badr brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country’s largest Shi’ite political party, which has targeted Sunnis. Allawi, who became head of the interim government council created after the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, said it was imperative that the security services and military be rebuilt. He has been a staunch critic of the policy followed by Paul Bremer, the American former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, of removing former Ba’athists from positions of power and disbanding Saddam’s army without putting anything else in place. Allawi said that he had discussed the urgency of rebuilding Iraq’s military with President George W Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, last year. “Bush earmarked $5.7 billion (£3.2 billion) . . . but I did not receive the money,” Allawi said. His experience as prime minister had taught him that “force alone will not solve the problems in Iraq”. It needed to be combined with dialogue and money to ensure stability. However, Allawi insisted the Americans’ presence in Iraq was still required and rejected suggestions that a schedule should be drawn up for their withdrawal. “I cannot see withdrawal based on timing, but based on conditions,” he said. These would be satisfied only once Iraq “develops the capability to deal with threats”. During his term Allawi lost the support of Iraq’s secular middle class through failing to fulfil his promise of restoring security and because of alleged corruption. However, he is preparing for a comeback in elections scheduled for December. His supporters believe he will be helped in part by the increasing impact of Iraqi gunmen and suicide bombers since Ibrahim Jaafari became prime minister in April. More than 1,400 people have since been killed, and many Iraqis who regarded Allawi as a ruthless leader now speak wistfully of the relative calm enjoyed under his rule. Allawi is in intense negotiations to create a new multi-ethnic secular coalition before the general election. “If we don’t build a state we will lose,” Allawi warned. “Not just as Iraq, but the region as a whole and Europe should say goodbye to stability and so should the United States. Iraq will become a breeding ground for terrorists. “My philosophy in fighting is to isolate the hardcore Islamists. If you isolate them, it will become very easy to smash them or bring them to justice.” US Marines and Iraqi soldiers have seized 22 suspected militants in Operation Scimitar, a fourth counter-insurgency sweep of the Euphrates valley in less than a month, the American military said yesterday.
Continuation of the "Civil war" theme, I think it has already begun under the US military's nose, it's just "low profile" still, but it will unquestionably increase with passing time, since Al-Zarqawi has already declared war on the Shi'as. From the American Conservative: There is increasing evidence that the Iraqi police forces, now under Shi’ite control, are carrying out systematic revenge killings against Sunnis in Baghdad. The bodies now showing up at the morgue have obvious signs of handcuffing and blindfolding and evidence of being tortured before death. U.S. sources indicate that the suspicious killings have reached the rate of almost 700 per month. The police are supervised by the Shi’ite-run Ministry of Interior, which claims that the killings are being carried out by insurgents wearing stolen police uniforms. But American intelligence sources disagree, noting that many of the killers appear to be actual policemen carrying the expensive standard-issue Glock automatics and driving official Toyota Land Cruisers.
I don't think the neocons would really mind a civil war that killed a few hundred thousand Iraqis unless they think that it would hurt the GOP politically. The sheer number of Iraqis killed is , of course, not meaningful to many war supporters and of course not to the loyal Bush-firsters, but I think another 1,000 or so Americans killed could hurt Bush politically.
Replying to my own post. Cool. We could, of course not be seeing so much the start of a civil war, but just some death squad action encouraged by the Bush Administration. It has been publicly discussed as a posible measure to be taken by them to combat the resistance. It is the method encouraged by somewhat successfully by the same Iran Contra recycled guys in Central America. Our Ambassador to Iraq was tight with the death squads in Honduras, so he has experience in helping to encourage them, while putting on the front of a humanitarian who deploys violence. This time around the death squad game may not turn out so successfuly for the Bushs' and the recycled Iran -Contra guys this time, but they probably remain optimistc given their experiences in Cental America.
