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The battle between Sunni
and Shia Muslims for control of Baghdad has already
started, say Iraqi political leaders who predict
fierce street fighting will break out as each
community takes over districts in which it is
strongest.
"The fighting will only stop when a new balance of
power has emerged," Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff
of Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish leader, said. "Sunni
and Shia will each take control of their own area."
He said sectarian cleansing had already begun.
Many Iraqi leaders now believe that civil war is
inevitable but it will be confined, at least at
first, to the capital and surrounding provinces
where the population is mixed. "The real battle will
be the battle for Baghdad where the Shia have
increasing control," said one senior official who
did not want his name published. "The army will
disintegrate in the first moments of the war because
the soldiers are loyal to the Shia, Sunni or Kurdish
communities and not to the government." He expected
the Americans to stay largely on the sidelines.
Throughout the capital, communities, both Sunni and
Shia, are on the move, fleeing districts where they
are in a minority and feel under threat. Sometimes
they fight back. In the mixed but majority Shia al-Amel
district, Sunni householders recently received
envelopes containing a Kalashnikov bullet and a
letter telling them to get out at once. In this case
they contacted the insurgents who killed several
Shia neighbours suspected of sending the letters.
"The Sunni will fight for Baghdad," said Mr Hussein.
"The Baath party already controls al-Dohra and other
Sunni groups dominate Ghazaliyah and Abu Ghraib
[districts in south and west Baghdad]."
The Iraqi army is likely to fall apart once
inter-communal fighting begins. According to Peter
Galbraith, former US diplomat and expert on Iraq,
the Iraqi army last summer contained 60 Shia
battalions, 45 Sunni battalions, nine Kurdish
battalions and one mixed battalion.
The police are even more divided and in Baghdad are
largely controlled by the Mehdi Army of the radical
nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the Badr
Organisation that has largely been in control of the
interior ministry since last May. Sunni Arabs in
Baghdad regard the ministry's paramilitary police
commanders as Shia death squads.
Mr Hussein gave another reason why the army is weak.
"Where you have 3,000 soldiers there will in fact be
only 2,000 men [because of ghost soldiers who do not
exist and whose salaries are taken by senior
officers]," he said. "When it comes to fighting only
500 of those men will turn up."
Iraqi officials and ministers are increasingly in
despair at the failure to put together an effective
administration in Baghdad. A senior Arab minister,
who asked not to be named, said: "The government
could end up being only a few buildings in the Green
Zone."
The mood among Iraqi leaders, both Arabs and Kurds,
is far gloomier in private than the public
declarations of the US and British governments. The
US President George W Bush called this week for a
national unity government in Iraq but Iraqi
observers do not expect this to be any more
effective than the present government of Prime
Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. One said this week:
"The real problem is that the Shia and Sunni hate
each other and not that we haven't been able to form
a government."
The Shia and Kurds will have the advantage in the
coming conflict because they have leaders and
organisations. The Sunni are divided and only about
30 per cent of the population of the capital.
Nevertheless they should be able to hold on to their
stronghold in west Baghdad and the Adhamiyah
district east of the Tigris. The Shia do not have
the strength and probably do not wish to take over
the Sunni towns and villages north and west of
Baghdad.
Though the Kurds have long sought autonomy close to
quasi-independence, their leaders are worried that
civil war will increase Iranian and Turkish
involvement in Iraq. Mr Hussein said he feared that
civil war in Baghdad could spread north to Mosul and
Kirkuk where the division is between Kurd and Arab
rather than Sunni and Shia.
Already Baghdad resembles Beirut at the start of the
Lebanese civil war in 1975, when Christians and
Muslims fought each other for control of the city.
www.independent.co.uk
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