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Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Gzeti Sunnis losing ground in Baghdad At least 10 districts have become almost entirely Shiite By Sabrina Tavernise BAGHDAD: As the United States debates what to do in Iraq, this country's Shiite majority is already moving toward its own solution. ln a broad power grab in Baghdad Shiite militias are pushing Sunnis out, forcing them to flee to an increasingly embattled territory in the western part of the city. At least 10 mixed neighborhoods have become almost entirely Shiite this year, say residents, local officiaIs and U.S. and Iraqi military commanders. It is a fight for control of Baghdad that Sunni militants were once winning. For the first two years of the war, they forced Shiites out of ncighborhoods across the city, systematically killing bakers, barbers and trash collectors, jobs often held by Shiites. But in February, after the bombing of the Samarra mosque, Shiite militias struck back, pushing west from eastern one of the family's sons. "The Mahdi Army is protecting the area," he added, referring to Sadr's militia. The family knew about the Sunnis, but had no sympathy. ln July they fled Baquba, a relentlessly violent town north of.Baghdad, after Sunni militants killed the father (a man in his 70s), kidnapped a brother and killed another brother as he was returning to their house to collect their belongings after the funeral. Around 400 Shiite families have fled Baquba to Na'ariya and nearby Baghdad Jedidah in the past few months, said Mustafa, citing local officiaIs in Sadr's office. "We are a ship that sank under the ocean," said his mother, Aziza, 46, sitily to the better protected Green ~lone inOctober. The debate reaches to the heart of the , U.S. enterprise here. While President George W. Bush is . considering injecting more troops to help prevent an escalation in sectarian violence, Many in the Shiite-Ied government are saying the Amerieans should stay out of that fight. Shiite and Sunni militias are at war, they say, and protecting the Sunni side will simply prolong it. "If you don't aIlow the minority to lose, you'Il carry on forever," said a senior Iraqi officiaI. "It would be painful at the beginning, but then you'Il have a historie deal that would aIlow the majority to rule." strongholds and redrawing the sectarian map of the capital. Shiites are seizing power broadly. The Shiite-dominated government is demanding more control over the Iraqi security forces, but militias have settled deeply within their ranks and the Sunni public is terrified at the prospect. There are plans for a new bridge that would isolate a violent Sunni area in the east and a proposaI for land handouts in towns around Baghdad that would bring Shiites into what are now Sunni strongholds. Sunni political control in Baghdad is aIl but nonexistent: Of the 51members of the Baghdad Provincial Council, whieh runs the city, just one is Sunni. ln Many ways, the changes are a natural development Shiites, a majority of this nation's population, were locked out of the ruling elite under Saddam Hussein and now, after decades of oppression, have The Amerieans do not trust the Iraqi security forces and are institutionaIly power that matches their numbers. unable to back one side, the officiaI Sunni Arabs now say that an emboldened militant fringe will conduct They appear to be leaning toward said.- broader killings without being stopped sending more troops. "The Americans by the government, or, some fear, with are very close to making a fatal strategie mistake." its help. That could, in turn, draw Sunni ln an army base in northern Baghdad, countries into the fight and lead to a an Iraqi Army general moved his hand protracted regional war, precisely the across a map of the capital. The city is outcome that the Americans MOStfear. dividing fast, he said, writing, "Sunni" The Shiite-dominated government and "Shiite" in graceful Arabie script publicly condemns violence against across each neighborhood. Sunnis and says it is trying to stop the Neighborhoods in the east - MOst militias that carry it out. But the vulnerable to militias from Sadr City, cleansing continues unabated and Sunnis say the government is somehow poorest - have lost much of their the largest eastern distriet and one ofits complicit. minority Sunni populations since February. "They say they're against this, but on the ground they do nothing," said Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, the speaker of borhoods of Zayuna and Ghadier, very Even the solidly Middle class neigh- ParliaItlent. a Sunni,He moved his fam- mixed as little as six months ago, are starting to lose Sunnis. "This is the fault llne now," said the Iraqi officiaI, pointing to an area in western Baghdad near Mansour. "It's at the west of the west." The general, a Shiite who commands a brigade in western Baghdad, said he blamed Iraqi political leaders, both Sunni and Shiite, and the militias they commando "Now we face a new style of splitting the neighborhoods," he said. He asked that his name not be used because he could be killed for talking. "The politicians are doing this." ln the neighborhood of Na'ariya in southern Baghdad on Saturday, the local office of Moktada al-Sadr, the radieal Shiite clerie, was arranging for a Shiite refugee famil}' t? occupy a house Johan Spanner for e New York Times A Shiite refugee family that fled Baquba after Sunnis kiUed the father, a son and kidnapped another son. "We are a ship that sank under the ocean," said the mother. that had just recently been owned ~y a Sunni family who had fled the nelghborhood after a spate ofkillings. "They told us it's safe here, it's a Shiite neighborhood," said Mustafa, 61
Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Ozeti ting on a cushion on the floor, her two small daughters hovering nearby. Besides, Mustafa said, Shiite militias pursue only Sunnis with suspicious affiliations. Pamphlets from Al Q!1eda were found in a house behind the one they have occupied, he said, and the family ran away. Shiites from Baquba are living there now, he said. The Sunni militias, on the other hand, "are killing anyone who is Shiite," Aziza said. "My husband was an ordinary man." (A relative in a separate interview said one of Aziza's sons had killed more than 10 Sunnis since coming to Baghdad in the autumn. The fam- 'The Amerieans are very elose to making a fatal strategie mistake.' ily deniecl any involvement in militias.) But the fighting devours ordinary men, regardless of sect. A Sunni man named Bassim, his Shiite wife and their three children, 1to 3 years old, said Shiites forced them to leave their home in Hurriya, west of the Tigris, one afternoon this month. Bassim left his jobs - as a butcher in Shuala, a neighborhood now militantly Shiite, and as a hospital c1eaner in an- , other Shiite area - because it was dangerous to be a Sunni in those areas. He has stayed home since September, said his wife, Zahra Kareem Alwan. 1t had become too dangerous to go out. "My husband is a Sunni, but he has nothing to do with insurgents," she said, holding her sobbing daughter on her hip in a school in Al Adel, a Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad where the families took temporary refuge early this month. By Alwan's account, in early December, an enraged Shiite neighbor banged on her door. His brother had just been killed and he demanded, gun in hand, to see her husband. She refused, and the neighbor threatened her children, who had gathered near her, hearing the commotion. "He said, '1 will kill them. They are Sunnis. They are my share,''' Alwan recalled. Soon after, they fled with other families to Adel. An American colonel advising the Iraqi Army unit that controls the area said Shiites occupied the houses within 48 hours. Americans counted about 180 families who had fled. The Iraqi general said it was 50. Shiite politicalleaders were skeptical. "These are lies," said Hadi al-Ameri, head of the security committee in Parliament and a member of the Badr Organization, the armed wing of one of Iraq's most powerful Shiite parties. "It's merely propaganda to create fears among Arabs," a reference to Sunni Arab countries. The main problem, Ameri said, was Sunni insurgents and their suicide bombs. He talked with an intensity that spoke of deep scars inflicted by the past regime. "They want to go back to the old equation, when they were the officers and the Shia were just soldiers and slaves," Amari said, referring to the Sunni elite under Saddam Hussein. "This will never happen again. They should believe in the new equation." Iraqi cellphone rings are also an indication of the Shiite mood. A popular one in northeast Baghdad plays a tune with the words: "If you can't beat me, don't fight me." Ameri, a Shiite politician who works closely with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq's most powerful Shiite leaders who met with Bush last month in Washington, talked with confidence. The Americans would not be around for much longer, he said, and Iraqis were now thinking strategically. Using the unlikely analogy of Saddam draining the marshes in southern Iraq to destroy the marsh Arabs, he talked about plans to encircle Baghdad using a network of rivers, a dam and several highways to choke off supply lines of Sunni militants. "He divided it, drained the water and within two to three years it was a desert," he said. "1believe Baghdad will be like this." Militias are already doing their part to defend Shiites. ln a Shiite mosque in northern Baghdad, refugees from the embattled northern village of Sabaa al- Bour, many of them women in black abayas, gathered in October asking for food and shelter. Killings of Shiites in the town had enraged leaders in Bagh- . dad, and Hazim al~Aaraji, the religious leader in the mosque, had provided aid. But weeks had dragged on, and one' morning in October, a volunteer walked through the refugees telling them to go backhome. The Mahdi Army was there now, she said. The town was now safe for Shiites. Shiites are also making inroads on the local and federallevels. Baghdad's municipal government is taking bids for designs of a bridge that would connect Greyat with Khadamiya, two major Shiite areas in northern Baghdad on opposite sides of the Tigris River. Adhamiya, a Sunni area where the bridge is now, would be bypassed altogether. "The former regime refused to make the connection because it would strengthen the Shia," said Naem al- Kaabi, a deputy mayor of Baghdad. Qais Mizher contributed reporting. Newsweek. DEC. 25, 2006/JAN. 1, 2007 The Syria Gambit Does the regirne ofBashar al-Assad hold the key to America's problerns in the Middle East? Sorne in Washington like to think so, but they are probably wrong. BY CHRISTOPHER DICKEY HOLED UP lN THE GRAND Serail, the center of govemment in the heart of Beirut five surviving members of Lebanon's cabinet have been living in fear. Just last year they were leaders of a mass movement that forced Syrian troops out of the country and seemed to ~pen the way for a thriving democracy. But those memories now seem as old and fragile as shards of Phoenician glass. One by one, brutally and spectacularly, Syria's high-profile opponents in Lebanon have been eliminated. The most recent: Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, the son of a former president, gunned down in November. Since then, no minister has been sure if, or when, he'lI be next. As its enemies cower, the Syrian regime crows-even as it denies responsibility for the murders. "Our relations with Lebanon will be stronger than when we had our Army in that country;' Syrian Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa boasted in the Arab press earlier this month. "Syria is on a roll;' concedes Jonathan Paris, a fellow at Washington's Hudson Institute and a frequent critic ofDamascus. "As in the '90s, Syria is seen as the indispensable player." 62
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