It's a reality that has Washington scrambling to avert civil war as Iraqi politicians struggle to form a government four months after parliamentary elections.
A U.S. military spokesman said 50 insurgents attacked Iraqi forces in the middle of the night in a seven-hour battle that killed five rebels and wounded an Iraqi soldier.
Fighting was so fierce that U.S. reinforcements were brought in to the northern district, home to some of Iraq's most hardcore Sunni guerrillas and the Abu Hanifa mosque, near where Saddam Hussein was last seen in public before going into hiding.
Sporadic fighting continued on Tuesday.
"There are six people among our dead and wounded. Just half an hour ago a sniper killed Ali," said Mohammad, a 28-year-old Adhamiya resident, of his friend.
While the February bombing of a Shi'ite shrine pushed Iraq to the edge of civil war and left hundreds of bodies with bullet holes and torture marks on the streets, the scenario in Adhamiya is more alarming, despite fewer casualties.
It appeared to be the first example of a large-scale, open sectarian street battle in the capital, if not all of Iraq.
"We saw about 100 to 150 men show up in cars. Some were wearing military uniforms and others were in civilian clothes," he said, as five gunmen stood guard over one of the main roads leading into Adhamiya.
Sunni leaders have accused the Shi'ite-led government of sanctioning militia death squads, a charge it denies.
"What happened in Adhamiya is an evil act by an armed militia backed by security and government operatives," Dhafer al-Ani, a member of the biggest Sunni Alliance, told a news conference.
ADDED: Latest News from Juan Cole which has the battles in Adhamiyah, Ramadi and more bad news.
"I don't think there will ever be a U.S.-style democracy in Iraq," Rumsfeld said in an interview with the Dubai-based al-Arabiya satellite TV channel.
2 comments:
great blog. keep up the good work.
i agree about the civil war thing, but i think it would be happening whether there was a stable functioning government in iraq, or not as the case is now. i think al-jafaari is being blamed for things that are out of his control, or anyones for that matter.
the US has thousands of civil staff, 160,000 well equipped troops and billions of dollars and they are struggling with the situation. what chance has any iraqi government got in quelling the violence?. very little i suggest.
Bush will not order the troops out,even though i think the troops are of limited use in iraq at the moment. he's made his bed and even he knows he got to lie in it now. in a choice to lose face or lose american servicemens lives, george will always be willing to lose the latter.
I was opposed to the war from the beginning. Just one reason was because it would be difficult to stop a civil war from occurring even if you had a clue as to what you were doing which this administration didn't.
The Iraqi's would have had a good chance if the US had gone in to truly liberate the country and had not disbanded their Army. That was a huge, huge disaster known at the time as I blogged then.
I think shortly the neocon's will get an incompetent version of what they really wanted in Iraq to begin with - a corrupt weak dictatorship.
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