Sectarianism appears to be in the rise in Iraq. Very worrying indeed.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1514897,00.htmlIn mixed areas of Baghdad, a low-level, tit-for-tat, sectarian conflict has been going on, revolving largely around the city's galaxy of mosques, a conflict that has waxed and waned as the fighting for Falluja and the Shia Sadrist uprising pulled the gunmen elsewhere.
Its victims have been mosque guards, imams and other worthies, as well as gunmen and suspected terrorists. They have been the innocent and guilty, picked off by gun, grenade and bomb. It is a nasty little street war fuelled by the wider atrocities of Zarqawi's 'al-Qaeda in Iraq' - the suicide car bombings of Shia targets, all aimed at stoking the confrontation between the rival Muslim sects.
What is different now is that Zarqawi's provocations, in tandem with the lethal ambition of certain Shia groups, appear to be succeeding in slowly driving Iraqis apart.
What has changed in the 14 months since I last investigated Baghdad's mosque wars is insidious and very dangerous - a subtle transformation of how Sunni and Shia in this city see each other. For suspicion has crept in where there was none before - even among friends and colleagues who had previously worn their religious identities lightly.
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