Mass Migrations in Iraq

[SOS]

April 2, 2006
Civilians in Iraq Flee Mixed Areas as Attacks Shift

By EDWARD WONG and KIRK SEMPLE (edited for copyright)
BAGHDAD, Iraq, April 1 — The war in Iraq has entered a bloodier phase, with the killings of Iraqi civilians rising tremendously in daily sectarian violence while American casualties have steadily declined, spurring tens of thousands of Iraqis to flee from mixed Shiite-Sunni areas.
The new pattern has led to further separation of Shiite and Sunni Arabs, moving the country toward a de facto partitioning along sectarian and ethnic lines — an outcome that the Bush administration has doggedly worked to avoid over the past three years. About 900 Iraqi civilians died violently in March, up from about 700 the month before, according to military statistics and the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.

The Iraqi public's reaction to the violence has been dramatic. Since the shrine bombing, 30,000 to 36,000 Iraqis have fled their homes because of sectarian violence or fear of reprisals
"We lived in Latifiya for 30 years," said Abu Hussein al-Ramahi, a Shiite farmer with a family of seven, referring to a village south of Baghdad that is a stronghold of the Sunni Arab insurgency. "But a month ago, two armed people with masks on their faces said if I stayed in this area, my family and I would no longer remain alive. They shot bullets near my feet. I went back home immediately and we left the area early next morning for Najaf." Mr. Ramahi's family and other migrants are now squatting in a derelict hotel in the holy city.

Dozens of bodies, garroted or executed with gunshots to the head, are turning up almost daily in Baghdad alone. The gruesome work is usually attributed to death squads or Shiite militias, some in Iraqi police or army uniforms. Meanwhile, powerful bombings, a favorite tactic of the Sunni Arab-led insurgency, continue to devastate civilian areas and Iraqi bases or recruitment centers.
At the same time, the number of kidnappings of Iraqis is surging because of an explosion in criminal gangs working for their own gain or with armed political groups. Scores of civilians are abducted every week, usually for ransoms of $20,000 to $30,000. In recent weeks, masked men have stormed offices in Baghdad and hauled away all the workers.
"The militias are in charge now," said Aliyah al-Bakr, 42, a Sunni Arab schoolteacher who had two male relatives abducted and executed by black-clad gunmen on a recent night in Baghdad. "I'm more afraid of Iraqi militias than of the Americans. But the American presence is still the cornerstone of all the problems. We didn't have these kinds of problems before they came here."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/world/middleeast/02iraq.html?hp&ex=1144036800&en=f8918f6ac70104fb&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Is Laura Ingraham reporting on this? The endgame is here.

[lovuian]

1. The civil war wants Iraq divided into 3 parts and the migration

is reflecting it!!!

[Taxloss]

4. Partition is precisely what the Sunnis DON'T want.

They would be left with a miserable resource-less landlocked enclave.

[Taxloss]

2. Mission accomplished!

The kidnapping crisis is not new. The reporting of it, however, is.

[Dunvegan]

3. It's Official (at least in my book)....Civilian Migration = Civil War

...but we already knew that, didn't we?

Imbedded reporting, indeed. They cannot even mark the inevitable because the truth is too violent to report on and survive, and in all other news gathering on a 2-year self-sensoring delay in getting out the bottom line.

[NNN0LHI]

5. And the educated ones got out long ago n/t

[SOS]

6. And 50,000 Christians have fled to Syria

This country has been ripped to pieces.

[5X]

7. Hasn't this been called ethnic cleansing or genocide in other wars? n/t

[Dunvegan]

8. Iraq: Civil War or Ethnic Cleansing?

Or is it going to be two, two, two wars in one?

It's presently approaching ethnic cleansing...but the numbers and organization isn't quite there...YET.

The Iraqi civil war clock, though, seems clearly to be ticking down from five minutes to midnight to a total eclipse.

But populations moving from one politico-geographic stronghold to one of your own religion/ethnicity/political party/etc. simply because you'll be likely killed if you're in the minority in a given place is a progenitor to civil war.

And that seems to be happening now.

Progenitor, as in, just give it a couple of days for the madmen to decide the new DMZs.

This is usually decided via ground fighting and high casualties with each side seing how much territory they can hold.

Nothing says casualties like a Civil War.

After the lines are drawn (literally in the sand)...then, that's it.

Civil war is a re-drawing of the lines on the map. Mason/Dixon. Northern Ireland/Ireland. North and South Korea. North and South Vietnam. Myriad Balkan dustups. Etc.

And woe be unto ye caught living (where you once peacefully resided) on the wrong side of the New Order map.