Mosque attacks fuel fears of Iraq civil war

BAGHDAD -- Sheik Nadhim Khalaf, a Sunni Muslim cleric, narrowly escaped when four men opened fire on his car, gunning down his son and brother-in-law. But he says he has ordered his followers not to take revenge, or even to look too hard for the killers, because he fears a civil war.

A series of attacks on Sunni and Shi'ite neighborhood mosques and religious figures this month has killed about a dozen people and prompted clerics of the two Muslim sects to publicly proclaim their solidarity. Privately, they worry that they are seeing the start of the sectarian conflict they have dreaded since the end of Saddam Hussein's iron rule.

Within hours of the March 12 attack on Khalaf, a half-constructed Shi'ite mosque -- the first to be built in a mostly Sunni neighborhood -- was dynamited. A well-known Shi'ite cleric was assassinated as he walked across a central Baghdad square. And at least two other Sunni mosques reported small-arms or grenade attacks that killed a total of three people.

In interviews at nine recently targeted mosques, clerics and worshipers attributed the attacks to "enemies of Islam," outsiders who aim to sow disorder in Iraq. They blamed Iranian-influenced Shi'ite groups, Saudi-influenced Sunni extremists, Israelis. Many said they believed that Americans had orchestrated the attacks to create an excuse to prolong the occupation.

But Sheik Fadhel al-Shamari, a soft-spoken man who started carrying a gun after his Sunni mosque in the New Baghdad neighborhood came under attack from small-arms fire Friday, had a different answer.

"This is sectarian war," he said. "This is the beginning." He said that he believed the attackers might be funded by foreigners but that most of the strikes are carried out by Iraqis trying to grab as much power as they can, and to intimidate rivals, before the June 30 transfer of sovereignty to an as-yet-unformed Iraqi government.

To keep anger from erupting and because they are afraid of being targeted by the killers, clerics are telling people not to blame their Iraqi neighbors, he said. "There are armed militia groups from all sects," he said.

It is impossible to confirm all of this month's deaths -- 32 Sunnis alone, according to the Council of Imams, a group of Sunni leaders to which Shamari belongs. Baghdad police say attacks on clerics have spiked since the massive suicide bombings March 2 that killed nearly 200, mostly Shi'ite pilgrims marking one of the the holiest days in their calendar.

Brigadier Sabah Fahad, chief of police for western Baghdad, said the mosque assaults were no different from the attacks on Iraqi police stations, local officials, and hotels. But a captain disagreed. The mosque attacks stand out, he said, because they could drag ordinary Shi'ites and Sunnis into fighting each other.

"These attacks are the most dangerous of all," said Captain Nasser Hussein, a 30-year police veteran. "They threaten the unity of Iraq."

The Sunni and Shi'ite sects arose from a seventh-century schism over who was the rightful heir to the Prophet Mohammed. Violence between the two groups is common in some countries, such as Pakistan, but in Iraq the two groups have a long tradition of coexistence and intermarriage. But Hussein's Ba'ath Party regime favored his Sunni tribe and brutally repressed Shi'ites, leaving resentments that simmered.

Now, Iraq's minority Sunni Arabs fear that Shi'ites, who make up about 60 percent of the population, will carry out reprisals. That anxiety has grown as Shi'ite militias arrest and kill suspected Ba'athists; meanwhile, Shi'ites fear

they are being targeted by insurgents because of their cooperation with the coalition. A senior coalition official said he was pleasantly surprised that there have not been more sectarian killings, citing "the great forebearance" of the Shi'ites. He said there have been 100 confirmed sectarian killings during the 10 months of the occupation.

Yesterday, Iraq's leading Shi'ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called on the United Nations to reject the current plan for a transitional government led by a three-person presidency. The three would probably be a Sunni Arab, a Shi'ite Arab, and a Kurd, Iraq's three main ethnic groups, a setup that "builds a basis for sectarianism," he said.

Even the expression of newfound religious freedom makes some Sunnis nervous. Baghdad now flutters with red, black, and green Shi'ite flags -- on houses, on government buildings that have been taken over as mosques, on public squares that have been renamed for Shi'ite prophets.

Now, some Iraqis are beginning to say out loud that they fear sectarian strikes instigated by extremists on both sides could touch off violence among ordinary Sunnis and Shi'ites.

In the Hay al Khadra neighborhood, a Shi'ite who had donated money for a mosque was shot to death a few months ago. In late February, Thamer al Dhari, the brother of a leading Sunni cleric, was gunned down outside his mosque. Rumors around the neighborhood said he had threatened the Shi'ite who died.

Religious leaders on both sides are trying to "persuade the youth not to stir up tensions," said Abdelwadood Abdullah, 64, an engineer building a Shi'ite mosque.

Coalition troops have largely stayed out of the investigations, in keeping with their recent policy of pulling back and leaving most of the crime-fighting in the hands of local authorities. But in some neighborhoods, that has encouraged a widespread belief that Americans are tolerating -- or even instigating -- the attacks in order to keep Iraqis divided.

Shamari, the imam, worries, remembering power struggles earlier this year over whether Sunni or Shi'ite doctors would run hospitals. "These are educated people, doctors" he said. If a sectarian power struggle breaks out among poorer Iraqis, he said, "can you imagine what the street would be like? Everyone knows how to pick up a gun."

Anne Barnard can be reached at abarnard@globe.com.