Iraq conflict grows ever more confusing

[Ulhas Joglekar <joglekarulhas@xxxxxxxx>]

Reuters.com

Iraq conflict grows ever more confusing
http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-03-31T143033Z_01_GEO146870_RTRUKOT_0_TEXT0.xml&related=true

Fri Mar 31, 2006

By Michael Georgy, - ANALYSIS

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen in police uniform kill and kidnap at electronics
shops. A mosque raid draws government charges that U.S. troops run Iraqi
forces beyond its control. Bodies turn up on streets as militia death squads
roam freely.

This week's violence in Iraq suggests the conflict has entered an ominous
new stage where crime gangs, Sunni Arab insurgents and pro-government
Shi'ite militias overlap as violence pushes the country closer to sectarian
civil war.

What began with a murky Sunni revolt against occupation and then the
U.S.-backed interim government has exploded into a communal and criminal
battlefield where determining who is killing whom -- let alone why -- is
getting harder every day.

"The Sunni insurgency is now complemented by the Shi'ite militias who are
getting very powerful and are able to wreak havoc on the Sunnis," said
Martin Navias, at the Center for Defense Studies at King's College in
London.

"The various groups are killing each other and kidnapping but not openly
doing it. It is a type of ethnic cleansing. But it is not an open civil
war."

Iraqi leaders are struggling to form a unity government more than three
months after elections, raising concerns that a widening political vacuum
will foster ever more violence.

Analysts say that while the new trends were alarming, there were no signs
that the violence is about to spill over into open warfare with street
battles between Iraq's main Shi'ite, Arab Sunni and ethnic Kurdish groups.

A fall in American casualties since last summer suggests that U.S. troops,
with growing numbers of Iraqi allies, have made gains over insurgents. March
should show one of the lowest monthly U.S. death tolls of the war, possibly
the lowest in two years.

But measuring success in those terms on that conventional military front is
easier than gauging progress in the battle against a complex network of
criminals, militias and insurgents -- all of whom can show up in police or
army uniforms.

UNCLEAR ENEMIES

Gunmen dressed as police commandos -- precise accounts of the uniforms
varied -- killed nine people in an attack on an electronics store in Baghdad
on Wednesday, one of a series of raids against lucrative businesses in the
capital this week.

Workers, including women, were rounded up and then killed.

On Monday and Tuesday, a total of 35 people were abducted in four attacks,
including two on electronics dealers and one on a money-changer where the
attackers also stole $50,000.

Determining whether they were criminals or insurgents seeking funds seems
impossible in Iraq's chaos.

Police officers in the area where the raids were carried out said they had
no idea who was responsible.

"Many security groups work in Iraq and nobody knows who they are or what
they are doing," said one police lieutenant colonel, who would give his name
only as the familiar Abu Mohammed for fear of reprisals from his shadowy
adversaries.

"There are now many organised crime groups working under formal cover, as
militias or security companies. It's hard to figure out who they are, let
alone who is behind them."

One businessman who said he was familiar with some of the businesses
targeted said several belonged to one man, suggesting attacks by racketeers.
That could not be confirmed, however.

Hazim al-Naimi, a politics professor at Baghdad's Mustansiriya University,
said the raids were another disturbing sign that the conflict has been
escalating since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine last month touched off
bloody reprisals.

Since then, hundreds of bodies have turned up in the streets, many shot or
strangled with signs of torture.

"The crisis has become very complicated now. We are seeing raids on
electronics shops that make no sense. It could be a campaign to wreck the
economy so Iraqis don't set up businesses. It's hard to tell," said Naimi.

Al Qaeda's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man who has been most predictable in
Iraq's conflict, has been keeping a low profile.

His suicide bombers have eased off, leading Interior Minister Bayan Jabor to
conclude Zarqawi is no longer a threat.

But U.S. officers say he is shifting attacks away from American soldiers and
Shi'ite civilians to Iraqi security forces and more targeted killing,
raising fears of new violence as the authorities try to grapple with
deepening mayhem.

Long-term stability ultimately depends on whether Iraqi forces can take on
militants and insurgents on their own.

U.S. commanders have been praising Iraqi special forces for a raid on a
Baghdad mosque compound on Sunday night which left what they said were 16
"terrorists" dead.

But as government-run state television showed lengthy footage of the
bullet-ridden bodies, Shi'ite leaders accused the Americans of a massacre of
unarmed worshippers and directing Iraqi forces without a green light from
the Iraqi government.

Police and local residents said the compound was a base for the Mehdi Army,
a Shi'ite militia. But the U.S. military says it still has no idea who the
16 were despite extensive intelligence work ahead of the raid and the rescue
of a tortured hostage.

"People ought to be focused on the fact that 50 members of the Iraqi special
operations forces planned and conducted this. And it was flawless.
Flawless," U.S. Major General Rick Lynch told a news conference on Thursday.
But of the identity of the militants he said: "Right now, if I were to tell
you something, I'd be hazarding a guess."

(Additional reporting by Omar al-Ibadi)

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