Mortar attacks signal start of civil war

 

By Hadi Maraai

 

Azzaman, September 20, 2006

 

The current sectarian conflict is taking new and dangerous directions which all demonstrate that the country is at the doorstep of a full-scale civil war.

 

The conflict has taken an extremely alarming turn as more deadly weapons enter into the bloody sectarian fray.

 

Iraqis have always been armed to their teeth and under former leader Saddam Hussein one could officially take an automatic rifle, a rocket launcher or even a mortar home.

 

If you declared loyalty to the regime, you could easily have your way to Baath party depot. It did not matter whether you were really loyal.

 

However, there were no instances of Iraqis turning those guns against their neighbors because they belonged to a different sect, religion or ethnic group.

 

True, opposition groups occasionally waged mortar and Katyusha multiple rocket launchers at the regime’s security forces but we have no instances of Iraqis attacking Iraqis for sectarian, religious or ethnic reasons.

 

But today mortars and Katyushas are the weapons of choice for armed groups of residential quarters in mixed cities.

 

Even villages of opposite sects resort to these deadly weapons fired indiscriminately at civilians. Only God knows how many innocent Iraqis are being killed or maimed as a result of these attacks.

 

In Baghdad mortar bombs and Katyusha rockets start falling on residential quarters as the night falls. There is no one to hear or pay a damn for the wails of children and women that break the silence of the night in the aftermath of the bombing.

 

For example, Baghdad which is home to more than five million people turns into a battlefield at night. It is a tit for tat between the capital’s various residential quarters.

 

If a Shiite-dominated quarter fires mortars and Katyushas at Sunni-dominated area, then it goes without saying that the former will be targeted by the latter almost immediately.

 

The point with Baghdad and almost most of Iraq is that they turn into no-man’s land at night. Even the Americans do not have the guts to patrol any part of Baghdad at night.

 

So, the rebels, insurgents, militants, terrorists, or whatever you want to call them have the whole arena for themselves.

 

How can peace and stability return to Iraq if government forces or the occupation troops do not have the courage to remain on the streets of Baghdad and other major cities after 4 pm?

 

There are reports that U.S. and Iraqi troops would like to dig a moat around Baghdad to prevent gunmen from entering the city.

 

But the gunmen are already inside the city.

 

Perhaps they will need to build moats separating different quarters of Baghdad and then move on to build walls between certain districts and separate streets from one another by concrete fortifications as is the case with the Green Zone.