An Eye For An Eye
The dead do tell stories--of abduction, torture, execution--And it's not just the insurgents who are on a killing streak
BAGHDAD--Death here comes in many ways: by sniper fire, suicide bomber, roadside explosives. By military shootouts. None, however, is as personal, as chillingly intimate, as the killings by sectarian assassins and gangsters whose victims, mainly civilians, turn up daily along Baghdad's streets, floating down the Tigris River, or placed in shallow ditches on the city's outskirts. "It's relatively common to find dead bodies throughout the battlefield that show signs of torture and execution," says Capt. Jennifer Williams, a U.S. Army intelligence officer, whose area of responsibility includes much of West Baghdad.
The intensity of this war in the shadows is growing--both in numbers and in viciousness--fueling anger that further divides Shiite and Sunni Muslims and edges the country closer to civil war. Sunni leaders' anger at what they say are targeted killings by Shiite authorities threatens to sink prospects for a political deal, while Shiites blame Sunnis for actively or tacitly supporting murderous insurgents. Both sides have plenty of blood on their hands. "We usually find ... bodies every three or four days," says Col. Muhammad Faek Raouf, a Shiite who commands an Iraqi battalion in West Baghdad's predominantly Sunni Ghazaliyah neighborhood. Raouf knows the situation all too well. His father-in-law was kidnapped last month. His body, which Raouf says had been "cut up," was found a few weeks later.
Body count. Increasingly divided in life, Shiite and Sunni are united in death--in Baghdad's grim city morgue. It's a busy place. According to the United Nations, 1,673 bodies were brought to the morgue in the last two months of last year; 1,034 had bullet wounds. That's in a city of about 5 million--or nearly two-thirds the size of New York, which had 94 homicides in the same period.
Who's to blame? It is clear that Sunni insurgents target both moderate Sunnis and Shiites who are seen as cooperating with the American-supported government. And there is substantial evidence supporting Sunni complaints that Shiite authorities--and allied militias--carry out abductions and killings. Adding to the toll is kidnapping for ransom, as well as retribution involving tribe or family. "It escalates," says the chief of the U.N.'s Human Rights office here, John Pace. "The principle of revenge is still very much a part of this culture. It's an eye for an eye."
Sunni leaders say their communities are being terrorized by the Iraqi police, Army, and allied militias. In a predawn raid in a Sunni neighborhood last week, Iraqi authorities broke windows, grabbed computers, took cars, and hauled away, without explanation, 13 males between the ages of 15 and 60. Family members weren't told where the men were being taken and fear they will turn up dead.
Such fears are not unfounded. Last week also saw the discovery of the bodies of two Sunni Arab brothers. They reportedly had been taken from their homes earlier by men claiming to be Interior Ministry commandos. Sunni leaders say there is a pattern to this sort of thing. "The police vehicles and National Guard vehicles come after the curfew and raid the houses," says Adnan al-Dulaimi, a prominent Sunni politician. "They arrest people and take them. After two or three days, we find those people are killed--blindfolded, their hands tied, and their bodies thrown on the pavement of the street." On February 1, moderate Sunni leader Tariq al-Hashemi of the Iraqi Islamic Party threatened mass Sunni civil disobedience if the Iraqi interior minister, Bayan Jabr, did not retire. Sunnis say the Interior Ministry under Jabr's command is responsible for killings and that more than 1,600 men are missing after being taken in raids by government forces.
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