Iraq:Death
Toll Rises And Rises
By Mohammed A. Salih
24 November, 2006
Inter Press
Service
ARBIL, Nov 23 (IPS)
- More than 150 people died in the Shia Sadr area of Baghdad
in a spate of car bombings and mortar attacks Thursday morning.
The toll has been rising
dramatically already. A United Nations report indicates that violence
hit a new high during October. November looks certain to be worse, with
preliminary figures indicating a higher toll in November even before
the Thursday bombings.
In its report released Nov.
22, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) said that
during September and October of this year 7,054 civilians were killed.
Of this, 3,709 deaths came in October, marking the highest monthly death
toll since the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
In July and August, 6,599
Iraqis were killed. Relative to that the violence in September and October
showed significant increase.
"Iraq's security situation
is critically dangerous," Bassam Ali, a political analyst from
Arbil told IPS. "There is a full-scale sectarian war in the country
that the media has not been able to fully project to the world."
He cited the increasing death
toll in Iraq as "the best evidence that the U.S. has not been able
to score victory in Iraq." He blamed neighbouring countries for
inflaming bloodshed "aimed at expanding the sectarian problem."
In the face of the unprecedented
rise in violence, many Iraqis have lost hope that the situation will
improve in the near future.
Muhanad, 22, who refused
to give his second name for security fears, fled to Kurdistan in the
north two years ago after receiving death threats from armed people.
He is one of an estimated 50,000 Internally Displaced Persons who have
fled violence in the south to the calm of Kurdistan.
"If it goes on like
this, I don't have any hope that the situation will get better so that
I can return," he said. "I wish the situation in Iraq will
improve, but don't know if there is such a likelihood or it is going
to be just a wish."
The political arena does
not seem to be coherent at a time when sectarian violence is ripping
the country apart.
Sunni politicians in the
government have already threatened to quit government, because they
believe Shia Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has not done enough to curb
Shia militias.
After the Thursday bombings,
many Shia leaders say the government has not done enough to check Sunni
insurgents. Sectarian violence is now expected to be inflamed further.
Several Shia leaders accuse
Sunni leaders of taking an ambivalent position on terrorism, and of
acting against government interests. The Shia-run interior ministry
issued an arrest warrant for Harith al-Dhari, a Sunni religious leader,
last week.
Mistrust has grown also between
the Shia-led government and its Kurdish partners. Kurds complain of
lack of government action in resolving pending issues like the status
of the ethnically mixed oil-rich city Kirkuk. Shias accuse Kurds of
demanding too much at a time when the country is stuck in a security
and political stalemate.
Bassam Ali believes the strife
in the country will not die down "since the violence produces victims,
and victims instigate revenge killings -- and the result is a continuous
cycle of bloodshed that worsens day after day."
Amidst the rising violence,
Ali like a growing number of others, now thinks that the division of
Iraq into ethnic enclaves can be a working solution, since it will keep
the conflicting groups apart from each other.
"I am convinced there
is no room for a united Iraq," he said. "If there is not going
to be a solution to this situation, then the wounds will be deepened
and the whole thing will become more difficult to control."
Copyright © 2006 IPS-Inter
Press Service.
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