Insurgents have also been killing Iraq security forces, from national guards to police, in large numbers. A month ago, more than 40 newly trained Iraq Army recruits were killed execution style on their way home from Kirkush, northeast of Baghdad. Police are killed at checkpoints; men lined up at recruiting stations have often been killed by car bombs in recent months.
But it seems unlikely that any Iraqi security force would be powerful enough for such payback. The country's fledgling intelligence service -- the new one that is -- just got up on its feet five months ago.
One theory is that it may be political infighting. On the other side of the religious fence, Shiite religious leaders have often fought among each other, although they try to present a united face to the outside world. Anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada Sadr, who battled U.S. troops in Najaf in August is charged with killing a religious rival last fall.
Cleric Faidh Mohammed Amin al-Faidhy, a spokesman for the Association of Muslim Scholars, was killed in Mosul, where insurgents have been battling with U.S. troops over the last week as fighting in the rebel stronghold of Fallujah wound down. U.S. Marines say more than 1,400 insurgents were killed in Fallujah, where tons of caches of arms and explosives were found. Another less-known cleric was killed one day later, just to punctuate the first death.
"This is their last violent gasp," said Sorya Isho Warda, minister of displacement and migration. "Who knows who is doing the killing. Who cares?"
Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi cares enough about his tenuous grasp on power to finally grant a few interviews to the press, not that he has said much about Sunnis. According to Hussain Hindawi, president of the Iraq Independent Electoral Commission, Allawi was recently approached by French government officials who asked that he allow insurgents into the political process. He flatly refused, Hindawi said. "What we have done in Fallujah is broken the back of the hard-core insurgents and terrorists," interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi told CNN Monday. "I think this will pave the way significantly as we proceed in the process to elections."
Regardless of whether Sunni clerics are getting killed or not, it appears Iraq is ready to spin out of control. Leaders of more than 20 nations just finished meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, Tuesday to discuss how to beef up security to hold elections. They stopped short of setting a deadline for U.S. troops to leave, but they did say there should be a definite date. There was no definitive word on how to make things calmer since a state of emergency has been imposed for about a month, and it hasn't lessened the violence.
Hindawi insists that security is the responsibility of the police and other security forces in Iraq. The question is if those groups are up to the task. Everyone hopes there will be a "quiet" election day, Hindawi says. Fighting in Najaf was bitter and fierce in August, and now the holy city in southern Iraq is calm, Hindawi points out.
Insurgents may have fled Fallujah, where U.S. Marines found shackles and bloodstained blankets among other signs indicating that some of the hostages kidnapped by insurgents were detained in the city. Marines also say they found at least 20 "kidnapper houses" around the city.
But as the U.S. military battled the insurgency in Fallujah, guerrilla forces popped up in places like Baqouba and Latifiya, where Wahhabi Muslims, said to be from Saudi Arabia, are believed to have taken over the town.
What happens next is anybody's guess. At the very least, the violence is expected to continue. Insurgents might have lost a strong base with the U.S.-led assault on Fallujah, but by all indications, they are regrouping quickly.
Copyright 2004 by United Press International
