Divide and conquer: Al Qaeda's latest tactic in Iraq?

US officials have predicted a "spike" in attacks against coalition forces and their allies in the Iraqi security services in the run-up to the June handover. That prediction has taken on credence in the past three days, with two massive suicide car bombings outside recruiting offices for the Iraqi police and Army in which more than 100 people died. And insurgents launched an audacious attack Thursday against an Iraqi Civil Defense headquarters in the town of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, while it was being visited by Gen. John Abizaid, commander of US forces in the Middle East. General Abizaid and his entourage escaped injury when the headquarters was struck by rocket-propelled grenades.

For many Iraqis, the daily guerrilla operations against the coalition forces are a natural response to occupation. But they have little sympathy for the deadly suicide bombings directed against Iraqis. "There won't be a civil war, but there might be a war of the Sunnis and Shiites against the Wahhabis," says Wassam Rahim, a Shiite computer student, using the term adopted by Iraqis to describe foreign Arab Islamist fighters. "We want to help the Americans against the Wahhabis because they are terrorists. The Wahhabis are hated here - hated by the Sunnis and the Shiites."

Yet despite the claims of intercommunal harmony, tensions between Sunnis and Shiites have been rising. The debate on when to hold full democratic elections has fallen along sectarian lines. Shiites are backing a call by Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the leading Shiite cleric, for national elections before the June 30 transition. But Sunnis oppose full elections, fearing marginalization in a power structure dominated by Shiites, the largest sect in Iraq.

Sheikh Mahmoud al-Filahy, who preaches at the Al-Farouq mosque in Baghdad's Hurriyeh district, says the poor security situation in Iraq argues against early elections. Despite his disagreement with the Shiite view on the timetable, Sheikh Filahy says relations with Shiites remain strong. A member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni political body, and of the Sunni Board of Muslim Clerics, Sheikh Filahy accuses the US military of failing to prevent an influx of foreign fighters across Iraq's borders who seek to create a fitna, or dispute, between Sunnis and Shiites. "In the long period before the Americans came, there were no disputes between us," he says. "This fitna came after the Americans occupied our country and opened the borders to outsiders."

In December, an explosion at a Sunni mosque in Hurriyeh briefly ruptured the cordial existence between local Sunnis and Shiites, exposing the simmering tensions beneath. Sunnis blamed Shiites for the blast, which killed three men, while the Shiites claimed the explosion was caused by a bomb being assembled by Wahhabis. Sunnis called for revenge.

"The Sunni and Shiite clerics got together and talked with the police, the local council, and the Americans, and agreed to close the case, leading once more to brotherhood and love between us," Sheikh Filahy says.

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