Growing friction separates Shiite, Sunni

On Wednesday, Abdel Salam al-Kubaisi, spokesman for the influential Sunni Muslim Clerics Association, held an impassioned press conference - carried live by Al Jazeera - in which he accused the US and the Iraqi government of complicity in Shiite militia attacks against Sunnis, and claimed the national police attacked the home of the association's chief cleric, Harith al-Dari.

"Some want a civil war in Iraq," said Mr. Kubaisi. "The problem [is] ... with the Shiite leaders ... and with America."

President Bush told ABC News Wednesday that he didn't accept the "premise that there's going to be a civil war." But National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, a former US Ambassador to Baghdad, told a Senate committee Tuesday that civil war could draw in Sunni neighbors like Saudi Arabia and Shiite ones like Iran, and destabilize the region.

"If chaos were to descend upon Iraq or the forces of democracy were to be defeated ... this would have implications for the rest of the Middle East'' and the world, he said.

But for many families, such turmoil has already descended. At two centers for Shiite refugees in Baghdad, their managers - who say they are members of the Mahdi Army - say they are caring for about 70 and 50 families, respectively, and that more arrive daily.

Jassim Mohammed Abid said his blood ran cold when he opened his clothing shop last Wednesday and found a note from Jihad Brigade of the Abu Ghraib Mujahideen Council. "We know you're connected to suspect families, so you have 48 hours to move. If you don't, you'll be killed."

On Thursday, he defied the curfew and fled with his wife and four children to the Shiite area of Shoala, where 70 other families are billeted at a school. "All my money was tied up in the store. I abandoned everything. It's probably been looted,'' he says with resignation. "I won't go back. They don't call us Shiites anymore - just 'spies' or 'infidels.' "

The Sunni-led insurgency has long aimed to promote a civil war, but so far, Iraq's Shiites - thought to make up about 60 percent of the population - have refused to be drawn in, in part because of the moderating influence of their most respected cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

But as conversations with Mahdi Army members in recent days make clear, patience is thinning. "The Shiite tribes have been putting a lot of pressure on [Sistani] to allow them to take revenge,'' says Joost Hiltermann, who runs the International Crisis Group's Middle East Project in Amman, Jordan. "The notion of revenge goes so deep ... and they've been leaning on him."

Indeed, more hot-blooded junior clerics like Mr. Sadr seem to be gaining ground. Sunni leaders have repeatedly blamed his Mahdi Army for reprisals, something Sadr's representatives deny.

Sistani "can't keep Iraq safe by just continuously talking about unity where there are all these attacks against us,'' says Aqil Abdi Sadeh, a baker and Sadr supporter. "Sometimes religious leaders guide events, and sometimes events should guide religious leaders."

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