Securing Iraq (3) “Ethnic cleansing” in Iraq

James Hider’s reports in the Times are one of the best sources of news about Iraq available in the British print media. Today he describes an ongoing drive by Sunni terrorists to ethnically cleanse Iraqi Shias that has led to fears of a descent into civil war. Hider writes, “Abu Ali, a Shia driver from Doura, recounted how he was sitting in his car with his family, waiting for his son to come out of a shop, when the street erupted in bullets. He sped off to save his wife and children: when the gunfire ended, he ran back to look for his son. The boy was shaken but unhurt, sheltering behind a refrigerator that was pocked with bullet holes. Next door, the pharmacist lay dead in his shop. “When I asked people why they killed him, they said it was because he was a Shia and had pictures of Imam Ali and Hussein in his shop,” Mr Ali said. Hider also cites examples of Shia sectarian attacks on Sunni Iraqis. Hider quotes Sabah Kadhim, an adviser to Bayan Jabbor, the Interior Minister, “I do not want to say civil war, but . . . It’s Sunni versus Shia, that is the issue that is really in the ascendancy right now.” We would welcome the views of our Iraqi readers on Hider’s important article. (AJ