Sectarian Violence

WASHINGTON -- Sectarian violence that could lead to civil war is spreading in Iraq, and the security problems have become more complex than at any time since the US invasion in 2003, the Pentagon said yesterday. In a notably gloomy report to Congress, the Pentagon said illegal militias have become more entrenched, especially in Baghdad neighborhoods where they are seen as providers of both security and basic social services. "Conditions that could lead to civil war exist in Iraq, specifically in and around Baghdad, and concern about civil war within the Iraqi civilian population has...

BEIRUT - After one of the worst episodes of sectarian carnage in Syria since the uprising began nine months ago, dozens of corpses were recovered from the streets of Homs this week, some of them dismembered, decapitated, and bearing signs of torture, activists and residents said yesterday. Most of the bloodshed occurred Monday, as Homs, the central Syrian city, was convulsed by kidnappings, random shootings, and tit-for-tat killings, activists said. In the worst, 36 bodies were dumped in a square in a neighborhood that sits along a fault line between the city's Sunni Muslim...

BAGHDAD - In a dramatic turnaround, more than 3,000 Iraqi families driven out of their Baghdad neighborhoods have returned to their homes in the past three months as sectarian violence has dropped, the government said yesterday. Saad al-Azawi, his wife, and four children are among them. They fled to Syria six months ago, leaving behind what had become one of the capital's more dangerous districts - west Baghdad's largely Sunni Khadra region. The family had been living inside a vicious and bloody turf battle between Al Qaeda in Iraq and Mahdi Army militiamen.

BAGHDAD — Insurgents wearing military uniforms stormed Iraq’s central bank yesterday during an apparent robbery attempt, battling security forces in a three-hour standoff after bombs exploded nearby in a coordinated attack that left as many as 26 people dead. The assault on Iraq’s top financial institution stoked fears that insurgents are taking advantage of political deadlock after inconclusive March 7 national elections to try to derail security gains as the United States prepares to withdraw its forces by the end of next year.

BAGHDAD - A Sunni schoolteacher was hijacked as he drove to visit his sister in a predominantly Shi'ite area of Baghdad yesterday. His body was found an hour later, a grim reminder that sectarian violence persists in the capital despite a recent decline. Iraqi police blamed Shi'ite gang members for the killing. Ahmed al-Janabi, a 45-year-old father of three, was stopped at a southwest Baghdad intersection by gunmen in two cars. They drove him away in his own car after inspecting his national ID and food ration card.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Hundreds of Iraqi tribal chiefs gave important support yesterday to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's national reconciliation plan, while the government leader called the release of a leading Sunni Arab lawmaker by kidnappers a gift to his unity campaign. But after a relative lull in violence Friday, 26 people were reported killed in nearly a dozen attacks around Iraq that showed there will be no quick end to the sectarian and political strife tearing at the country.

BAGHDAD -- Suicide bombers killed 13 people in a pair of attacks yesterday around the Sunni Arab city of Ramadi in what local officials said was part of a power struggle between Al Qaeda and tribes that have broken with the terror network. In all, at least 68 people were killed or found dead nationwide yesterday, police said. They included the bullet-riddled bodies of 30 men found in Baghdad -- the apparent victims of sectarian death squads. All but two were found in west Baghdad, including 17 in the Amil neighborhood where Sunni politicians have complained of...

BAGHDAD -- Sectarian killings have surged in parts of Baghdad not yet included in a security offensive, the US military said yesterday, while bombings and other insurgent attacks killed four American soldiers and wounded 25 in the capital region. Police reported finding 20 bodies dumped on streets, many of them victims of reprisal killings in the escalating conflict between Shi'ite and Sunni Arabs. Six people died when a car bomb exploded at a soccer field in Fallujah, raising the death toll across Iraq to at least 28. One of the few positive...

BAGHDAD - Iraqi commandos and US forces have arrested a suspect in the 2006 kidnapping and slayings of an Iraqi taekwondo team whose highway ambush became one of the symbols of Iraq’s lawlessness during its worse years of sectarian violence. The US military unveiled the arrest in a statement yesterday, but did not say when it took place or identify the suspect. The Iraqi military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Athletes and sports officials were frequent targets of threats, kidnappings, and assassination attempts at the height of the civil...

BAGHDAD -- Senator John McCain took his controversial proposal for curbing Iraq's sectarian violence to Baghdad yesterday, calling for an additional 15,000 to 30,000 US troops and joining a congressional delegation in telling Iraq's prime minister he must break his close ties with a radical Shi'ite cleric. The lawmakers' trip came as the bloodshed showed no signs of abating. At least 74 more people were killed or found dead, including 65 bullet-riddled bodies bearing signs of torture.

BAGHDAD — A late-night car bomb Wednesday night tore through a cafe in the Sadr City neighborhood, killing nine people in what many worry marks another attempt by insurgents to provoke militias into resuming the sectarian bloodshed that once ravaged the capital. Sadr City, an overwhelmingly Shi’ite slum of 2 million people, is a stronghold of Muqtada al-Sadr, the anti-American cleric whose powerful militia has in the past battled US forces as well as Baghdad’s Sunni population.

BAGHDAD - The number of Iraqis killed in war-related violence increased by 44 percent between January and February, with civilians accounting for almost all of the casualties. The rise in killings raised doubts about the atmosphere before next Sunday’s Iraqi election, which the United States hopes will produce a stable government that could ease withdrawal of American troops by the end of next year. Casualty figures have fluctuated widely in recent months and are far below those seen in past years, when sectarian violence was rampant.

BAGHDAD - Iraq’s government said at least 85,000 Iraqis were killed from 2004 to 2008, officially answering one of the biggest questions of the conflict - how many perished in the sectarian violence that nearly led to a civil war. What remains unanswered by the government is how many died in the 2003 US invasion and in the months of chaos that followed it. A report by the Human Rights Ministry said 85,694 people were killed from the beginning...

BAGHDAD - Iraqi commandos and US forces have arrested a suspect in the 2006 kidnapping and slayings of an Iraqi taekwondo team whose highway ambush became one of the symbols of Iraq’s lawlessness during its worse years of sectarian violence. The US military unveiled the arrest in a statement yesterday, but did not say when it took place or identify the suspect. The Iraqi military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Athletes and sports officials were frequent targets of threats, kidnappings, and assassination attempts at the height...

BAGHDAD - A string of bombings targeted Shi’ite worshipers in the Baghdad area during prayers yesterday, killing at least 29 people in an apparently coordinated attack against followers of a sect that has been blamed for some of Iraq’s worst sectarian violence. The blasts in a former stronghold of Moqtada al-Sadr shattered a recent calm and underscored warnings that suspected Sunni insurgents would step up efforts to stoke sectarian violence as the Americans draw down their forces.

BAGHDAD - Vice President Joe Biden celebrated the Fourth of July with his son and other American troops in Iraq yesterday, a day after warning Iraqi leaders that US assistance will be jeopardized if the country reverts to ethnic and sectarian violence. Biden began Independence Day by greeting more than 200 US troops from 59 countries who were becoming American citizens at a naturalization ceremony in a marble domed hall at one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces at Camp Victory, the US military headquarters on the outskirts of Baghdad.

BAGHDAD -- More than 2,660 Iraqi civilians were killed in Baghdad in September, according to new Health Ministry figures -- 400 more than the month before despite an intensified US-Iraqi sweep aimed at reining in violence. The numbers indicate how tough the vital battle to secure Baghdad has proven amid a wave of bloodshed this year, not only from Sunni Arab insurgents but also from Shi'ite and Sunni death squads who kidnap and kill members of the opposing sect. So far, October has brought no relief.

BAGHDAD - The head of Iraq's main Sunni parliamentary bloc was killed in a bold daylight attack after delivering a sermon during Friday prayers at a mosque in western Baghdad, raising fears that insurgents are trying to rekindle sectarian violence. A gunman believed to be as young as 15 shot Harith al-Obeidi as he left the mosque and walked toward his nearby home, police said. There were conflicting accounts about what happened next. Guards at the scene said the assailant was chased a few hundred yards down the street, then detonated a grenade, killing...

BAGHDAD - The head of Iraq's main Sunni parliamentary bloc was killed in a bold daylight attack after delivering a sermon during Friday prayers at a mosque in western Baghdad, raising fears that insurgents are trying to rekindle sectarian violence. A gunman believed to be as young as 15 shot Harith al-Obeidi as he left the mosque and walked toward his nearby home, police said. There were conflicting accounts about what happened next. Guards at the scene said the assailant was chased a few hundred yards down the street, then detonated a grenade, killing himself and an...