Killers in the Neighborhood

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The killings have dramatically increased in the past two months, Washash residents say. And the list of potential targets seems to include just about everyone. Those murdered in recent weeks include a house painter, a juice seller, an ice vendor, a blind cleric and an herbalist specializing in love potions. Despite the warnings he received, al-Obaidi hasn't quit cutting hair; he doesn't know how else to make a living. But he is taking what precautions he can. He now works only one day out of every three, and he keeps an eye open for those Opel sedans.

Despite the brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime, Sunnis and Shi'ites in Iraq tended to live in relative harmony. Although the sectarian split occurred early in Islamic history and concerns a critical disagreement over who was the rightful successor to the Prophet Muhammad, members of the two groups often trace their roots to the same Arab tribes and frequently intermarry. Saddam, a Sunni, patronized his own kind, giving clansmen top jobs in the army, civil service and secret police, and when Shi'ites in southern Iraq revolted after the first Gulf War, in 1991, Saddam resolutely crushed them. In neighborhoods like Washash, however, there was little friction. Sunnis and Shi'ites played on the same sports teams and shared hubble-bubble pipes over domino games in cafés. "These two words--Sunni and Shi'ite--didn't exist for us," says Walid Ahmad al-Anei, a Sunni. "We were all Muslims."

But these days, as Walid learned to his horror, the division is all too real. Walid's brother Majid, a bean seller, was targeted two weeks ago as he left a mosque. First his assailants hit him with their car. Then, as he staggered to his feet and tried to escape over a wall, they shot him twice in the head and four times in the chest.

After Saddam fell, violence came quickly to Washash. The first wave of killings was straightforward, motivated by revenge against Saddam's thugs and informers. Few grieved for the victims. Then insurgents began to target anyone who worked with U.S. forces--as an interpreter, say, or a driver. To survive, those who stayed on the U.S. payroll learned to leave Washash before dawn and pretend they were commuting to jobs outside the city. By last December, the killings had taken on a sectarian slant. As more Sunni extremists poured in from abroad to join the insurgency, they tapped into latent anti-Shi'ite feelings among Iraq's Sunnis, prompting some to resort to violence. Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist who heads al-Qaeda's operations in Iraq, fanned the flames, denouncing Shi'ites as worse infidels than the Christian "crusaders," as he refers to the U.S. troops. Shi'ite groups like the Badr Corps, whose militias are apparently armed by Shi'ites in Iran, have responded with equal savagery against the Sunnis.