Death Squads on the Prowl; Iraq Convulsed by Fear

By PATRICK COCKBURN
Counter Punch
Irbil, Iraq.

Iraq is a country convulsed by fear. It is at its worst in Baghdad. Sectarian killings are commonplace. In the three days after the bombing of the Shia shrine in Samarra on February 22 , some 1,300 people, mostly Sunni, were picked up on the street or dragged from their cars and murdered. The dead bodies of four suspected suicide bombers were left dangling from a pylon in the Sadr City slum.

The scale of the violence is such that most of it is unreported. Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, said yesterday that scores were dying every day. "It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day, as an average, 50 to 60 people throughout the country, if not more," he said. "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is."
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link: http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick03202006.html

Also, check out today's Paul Craig Roberts article: "A Collapsing Presidency"