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"They want to drive the Sunnis away so that they would emerge as the overwhelming majority," Dulaimi told IOL. |
BAGHDAD – Shiite militias are trying to change Baghdad's Sunni demography through waves of sectarian killings and forcible evacuations, a prominent Sunni leader has warned.
"What is going on in Baghdad nowadays is not a civil war but a well-planed plot," Adnan Al-Dulaimi, the leader of the Sunni National Accord Front, a partner in the Shiite-led coalition government, told IslamOnline.net on Tuesday, September 5.
"This plot is based on killing and intimidating Sunnis, forcing them into a panicky flight from Baghdad and its suburbs to change the demography," he explained.
In a report issued on Friday, September 1, the US Defense Department said sectarian attacks in Iraq rose by 24 percent to 792 per week.
Iraq's most revered Shiite scholar Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani has admitted his inability to prevent a civil war in Iraq, lamenting that he no longer as an influence on Shiites who have switched allegiance to militant groups and death squads.
Iraqi political analyst Nezar Al-Samarrai pointed the finger at Iran.
"With the help of militias and parties – some partners in the government – Iran is trying to change Baghdad's demography by settling thousands of Iranian Shiites carrying forged Iraqi IDs."
He regretted that Baghdad has become a "focal point for foreign intelligence agents, death squads, criminals and militias."
The spokesman for Shiite Authority Al-Sayed Al-Hassan Al-Sarhi told the Iraqi Al-Diar satellite channel in July that some 150,000 Iranians had settled in Iraq.
Iraq's Al-Zaman newspaper reported on Monday, September 4, that 200,000 pieces of land, allotted by the ousted regime to soldiers and officers, mostly Sunnis, have been squatted by Shiite militias and political parties.
"Up to 140,000 lawsuits have been filed against the government over the illegal confiscation of these pieces of land," Iraqi lawyer Thaer Gamal Al-Ani told IOL.
Minority
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| Many Sunnis were forced to flee their homes in Baghdad. |
Dulaimi said that the ultimate goal of the Shiite militias is to make Sunnis a minority in Baghdad.
"They want to drive the Sunnis away so that they would emerge as the overwhelming majority," he added.
Shiite militias, Dulaimi said, have already forced tens of thousands of Sunnis to flee their homes in Baghdad and nationwide.
Lawyer Ani said the Sunni majority presence in Baghdad and its suburbs dates decades back.
"Sunnis in Baghdad and Al-Madaen, Al-Youssifya and Al-Taji hail from tribes, who settled in the region hundreds of years ago," he averred.
"It will be narrow-minded to link their presence to ousted Saddam."
Dulaimi believes that the government is not serious about reconciling between Shiites and Sunnis.
"Though we fully back national reconciliation, the government does not take the matter seriously and is not resolved to dismantle Shiite militias," as promised by Prime Minister Nur Al-Maliki, he lamented.
The International Crisis Group (ICG) said in report that only the introduction of significant changes to the Iraqi "sectarian" constitution and disbanding government-condoned militias can help ward off a deadly civil war. |
