This is easily the scariest thing in the news right now:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A major Sunni Arab bloc Thursday suspended talks with Shiite and Kurdish parties on a new government after scores of Sunni mosques were attacked and dozens of bodies found in a wave of reprisal violence following the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine.
Violence continued Thursday with an attack on a Sunni mosque in Baqouba, where eight Iraqi soldiers were killed in a bombing and nearly a dozen people were wounded.
Faced with the grim prospect of sectarian war, the government extended the curfew in Baghdad and Salaheddin province for two days in the wake of Wednesday's attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra. All leaves for Iraqi soldiers and police were canceled and personnel were ordered to report to their units.
Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr slammed the Iraqi government and U.S. forces for not protecting the Samarra shrine, also known as the Golden Mosque, and ordered his militia to defend Shiite holy sites across Iraq.
"If the government had real sovereignty, then nothing like this would have happened," al-Sadr said a statement. "Brothers in the Mahdi Army must protect all Shiite shrines and mosques, especially in Samarra."

This goes back to the Sunni/Shia rift that has been around for centuries, though the fact that al-Sadr is still around to do something about it is worrysome. This is one of the problems that the CPA should have dealt with a long time ago. This very well maybe a critical point for the future of Iraq, and a prevention of a disintigration into civil war would be a good sign. A civil war in Iraq is something the region cannot afford right now, nor can the United States.

Posted by Ryan S. on Thursday, February 23, 2006 at 12:58 PM | Permalink |