Lazy Lob
12-08-2006, 09:08 AM
The Times December 08, 2006
Religious split could set region on fire
Stephen Farrell in Amman and Nicholas Blanford in Beirut
The conflict between Sunni and Shia is spilling out of Iraq and bodes ill for future of country’s neighbours
Divided legacy
The language was stark. Iraq’s slide towards chaos could spark “a broader regional war”, according to the blue-chip panel reporting to President Bush this week. There was a risk of “regional conflagration”, said Robert Gates, the incoming Pentagon chief, the day before.
Yet even as these dire warnings were being delivered in measured tones by Washington’s wise men, there are disturbing signs that Sunni-Shia violence is already bleeding across Iraq’s borders.
If the sectarian strife spreads, the Iraq Study Group cautioned on Wednesday, neighbouring countries face instability as the two Muslim sects vie to protect their spheres of influence. “Ambassadors from neighbouring countries told us that they fear the distinct possibility of Sunni-Shia clashes across the Islamic world,” the Iraq Study Group, led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, wrote.
Their alert may have been buried deep within the 100-page report. But it is page one, paragraph one of neighbouring regimes’ concerns, as the report recognised: “Such a broader sectarian conflict could open a Pandora’s box of problems — including the radicalisation of problems, mass movements of populations and regime changes — that could take decades to play out.”
For Ahmad Mahmoud, it did not take decades. The 20-year-old ’s face now stares impassively from mourning posters plastered on his two-storey home in Beirut. A Shia, he lived in the mainly Sunni neighbourhood of Tarek Jdeide. Mahmoud was shot dead on Sunday during street clashes between Sunnis and Shias.
It was the first fatality of Lebanon’s worsening political crisis, which has soured the already tense relations between the two communities. His death sparked further clashes in Beirut, where for the first time the Sunni-Shia split was overshadowing the more traditional divide between Christians and Muslims. ...............continues:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2493025_2,00.html
Religious split could set region on fire
Stephen Farrell in Amman and Nicholas Blanford in Beirut
The conflict between Sunni and Shia is spilling out of Iraq and bodes ill for future of country’s neighbours
Divided legacy
The language was stark. Iraq’s slide towards chaos could spark “a broader regional war”, according to the blue-chip panel reporting to President Bush this week. There was a risk of “regional conflagration”, said Robert Gates, the incoming Pentagon chief, the day before.
Yet even as these dire warnings were being delivered in measured tones by Washington’s wise men, there are disturbing signs that Sunni-Shia violence is already bleeding across Iraq’s borders.
If the sectarian strife spreads, the Iraq Study Group cautioned on Wednesday, neighbouring countries face instability as the two Muslim sects vie to protect their spheres of influence. “Ambassadors from neighbouring countries told us that they fear the distinct possibility of Sunni-Shia clashes across the Islamic world,” the Iraq Study Group, led by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, wrote.
Their alert may have been buried deep within the 100-page report. But it is page one, paragraph one of neighbouring regimes’ concerns, as the report recognised: “Such a broader sectarian conflict could open a Pandora’s box of problems — including the radicalisation of problems, mass movements of populations and regime changes — that could take decades to play out.”
For Ahmad Mahmoud, it did not take decades. The 20-year-old ’s face now stares impassively from mourning posters plastered on his two-storey home in Beirut. A Shia, he lived in the mainly Sunni neighbourhood of Tarek Jdeide. Mahmoud was shot dead on Sunday during street clashes between Sunnis and Shias.
It was the first fatality of Lebanon’s worsening political crisis, which has soured the already tense relations between the two communities. His death sparked further clashes in Beirut, where for the first time the Sunni-Shia split was overshadowing the more traditional divide between Christians and Muslims. ...............continues:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2493025_2,00.html