Excerpts from Reuters, the Associated Press and other sources

Sunni-Islamist jihad flares as the transitional National Assembly makes final adjustments in the draft constitution for October 15 referendum and prepares for the election of a permanent government in december, 2005

Shittes attacked as apostates and collaborators

In a rapid acceleration of violence in Iraq, suicide bombers struck the Iraqi capitol again on Thursday, September 15, 2005, killing at least 31 people in two attacks about a minute apart and lifting the death toll in two days of carnage to nearly 200. A dozen bombings during a nine-hour spurt of terror on Wednesday left at least 167 people dead and nearly 600 wounded  in Baghdad's worst day of bloodshed since the United States-led invasion in March 2003. Bombings were concentrated in the Shiite Dora district. American and Iraqi soldiers using loudspeakers roamed the district, warning residents to stay indoors because more gunmen and suicide car bombers were believed to be in the area. On Friday morning, gunmen shot two dead and wounded 13 laborers waiting to be hired in the New Baghdad district of the capitol. The laborers were waiting to be hired for a day's work when the gunmen opened fire, the police said.

MURDER IN MUILHA

Sunni Islamists have singled out and murdered many Shiite civilians of all types in Iraq in recently, including five teachers and a driver murdered in a school house on, September 26 about 1:15 pm as school was getting out. This attack was part of a string of terror operations around Baghdad, including a second suicide car bombing in two days at the gates of the Iraqi police academy that left 16 dead, a roadside IED that killed 2 American soldiers, and a Sunday minibus suicide bomber attack on a convoy of elite Iraqi commandos which killed a yet unknown number of beings of Light; at least 10 bodies were counted at the scene.

The murders at the school in Muilha, a suburb of Iskandariya about 30 miles south of Baghdad, were committed by some 20 terrorists dressed as police officers who rounded up five male teachers and then executed them by gunfire in an empty classroom; the teachers’ male driver was also shot and killed outside of the building. All of the victims were Shittes and women teachers were excluded by the terrorists.

Muilha, a predominantly Sunni Arab suburb, is in the heart of an area known as the "Triangle of Death," where sectarian violence has been intense and relentless; on Sunday a suicide bomber blew himself up near a Shiite shrine in the town of Musayyib, killing six people, and in July a suicide bombing there killed 71. The area was particularly favored by the Saddam dictatorship whose propaganda trained its Sunni population to resolutely oppose Shiite power. However, it is commonly believed that resident Sunni’s are not disposed to becoming suicide bombers and that these atrocities are the work of immigrant Al-Qaeda Islamikazis.

Terrorists (irahibeen) are reported to have detonated over 300 bombs so far this year during 65 to 75 attacks a day against coalition forces in Iraq - 30 to 35 of them in Baghdad alone. The numbers had remained relatively steady for two months until this week's attacks. Atrocities continued through September and on the last two days of that month more than 100 beings of light died in explosions in crowded markets in and around Baghdad, two of which were frequented by Shiites. In Balad, where a remote-controlled bomb destroyed most of a city block, crowds before cameras chanted, "With our souls, with our blood, we sacrifice ourselves for the constitution."

DEMOCRACY: THE ART OF COMPROMISE

Many believe that much greater Sunni support for the constitution might be achieved by two amendments to the constitution as now formulated. Alterations suggested: 1) require that no more than four governorates in the federation can become a seperate region through fusion, "to assuage Sunni Arab fears of a Shiite super state-region in the south;" and 2) make clear that former members of the Saddamite Baath party are not to be excluded from public or managerial positions merely on the basis of such past membership. This would permit those representing Sunnis, as well as those believing in a secularism (per se anti-Islamism), to take part in future politics of the New Iraq, thus modifying the tendancy for the creation of an Islamist state by fundamentalist Shiites receiving funding and arms from Shiite Iran.

Recent attacks on British forces in southern, Shiite Iraq are seen as inspired by Iran in response to opposition to its nuclear development program. Also, the new, sophistocated explosives used in recent roadside IED bombs have been traced to Iran.

A splintering of insurgent groups has been noted in recent weeks, particularly between former Baathists and the foreign Islamists. As Zarqawi’s Islamists threaten to kill anyone who votes, most Sunni groups are now calling to mobilize Sunnis to vote to defeat the new constitution and in doing so, to participate in the democratic process.  Even though such a defeat of the proposed constitution is not considered likely, the rift between factions can be widened, especially in light of an increasing number of Sunnis who oppose al Qaeda's declaration of war against Shiites and who object to the rising number of civilians who are targeted by the jihadists. 

It was expected that during Ramadan influential Sunnis would come together in an attempt to formulate new proposals for an agreeable political solution for a unified Iraq — before a national disintegration and before the Islamist “center of gravity” in Al Anbar becomes too influential in Iraqi politics and an irremediable threat to the region, as al Qaeda-linked groups attempt to spread the jihadist contagion. Perhaps only the Sunnis can force them out, but only if the Shiites are more malleable in their demands so as to keep the Sunnis from becoming too embittered by the new constitution.