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For Iraq's Sunnis, Conflict Closes In
A Shiite, Killed in Error
An empty Sunni house, taken over by the Mahdi Army, stands as a warning. The writings read "Not for sale. Wanted" and "This is vengeance for the other day."
(Photos By Washington Post Staff)
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His tribal name didn't help Khelan Jassim Muhammed, 46, a grocer and father of six girls, from becoming a victim of the killing in Hurriyah.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]Two weeks ago, he moved from Tobji to Hurriyah to occupy a house left empty by relatives who had moved to the United Arab Emirates. Muhammed, his relatives said, felt safe. He was a Shiite from the Ajaeli tribe.
Last Wednesday, he left his home in the morning and never returned. After a frantic search, his brothers found his body the next morning in the morgue. His corpse had been discovered in a trash dump in a Shiite neighborhood.
"He was handcuffed from the back and had two bullets holes in the back of his head," Khatan Jassim, 41, one of his brothers, said Sunday. As he finished the sentence, silence fell upon his family's spare, white-lit living room, where seven relatives were seated in a semicircle. Before they sat down on a large red carpet, they said a prayer, their palms facing upward in the Shiite tradition. They had lived all their lives in Tobji, just down the road from the empty Sunni Arab house.
Khatan Jassim, a taxi driver with a wide nose, thick neck and sun-leathered skin, said his brother's death bore the trademark of the Mahdi Army.
There are Sunnis and Shiites in the Ajaeli tribe, he explained. His brother, he added, was also carrying an identification card issued in Abu Ghraib, a Sunni area.
"There was a misunderstanding from the Sadr office," Jassim said. "They didn't know he was a Shia."
At the funeral, Sadr's representatives came to offer their condolences. Jassim confronted them. They denied any involvement.
"They gave us an excuse," Jassim recalled. "They said, 'Why would we kidnap him and dump his body in a dumpster? We control the neighborhood. We could have gone inside his house and killed him.' "
A Feeling of Siege
Across the street from the concrete barrier with the Mahdi Army proclamation, 25 Sunnis gathered Sunday at the Suhail Mosque for midday prayers. Young and old, they prayed solemnly, their hands at their side. Their small numbers spoke of their fears.
"This is half of what it used to be," said Khalid Mahmoud, 45, a mosque official and Khudir Mahmoud's brother. "People are staying home. They are worried about their security. Even if they come, their minds will be preoccupied."
"Most of the Sunnis here feel like they are under siege," he added.
