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'In the Land of the Blood Feuds'
American soldiers guard a Sunni cemetery in Khidr, Iraq, on a mission to find unidentified men spotted burying weapons there.
(By Sudarsan Raghavan -- The Washington Post)
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In Iskandariyah, where nearly two-thirds of the population are Shiites, sectarian killings are on the rise, according to U.S. military commanders. Since November, there have been seven police chiefs. The sixth one was murdered last month.
"The police are afraid to do anything," Khafaji said. Tall and regal, with short, silvery hair, he is a prominent Shiite tribal leader whose family has lived here for generations.
On March 26, Balcavage's soldiers responded to fierce street battles between Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias in Iskandariyah's center.
A series of tit-for-tat mosque attacks had put the town on edge. Then Shiite militiamen based in one mosque attacked a Sunni shrine down the street.
As a unit from the 1st Battalion rolled into the battle zone, not far from Khafaji's factory, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades suddenly targeted them, according to a military report.
"Both sides stopped shooting at each other, and both opened up on our men," Whiteside said. The Americans had to fight their way out.
That battle convinced Khafaji that U.S. forces are vital to preservation of the tenuous power balance. "Now, the Americans are standing in between, sometimes to push on this side and sometimes to push on the other side," he said. "But if the Americans leave, it will be another story."
Musayyib
Fifteen miles to the south, Col. Mohammed al-Mahawili is struggling to control Musayyib. Four months ago, U.S. commanders installed the 32-year-old former Iraqi army officer as the city's police chief. His predecessor was found to have links to the Mahdi Army.
Shiite militias use the town to stage attacks against Americans. A majority of explosively formed penetrator strikes in the area around Kalsu have occurred in Musayyib, Whiteside said.
Mahawili, a tall, energetic Shiite, has escaped six attempts on his life -- one by machine gun, two by sniper fire and two by roadside bombs. A Katyusha rocket struck his police station.
He tries to keep the peace between a confusing array of combatants -- all Shiites, some allied with Iraq's leading political parties -- jockeying for domination with cycles of revenge killings.
Sadr's followers clash with other Shiites and among themselves. Two days earlier, Mahdi Army militiamen had kidnapped a leader of the influential Mowafat tribe, apparently in retaliation for the assassinations of two militia leaders.
