Iraq: Anyone and everyone is a target

uruknet/aljazeera.net: Nowadays in post-invasion Iraq, everybody is on somebody's hit-list. Different political groups have emerged with totally contradictory interests and views, and some are resorting to violence against rivals.

Iraqi political analyst Liqa Makki said the hit-list phenomenon has in the past afflicted many countries, but Iraq's case is much too complex.

"The most confusing thing about them is the diversity of targets. It is painful to say it, but we have to acknowledge that those who carry out those assassinations have managed to make every Iraqi think that he or she is a potential target somehow," he said.

Iraqi Shia Muslims have coalesced around three blocs. The group which follows the Iranian Shia cleric Ayat Allah Ali al-Sistani sees the US-led invasion as a liberation which snatched the country from the jaws of a "tyrant ruler" who "spread fear and havoc".

The young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who derives his authority from his family's religious history, opposes the political process but has no problem participating in it to "stay close to the country's issues". His followers are in constant revolt against both Iraqi and non-Iraqi authorities.

Those who follow Baghdad's highest Shia authority, represented by the family of the Grand Al-Khalisi (Shaikh Muhammad Mahdi al-Khalisi, a key participant in the 1920 revolution against the British in Iraq), are totally opposed to the political process and their position is nearly identical to that of Iraqi Sunni Muslims.

Aljazeera.net spoke to several Iraqis investigating the hit-lists. Read more