BAGHDAD, Iraq—Shiite Muslim assassins are killing former members of Saddam Hussein's mostly Sunni Muslim regime with impunity in a wave of violence that, combined with the ongoing Sunni insurgency, threatens to escalate into civil war.
The war between Shiite vigilantes and former Baath Party members is seldom investigated and largely overshadowed by the insurgency. The U.S. military is preoccupied with hunting down suicide bombers and foreign terrorists, and Iraq's new Shiite leaders have little interest in prosecuting those who kill their former oppressors or their enemies in the insurgency.
The killings have intensified since January's Shiite electoral victory, and U.S. and Iraqi officials worry that they could imperil progress toward a unified, democratic Iraq.
"It's the beginning, and we could go down the slippery slope very quickly," said Sabah Kadhim, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. "We've been so concerned with removing terrorists and Islamists that this other situation has reared its ugly head. Both sides are sharpening their knives."
An intelligence memo distributed Feb. 15 to the U.S. military and private security contractors in Iraq said the renewed militia presence in southern Shiite cities "may be a defensive measure by one of the successful political parties following the release of the election results, and may explain the reason for the link to the Badr corps."
Hadi al Ameri, the leader of the Badr Organization, was among the powerful Shiites elected to Parliament last month and is said to be a top contender for defense or interior minister. In an interview Friday at his heavily guarded home, al Ameri denied that Badr fighters are behind the assassinations and said his men abided by the calls for restraint from Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, Iraq's highest-ranking Shiite cleric.
"The head of Iraqi intelligence accused us of these assassinations and I told him, `If you have proof against us, give me the intelligence.' I offered to form a committee and hand over any guilty men," al Ameri said. "We don't want revenge from anyone. We've been oppressed and we shouldn't oppress others."
The guerrilla-turned-politician conceded that some Shiites were attacking former Baathists of their own accord. If al Sistani hadn't asked militiamen to use the courts—not guns—for revenge, he said, the situation would be much worse.
"The Baathists should pray day and night for Sistani," al Ameri said with a chuckle.
Knight Ridder tried to contact several former Baathists whose names appeared on a hit list; only one agreed to speak about the threat. The man, a Shiite in his 50s who was a security official under Saddam, received a note at his home last month that read: "You are a Baathist and we are watching you." He'd refused to fly a white flag in his neighborhood, he said, so he wasn't surprised to find his name among those marked for death.
Abu Muqdad—he asked that his full name be withheld for protection—said that since the elections, the targeting of former Baathists was "like a plague spreading through a town with no doctor." He accused political parties of quietly funneling names and addresses to their militias or hiring criminal gangs to carry out the killings.
"Go to the morgue and you'll find all our old (Baathist) luminaries," Abu Muqdad said. "Why were they killed, and who killed them? For revenge, by the Iranian-trained militias inside Iraq. They can do whatever they like now. Let's hope God grants us all restraint."