Raid on Mosque Sparks Battles in Baghdad

A U.S.-Iraqi raid on the Abu Hanifa mosque -- one of the most revered sites for Sunni Muslims -- spawned a weekend of street battles, assassinations and a rash of bombings that changed Baghdad. The capital, for months a city of unrelenting but sporadic violence, has taken on the look of a battlefield. The chaos has fanned sectarian tension and deepened Sunni distrust of interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a Shiite installed by the Americans five months ago. It has also heightened the anxiety of the city's 6 million people -- already worn down by years of sanctions and tyranny, then war, military occupation, crime and deprivation. "Baghdad is now a battlefield and we are in the middle of it," said Qasim al-Sabti, an artist who kept his children home from school Saturday, which is a work day in Iraq (news - web sites). When he sent his children back to school Sunday, the teachers didn't show up. [more]