IRAQ

Socialist Worker: Is Iraq headed for a civil war?

THE COORDINATED bombings and mortar attacks in the Iraqi cities of Karbala and Baghdad March 2 have cast a spotlight on the crisis of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. At least 100 and as many as 300 people were killed in the attacks, which targeted Iraq’s Shiite Muslims--who are the majority of the population, but were oppressed under Saddam Hussein’s regime.

The attacks came as tens of thousands of Shiites gathered to mark Ashura, the highest holy day of the Shiite religious calendar--and as the Iraqi Governing Council handpicked by the U.S. was getting ready to sign an interim constitution. The Bush administration lost no time in pointing the finger at "foreign terrorists"--in this case, Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who supposedly fought with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.