Iraq heading for Sunni-Shiite civil war

Egypt's Al Gumhuriya said Thursday that sectarian sedition was being re-ignited in Iraq with the second attack on the Shiite Golden Mosque in Samarra.

The semi-official daily noted in its editorial that the first attack on the holy shrine last year had unleashed a wave of attacks and counterattacks by the Sunnis and Shiites that has left many people killed. "This by no means serves the steadfast nationalist resistance in the face of the occupation," it remarked.

The mass-circulation paper suggested the US forces' high alert for its troops in Iraq and the government's curfew imposed on Baghdad following Wednesday's mosque bombing indicate that the "conspiracy of sedition is entering a more bloody stage that will turn the struggle against the American occupation into a civil war between the Sunnis and Shiites."

It insisted this was a scheme similar to one that is being implemented in Palestine between the supporters of rival Fatah and Hamas in order "to turn the resistance's weapons against each other."