http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1107AP_Iraq_Threatened_Shiites.htmlThe sectarian cleansing that drove 68-year-old Abbas al-Saiedi from his home may be as alarming a sign of a country on the brink of civil war as the killings that have swept Iraq in the past week.
Masked gunmen carrying rocket-propelled grenade launchers and automatic rifles kicked down the gate at his house, fired into the air and told the Shiite he had 48 hours to get his family out of the predominantly Sunni neighborhood in west Baghdad.
Al-Saiedi's story, a tale of fear and desperation told to The Associated Press on Wednesday, represents a growing phenomenon of religious cleansing in which members of each Muslim sect are driving the others from neighborhoods where they have long lived side by side.
The practice, which has been going on for some time in neighborhoods south of Baghdad, is a barometer of the degree to which the Shiites and Sunnis have moved on the path to civil war. The number of incidents cannot be fully gauged, but is not yet at the level of mass expulsions of the kind that took place in the Balkans during the civil war there in the 1990s."going on for some time" - I wonder how long that some time is.
"not yet at the level" - But, the level has now been reached where they are reporting on it, which seems to indicate that it is high enough for concern. And so high that they can no longer ignore it.
Sounds like ethnic cleansing and civil war to me.
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