Is Iraq coming apart? Will the conflict between Sunnis and Shiites drive Iraq into civil war--and take the rest of the Middle East with it?

• Author: Tavernise, Sabrina
• Position: INTERNATIONAL

Anmar Abed Khalaf is a 24-year-old university student in Baghdad who wanted to marry his girlfriend. But despite several attempts, he has been rejected by her family because he is a Shiite and she is a Sunni. Abed Khalaf, who lives in a Baghdad neighborhood that has been tormented by sectarian assassinations for more than a year, says he feels more resignation than anger over the rejection.

"I do not blame her father or her mother," he says. "It is because of the situation."

Of all the changes that have swept Iraqi society since the U.S.-led invasion three years ago, one of the most critical is the heightening of tensions between Iraq's two main Muslim sects: Sunni (SOO-nee) and Shiite (SHEE-ite). Since Iraq was created in 1920, the government had been controlled by the Sunni minority, who make up just 20 percent of the population. Under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, the government ruthlessly repressed Shiites--killing as many as 100,000, for example, when they rose up against him in the aftermath of the first Gulf War in 1991. These injustices caused sectarian tensions that were kept in check by the authoritarian nature and brutality of Saddam's regime.

But since Saddam was removed from power in April 2003, the lawless environment and the growing insurgency have encouraged these tensions to surface. They are increasingly evident in the day-to-day lives of Iraqis--like Abed Khalaf's inability to marry his Sunni girlfriend--and in the bombings and executions killing thousands of Iraqis, which appear on the news back in the U.S. every night.

THREE GROUPS

One such incident, the February 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, set off waves of violent reprisals that have killed hundreds of Iraqis in recent weeks. The violence has gotten so bad that many believe Iraq is teetering on the brink of civil war.

Iraq's population of 26 million is divided into three main groups: About 60 percent are Shiite Arabs, about 20 percent are Sunni Arabs, and 17 percent are Kurds. (The Kurds, who are concentrated in northern Iraq, are also Sunni Muslims, but they belong to a different ethnic group. Their region, which has been much less affected by the violence, is the most stable part of Iraq today.)

The split between Sunnis and Shiites dates to the seventh century when, according to Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muhammad died, and there was a dispute over who would take over as Islam's leader.

The two groups share the basic tenets of Islamic belief. However, over the centuries, Shiites and Sunnis developed distinctly different social, political, and religious practices. The two sects have often viewed each other with suspicion, which has sometimes...