Sunni-Shiite mortar war marks escalation in sectarian conflict

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Mortar battles have erupted between Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad, and the once-mixed city is reeling as the two sides adopt the weapons and tactics of urban civil war.

Throughout the capital and in towns and villages within an 80-kilometer (50-mile) radius of Baghdad, whole populations have shifted as Shiite and Sunni flee violence from death squads and suicide bombers to the safety of places where their Islamic sect is the majority.

The highly portable though inaccurate mortar is increasingly the weapon of choice as Shiite and Sunni populations separate, because it allows sectarian fighters to fire into a district from a distance.

Mortars can be quickly pulled from the trunk of a car and fired over several kilometers (miles), causing death and destruction without the dangers of close-quarters combat or the sacrifice of a suicide bomber.

For Arkan Maher, a 28-year-old electrician and father, it was just another workday this week when mortar rounds crashed to earth in a market in the Sunni enclave of Azamiyah. He fell wounded in both legs, an eye and one arm.

Maher was near the Abu Hanifa mosque, Sunni Islam's holiest shrine in Iraq and a regular target of Shiite mortar teams..........