In one of the deadliest attacks in war-torn Iraq, at least 51 people were killed and some 90 others injured on Saturday when three car bombs went off coordinately in a commercial area in central Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua.

Since the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra north of Baghdad on Feb. 22, Iraq has been engulfed in tit-for-tat Shiite-Sunni violence that has killed thousands and pushed the country to the brink of a full-scale civil war.

In 2006, the sectarian bloodbath in the war-ravaged country overpassed the insurgent attacks, casting shadows on the future of the unfledged Iraqi government and making U.S. troops slip deeper into the quagmire of war.

CIVIL WAR LOOMS

The destruction of the golden-domed mosque in February enraged Shiites, particularly Shiite militia that have been on a rampage of revenge killing ever since. Sunnis have fought back with equal vengeance.

Thousands of Iraqi citizens have been killed just for their sects by daily gruesome sectarian violence such as bombings, shootings, kidnappings and assassinations.

Witnessing the dreadful sectarian strife, U.S. President George W. Bush and several generals warned that Iraq was "close to", " nearing" or "in danger of" a civil war.

Even more pessimistically, analysts and think tanks said Iraq's conflict was even worse than "civil war", because it "suffers from at least four internal conflicts -- a Shiite-Sunni civil war in the center, intra-Shiite conflicts in the south, a Sunni insurgency in the west and ethnic tensions between Arabs and Kurds in the north."

In recent weeks, mortar battles have erupted between Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad, which marks the escalation of sectarian fray.

According to a UN report released in late November, the number of Iraqi civilian killed in October reached a new high of 3,709, making October the deadliest month since the war began in March 2003.

On Nov. 23, a series of car bombings rocked Shiite Sadr City in eastern Baghdad, killing more than 200 people and injuring more than 250 others, which was the deadliest attacks since U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Meanwhile, thousands of Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes in religiously mixed neighborhoods. Many of the displaced tell similar stories of the killings and disappearances of neighbors, threats to their lives and attacks on property.

"The migration was a dangerous sign of accelerated religious segregation," said Sattar Nowruz, a spokesman of the Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration.

The ministry said that about 1.5 million people are internal refugees, while the UN said a similar number of Iraqis have fled the country altogether.

Growing number of intellectuals are also targeted in Iraq, resulting in an unprecedented brain drain as those who can move abroad increasingly do so.

MILITARY AND POLITICAL EFFORTS FAILED

The U.S. and Iraqi governments are trying to address the problem through military and political measures.

For political measures, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki presented a 24-point plan in June to promote national reconciliation among the Iraqi rival factions.

The program includes amnesty to members of the Sunni Arab-led insurgency who were not involved in "terrorist activities."

The prime minister also vowed to disarm the Shiite militia who have killed thousands.

For military efforts, the U.S. military in August began the most systematic series of operations in Baghdad since the war began, trying to return the worst neighborhoods to normal life.

It appears to be bearing some fruit, with violence in the city down about 40 percent in August from July, according to the American military.

However, violence between the sects continues at a frantic pace, with no sign of abatement. The reconciliation plan is seldom mentioned by politicians and media now while U.S. ambitious military sweeps just lead to more casualties. In October, the military witnessed the bloodiest month this year, with 106 U.S. soldier died.

Analysts said behind the rampant sectarian violence are Shiite militia and their "death squads" that have powerful backing from political parties in the Shiite-dominated government.

Mahdi Army, one main Shiite militia which is loyal to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, controls at least 30 seats in the 275-member parliament. The other major Shiite militia, known as the Badr Organization, is affiliated to Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the country's single most powerful political party.

The spike of sectarian violence demonstrates the power of the Shiite-backed militia and the plight of the Maliki government that is under pressure of the U.S. authorities to dismantle them.

The sectarian violence has left the political parties on all sides clinging to their private armies harder than ever, complicating American efforts to persuade Iraqis to disband them.

PONDERING EXIT STRATEGY

By the end of the year, the future of Iraq could be outlined as a nation where power is scattered among clerics-turned warlords and divided along sectarian lines, graft and corruption subvert good governance, and foreign powers exert influence only over a weak central government.

Despite the Coalition Forces have trained more than 300,000 men, the Iraqi forces are also separated, with parts of western Baghdad being patrolled by army units dominated by Sunnis while eastern Baghdad is being patrolled by Shiite-dominated units.

The turmoil also paints a gloomy future of U.S. troops' withdrawal and prompts the U.S. government to consider the readjustment of policies towards Iraq.

Over 2880 American soldiers have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.

At the end of 2005, the U.S. defense officials had said the Pentagon planned to reduce the number of U.S. troops to about 100, 000 in the summer of 2006 if conditions allowed. However, the U.S. beefed up its forces in Iraq to more than 140,000 this year.

Recently, the outgoing UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that the United States was "trapped in Iraq", and Washington should find the right time to leave without worsening the situation.

"The United States is in a way trapped there. It cannot stay and it cannot leave," Annan said. His viewpoint are echoed by many politicians and analysts.

Bush's Republicans surprisingly lost control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in midterm elections in November, which is seen due to his failure in Iraq.

Facing strong disapproval of his war strategy, Bush administration vowed to change and find an exit strategy.

Bush is reportedly awaiting a report by a bipartisan Iraq Study Group headed by former secretary of state James Baker on a new Iraq approach.

However, there is no magic bullet for the complicated Iraq problem, the violence will definitely rage on.

Source: Xinhua