Iraq Continues to Disintegrate

... Baathists from returning to power rather than bringing the country together [15] . Under this pretext, Nouri al-Maliki hounded a number of Sunni leaders, including Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi, who was accused of running death squads, and fled to Qatar. One of the last repression victims before the uprising in Al Anbar was Iraqi Sunni MP Ahmed al-Avlani, who was accused of links with terrorists. At the end of 2013, Iraqi police launched a special operation to arrest him. In response, the Sunnis tried to organize terrorist attacks and mass acts of civil disobedience. A protest camp was set up near the city of Ramadi, but Iraqi security forces cleared it under the pretext that the camp housed terrorist leaders. In the clashes during the ...