De facto partition takes hold in Iraq

Finally, a death threat persuaded Majed and Mondhir Hatem Waheed to leave the neighbourhood of Dora where they grew up and, together with their wives and children, join 24 relatives in an uncle's house in Baghdad's Shia Sadr city district.

"At least, we are safe," 25-year-old Mondhir Hatem Waheed said.

In the 43 months since Saddam Hussein's ouster, entire Iraqi provinces have become virtually off-limits to one or another sect, mixed Sunni-Shia neighbourhoods are slowly disappearing, and a Kurdish region in the north appears to have all but seceded.

In many ways, Iraq is breaking up, though not in a way in which a well-defined boundary could be established to ensure peace. It is happening amid a debate on whether partitioning this ethnically and religiously diverse nation could provide a way out of the growing sectarian violence tearing it apart.

The debate on partitioning Iraq has touched on such sensitive issues as the distribution of the country's oil wealth and how far plans for a federal system of government should go. Also at the forefront is the likely influence of neighbouring powers like Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria should the country be carved into Kurdish, Sunni Arab and Shia Arab mini-states.

Embittered by the loss of their dominance under Saddam and worried they may be left isolated and bereft of resources in Iraq's mostly arid central and western parts, Sunni Arabs have warned that federalism will lead to the breakup of the country.

"I believe some Kurds and some (Shia) Arabs in the south have been promoting federalism to pave the way for the larger goal of dividing Iraq," said Hamid al-Mutlaq, a senior member of the National Dialogue Front, a Sunni Arab political party.

"This catastrophic sectarian tension is only a step to justify partition," he added.