Baghdad's walls and streets are plastered with calls for university students and professors to boycott school until fall 2007. Radical Sunni movement Ansar al Sunna has declared a "campaign for halting the assassinations of students and academics in Baghdad universities." According to one such banner hung in a majority Sunni part of Baghdad, "In order to protect the lives of our dearest academics and students from the assassinations of Maliki's government and the death squads of Maliki's government, we decided to stop the universities and all academic institutes including the private ones for this year academic year 2006-2007." The banner stressed that this only applied to Baghdad. "It is strictly forbidden to attend universities in order to cleanse the universities from death squads that use the universities as centers to launch their attacks from," the banner said. Such threats, warnings and announcements are typically made to the Iraqi people by the distribution of leaflets or by hanging banners on walls. Ansar al Sunna is the successor to the jihadist group Ansar al Islam. This group is remaking itself as the defender of Iraq's Sunnis who view themselves as being persecuted both by the Americans and by the Shia who dominate Iraq's government and security forces. It is a sign of how the civil war is uniting the disparate Sunni militias and how Iraq's Sunnis will have to depend on them for protection, sometimes whether they want to or not, in the absence of reliable security forces loyal to the state rather than sectarian movements. Some Sunni politicians defended the measure.

Asmaa al Duleimi, a female Iraqi Parliament member belonging to the Iraqi Accord Front headed by the Islamic Party's Tariq al Hashimi explained that she was sure that the Army of Ansar al Sunna knew of threats to students and academics and Ansar al Sunna's call to halt university attendance was out of a desire to protect the students. Meisoon al Damalouji, a Sunni member of Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya party condemned Duleimi's statements as unacceptable. A banner was hung up in Baghdad Mustansiriya University on Palestine street announcing "We will not surrender to terrorism, and that is our response."

Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki himself responded to the warnings by threatening to fire all professors who did not show up to work in the universities and threatening to expel students who did not attend classes. This move will be seen by Sunnis as an attack by the Shia led government on them, since it was Sunni students and professors who were warned not to attend.

Baghdad's educational institutions have not been immune to the civil war that ravages much of the country. On December 7 Muhamad Haidar Suleiman, a professor at a sports education college in Mosul was assassinated and in Baghdad, Harith Abdul Hamid, director of Baghdad University's Psychology Center was also assassinated on his way to work. In early December a girl's high school in the majority Christian area of Baghdad Jadida or New Baghdad was closed down by order of the school's head master after militants left posters on the walls threatening to kill the female students. In Zayuna, a majority Sunni area, leaflets were scattered in two schools, one of which was called the Tariq bin Ziyad school, cursing Shias as bastards and threatening them.

This is part of a general trend that began immediately with the fall of the former regime when professors and administrators who had belonged to the Baath party were targeted.

Student unions were dominated by sectarian and fundamentalist militias and in Baghdad these militias often belonged to Shia movements such as Muqtada Sadr's, Ayatollah Muhamad al Yaqubi's and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Religious strictures began to be imposed as well. Hundreds of professors have been assassinated since the regime fell.

In November the Ministry of Higher Education was attacked by Ministry of Interior forces. University attendance has declined drastically because of the violence, and Baghdad residents are afraid to venture outside their neighborhoods. Leaflets were recently distributed in the University of Technology, threatening students and professors -- and as a result the university has been shut down. In the Adhamiya and Yarmouk districts, both majority Sunni areas of Baghdad, leaflets were distributed banning university students from attending their schools.

In Abu Ghraib, just west of Baghdad, leaflets threatened students who attended the Agriculture College. In the Zafraniya district students of the Technical Institute were threatened by gunmen. Gunmen also recently kidnapped three female students from the Mustansiriyah University.

In majority Sunni western Baghdad banners signed by radical Sunni movement Ansar al Sunna's Department for the Protection of Professors asked students and lecturers to abstain from attending government universities, academic institutes and private colleges because they were dominated by the government's Shia militias.

Iraqslogger has obtained images of a leaflet scattered throughout Baghdad last week making a similar announcement. Below is its translation in full:

To our respected professors and our dear students in the Universities and Colleges of Baghdad

Final Warning

In an attempt to protect your lives from the wrongdoings of the Maliki government and its death squads, including the killings, kidnappings and violations against the scientific talents, and especially the Sunni students, which led to Sunni talents in Baghdad universities becoming a market for the deathsquads, and to these colleges becoming safehouses for these squads to launch their killings and kidnappings against Sunni students and professors... From these universities the learned and the mujahideen graduated...and in these same universities they are being killed today.

We have decided, after deliberating with a select group of experts and university professors, to abolish the educational term for basic and advanced studies for the school year 2006-2007 in all the universities and institutes and commmunity colleges and their equivalents, exclusively in the area of Baghdad. That is, firstly, for the protection of our learned and our students, and secondly, in order to cleanse these universities from the deathsquads, and we shall not rest until we establish security within them. As for the students in basic, intermediate and secondary schools, as well as the university students outside of Baghdad; they are exempt from this decision and should attend their classes as usual.

Therefore, we ask our professors and students, especially the Sunnis, and also the Shi`as who are not linked to the treasonous parties, to avoid their classes for the entire school year in order to protect their lives. We shall give them three days to finalize their arrangements and we understand that staying away from the field of education is painful...but the killing of the learned is more painful... we also know that the Sunni professors and students, as well as the Shi`a civilian public, will heed this warning and abstain from attendance.

As for you, students of the deathsquads, this decision will not please you and you will persist in attending...why wouldn't you, and you have been satiated with the blood of Sunnis, we tell you:

Today we shall avenge our teachers who sacrificed their blood for us, we have arranged for you your doom, and our mujahideen are ready and are eager for your blood. The universities that you have violated will not be a safe haven for you anymore, and the forces of apostasy and the pagan guards will not save you. We will choose the time and place to target you in your homes and your beds and your roads and in your campuses. You will live in perpetual fear until you meet your doom, and we hope that the year will not end until we finish you one after the other.

And we repeat our request to the Sunnis especially, and to everyone who wishes to be safe to stay away from the deathsquads that use universities as their havens, and to leave the battle between us and them... you are hereby warned...you are hereby warned...you are hereby warned

(the campaign for the aid of the learned and the students in the universities of Baghdad)

The Ansar al-Sunna Group

(Editor's note: We're still searching for answers to the questions raised by this intriguing story, which IraqSlogger first reported exclusively early this week.)

A mysterious psychological operations campaign is underway in Iraq, with Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army as its target. In recent days, Baghdad residents report receiving phone calls that caller ID show to be originating from outside Iraq. When the phone is answered, the listener hears a recorded message from an anonymous man speaking formal Arabic. He condemns the Mahdi Army and describes how it destroys Iraqi infrastructure, including electricity. Baghdad residents are afraid to discuss details of the message over phone lines, believing them to be monitored. But an IraqSlogger source tells us the unnerving message left at least one Baghdad woman in tears. Who is responsible for these calls? We'd love to know. Tips? Write to us at tips@IraqSlogger.com.

As the civil war in Iraq intensifies, Sunni militias appear to be uniting to combat the more powerful Shia militias such as the Mahdi Army, the Badr Organization as well as the Police and Army which they believe are dominated by these militias. In mid-October an alliance was announced between Sunni militias who called themselves "al Mutaibeen." The alliance included the Mujahedin Shura Council, Jeish al Fatihin, Jund al Sahaba, Ansar al Tawhid wa al Sunna and some tribal leaders. Its name comes from the word Tib, or perfume and refers to those who put on perfume. Before Islam some notable Meccan leaders agreed to help the needy and defend the weak. They sealed their agreement by putting their hands in perfume, a pre-Islamic custom. They called their group the Mutaibin Alliance. Some of them were ancestors of the Prophet Muhamad. The new alliance of Sunni militias established in October announced that its goals were to fight the Americans and protect the poor Sunnis against the Shia, whom they described with the slur radical Sunnis use, Rawafidh, or those who reject Islam.

As IraqSlogger previously revealed, Sunni militias have begun warning Sunnis to avoid public places such as universities because of an impending attack to attempt to cleanse these places of the Shia militias. Islam Memo, a website said to have initially been established by the former regime for Iraqi Palestinians reports that on Friday the 8th of December, Sunni mosques called for Sunni in Baghdad to avoid going to dangerous places, meaning mixed or Shia neighborhoods.

Haq Agency website reported that Shias are leading a major war against Sunnis in Baghdad. The report said that a large number of Mahdi Army soldiers were wearing police uniforms and driving police vehicles in Palestine street and attacking only Sunni houses. It reported that the following day more Mahdi Army soldiers patrolled in Sha'ab City and attacked more Sunnis. The report also said that local Shia citizens from every neighborhood help the Shia militia by working as informants and guides, telling them who is a Sunni and who is not and helping them to kill Sunnis.

Defending Sunnis Net reported that Sunnis are preparing for a big battle to avenge the Sunnis who were recently removed from their mosque by a Shia militia and burned alive. It adds that Sunni militias have decided to unify in order to engage in a broader war against Shias.

Other forums reported that the Sunni al Janabi tribe engaged in large battles with the Mahdi Army in the Amil district of Baghdad. It is also said that members of the Mahdi Army wrote the name of a revered Sunni caliph Abu Bakir on a dog in Sadr City's Mudhaffar square and then began to chase and torture the dog until they shot it and killed it. The civil war continued and it is reported that ninety three Shia families from southern Baghdad fled after Sunni militias threatened them with death.

The Sunni front is not being restricted to Iraq. In a disturbing development, 38 Saudi clerics have signed a global fatwa calling on all Sunnis in the world to unify their efforts and fight the Shias to protect the Sunnis of Iraq. This fatwa is likely to increase the support Iraq's Sunni militias receive from abroad and it may also increase the number of foreign volunteers attempting to enter Iraq. Sifr al Hawali, an important Saudi cleric who has often taken a harder line than the Saudi regime was one of the signatories. In recent months Saudi Arabia has hosted Harith al Dhari, head of the Association of Muslim Scholars, Iraq's most powerful Sunni movement that is closely linked to some Sunni Islamo-Nationalist militias, in an official visit. Al Dhari had recently defended al Qaeda in Iraq against criticism of it. Some veterans of the Afghan jihad have viewed al Dhari's Association, formed in the summer of 2003, as the ideal place to funnel money from wealthy Persian Gulf sponsors. The Iraq Study Group reported that Saudis are one source of funding for Sunni militias in Iraq. Saudi Arabia, and Jordan as well, are apprehensive of a Shia dominated Iraq which they view as an Iranian proxy. Nawaf Obaid, a close adviser to the Saudi government on security issues recently wrote in the Washington Post that if the Americans withdrew from Iraq the Saudis would increase their support for Iraq's Sunnis to undermine Iran's influence. The likelihood of the war in Iraq spreading beyond that country's borders is increasing as well.

Our correspondent in Kirkuk provides us with the Monday police blotter:

-- A roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi Police Commando patrol in Kirkuk's al Kournish district, injuring two of the Policemen.

-- In the Tuz area south of the city a Sunni militia a house in the village of Yengiga, killing six members of the Shia Turkmen family and injuring a 7th. In Mosul four members of this same family were also assassinated.

-- Colonel Araz Nathim, the commander of Kirkuk's Criminal Investigation Department, his wife and seven of his bodyguards were injured when a suicide car bomb exploded in front of Nathim's house.

-- The large al Saada building in Kirkuk's al Jumhuriya street was set afire in unknown circumstances, burning many of the nearby markets as well. At least one person was injured.

-- In Dibiz Iraqi security forces operating with American soldiers defused three roadside bombs on the highway going to Kirkuk. They also defused a roadside bomb on the highway between Kirkuk and Mosul.

The Tuesday Kirkuk police blotter:

-- A roadside bomb exploded in the very crowded Tissiin neighborhood of Kirkuk on the evening of December 11. There were no casualties reported.

-- A car bomb went off next the convoy of General Safiin Haydar, commander of the Iraqi army in Kirkuk.

--Local Iraqi security forces arrested five people suspected of involvement in terror attacks.

-- The combined forces of the Iraqi army, Iraqi police and American soldiers have initiated a new campaign in Kirkuk to confiscate unauthorized weapons and capture "terrorists." The campaign began in the village of Chardaklu where they captured the five suspects and also found 19 unauthorized small arms such as Kalashnikovs and pistols.

-- Hundreds of Kurds demonstrated in front of the US consulate in Kirkuk to show their anger at the Iraq Study Group's report, which they described as unacceptable and not realistic. They demanded the normalization of Kirkuk as soon as possible, meaning that Kirkuk would fall further under Kurdish control. The US Consul notified the protestors that the Iraq Study Groups report was merely a study and not a decision taken by the US government.

-- Four Iraqi soldiers were killed and seven wounded in the al Mashrou area of Kirkuk between Kirkuk and Hawija when a suicide car bomb exploded near an Iraqi army checkpoint.