Importing Sectarian Warfare?

Has the violent Sunni-Shia feud of centuries' duration reached the United States? Some in Michigan believe so.

So far it's only some broken windows &#151 no IEDs [1] exploding or blood running in the street. But small incidents have a way of escalating, particularly when the religious divisions involved are enthusiastically engaged in killing each other a few thousand miles away. We shouldn't naively believe that merely exposing Muslim groups to the magic of apple pie and the Constitution will end a long history of intramural warfare.

The idea that Muslim immigrants in America are better assimilated than their snarly brethren [2] in Europe has long been a dreamy fantasy of multiculturalists with no basis in reality. Immigrants bring their ethnic baggage with them, from criminal cultural practices [3] to historic enmities [4].

As they repaired the broken windows of at least a dozen businesses and mosques along Warren Avenue in Detroit, many Iraqi Shi'ite Muslims wondered Monday if the vandalism was retaliation by local supporters of Saddam Hussein who resented that they celebrated the hanging of the Iraqi dictator.

Sometime late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, someone vandalized at least nine businesses and three mosques, all but one Shi'ite, according to Ali Zwen, manager of the Kufa Cultural Forum, a mosque at Warren and Archdale that sustained $4,000 in damage.
[Damage to businesses and mosques in Detroit raises wider fears [5], Detroit Free Press 1/9/07]

Here's the story from the city's other paper, the Detroit News: Vandals hit Shi'a stores [6].

They say the vandalized property was owned or operated by people of Iraqi descent who are Shi'a.

"People are scared to come here. It's very dangerous, this place," said Inaam Alkhafaji [shown here], referring to her Detroit business, Dana Media, whose windows were broken.

"It's a war with the Iraqi people. Maybe next time they kill us."

Can we chill on Muslim immigration [7] yet?