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"The members of the Free Syrian Army have principles and never do such things," Brig. Gen. Anwar Saad-Eddin said. "The security situation has deteriorated nationwide and that anyone holds a weapon can say he's from the Free Syrian Army. We have already arrested some of them." Hadi and his family of five fled to Syria in 2009 from the Iraqi Shiite holy city of Karbala in 2009 after Sunni insurgents killed his older brother. He has returned to a homeland still torn by deadly attacks. On July 23, Sunni insurgents linked to al-Qaida launched attacks in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities that killed 115 people, the country's deadliest in more than two years. At the al-Walid border crossing between Iraq and Syria crossing, Intisar Adel waited with her husband and daughter to enter Iraq. They fled to Syria in 2009. Now they were returning after gunmen
-- she believes they were rebels -- stormed their apartment building in Damascus and ordered the landlord to evict all Iraqis, she said. "They shot an Iraqi in the leg and they robbed some Iraqi residents in the building," she said. "We immediately left the building and left our belongings there. "The situation is unbearable." Most Iraqis are returning with the help of free flights and bus tickets paid for by the Iraqi government. In the last two weeks alone, Baghdad has flown at least 17 planeloads home from Syria. At least 5,000 Iraqis have driven across border crossings in their chaotic exodus from Syria. Iraqi officials and Mideast experts say the targeting of Iraqis may be payback against the Baghdad government's ties with Iran, which is Assad's strongest ally in the region. Though Baghdad has publicly refused to be drawn into Syria's war, skeptics believe it is at least helping Iran ship weapons and other reinforcements to Assad's regime. In March, the U.S. urged Baghdad to cut off its airspace to flights headed to Syria from Iran, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged to curb arms smuggling across his borders. "It seems that the Syrian opposition wrongly thinks that Iraq's government is taking the side of the regime. And some armed groups are targeting Iraqis because of this," said Raad al-Dahlaki, a Sunni lawmaker in Baghdad. "The people behind attacking Iraqis want to send a message that the conflict is of a regional dimension," al-Dahlaki said, "and some governments and countries in the region should pay now for their stances." That reflects the broader fear, that as the Syrian conflict worsens it could turn into a wider sectarian conflict. Kamran Bokhari, a Toronto-based expert on Mideast issues for the global intelligence company Statfor, predicted militant groups from across the region will flock to Syria if a peace agreement isn't settled soon. "The entire region is descending into a regional geosectarian war," Bokhari said. "The question is, how bad is it going to get?"
[Associated
Press;
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