Zina Hassan drops her voice to a whisper when she talks about student politics at Baghdad University. ‘We are surrounded by spies,’ said the 22-year-old Iraqi Sunni Muslim.

Kadhem al-Muqdadi, a Shiite Muslim, scans the campus before getting into his car. A teaching colleague was killed when a student alerted a waiting assassin with a phone call.

Mohammed Jassim, also a Sunni, resigned as a lecturer at Mustansiriyah University in northeast Baghdad. Members of the Mahdi Army, the militia of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, threatened twice to kill him if he stayed.

With Iraq on the brink of civil war, university campuses have joined the rest of the country along the fault line that’s widening between Sunnis and Shiites. Student governments, backed by powerful political parties, intimidate professors and fellow students. Killing and other violence have become increasingly common.

‘All the powers-that-be in Iraq are trying to find a presence on the campuses,’ said Basil al-Khateeb, a spokesman for the Ministry of Higher Education, which oversees a university system for 737,000 students. ‘There are clashes between students in many of the universities.’

Muqdadi added: ‘We pay the cost of the political chaos at the university.’ The Shiite professor fears that, one day, he too will be killed by someone alerted to his presence by a student with a mobile phone.
sundayherald.com

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