Please explain the difference between 'sectarian violence' and 'civil war' (dateline 9-13-06 AP)

Question

"By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 6 minutes ago
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Police said Wednesday they found the bodies of 65 men who had been tortured, shot and dumped, most around Baghdad, while car bombs and mortar attacks killed at least 39 people and wounded dozens more.
The U.S. military said it could not confirm all the execution-style killings and said the numbers they had for the bodies so far was lower than that reported by police.
"It is looking like about a 50 percent discrepancy on execution-style killings so far," said Maj. Josslyn Aberle, chief of the media relations division for the Multi-National Corps-Iraq.
The reason for the difference was not immediately clear. The confusion over numbers underscores the difficulty of obtaining accurate death tolls in Iraq, which lacks the reporting and tracking systems of most modern nations. Also, counts by the U.S. military often lag behind those of the police."



Please, serious responses only----

Answer 1

Sectarian violence is between religious groupings. Civil War is between Tribal or political groupings.

Answer 2

True "civil war" usually includes the very real possibility of the current gov't being overthrown and a new one installed. While the sectarian violence in Iraq is tragic, it is not occurring on the grand, organized scale necessary to overthrow - or even destabilize - the gov't.

As far as the definition of "sectarian violence", that's basically what's gone on in that part of the world for generations; people killing each other because they're of another "tribe". A doesn't believe as B, thus A is an infidel and must die. So A's family retaliates against B, the family of whom in turn retaliates for the death ("martyrdom") of B. Wash, rinse, repeat ...

Answer 3

Sectarian violence has to do with a specific group within a country that is causing harm for there particular goal. the sectarian aggressors would be the terrorist insurgents i Iraq. A civil war would basically be the whole country fighting itself, everybody has a side they are fighting for, there really are no middlemen or a peaceful section of the country no enveloped by the war. If all the tribes in Iraq went to war against each other, that would be a civil war. If only one tribe by itself is causing the violence, then that would be sectarian violence. There are a bunch of variables to define both, but those are really the bottom line.

Answer 4

That previous answer is really good.

Civil War would involve the whole country fighting against each other. Most of Iraq is now untouched by the violence.

A particular minority group (The Sunnis) and a terrorist group (Al Quaeda) are killing people because they have been thrown out of power (The Sunnis) or because they have publicly stated that all "infidels" deserve to be killed (Al Quaeda).