Amid increasing bloodshed in Iraq, many Sunnis desire an end to the violence

Local people say that this new and increasingly bloody conflict, pitting former Iraqi Baathists against well-armed Islamic groups, may signal the start of a new phase in the country's three-year-old war.

They believe the conflict is creating divisions within Iraq's Sunni minority that has the potential to destabilise the region long after the US military has gone home.

The latest fighting began when former members of Saddam's disbanded Baath party started attacking other Sunnis who were working with Al-Qaeda and foreign Islamists to carry out attacks against the American army, Iraqi police and the country's majority Shias.

The ex-Baathists' offensive has been so successful, local people say, that Iraqi groups working with al-Qaeda have been forced to divert their attacks away from the Americans to focus on fighting the al-Awda party, as the new secular Sunni movement is called.

'Islamic state of Iraq'

In early November, this growing conflict took a new turn when masked gunmen linked to al-Qaeda distributed flyers and posters throughout al-Anbar province threatening to execute anyone from Al-Awda.

Since then, several high-ranking officials from the former Iraqi army have been found murdered throughout Anbar province.

These include former Major General Saab Al-Rawi, Major General Saud Al-Naimi and Wagih Dherar Al-Mawla, a former senior officer in the Iraqi Air Force stationed in Habbaniyah.

On November 11 another senior member of the Baath party, Loay Yassin, was found shot in the head in Al-Jamia, the western district of the town of Hiyt.

Hiyt residents told Al Jazeera that Yassin was known to have recruited fighters for the Jaysh Mohammed (Mohammed's Army).

The Jaysh Mohammed is one of the largest Sunni insurgent groups and in the past it has claimed numerous attacks against US forces in Baghdad and Anbar.

The assassination of Yassin may suggest that al-Qaeda and its allies fear that the Jaysh Mohammed and its thousands of experienced fighters may be close to joining the al-Awda neo-Baathist alliance.

Changing alliances

In the past year, the Jaysh Mohammed has already clashed several times with another group, Al-Tawheed wa Al-Jihad, a mainly Iraqi group which is affiliated with al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The increasingly heavy fighting between the rival armed groups in Hiyt and other urban centres in Anbar has led many Sunnis to believe that a new war between secularist and Islamist factions could be beginning.

Although both groups are in principle opposed to the US presence in Iraq and the Shia-led government in Baghdad, Anbar residents say a rapprochment between the two is unlikely.