British war correspondent Robert Fisk is reporting gunfights have broken out between property owners and looters in Baghdad. Shia and Sunni Muslims are fighting each other because Saddam Hussein’s government privileged the Sunnis and impoverished the Shia. Fisk writes, by failing to end the violence, U.S. troops are stoking ethnic hatred and provoking a civil war in Baghdad. Hundreds of streets are barricaded with burned-out cars and tree trunks. They’re watched over by armed men who are ready to kill strangers who threaten their homes or shops. Fisk notes that is how the civil war began in Beirut in 1975. Reports of vigilante and revenge killings are also emerging.

The London Observer reports Baghdad is bursting with anti-American feeling as residents see their city stripped by its own citizens. U.S. forces rarely intervene, and in some cases even wave treasure-laden men through checkpoints. Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse reports U.S. soldiers shot and killed a Baghdad shopkeeper who was defending his shop with a Kalashnikov assault rifle against looters, this according to neighbors.

U.S. forces over the weekend began recruiting volunteers and former government workers to help administer the city. About a thousand people, including health workers, electricity and water ministry employees, attended a meeting in the center of the capital to volunteer for work. But the BBC reports some volunteers are upset that members of the old regime are dominating the recruits. Twenty-three-year-old Ahmad Kadhim said, “I came here to volunteer to protect state buildings, but I found the same Baath Party members who tortured us only a few days ago. It’s the same people all over again.” He lifted his T-shirt to show scars on his back.