Tension rises

They came early in the morning and didn't bother knocking. Seven uniformed men strode into the house and searched it from top to bottom. Mohammed Dhia, his wife and three children had just finished eating breakfast.

Upstairs the men found an old army uniform from when Saddam Hussein was still the dictator of Iraq, but that was enough for the men to threaten to take Dhia with them. A minibus was outside waiting to take him away. It wasn't until Dhia showed his United Nations ID card that the men moved on to the house next door.

Dhia's house is in the Mansour district of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, next to the closely watched Green Zone, where the government buildings are located. Raids are carried out in houses near the Green Zone all day. The concrete walls are high and topped with barbed wire to keep people from climbing over them. But the mood in Baghdad is tense.

Raids in Baghdad

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is nervous and all 6 million people in the capital can feel it. Ever since his unsuccessful appeal to parliament to enact a state of emergency, he has been putting his own emergency plan in place. Checkpoints in Baghdad are increasing while soldiers and police patrol the streets and conduct raids on houses.

The city's Sunni neighborhoods, such as Adhamiyah, get special attention from authorities - every house is carefully searched. Dhia's neighborhood has Sunnis, Shiites and Christians, but that diversity doesn't spare its residents.

"They think there are sleeper cells of Sunni rebels that will rise up and attack when ISIS approaches," the 54-year-old Sunni said sarcastically referring to the jihadist group Islamic States of Iraq and Syria. But it is clear that Maliki's heightened security measures aren't making the prime minister any new friends.

But friends are just what the Shiite leader could use, as his Sunni countrymen outside the capital prepare a revolt against him and Iraq's central government and Islamist ISIS fighters capture cities across northern Iraq in hopes of forming an Islamic state like Saudi Arabia.

ISIS captured Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, this week as well as Saddam Hussein's birthplace, Tikrit, and are moving toward Baghdad. Anbar province to the northwest of Baghdad has been firmly in the grip of ISIS fighters since January.

For a year, the Sunni population peacefully demonstrated for more rights, a bigger role in the political process, improved public facilities and an end to corruption. But nothing changed. Now ISIS has moved in and put Maliki's back up against the wall.

ISIS fighting a "war against all of us"

The prime minister called on Iraqis to stand up to the ISIS "terrorists," who he said were not fighting against Sunnis or Shiites but were "fighting a war against all of us." A group of fighters made up of volunteers and members of the Iraqi army would stop ISIS, he said.

Maliki traveled to the northern city of Samarra in a sign of unity. It is where the bombing of a Shiite mosque in 2006 set off a bloody civil war between Sunnis and Shiites. Many observers fear that conflict could reignite as ISIS fighters and equipment approach the city some 110 kilometers (68 miles) from Baghdad.

Maliki has, however, found one friend in the region:Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. He said Iran would support the Iraqi government in its fight against ISIS if requested. Exactly what form that support might take remains unclear, but the US daily "Wall Street Journal" reported that three battalions of the Quds Force, the external special forces of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, were conducting missions in Iraq. Rouhani, however, denied any Iranian troops were already there.

Though he ruled out sending ground troops to Iraq, US President Barack Obama said he would consider his options over the next few days, but in the meantime, the Defense Department ordered an aircraft carrier and a pair of a warships to the Persian Gulf on Saturday.