War-ravaged city offers fleeing Sunnis refuge from death squads [View All]

[G_j]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-2532427,00.html

War-ravaged city offers fleeing Sunnis refuge from death squads

Ned Parker in Fallujah


Month by month restive Anbar province seems to drift farther away from Baghdad. Fallujah, the war-torn city at its heart, has become a magnet for the country’s displaced Sunnis, with potentially devastating consequences for Iraq.

The tens of thousands who have fled there in recent months are seeking refuge among rival Sunni armed factions, and under tough Islamic law imposed by al-Qaeda, rather than risk a brush with the Shia militias who reign in Baghdad. “It is safe in Fallujah because all the Sunnis here are with the resistance,” said Rabia Rajab, 35, restaurant owner who ran away from the Iraqi capital.

This is a city whose mentality could not be more at odds with that of its notional Government in Baghdad, and the tensions are likely to be increased by the grisly footage of Saddam Hussein’s hanging.

Fallujah’s main street is now plastered with posters calling for the hospital to be renamed Saddam the Martyr General Hospital. They have been put up by an insurgent group called Muhammad’s Army. Houses throughout the city have in recent days been blaring Koranic verse in mourning for the former dictator.



..more..