U.S. walls off Baghdad neighborhood

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

U.S. walls off Baghdad neighborhood
Posted 36m ago

BAGHDAD (AP) — U.S. soldiers are building a three-mile wall to protect
a Sunni Arab enclave surrounded by Shiite neighborhoods in a Baghdad
area "trapped in a spiral of sectarian violence and retaliation," the
military said.

When the wall is finished, the minority Sunni community of Azamiyah,
located on the eastern side of the Tigris River, will be completely gated,
and traffic control points manned by Iraqi soldiers will provide the only
means to enter it, the military said.

-snip-

It said the concrete wall, including barriers as tall as 12 feet, "is one
of the centerpieces of a new strategy by coalition and Iraqi forces to
break the cycle of sectarian violence" in Baghdad.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have long erected barriers around city marketplaces
and U.S. and Iraqi military facilities such as the heavily fortified Green
Zone in Baghdad to prevent attacks, including suicide car bombs. But few,
if any, have been known to be set up to divide a Baghdad neighborhood
by sect.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-04-20-baghdad-wall_N.htm

---

Source: Los Angeles Times

In Baghdad, U.S. troops build wall to curb violence

But residents aren't happy with the barrier cutting of a Sunni district
from surrounding Shiite areas.

By Edmund Sanders, Times Staff Writer
April 20, 2007

BAGHDAD — A U.S. military brigade is constructing a 3-mile-long concrete wall
to cut off one of the capital's most restive Sunni Arab districts from the Shiite
Muslim neighborhoods that surround it, raising concern about the further
Balkanization of Iraq's most populous and violent city.

U.S. commanders in northern Baghdad said the 12-foot-high barrier would make
it more difficult for suicide bombers to strike and for death squads and militia
fighters from sectarian factions to attack one another and then slip back to their
home turf. Construction began April 10 and is expected to be completed by the
end of the month.

Although Baghdad is replete with blast walls, checkpoints and other temporary
barriers, including a massive wall around the Green Zone, the barrier being
constructed in Adhamiya would be the first to be based in essence on sectarian
considerations.

-snip-

News of the construction was first reported Thursday by the Stars and Stripes
newspaper

Shiite and Sunni Arabs living in the shadow of the barrier were united in their
contempt for the imposing new structure.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-wall20apr20,1,2931037.story

---

Related: Soldiers building wall separating Sunnis, Shiites - Stars and Stripes

[xchrom]

1. when all else fails -- build a wall...

:eyes:

[POAS]

2. Can they build them high enough to keep out mortars? n/t

[acmavm]

3. A sure sign of democracy at work, a wall around the neighborhood to

keep people alive.

That's really letting freedom 'reign', isn't it? :sarcasm:

[Robbien]

4. Now they are putting Iraqis in Ghettos?

A walled up ghetto?

This makes me want to throw up.

[ixion]

5. proving that the military still doesn't get it

a wall will not quell an insurgency, nor protect the occupying force.

But hey, what's a little history when you've got military intelligence. :eyes: