Word: adhamiya
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It looks a little spooky out here," Captain Jon Stubbs shouts above the roar of his humvee as he leads two platoons of the 3rd Battalion of the 153rd Infantry Regiment on a patrol through the heart of Adhamiya, Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhood. The cause of Stubbs' concern: it's only 7:30 p.m., and the streets around Abu Hanifa Mosque are empty and dark. "This place is usually buzzing like downtown Manhattan late into the night," says Stubbs, 32, a native of Searcy, Ark. "If people have gone home this early, they must know something nasty...
...alleyways around the mosque, starting with the most dangerous of them all, a street the Americans have dubbed Terrorist Café. It is lined with lean-tos and shacks that serve as teahouses and kebab stalls, some of them patronized by leaders of the Sunni militant groups that have turned Adhamiya into a hotbed of insurgency in the Iraqi capital--a "Little Fallujah in the middle of Baghdad," in the words of a local shop owner...
...hour later, the patrol ends without event. The platoons get back on their humvees and return to their forward operating base, known as Gunslinger. Stubbs is relieved to have completed the mission but can't shake his suspicion--one that is heightened when, a few blocks from the mosque, Adhamiya suddenly springs back to life, with shops and restaurants doing a roaring trade and the pavements filled with people. "There was definitely something going down back there," the captain says, shaking his head in frustration. "I'd sure like to know what...
...patrols can't be everywhere at all times, and Adhamiya offers the insurgency an abundance of targets and cover for attacks. The densely crowded district is an ideal setting for the new insurgent tactics that are evolving in the wake of the U.S.-led battle for Fallujah. Flushed from their hideouts in the Sunni triangle, many fighters have descended upon Baghdad and Mosul, taking with them a burning desire to avenge Fallujah and a style of fighting previously unseen in Iraq. The rebels, according to sources familiar with their operations, are no longer seeking small-town havens. By basing themselves...
Baghdad's Adhamiya got its first taste of this more brazen form of rebellion even as the Fallujah assault, Operation al-Fajr, was winding down. On the morning of Nov. 20, some 300 fighters attacked the district's main police station. For Colonel Khaled Hassan Abed, chief of the Iraqi police in Adhamiya, the sheer number of attackers revealed a change in the insurgents' tactics. In the past, rebel operations in Baghdad generally consisted of two or three attackers firing mortars from pickup trucks. The more deadly operations tended to involve explosives set off by remote control or by lone...