Word: ghazaliya
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Iraqi politicians of all stripe may have protested, but the wall around the Baghdad neighborhood of Ghazaliya has gone up anyway. U.S. and Iraqi soldiers have ringed the southern part of the neighborhood with concrete barriers, a move that has improved security but also prompted fears among local Sunnis that they are being ghettoized...
...Last month, the U.S. Army began constructing some 2.5 miles of concrete barriers around southern Ghazaliya. The area, a Sunni insurgent stronghold, is notorious for relentless attacks on American and Iraqi soldiers, and for the execution of civilians who cross the insurgency. Since the barriers went up - limiting movement in and out of the area to two checkpoints, one on the east and the other on the west side of the area - violence has declined dramatically...
...never get much sleep at a patrol base at night. In Ramadi, where Marines man several combat outposts amid the inner city, darkness often brings fear as Iraqi security forces come and go, leaving some Marines wondering whether they are among friends or enemies. In Ghazaliya, a violent neighborhood in western Baghdad with similar combat outposts, nearby gunfire cracks through the inky blackness outside seemingly every time you drift off. And in Diyala Province, where nine U.S. soldiers died Monday, troops stand watch on rooftops overlooking stretches of palm groves where they know insurgents dwell, waiting for the right moment...
...wall is only as effective as the guards manning its gates, and Sunnis have every reason to mistrust the men who would hold the keys to their neighborhood. Several months ago, in the west Baghdad neighborhood of Ghazaliya, a series of smaller concrete barriers was supposed to separate Shi'ite militiamen in the north from Sunni insurgents in the south. But the access points were manned by unreliable members of the Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi security forces. They allowed militiamen to pass through, attack Sunnis, and then flee north again. The checkpoints were mostly useful as a way to slow...
...shaky hold on authority loosened further still after the Sadr bloc launched a boycott in November that continues. That means any decision to confront Sadr is as much political as it is tactical. "We're in the capital," says Lt. Col. James Nickolas, the commander of U.S. forces in Ghazaliya, who plans simply to hold the line against the Mahdi Army until the White House offers a new strategy. "Politics weighs a little bit more heavily...