Word: sunniness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Winning it back will be a critical test of the U.S. military's surge in Baghdad. Under Saddam, Mansour and places like it--neighborhoods with names like Amariyah, Ghazaliyah, al-Adil, al-Khadra--were the purlieu of Iraq's educated Sunni élite. As security has deteriorated and sectarian killings have soared, those areas have been overrun by insurgent groups tied to al-Qaeda. The jihadists offer protection to local Sunnis against Shi'ite death squads in exchange for use of the neighborhoods to launch suicide bombings against Shi'ite civilians. But over the past few months, al-Qaeda...
That's why building trust in middle-class Sunni enclaves like Mansour has become a key component of the military's counterinsurgency strategy. "We're in competition with al-Qaeda," says Lieut. Colonel Dale Kuehl, "for who can protect the Sunnis better." Baghdad's Sunni population is largely confined to a narrow band west of the Tigris, extending from Mansour to the Baghdad airport. Kuehl and his 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment live in the middle of the Sunni stronghold, dug into a former police station. A floor-to-ceiling map of west Baghdad in Kuehl's operations center...
...best falafel in town. At the end of the block is Poison, which four years ago was Mansour's commercial hub, lined with restaurants, shops, a gym and even a liquor store. Now every storefront is shuttered, and there isn't a car on the road. The mostly Sunni residents who live in Mansour have their own name for this spot. They call it "the edge of civilization...
...home for two years, in 2003 and 2004, when TIME's bureau was located there. But today Mansour is boxed in by bloodshed. To the north and south, the Shi'ite death squads of the Jaish al-Mahdi have pushed in block by block over the past year, warning Sunni families to move or be killed. In response, Sunni insurgents have poured in from Anbar province, bringing with them weapons, explosives and suicide bombers. The warring forces have made my old neighborhood one of the most dangerous areas in Baghdad...
...relatively flat trajectory of progress, have shown that American involvement isn’t improving the situation. A case in point is the 12-foot wall on which the United States military began construction in mid-April. According to original plans, it would stretch three miles through Baghdad, separating Sunni and Shiite areas. The barrier was conceived as part of a new strategy to address sectarian violence through physical separation but has largely backfired, viewed by many Sunni Iraqis as discriminatory and opposed by many in the Iraqi parliament. That the U.S. military must resort to a strategy involving...