Saturday, April 21, 2007
Azamiyah residents complain about barrier
Security
(AP) - A wall U.S. troops are building around a Sunni enclave in Baghdad came under increasing criticism on Saturday, with residents calling it "collective punishment" and a local leader saying construction began without the neighborhood council's approval.
The U.S. military says the wall in Baghdad is meant to secure the minority Sunni community of Azamiyah, which "has been trapped in a spiral of sectarian violence and retaliation." The area, located on the eastern side of the Tigris River, would be completely gated, with entrances and exits manned by Iraqi soldiers, the U.S. military said earlier this week.
But some residents of the neighborhood, which is surrounded by Shiite areas, complained that they had not been consulted in advance about the barrier. U.S. and Iraqi forces have long erected cement barriers around marketplaces and coalition bases and outposts in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities such as Ramadi in an effort to prevent attacks, including suicide car bombs. But the Azamiyah project appears to be the biggest effort ever to use a lengthy wall in Baghdad to break contact, and violence, between Sunnis and Shiites.
The U.S. strategy for stabilizing Iraq now involves persuading Iraqis to live in peace and support their democratically elected government and launching a security plan in the capital that calls for 28,000 additional American troops and thousands of Iraqi soldiers.
The U.S. military says it began building the barrier April 10. AP Television News footage from the site on Saturday showed small concrete blocks, piles of dirt and coils of barbed wire on a main street. Eventually, the military said, the wall will be three miles long and include sections as tall as 12 feet. Community leaders said Saturday that construction began before they had approved an American proposal for the wall.
"A few days ago, we met with the U.S. army unit in charge of Azamiyah and it asked us, as a local council, to sign a document to build a wall to reduce killing and attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces," said Dawood al-Azami, the acting head of the Azamiyah council. "I told the soldiers that I would not sign it unless I could talk to residents first. We told residents at Friday prayers, but our local council hasn't signed onto the project yet, and construction is already under way."
The U.S. military says the wall in Baghdad is meant to secure the minority Sunni community of Azamiyah, which "has been trapped in a spiral of sectarian violence and retaliation." The area, located on the eastern side of the Tigris River, would be completely gated, with entrances and exits manned by Iraqi soldiers, the U.S. military said earlier this week.
But some residents of the neighborhood, which is surrounded by Shiite areas, complained that they had not been consulted in advance about the barrier. U.S. and Iraqi forces have long erected cement barriers around marketplaces and coalition bases and outposts in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities such as Ramadi in an effort to prevent attacks, including suicide car bombs. But the Azamiyah project appears to be the biggest effort ever to use a lengthy wall in Baghdad to break contact, and violence, between Sunnis and Shiites.
The U.S. strategy for stabilizing Iraq now involves persuading Iraqis to live in peace and support their democratically elected government and launching a security plan in the capital that calls for 28,000 additional American troops and thousands of Iraqi soldiers.
The U.S. military says it began building the barrier April 10. AP Television News footage from the site on Saturday showed small concrete blocks, piles of dirt and coils of barbed wire on a main street. Eventually, the military said, the wall will be three miles long and include sections as tall as 12 feet. Community leaders said Saturday that construction began before they had approved an American proposal for the wall.
"A few days ago, we met with the U.S. army unit in charge of Azamiyah and it asked us, as a local council, to sign a document to build a wall to reduce killing and attacks against Iraqi and U.S. forces," said Dawood al-Azami, the acting head of the Azamiyah council. "I told the soldiers that I would not sign it unless I could talk to residents first. We told residents at Friday prayers, but our local council hasn't signed onto the project yet, and construction is already under way."
Labels: Azamiyah, barrier, Dawood al-Azami, U.S. military
