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Postwar Iraq emerges a nation divided
Posted: 1:32 AM, November 28, 2011
BAGHDAD — The sounds of cars honking, shoppers shuffling and children laughing and playing drums fill the air in Hurriyah, a Baghdad neighborhood where machine-gun fire and death squads once kept terrified residents huddled in their darkened homes.
But few Sunnis driven from the then-religiously diverse enclave have returned five years after Hurriyah was the epicenter of a savage sectarian war. And with Shiite militias still policing the area, most Sunnis won’t dare move back for years to come.
Hurriyah (Arabic for “freedom”) is, like much of Iraq, far quieter than at the height of the war but uneasy with a peace achieved through intimidation and bloodshed. The number of Iraqi neighborhoods in which members of the two Muslim sects live side by side and intermarry continues to dwindle.
Segregation, forced by extremists from both sides, has changed the nation’s character and raised questions about whether Iraq can heal after US forces leave next month.
Getting to Hurriyah, a middle-class neighborhood of modest, single-family homes and shops just west of the Tigris River, isn’t easy. Thick blast walls and a security checkpoint protect its entrance. Guards check driver IDs.
US and Iraqi intelligence officials believe Hurriyah is now a haven for a Mahdi Army splinter group called Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or the Band of the People of Righteousness.
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Posted: 1:32 AM, November 28, 2011
BAGHDAD — The sounds of cars honking, shoppers shuffling and children laughing and playing drums fill the air in Hurriyah, a Baghdad neighborhood where machine-gun fire and death squads once kept terrified residents huddled in their darkened homes.
But few Sunnis driven from the then-religiously diverse enclave have returned five years after Hurriyah was the epicenter of a savage sectarian war. And with Shiite militias still policing the area, most Sunnis won’t dare move back for years to come.
Hurriyah (Arabic for “freedom”) is, like much of Iraq, far quieter than at the height of the war but uneasy with a peace achieved through intimidation and bloodshed. The number of Iraqi neighborhoods in which members of the two Muslim sects live side by side and intermarry continues to dwindle.
Segregation, forced by extremists from both sides, has changed the nation’s character and raised questions about whether Iraq can heal after US forces leave next month.
Getting to Hurriyah, a middle-class neighborhood of modest, single-family homes and shops just west of the Tigris River, isn’t easy. Thick blast walls and a security checkpoint protect its entrance. Guards check driver IDs.
US and Iraqi intelligence officials believe Hurriyah is now a haven for a Mahdi Army splinter group called Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or the Band of the People of Righteousness.
Read more: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
