Last Updated: Monday, 30 October 2006, 17:53 GMT
Sadr City: Restive Shia stronghold
By Hugh Sykes
BBC News, Baghdad
In an aerial photograph of Baghdad there are two prominent features - the River Tigris and Sadr City. The Tigris is a wide, slow moving ribbon of water that curls through the centre of the Iraqi capital. Sadr City is a substantial, almost perfectly square densely populated grid-pattern suburb that looks as if it has been bolted onto the north-east of Baghdad. It did not grow organically like the rest of the capital - it was built in the late 1950s to help solve a housing shortage. It was first named Revolution City - later changed to Saddam City, which was taken as an insult to the Shia who lived there, who were systematically oppressed by the Saddam Hussein regime.
Shia protesters hold poster of Moqtada Sadr
Moqtada Sadr has strong support in the area After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the district was again briefly known as Revolution City. But it was then re-named Sadr City after Ayatollah Mohammed Sadek al-Sadr, a revered cleric who - along with two of his sons - was murdered on the orders of the former Iraqi leader. At least three million people live in Sadr City, almost all of them Shia Muslims.
Separation
It is now the stronghold of one of the Ayatollah's two surviving sons, Moqtada Sadr, whose political headquarters are in a fortified building on one of the main avenues that run through the area. Some Baghdadis refer to Sadr City residents as "shororooghi", a derogatory term that is intended to suggest ignorance and lack of education. Sadr City is, in effect, a Shia township.
US checkpoint at the edge of Sadr City
Many in Sadr City look to the Mehdi Army, not the US, for security It is physically, and psychologically separated from Baghdad by the wide Army Canal and a busy highway that runs alongside it. And, like a South African township, it is not a homogeneous place - there are overcrowded slum districts with raw sewage overflowing into the street, and smarter neighbourhoods with larger houses and better conditions. Some areas of Sadr City have been transformed by American military engineers, who have installed entirely new main sewers and more than two dozen reverse-osmosis water-treatment filters in primary schools.
An American colonel who showed me some examples of this undeniably successful reconstruction urged me to ask local people, "who provides your security?", hoping the answer would be "the police" or "the Iraqi Army". But when I reassured them they could tell the truth, the most common reply was "the Mehdi Army".
Politics and 'protection'
Sadr City is mostly under the control of Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army militia - whose activities range from sectarian revenge killings, and attacks on multinational security forces, to community work and neighbourhood-watch.
Map of Baghdad
The militia have also been involved in protection rackets and extortion at some of the very few petrol stations in Sadr City - mostly by simply adding a premium to the official pump price. Moqtada Sadr is also involved in Iraqi politics at a high level - his party has seats in parliament, and he helps sustain Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's coalition government. Mr Sadr has recently instructed his followers to stop killing fellow Muslims - whether Sunni or Shia - and to concentrate on resisting the US and British occupation and on repelling the extreme Sunni Wahabists of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Whether Mr Sadr's followers in Sadr City heed this instruction remains to be seen - but he has threatened rogue Mehdi Army commanders with the wrath of God. "If you do not obey, you will regret it," announced a preacher who is often a mouthpiece for Mr Sadr, "indeed, I declare that you will be cursed."
More than 130 killed in Baghdad's Sadr City
POSTED: 10:35 a.m. EST, November 23, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Six car bombs killed more than 130 people Thursday in Baghdad's Sadr City, according to Iraq's health minister. Police had conflicting numbers for those killed and wounded, but Health Minister Ali Shummari said the death toll is 133, with 201 wounded. Earlier, police said three car bombings and a mortar round firing occurred within a 30-minute period in Sadr City, a densely populated Shiite slum in northeastern Baghdad. The minister said a missile was fired in addition to the car blasts.
In a separate incident, police also said U.S. forces killed four people Thursday when they opened fire on a minibus in Sadr City. The U.S. military later said Iraqi troops fired at a vehicle that posed an "immediate threat" in Sadr City when they were looking for an insurgent who apparently knows the whereabouts of a U.S. soldier kidnapped last month. The action came during a raid, one of several in the area since Spc. Ahmed K. Altaie disappeared October 23 in Baghdad. The operation was designed "to capture a kidnapping and murder cell leader reported" to know about Altaie, the military said, adding the suspect also is thought to be "responsible for attacks against Iraqi civilians."
Iraqi troops carried out the raid with "coalition advisers" in Sadr City, a bastion of support for anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia. Four civilians also were wounded in the incident, which occurred on Fallah Street, a busy thoroughfare, the Baghdad police official said. The U.S. military said there were no Iraqi military or coalition casualties. Iraqi forces detained five suspected cell members, the military said. Also Thursday, at least 30 gunmen thought to be from a Sunni neighborhood attacked the Health Ministry, police said. Al-Sadr's movement controls the ministry, and U.S. military commanders suspect the al-Sadr group is at the center of sectarian fighting in the Iraqi capital over the past year. There were no immediate details about casualties at the ministry compound, which is in central Baghdad's Bab al-Mudham area.
At least three mortar rounds landed inside the compound, police said, and the gunmen tried to break into it and fought with ministry security guards. A Health Ministry official said the attackers came from the nearby Sunni neighborhood of Fadhel and that they also struck the Shiite Endowment, which manages Shiite institutions around the country. The violence comes one day after the release of a U.N. report that named October as the deadliest month for civilians since the war began in March 2003.
The report -- which underscored the ravages of Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence -- said 3,709 civilians were killed last month. For the two-month period of September and October, a total of 7,054 people died in violent deaths. October also proved a deadly month with U.S. troops, which lost 106 service members -- the fourth-highest monthly death toll for U.S. troops since the war's start. On Wednesday, three U.S. Marines died of "wounds sustained due to enemy action" in Anbar province, the volatile region west of the capital, a U.S. military statement released Thursday said. The American military death toll in Iraq is 2,872, including seven civilian contractors of the military. There have been 52 troop deaths during November. Also Wednesday, U.S.-led coalition forces killed a "terrorist and detained two suspected terrorists" during a raid in Balad targeting an associate of a senior al Qaeda in Iraq leader, the U.S. military said. Balad is about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Baghdad in Salaheddin province.