Alarm as US builds Baghdad safety wall

Published on Sunday 22 April 2007 01:26

CRITICISM mounted yesterday over a three-mile wall US troops are building around a Sunni enclave surrounded by Shi'ite areas in Baghdad, with residents calling it "collective punishment" and the local council leader saying the community did not approve the project before construction began.

As violence continued throughout the day with at least eight people killed in bomb and gun attacks - including a US soldier - the US military claimed the wall in the minority Sunni community of Azamiyah would secure a neighbourhood, "trapped in a spiral of sectarian violence and retaliation."

The area, located on the eastern side of the Tigris River, is to be gated, with entrances and exits manned by Iraqi soldiers, the US military confirmed. But some residents were alarmed about the plan, and said they had not been consulted about the barrier - in places 12ft tall - being built in their own neighbourhood.

"This will make the whole district a prison. This is collective punishment on the residents of Azamiyah," said Ahmed al-Dulaimi, a 41-year-old engineer who lives in the area. "They are going to punish all of us because of a few terrorists."

US and Iraqi forces have long erected cement barriers around marketplaces and coalition bases and outposts in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities but the Azamiyah project appears to be the biggest effort ever to break contact, and violence, between Sunnis and Shi'ites.

Khalid Ibrahim, 45, said the Americans were working hard to divide Baghdad's neighbourhoods - something he said he wasn't sure was a good thing.

"This is good if it is temporary, to help the area with security problems. But if this wall stays for the long term, it will be a catastrophe," said Ibrahim, an Azamiyah resident who works at the Interior Ministry.