Iraqi Prime Minister orders halt to wall construction

The New York Times reports that Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki has ordered that construction of a wall around Baghdad's Adhamiya neighborhood, which I mentioned in several previous posts, stop. Whether America will heed his order remains to be seen.

Iraqi premier orders work halted on wall around Sunni area
He says barrier in Baghdad's Sunni area is a reminder of 'other walls'
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
New York Times
April 23, 2007

BAGHDAD, IRAQ — Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki on Sunday said he was ordering a halt to the construction of a controversial wall that would isolate a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad from other areas, saying it reminded people of "other walls."

The announcement, which al-Maliki made in Cairo, Egypt, while on a state visit, appeared designed to allay mounting criticism from both Sunni Arab and Shiite parties about the project.

"I oppose the building of the wall, and its construction will stop," al-Maliki told reporters during a joint news conference with the secretary-general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa. "There are other methods to protect neighborhoods."

'In a dialogue'

A spokesman for the U.S. military, Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, said the military would remain "in a dialogue" with the Iraqi government about how best to protect citizens. The military did not say whether the wall's construction would be halted.

Al-Maliki did not specify in his remarks what other walls he referred to. However, the separation barrier in the West Bank being erected by Israel, which Israel says is for protection but greatly angers Palestinians, is a particularly delicate issue among Arabs.

In Baghdad, the wall would surround the Adhamiya neighborhood, a Sunni Arab enclave bordered by Shiite areas. Adhamiya often comes under mortar attack and suffers incursions from those neighborhoods.

However, it has also been a stronghold of militant Sunni Arab groups, and the wall would have helped the Iraqi security forces to control their movements.

Earlier, the spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq sought to allay criticism of the project and explain its intent by saying that was meant to be only a temporary barrier to improve security.

The military does not have a new strategy of building walls or creating "gated communities," the spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, said in a written statement.

He described it as a tactic being used only in a handful of neighborhoods and not an effort to divide the city, much less the country.

However, U.S. military officials said last week in a statement that the Adhamiya wall was "one of the centerpieces of a new strategy." They also said that the wall was aimed at separating Sunni Arabs in Adhamiya from Shiites to the east.

Oases of safety

The Washington Post reported that the U.S. military is walling off at least 10 of Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods and using high technology to carve out oases of safety in this war-ravaged city.

The Post, citing U.S. military officials, reported that in some sealed-off areas, troops armed with biometric scanning devices will compile a neighborhood census by recording residents' fingerprints and eye patterns and will perhaps issue them special badges.

Opposition to the Adhamiya wall has gathered steam since the news release was issued. On Sunday Sunni Arab and Shiite groups sharply criticized the idea. The Sunni Arab Iraqi Islamic Party and the Shiite group linked to the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr both announced that they opposed dividing Baghdad by sect. They said the wall would increase sectarian hatred and fuel efforts to partition the country.

"Surrounding areas of the capital with barbed wire and concrete blocks would harm these areas economically and socially," the Islamic Party said in an e-mail message to news organizations. "In addition it will enhance sectarian feelings."

Abu Firas al-Mutairi, a representative of the Sadr movement in Najaf, which has supported al-Maliki, said: "The Sadr movement considers building a wall around al-Adhamiya as a way to lay siege to the Iraqi people and to separate them into cantons. It is like the Berlin Wall that divided Germany."

"This step is the first step toward dividing the regions into cantons and blockading people there," he added. "Today it happens in Adhamiya. Tomorrow it will happen in Sadr City," referring to the Shiite slum in Baghdad that is a stronghold of al-Sadr.

The wall, which was being built as a part of the security plan, had been a joint project with the Iraqi army. The Iraqi government has a final say over how the security plan proceeds, but most policies are being intensively negotiated with the Americans, who are deploying nearly 30,000 additional troops to help secure Baghdad and the surrounding areas.

Sunni Arabs execute 23 members of small religious sect

Al-Maliki's announcement came as sectarian violence continued across Iraq, with a horrific execution by Sunni Arabs in Mosul of 23 members of a small religious sect, known as Yezidis.

The Yezidis, who are most numerous in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, practice an offshoot of Islam that combines some Muslim teachings with those of ancient Persian religion.

At least 60 people died Sunday in Iraq, with 18 killed by car bombs in Baghdad. Eleven bodies were found in the capital and five in the city of Al Kut, to the south.

But the most chilling attack was the one in Mosul. It followed the marriage in early April of a Sunni Arab man and a woman from the Yezidi faith, the police said.

The police said that when the woman married, she converted to Islam, which angered some of the Yezidis. She was kidnapped and as she was being brought back to her tribe, a crowd gathered and stoned her to death, said Brig. Gen. Muhammad al-Waqa of the Mosul police.

The Sunni Arabs in the area demanded that the Yezidis turn over the killers and the police also issued a warrant for their arrest. In one Yezidi-majority town east of Mosul, residents found leaflets saying, "Unless you turn them over, we will never let any Yezidi breathe the air."

The Yezidis refused. On Sunday afternoon, armed men stopped minibuses traveling from a government textile factory in Mosul where many Yezidis and Christians were known to work. The men dragged the passengers off the buses, checked their identity cards and lined the Yezidis against a wall and shot them, killing 23 people and wounding three, Waqa said.