The United States military deployed 10 tanks on Monday to close off the main road into Baghdad’s Shiite suburb Sadr City after weekend violence by Shiite militants.
One day after the worst street fights since the official end of the war, the US forces want to prevent supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr from crowding into the district.
With the main access barred, the traffic now winds through small roads littered with garbage and potholes into Sadr City, coincidentally named after Moqtada’s father and senior Shiite cleric Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr, who was killed under Saddam Hussein in 1999.
Further into the district a group of teenage al-Sadr supporters are rolling out barbed wire and blocking the main road with metal objects in an attempt to secure the office of young al-Sadr’s movement.
Several hundred men have already assembled in front of the building, listening to activist Amir al-Husseini, who condemns Sunday’s clashes with a thundering voice: “This was an attack on to the entire Iraqi people.”
At the same time he urges people to remain calm until they get their orders from above: “Don’t do anything until your leader tells you so!”
Only a few traces of Sunday’s fights are left on the streets. At least 43 Iraqis and seven US soldiers died in Sunday’s violence in Iraq.
Broken pieces of cement are scattered on the street, left over from the barricades built by the al-Mahdi army, the militia set up by al-Sadr.
There are a number of crushed cars that were flattened by US tanks and one house shows a massive hole where it was hit by an anti- tank grenade.
Al-Sadr’s militiamen, dressed in black shirts on Sunday, seem to have vanished. The Iraqis in front of the movement’s office are all unarmed and wear civilian clothes.
Their reports on Sunday’s event differs widely from the US military’s version.
“We were demonstrating peacefully,” says 38-year-old teacher Chalil Hamil. “Then the Americans came and shot indiscriminately into the crowd, without warning.”
Anybody who was able to listen to the communication on police radio on Sunday night, however, got a different story yet again, as police officials were asking for back-up from three police stations because they said they were beleaguered by the al-Mahdi army.
Many civilians died in the fierce fights that followed and, one day later, shock and anger dominate the mood among the people in Sadr City.
Many Iraqis echo Hamil and blame the US military for what happened.
“It was like war — shots, explosions, the rattling of tank chains,” says Siad Hussein, a trader.
He has got two children, one of three years and a baby of three months. His mother, who also lives with him, has been mentally ill since she lost two sons in Saddam’s wars.
“I turned the television on full tilt so that they would not hear the horrible battle sounds from outside,” he says. — Sapa-DPA
Troops clash with Shias