Baghdad’s New Owners

Citywide, Sunnis complain that in the early phases of the surge, as Shiite militias refrained from attacks on U.S. troops, the Americans focused their firepower on Sunni insurgents. The implicit trade-off—pushed by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and others—was that the Shiites would scale back their sectarian attacks once they felt safer. Instead militias like the Mahdi Army have become emboldened. Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the top ground commander in Iraq, recently noted that 73 percent of American fatalities and injuries in Baghdad in July were caused by Shiite fighters. That same month, for the first time since 2003, Shiite militants carried out as many attacks on Coalition forces as Sunni insurgents did nationwide.

Last week, after clashes at a religious festival in Karbala between Sadr loyalists and local police dominated by another Shiite faction, Sadr ordered his forces to refrain from all military activities for six months. In Baghdad, U.S. commanders aren’t expecting to see much change on the ground. “Who knows what that means?” says Lt. Col. Steve Miska, a commander in northwest Baghdad who frequently deals with the Mahdi Army. The militia’s sectarian-cleansing campaign is far too lucrative to be given up easily. When Sunni homeowners flee, say U.S. soldiers, their furniture is often locked up and their houses listed at local Sadr offices. Shiite families—many of them displaced earlier from Sunni neighborhoods—can peruse the listings, sometimes even photos of the property. For around 110,000 Iraqi dinars (about $88) per month, they can rent a furnished home and receive deliveries of cooking oil from the Mahdi Army. The militiamen earn even more money by controlling the gas stations in various neighborhoods, and by carjacking the nicest vehicles—usually, but not always, driven by Sunnis—at the checkpoints they set up.

Shiites present their creeping takeover of Baghdad as part of a narrative of liberation—American officers have dubbed it Shiite “Manifest Destiny.” “This area represents everything [Shiites] hated before—Sunni generals, security officers, Baathists, some of them who probably personally knew Saddam Hussein,” says Capt. Brian Ducote, who tries to intercept Shiite militants based in Amel who raid his neighboring Jihad neighborhood. “They say, ‘You have self-defense in America. My brother was killed; my father was killed. I have a right to do this’.”

The west side of Amel, which is now almost entirely Shiite, is thriving by Baghdad standards. Shops are open and taxis ferry passengers around. Residents can move in and out of the area through several access points. It’s clear who wants to take credit for their security: Mahdi Army fighters have set up checkpoints throughout the neighborhood to screen vehicles. In return, the militiamen brook little criticism. When one Shiite family recently refused to allow a Mahdi sniper up onto their roof, the man went to their neighbor’s house and jumped across to use their house anyway. They didn’t protest. Abbas, a clerk who lives in west Amel, says he doesn’t approve of the Mahdi Army’s activities but he’s not entirely ungrateful for their protection. “This is not a game,” he says.

A few blocks away, COP Attack’s commander, Capt. Sean Lyons of the First Infantry Division, estimates that his men spend about three quarters of their time defending the small Sunni enclave in east Amel. “It’s a desert,” says Mahmoud, a 37-year-old with a slight build and small mustache. Mortars frequently fall around his house. Mahmoud occasionally lets his young son ride his bike in their small yard or in the garage, but worries about snipers constantly. What should be an ordinary stroll to buy meat or ice, he says, is a nerve-racking ordeal. “It makes you crazy,” he says with a nervous giggle. “I bend and hide when I walk. I stay close to the high walls and never walk in the open street.” He shakes his head for a few seconds and adds, “This is not life.”

The Shiite campaign has pushed the Americans closer to the Sunni population. Nightly, local Sunnis come sit with Lyons near the wall-size aerial photo of the neighborhood pinned up in his outpost. “We cyclically plan our operations off the intelligence they give us,” he says. As in other Baghdad neighborhoods, the Americans have formed Amel’s Sunnis into a “neighborhood watch” group whose members are allowed to carry their own weapons. Although they’re given ID cards and rules of engagement, they have wide latitude on the ground. “We have a kind of relationship with the Sunnis around here—they don’t mess with us and we don’t mess with them,” says Staff Sgt. Michael Green, 32.