The Fallujah and Sadrist risings have sparked a much broader resistance movement among the Iraqi people, one which is rapidly uniting Sunnis and Shias, according to today’s New York Times.
Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman was in the Khadamiya neighbourhood in Baghdad when rumours circulated of a US raid on the local offices of the Mahdi Army. “Within minutes this entire Shiite neighbourhood in central Baghdad had mobilized for war”, Gettleman reports. Behind the several thousand estimated fighters in the Madhi Army, “there were thousands of men and boys in just one Baghdad neighbourhood ready to fight for Mr. Sadr”, he writes. “In Sunni bastions like Falluja and Ramadi and in Shiite areas like Sadr City, it was growing increasingly clear that the militias could materialize almost instantaneously.” Gettleman also describes how Sunnis from neighbouring Adamiya joined the Khadamiya demonstrators; rival Shia and Sunni gangs who used to “cross the bridge to rumble” now do so to “coordinate attacks”. A UPI report meanwhile describes the links being forged between Sadrists and Sunnis at the national level. Articles available on www.supportingfacts.com Sorry for any cross posting.
