TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Baghdad Residents Return To Homes As Violence Ebbs

ADVERTISEMENT

By STEVEN R. HURST, The Associated Press

Published: November 4, 2007

BAGHDAD - In a dramatic turnaround, more than 3,000 Iraqi families driven out of their Baghdad neighborhoods have returned to their homes in the past three months as sectarian violence has dropped, the government said Saturday.

Saad al-Azawi, his wife and four children are among them. They fled to Syria six months ago, leaving behind what had become one of the capital's more dangerous districts - west Baghdad's largely Sunni Khadra region.

The family had been living within a vicious and bloody turf battle between al-Qaida in Iraq and Mahdi Army militiamen. But Azawi said things began changing, becoming more peaceful, in August, when radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army fighters to stand down nationwide.

About the same time, the Khadra neighborhood Awakening Council rose up against brutal al-Qaida control - the imposition of its austere interpretation of Islam, along with the murder and torture of those who would not comply.

U.S. officials say that al-Qaida overplayed its hand with Iraq's Sunnis, who practice a moderate version of Islam. American forces were quick to capitalize on the upheaval, welcoming former Sunni enemies as colleagues in securing what was once the most dangerous region of the country.

And as 30,000 additional U.S. forces arrived for the crackdown in Baghdad and central Iraq, the American commander, Gen. David Petraeus, began stationing many of them in neighborhood outposts. The mission was not only to take back control, but to foster neighborhood groups like the one in Khadra to shake off al-Qaida's grip.

The 40-year-old al-Azawi, who has gone back to work managing a car service, said relatives and friends persuaded him to bring his family home. "Six months ago, I wouldn't dare be outside, not even to stand near the garden gate by the street. Killings had become routine. I stopped going to work, I was so afraid," he said, chatting with friends on a street in the neighborhood.
Sattar Nawrous, a spokesman for the Ministry of Displacement and Migration, said the al-Azawi family was among 3,100 that have returned to their homes in Baghdad in the past 90 days. "In the past three months, the ministry did not register any forced displacement in the whole of Iraq," said Nawrous, who is a Kurd.

The claim could not be independently verified but, if true, would represent a dramatic end to the sectarian cleansing that has shredded the fabric of Baghdad's once mixed society.

Part of the inflow can be attributed to stiffening of visa and residency procedures for Iraqis by Syria.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT