Baghdad residents protest US-erected dividing wall

The military insists segregating the neighborhoods is necessary to prevent sectarian violence and reprisal killings, a claim rejected by ordinary Iraqis. In a written statement to the government, residents said that the wall was “in accordance with Al-Qaeda’s plans,” and that it served to “separate family from family.” A recent public opinion survey commissioned by CNN Arabic found that 76 percent of Iraqis disagreed with the statement that establishing isolation walls is a solution to sectarian violence.

The US military began erecting walls along sectarian lines in the city earlier this year, as part of the crackdown on Baghdad that also included the addition of tens of thousands of US and Iraqi forces and the creation of some 70 smaller joint security bases outside the Green Zone.