Baghdad, Iraq – The Amariya neighborhood has won a reputation as the most fearsome quarter of the capital, with car bombs, snipers and frequent clashes between U.S. forces and hardened Sunni Arab fighters.
But over the last few weeks, U.S. officials and Iraqi residents say, life has improved markedly in the notorious quarter, thanks to a U.S.-led effort to improve security and services.
On a tour of the largely Sunni Arab district with U.S. soldiers Tuesday, a day in which at least 60 mutilated bodies were found elsewhere in Baghdad and violence left more than 20 dead across Iraq, schoolchildren walked home gingerly along streets recently cleared of rotting garbage mounds.
Young men emerged from newly reopened shops on main thoroughfares. Women shopped at outdoor produce stands.
“Electricity is a problem; jobs are a problem; there’s no gas, but thank God,” said one woman as she gestured toward a group of U.S. soldiers, “security has gotten better.” The improvement in Amariya has come at a price.
Lt. Col. Gian Gentile, the 4th Infantry Division squadron commander, said he has had to move troops from other nearby neighborhoods under his command to bolster security in Amariya.
He has also had to close off the western Baghdad neighborhood to all but two entrances in an effort to stanch the flow of Sunni insurgents and Shiite militia members in and out of Amariya.
He’s also had to come to grips with the hardened opinions of the people he must protect as well as occasionally fight.
“They see the (Sunni Arab) insurgents as their final source of protection,” says Gentile. “When we leave and they’re left with this (Shiite-dominated) sectarian government, who else are they going to be left with?”
