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Patrolling Baghdad's Dora neighborhood, where 'gators' lurk
The predominantly Sunni Arab district has become a byword for lawlessness and mayhem.
from the March 30, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
A no-go neighborhood
"I am here to work with you to clean up the takfeer in the area," Col. Ricky Gibbs, commander of the 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, to which Sergeant Major Maddi's unit is attached, tells his Iraqi counterparts at a joint security station not far from the Gator outpost. The Iraqis smile.
Takfeer is the generic Arabic word for a hard-line brand of Sunni Islam whose followers excommunicate all those they deem to be nonbelievers.
A representative of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is visiting Dora, begins a litany of complaints by Iraqi forces.
"I need your timely cooperation ... many officers complain about delays in backup. Please do not be stingy with your support, the enemy is targeting you and us, no exception," Brig. Gen. Khalid Hamoud tells Colonel Gibbs.
Gibbs, who took official command of Dora in early March as part of the surge in US troops, shoots back and tells him that the main obstacle to security is the fact that at least 30 percent of the national police in Dora are on leave at all times. The government, says Gibbs, has yet to send enough forces to the area to help pacify the neighborhoods.
Several sections of Dora continue to be no-go zones for government forces. Most of the battle-hardened residents reject government authority and are enraged with the predominantly Shiite national police. They accuse it of committing innumerable atrocities over the past year of sectarian bloodletting.
Several US Army officers say the prime enemy in Dora now is angry and increasingly militant young Sunnis seeking revenge. Some are swayed by Al Qaeda and takfeeri ideology, they say.
The most extreme of the fighters are believed to be holed up a few miles away in the orchards of Abu Aitha and Arab Jubur along the bend of the Tigris.
In a further twist, residents now look to the US military as a buffer between them and Iraqi forces, something that has infuriated many in the national police, even prompting accusations that the US sides with the Sunni militants.
The volatility of Dora was underscored last weekend when a suicide bomber driving an explosives-packed truck struck an Iraqi police station, a few hundred meters from the Gator outpost, killing 20. A US military officer stationed in Dora also said on Thursday that there was an uptick in the number of bodies being found in the area after a brief decline that coincided with the start of the US-Iraq security crackdown last month.
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