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Asia Times Online :: Middle East News - Baghdad up close and personal

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News - Baghdad up close and personalLife under surge
The day had already started under high tension, as US jets around 9:00am bombed positions supposedly held by Islamic Emirate of Iraq guerrillas in explosive Dora, south Baghdad. We stop by the recently bombed Sarafiya bridge over the Tigris, which links the al-Qasra side of Sunni Adhamiyah to Shi'ite al-Altafiyah.

Residents are adamant: the bomb was planted "by the Americans"; one of them says, "The night before the bombing, the Americans were surrounding the bridge, and right after the bomb exploded, we heard the noise of a jet." If this is true, it would fit a perceived - by a overwhelming majority of Sunnis and Shi'ites alike - American strategy of inciting sectarian war: Shi'ites are now forced to pass through turbulent Adhamiyah if they want to go, for instance, to al-Mustansariyah University (also recently bombed), which is considered in Baghdad as a "Shi'ite" university.

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