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Distrust Breaks the Bonds Of a Baghdad Neighborhood
A herder tends his flock in the barricaded streets of Tobji, a neighborhood where Sunnis and Shiites long coexisted. Shiite militiamen have targeted Sunnis at checkpoints.
(The Washington Post)
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Soon after the checkpoints went up, the Egheidat began to arm themselves. They had lived in the neighborhood for decades, and controlled the ice factories and a cooking oil distributorship. They believed fervently in the Sunni interpretation of Islam, in which the caliphs who succeeded the prophet Muhammad are seen as Islam's rightful rulers.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]"We've lived with Egheidat for 50 years," said Abdul Sattar, who is not an Egheidat. "I'm not sure if they are making bombs. They are a religious people, and they are always praying. This is a reason they are targeted, maybe."
"Maybe also the reason is economic," he continued. "The Egheidat are wealthy."
Last month, Abu Mohammed and his comrades confronted an Egheidat businessman who sold ice -- a precious commodity in a city plagued by furnace-like heat, constant electricity outages and soaring prices for fuel to power generators.
"He was selling a block of ice for 20,000 dinars. Its actual price is 5,000 dinars," said Abu Mohammed. "When we told him he should lower the price, he slapped one of our guys. We didn't like that. So we beat him up as punishment."
Shortly afterward, unfamiliar cars started to drive toward the Egheidat section of Tobji, Abu Mohammed said. Then came the rumors: The cars were to be used for drive-by attacks or suicide bombings.
Day One
Rumors filled the streets: A BMW and a Land Cruiser were making their way along the sweltering streets of Tobji toward the green and tan Haji Zeidan mosque, run by the Egheidat. Word of the unfamiliar cars soon reached Sadr's local office, located opposite a parking lot filled with junked cars on the main road in Tobji. A group of Mahdi Army militiamen, including Abu Mohammed, headed toward the mosque. Outside, clutching their weapons, they called out to the mosque guards.
"We told them they should hand over the strange cars so that we could hand them over to the Iraqi army," Abu Mohammed recalled. "Then we came under heavy gunfire."
A battle erupted, forcing the militiamen to retreat. Two of their men were wounded. Egheidat community leaders gave a different account. They said the militiamen taunted the guards with slurs, then shot at their guard on the roof. Forty to 50 gunmen emerged firing, but only over the heads of the militiamen.
"We were on rooftops, and they were on the street. If we wanted to kill them, then none of them would have left alive," said Muhammed Jamal al-Egheidi, 40, a leader of the Egheidat tribe.
Day Two
At checkpoints, the Mahdi Army men took into custody eight Egheidat men and beat them with rubber-coated electrical cables, several Egheidat tribal leaders said. Abu Mohammed, who often did duty at the checkpoints, did not deny the men were taken, but he said they were handed over to Iraqi soldiers.
"In the streets, we set up checkpoints with the Iraqi army," he said. "I am there to serve the neighborhood. I would point people out -- only those who hurt Iraq."
