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These videos offer some rare glimpses of everyday life in two Baghdad neighborhoods - one Sunni, one Shi'a. They were shot over many months following the bombing by Sunni militants of the sacred Shi'a Golden Dome mosque in Samarra in February 2006. That event, say many authorities, was the starting point for Iraq's sectarian civil war.
 | Watch the Video (6:09)  AdhamiyahPopulation: 400,000-500,000 Rasheed is a journalist and a resident of Adhamiyah, one of the last Sunni enclaves in east Baghdad. Adhamiyah is boxed in against the Tigris and surrounded by Shi'ite areas. As mortars fall and services dwindle, the people eke out an increasingly fragile existence. Shi'ite militiamen and government-run death squads are killing Baghdad's Sunnis or forcing them out. Much of this footage Rasheed shot himself. His camera work helps paint an intimate portrait of life in a neighborhood under siege. | |
Watch the Video (6:46)  Sadr CityPopulation: 2-3 million Dr. Hussein is a physician living in Sadr City. Until 2005, he lived and worked in Diyala province. But after receiving death threats from Sunni insurgents, he moved with his family to this Shi'ite stronghold in east Baghdad. Sadr City is a fiefdom of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. Dr. Hussein describes the tight grip the militia keeps on everyday life in the neighborhood. |
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posted april 17, 2007
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