Amja Hashan Naji, an Iraqi National Police member, waves cars past a checkpoint Tuesday in the Shurta neighborhood of Baghdad. The streets were empty just a few days ago because of fighting between Shiite militants and official Iraqi forces. (James Warden / S&S)
Amja Hashan Naji, an Iraqi National Police member, waves cars past a checkpoint Tuesday in the Shurta neighborhood of Baghdad. The streets were empty just a few days ago because of fighting between Shiite militants and official Iraqi forces. (James Warden / S&S)
Elderly men relax in a coffee shop Tuesday in a market in the Shurta neighborhood of Baghdad. Businesses like this were closed only a few days ago. (James Warden / S&S)
An Iraqi National Police soldier displays the remnants of a rocket-propelled grenade Tuesday in the Shurta area of Baghdad, evidence of the heavy fighting that took place just a few days ago. (James Warden / S&S)
A masked Iraqi National Police soldier covers the eyes of an Iraqi police officer while leading him from a command post Tuesday in the Shurta area of Baghdad. The INPs suspected the Iraqi police officer of helping militants who attacked the INPs as recently as a few days ago. (James Warden / S&S)
BAGHDAD — People flooded the market in the Shurta neighborhood of Baghdad on Tuesday.
Men guarded butchered goats from swarms of flies. Women lugged legumes back to their homes for cooking. And children scampered about through the crowded stalls of the North Arrows Market, as the Americans call it.
It all bore the unremarkable color of an Iraqi market — except that “unremarkable” seems almost miraculous when vicious fighting in this very market ended only a few days ago.
“We suffered from the violence, but now it’s getting better,” said Hazal Merza, a shopper who was relaxing at a local store.
The peace in this neighborhood comes after Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his fighters off the streets, effectively ending a battle between Sadr’s Mahdi Army and official Iraqi forces that began early last week. While traffic in the Shurta area still isn’t quite at its peak levels, both American and Iraqi commanders agree that life here is returning to normal.
“If you would have come here probably about a month ago, you would have seen nothing but people and stands in the North Arrows Market,” said Capt. Mike Berriman, the Company C commander for 4th Battalion, 64th Armored Regiment. “Four days ago, there was nothing.”
Capt. Hayder Hamid Batah, an Iraqi National Police commander in the area, saw many of his men wounded during the fighting. Shiite militias repeatedly attacked their checkpoints.
Americans responded as often as they could — just the sound of their tracked vehicles could chase the attackers away — but they couldn’t be everywhere at once. In the end, INP soldiers bore the brunt of the fighting themselves, defending their checkpoints and counter-attacking when they had the attackers off balance.
Col. Ehssan Ali Ibrahim, the INP battalion commander, described through an interpreter how his men were usually outgunned. The insurgents attacked with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, while Ibrahim’s soldiers had only AK-47s and machine guns. At one point, the American base in Shurta was so full of Iraqis being treated by American medics that it might have been an Iraqi aid station.
“We have only God to protect us — and Sheikh Berriman,” Ibrahim said, teasing the American company commander.
On Tuesday, though, soldiers from both sides were able to stroll easily in the same neighborhoods where they’d drawn fire just days ago. Many of the Iraqi soldiers stopped to buy food or chat with the storeowners.
“You can see the difference so clear,” Batah said through an interpreter. “The people, they’re starting to come out in the open and make a living.”
Ibrahim, like the Americans, is careful to distinguish between mainstream Mahdi Army and breakaway criminal elements, or “gangs,” who he says fuel the fighting. Some Iraqi officials caution that this distinction isn’t always so clear. But he’s quick to attribute the peace to Sadr’s orders not to fight.
“Because he is the leader of this group, they listen to him sometimes,” Ibrahim said. “They obey him and follow him.”
Many analysts have concluded that this obedience underscores a weakness in the official Iraqi government. The battles in Baghdad and Basra, they say, show the lack of unity that the Americans have worked so hard for during last year’s surge.
Ibrahim concedes that many of his soldiers gave up but said these soldiers were already Mahdi Army members. Their defection didn’t add to the insurgents’ numbers. Meanwhile, those who stayed behind fought hard.
“Sadr ordered the people to stop fighting in the street because he saw there was a big force going to finish him and finish his followers,” Ibrahim concluded.
Iraqi National Police also detained some who cooperated with the attackers during fighting. Iraqi Police, a more local force than the INPs, were seen allowing the attackers to move about and in some cases helping them outright. During a patrol Tuesday, INP troops hustled a handful of them into a religious building that serves as a command post and then manhandled them into trucks so they could interrogate them further back at headquarters.
But those tensions were minor compared to the previous days. Cpl. Steve Kramer noted during Tuesday’s patrol that the sound of gunfire was constant during the worst fighting, but that he hadn’t heard much of that during the patrol.
“Before, we would not even stand out here. We’d move from Bradley to the bunker than back to the Bradley,” the 20-year-old team leader said.
Now that the streets are quiet again, the city is back to pondering the same question it first considered several months ago when Sadr proclaimed his initial truce with coalition forces: How long will that peace last?
Ibrahim won’t hazard a guess on that question, but he’s all-too clear on when he thinks a lasting peace will come to Shurta: “When we finish all the bad guys from the area.”
