Chaos Moves Into a Neighborhood Called Liberty

Shiite militiamen kidnapped their brother.

So as the sun went down Wednesday, six of the relatives -- all Sunni Arab members of the powerful Mashhadani tribe -- picked up their AK-47s and a bomb and headed for the other side of Hurriya, a mixed enclave in northwest Baghdad that used to be a model of peaceful coexistence.

The explosive detonated near the local office of Muqtada Sadr, a firebrand Shiite Muslim cleric whose Al Mahdi militia is accused of killing thousands of Sunnis execution-style in Baghdad.

As the militia fighters ran outside to investigate the explosion, the Mashhadani men rushed into the building, hoping to find their brother.

But the fighters recovered more quickly than the Mashhadanis expected. The militia surrounded the building and killed the rescue party.

Then they dragged two of the bodies into the street and set them on fire.

“They kept them burning until 1 a.m.,” said Faraj Mohammed, 30, a Shiite resident.

In Baghdad, where at least 5,100 people died in July and August, there is nothing unusual about the story of the Mashhadani brothers. Mutilated bodies appear daily, often by the dozens, in neighborhoods such as Hurriya, which have been swept into the tide of sectarian violence that washed over the nation with the Feb. 22 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine.

By Thursday morning, Iraqi police had found the bodies of at least 60 more people in Baghdad, most of whom had been shot at close range. Seven people were killed in bombings and shootings Thursday in the capital.

The killings continue even as U.S. and Iraqi forces are conducting a major operation to restore order to the capital. Senior U.S. officials complained to reporters in Baghdad this week about the reluctance of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s Shiite-led government to take decisive action against militias linked to his political base.

U.S. commanders say they expect to reduce the violence eventually, although they acknowledge that they don’t have enough troops to secure every problematic area of Baghdad. They blame Maliki’s government for failing to deploy an additional 4,000 Iraqi soldiers to the city.

Violence has flared before in Hurriya. A captured Sunni cleric from the neighborhood once confessed on television to killing 80 people there. But several months ago, there were reports that Sunni and Shiite clerics had worked out a cease-fire.

Hurriya, Arabic for “liberty,” is a working-class area known for its inexpensive food markets, tailors and electronics stores, and as the birthplace of famous ballad singers Basil Aziz and Kadhim Saher. Both men now live abroad, and Hurriya’s shops are closed.

The neighborhood has 17 offices for rival political groups, including three linked to Sadr. All 17 are guarded by gunmen.

Residents are divided about who started the recent bout of violence, but most interviewed for this article agreed that Sadr’s Al Mahdi militia now has the upper hand.

“Shiites are threatening Sunni families and forcing them to leave Hurriya,” said Mohammed, the Shiite. “Anyone who doesn’t obey will be killed. There used to be a lot of Sunnis in east Hurriya -- now there are none.”

Adnan Dulaimi, head of the Iraqi Accordance Front, a leading Sunni party that has offices in Hurriya, said 60% of the Sunni families that used to live in the neighborhood have fled.

Dulaimi said Shiite militiamen, some of them dressed in Iraqi army uniforms, attacked one of his party’s offices less than two weeks ago. Several residents described a brutal firefight that ended when mortar rounds pounded the party building into ruins and killed two women living nearby.

Dulaimi has since acquired another office and brought in reinforcements to protect it.

“Yes, we have guards, and we have the right to defend ourselves,” he said. “But we only have small arms, unlike the attackers who come with heavy weapons and missiles. Even with our simple weapons we were able to repel the attack -- until the Iraqi army soldiers tipped the scale.”

Residents said that Dulaimi’s reinforcements, their rifles at the ready, recently marched through Hurriya’s streets in a show of force. The display angered Al Mahdi militia members, who brought in fighters from nearby Shaab, one of the few Shiite neighborhoods targeted in the Baghdad security operation.

U.S. commanders complain that as soon as they move into one neighborhood, gunmen and militia fighters simply move into another.

A Sunni pharmacist who works in Hurriya said she and other business owners had closed their shops to avoid being caught in the crossfire. She said the fighting had peaked over the last four days.

“The worst day was yesterday, when an explosion happened and during the chaos a car passed near the office and shot at the Sadr office, killing four people,” said the pharmacist, who asked for anonymity for fear of being killed by one of the warring factions.

“The Sadr people knew where they lived and attacked their houses,” she added. “The brothers were killed and their bodies were taken into the street and burned. Then they burned their houses.”

Abu Mustafa Saedi, an Al Mahdi militia commander in Hurriya, said his men were defending their community from Sunni terrorists. He said insurgents had attacked the houses of Shiites and driven families from the neighborhood.

“The U.S. forces are close by. But they are just standing still and watching the terrorists attack us,” Saedi said. “When we arrest the terrorists and hand them over to the Americans, they release them. That’s why the Shiites are striking the terrorists the same way they strike us.”

A map provided by the U.S. military Wednesday showed that American and Iraqi forces had conducted operations in Ghazaliya but not in Hurriya, just across the Khair River.

Saedi said Dulaimi’s recent show of force had only deepened the animosity toward the Sunnis, but he also said he was confident the conflict would be over soon.

“Hurriya’s violence will soon end,” he said. “Give us three days. The Mahdi army will clean out the area.”

solomon.moore@latimes.com

Times staff writers Saif Rasheed and Saif Hameed contributed to this report.