US walls-off more Baghdad districts

US troops began placing six-tonne sections of wall around Adhamiyah, a mainly Sunni Arab area surrounded on three sides by Shia communities in east Baghdad, two weeks ago.

Residents have reacted angrily, saying the move will isolate them and worsen sectarian tensions.

US officials in Baghdad said on Sunday that four more neighbourhoods will become so-called "gated communities".

According to reports, the districts of Amiriya, Khadra, and East and West Rashid will be included in the controversial scheme.

'Controlling access'

Lieutenant-Colonel Scott Bleichwehl, a US military spokesman, said: "We are not sealing-off neighbourhoods, we are controlling access to them. It's a tactic, it's not a change in strategy to divide Baghdad along sectarian lines."

The wall around Adhamiyah, up to 12 feet (3.5 metres) high along some sections, is designed to prevent Shia death squads from launching attacks to drive out Sunnis, and to prevent Sunni fighters from using the pocket as a base for raids and bombing runs into Shia areas, the US military says.

Traffic control points manned by Iraqi soldiers would be the only way in and out of the walled-in districts once the barriers are completed.

In a city once known across the region as a beacon for multicultural harmony, there is anger among residents that districts are being separated along sectarian lines.

'Fuelling sectarianism'

Adnan Shuhab, a resident of the Iraqi capital, said: "We heard the building of such concrete walls was only between Israel and the Palestinians.

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