Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, has ordered a halt to the construction of a barrier that would separate a Sunni enclave from Shia areas in Baghdad as Sunni-led Arab governments told him to step up reconciliation efforts with Sunni fighters if he wanted Arab support.
Al-Maliki said on Sunday: "I oppose the building of the wall and its construction will stop. There are other methods to protect neighbourhoods."
US troops began placing six-tonne sections of wall around Adhamiyah, a mainly Sunni Arab area surrounded by Shia areas in east Baghdad two weeks ago.
The construction drew sharp criticism from residents and Sunni leaders who complained it would isolate the community. (More...)
Let us lower all the flags to half-mast.
Let us begin now the somber trumpet.
Let us gather around with bowed heads
And recall this day as the butchered age.
Watch it trace across the gnarled lands,
Ascend the gate of our most everlasting
With the clatter of a filched kingdom
Bearing the ashen and eyeless face of war.
Let us erect a wall of rubbish and bones
Skyward surrounding all the arid breath,
Honoring our pursuit and its conclusion;
Empire and anguish; kingdom come.
© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman
GATHER AROUND
Iraq PM orders halt to Baghdad wall
