"May God punish those who divide us"

Over 100 Sunni families from the Hur Rajab district in south Baghdad took refuge during the last few days in a nearby Shiite neighborhood (Abu Dsheer, south Baghdad) where they are being housed and sheltered, after being driven out of their homes in Hur Rajab by heavily armed takfiiri groups the refugees call AlQaeda. Reuters had a TV clip on this last Wednesday September 12, and today the story is taken up by the Sadrist news site Nahrainnet.net.

Salman Abdul Awda, head of one of the households that took refuge in Abu Dsheer, told Nahrainnet: "AlQaeda slaughtered men and women...and they blew up dozens of houses belonging to members of the tribal awakening of Hur Rajab. It was God who delivered us from their evil, and we took refuge with our Shiite brothers in Abu Dsheer, and they have been brave and honorable with us."

According to a woman who lost her husband and took refuge in Abu Dsheer with her children, The fighting ...started Tuesday (Sept 11), and there was no intervention by the American or Iraqi forces. We have seen dozens of bodies in the street, some decapitated. Today we received news that AlQaeda has won complete control of Hur Rajab with the withdrawal of the tribal awakening fighters because of inadequate ammunition and weapons. [A member of the local tribal awakening told Nahrainnet they fought for three days without any sign of assistance of any kind from the Iraqi or American forces].

Residents of Abu Dsheer said "This is a serious development for the neighboring areas like ours, because AlQaeda is going to use this to expand into these surrounding areas. [They said] Abu Dsheer is going to be a target of AlQaeda mortar and rocket fire, having already been subject to daily mortar attacks. And this is in addition to what Abu Dsheer has to put up with by way of continuous pressure from the American forces, which invade our area and simply forget about the areas that are under the control of AlQaeda. In fact what they [the American forces] do is arrest volunteers in those groups that are bearing the burden of fighting the takfiiris and the Baathists. What they do is they arrest those young men, and at the same time they completely ignore the areas that are under the control of the terrorists."

From the Wednesday Reuters story:

More than 100 Sunni families fled their homes in Hur Rajab,
south of Baghdad on Wednesday (September 12) after what they said was an
attack by al-Qaeda fighters.
 Leaving their possessions behind, women, children and young people
fled in pickup trucks and small cars to the neighbouring Shi'ite neighbourhood
of Abu Dsheer were they were hosted by the Shi'ites.
 "They deported us saying that they will hit us. We fled with our
children. My husband is a detainee and now I am afraid for my sons. I fled and
we are considered now as displaced and we are afraid of being killed,"
said Amal Abdul Razzaq.
"There is no difference between Sunnis and Shi'ites. All of us are
Muslims. May God punish those who divide us.

On the face of it, this story, essentially the same in Reuters and Nahrainnet, appears to show the American forces implicitly supporting AlQaeda, by harassing the non-takfiiri citizenry, with the latter taking refuge in Sunni/Shiite solidarity.