From: "Rich Gauszka" 

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21604280-2703,00.html

IN a fresh clash with his American allies, the Iraqi Prime Minister has
ordered the US military to halt the construction of concrete walls being
built around some of the most violent neighbourhoods in Baghdad.

Nouri al-Maliki, the Shia leader, stepped in as Sunni communities
complained that their neighbourhoods were being turned into ghettoes that
could choke off life in their areas.

"I oppose the building of the wall, and its construction will
stop," he said during a visit to Egypt yesterday. "There are
other methods to protect neighbourhoods."

The US military had started to build concrete walls around five Baghdad
neighbourhoods, most of them Sunni, in an attempt to stop car bombers
leaving them and death squads infiltrating them.

Mr al-Maliki, who has often been at odds with his US backers over security
policy in the capital, said that "this wall reminds us of other
walls", in an apparent reference to the Israeli wall running through
the Palestinian West Bank.

Sunnis living in the newly sealed-off enclaves had complained that the
walls would cause severe traffic congestion and entrench the sectarian rift
already dividing many Sunni from Shia areas.


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