THE IRAQ CONFLICT: Saddam is airbrushed out by the city that bore his name FOREIGN Edition

• Published in: Independent (London, England : 1986)
• Main Author: ROBERT FISK IN BAGHDAD
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: London (UK) Independent Digital News & Media 14.04.2003
• ISSN: 0951-9467

THE FRESH black paint is everywhere. "Sadr City", it says, where once the name was "Saddam City". Outside the Aleppo Intermediate School for Girls, I actually come across a graffiti artist in action, painting over "[Saddam Hussein]" and again inserting "Sadr". Across Sadr City - as it must now be called - there are checkpoints and barrages and armed young men with thin beards. It's not exactly a Shia revolution, although some of the gunmen admit they are looking for "Wahabis", Sunni Muslims who they say have shot at them and who are in some cases "Arab volunteers" who came to Iraq to fight the Americans. [Sheikh Aref] says his supporters caught five, including an Afghan, a Syrian, a Saudi and a Moroccan. "But we are for all the people," he says. "We have Sunnis here with us. We eat the same food and pray together." The whole point is that the Shias of Sadr City support the Palestinians in their struggle against Israel, and while no one vouchsafes support for Iran - Sheikh Aref was educated in Baghdad and in the holy city of Najaf - most listen to the Arabic service of Iranian radio and realise how close Iran came to victory in its 1980- 88 war against Iraq.