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Baghdad: The Iraqi capital on Sunday seemed more divided not because of the political parties' stand on the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but because sectarianism has already deeply influenced daily lives in the city.
Slogans on the walls of many houses and public markets in Al Sadr district welcomed Ahmadinejad describing him as a hero. Sunni neighbourhoods condemned him as a villain and an architect of all the violence.
Hamza Al Rubaie, a resident of Al Sadr City, told Gulf News: "Ahmadinejad is a champion because he is the first president who visits Iraq in this security condition and frankly I wished that Arab leaders take the first step to visit Iraq before Ahmadinejad. It is not a sectarian matter."
'Brave' visit
A Baghdad resident, out shopping at a supermarket, said the popularity of Ahmadinejad has doubled and a political and economic tie-up might be realised between Iraq and Iran or between Iran and Shiite centre and south territory, which the Iraqi Shiite leader Abdul Aziz Al Hakim wants to establish.
In Al Habibia neighbourhood near Al Sadr, east of Baghdad, slogans on walls called the Iranian President a champion of Islamic nuclear bomb who will defeat Israel.
Sajad Al Shabani told Gulf News: "The Iranian President is the only leader in the Islamic world who questioned the holocaust, anticipated Israel's disappearance and still challenges it and supports the resistance in Palestine and Lebanon. So we consider him more than a hero."
In Sunni majority neighbourhoods like Al Saydia, Al Adel and Al Ghzalia, however, writing on the walls attacked Ahmadinejad describing him as a godfather of sectarian violence that divides Iraq.
Salim Al Dulaimy, a resident of Al Adel Sunni neighbourhood, told Gulf News: "We wrote on walls that Ahmadinejad is a criminal because he is the most prominent supporter of death squads led by Abu Dr'a [leader of death squads in Baghdad], who killed thousands of Iraqi Sunni citizens.
"So his visit to Baghdad means supporting the squads and militias."
Slogans on the walls in Palestine Street, a Sunni neighbourhood close to Al Sadr city, said Ahmadinejad is the killer of Iraqi scientists and army officers.
Hatem Al Ani, a resident of Palestine Street, told Gulf News: "The Iraqi government should not send an invitation to the Iranian President because he is a criminal [and] supported many Shiite militias that assassinated the former officers in Iraqi army who fought in Iraq-Iran war in 1980s and assassinated the scientists and university professors because Iran believes that they were involved in manufacture of biological weapons that defeated Iranian army in the war. So this man is a criminal, [killing] the finest Iraqis."
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