REGIONS: BAGHDAD CITY (مدينة بغداد)
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq. It is divided into east and west by the Tigris River. Baghdad consists of nine security districts and over seventy neighborhoods. Its population consists of every major ethnic and sectarian group in Iraq. The city's population is between 6 and 8 million; the population displacements of 2006 cause the divergence in these estimates. Approximately one-third of Iraq’s population lives in Baghdad and its suburbs.
The dynamics of violence in the city are enormously complex. In general, mixed Sunni and Shia areas were the most violent spots in Baghdad in 2006 and 2007, as Shi'a militias engaged in sectarian cleansing drove Sunni populations to accept Al-Qaeda as defenders. Shia militia groups and Iranian-backed Special Groups have based themselves in Sadr City and projected force from this neighborhood to other locations in the city, particularly Adhamiyah, Khadimiyah, and Rasheed. Al Qaeda in Iraq and its affiliates based itself in neighborhoods in western Baghdad in 2006, particularly in Dora (in the Rasheed District), and in Ghaziliyah (in the Mansour District). AQI operated on the east side of the city, particularly through its Rusafa car bombing network, which U.S. forces degraded through a series of operations in 2007.
Operation Fardh al Qanoon, which means Enforcing the Law, was the plan to secure Baghdad launched on February 14, 2007. It consisted of projecting forces from Forward Operating Bases around the perimeters of the city into Joint Security Stations and Combat Outposts within Baghdad's neighborhoods, allowing U.S. and Iraqi forces to engage in a counterinsurgency campaign to protect Baghdad's population. Operation Fardh al Qanoon dramatically reduced violence in Baghdad in 2007 in conjunction with Operation Phantom Thunder, the Corps offensive to clear the enemy from its sanctuaries around Baghdad.
Fardh al Qanoon followed Operations Together Forward (OTF 1 and OTF 2), which failed to secure the city in 2006.
Baghdad Security Districts:
