Military's Map-Making Supremacy Remains Unchallenged

| Fri Dec. 15, 2006 3:03 PM PST

Buried in a very good story about sectarian violence and the breakdown of civil society in Baghdad, the London Times scored itself a little scoop. It publishes a (really cool) U.S. military map deconstructing Baghdad by ethnic neighborhoods and degree of danger.

The US military has drawn up a new map of Baghdad to reflect its ethno-sectarian fault lines. Published here for the first time, it lists the mixed neighbourhoods considered to be most explosive. Four of the five are on the western bank of the Tigris, called Karkh, where mixed neighbourhoods are still prevalent. Predominently Shia Kadhamiya and the largely Sunni areas of Qadisiya, Amariya and Ghazaliya have become the deadliest battlegrounds, according to US forces.

Also interesting is that part of the Green Zone seems to be under Sunni control.

 Baghdad_Neighborhoods300.gif

Larger version here. H/T Kevin Drum.

Continues Below

Continued From Above

Get Mother Jones by Email - Free. Like what you're reading? Get the best of MoJo three times a week.

Comments

Post new comment

Alternately, you may login to or register an account
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <ul> <ol> <li> <blockquote> <img>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

More information about formatting options

Photo Essays

When you dial a 1-900 number, who picks up the phone?
Meet the KKK's seamstress of hate couture.
The other side of Gitmo.
A photographer’s year at Angola Prison.