The Baghdad Wall

AFP - Baghdad neighbours protest over dividing wall

Hundreds of Shiites and Sunnis marched on Wednesday in protest at the building by US troops of a tall concrete wall separating their northwest Baghdad neighbourhoods, an AFP photographer said.

The protesters complained that the wall would promote sectarianism and demanded its removal.

Residents said that US forces last week began building the two-kilometre (1.25 mile) wall along the border of the mainly Shiite al-Shuala and adjoining Sunni-majority al-Ghazaliyah neighbourhoods without consulting them.

Since early this year, US and Iraqi forces have been erecting walls around or between some Baghdad neighbourhoods in what their commanders call a "concrete caterpillar" designed to protect residents from sectarian violence.