Baghdad will mark the first anniversary of Saddam HusseinÂ’s execution on Sunday as a city transformed, largely as a result of thousands of his loyalists forging new alliances with the American military. The rushed and chaotic circumstances of SaddamÂ’s final hours - the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki personally ordered his hanging on the eve of a major religious feast - illustrated the dramatic rise of Shia Muslim power in Iraq following the US overthrow of the Sunni-dominated regime in 2003. Mobile telephone cameras caught the executioners taunting Saddam on the gallows with sectarian slogans.
But instead of inflaming the Sunni insurgents, the event provided an opening for US commanders to co-opt fighters to battle extremists linked to al-QaÂ’eda.
| Saw the writing on the wall, they did ... |
“We fought the terrorists and we won,” said Shami Karim, a 27-year-old fruit stall holder and gun-toting Knight of Mesopotamia, the name given to the £150-a-month guards co-opted to control the district. “We like to live in peace and are glad that no one in Baghdad can call us terrorists. It has taken a long time but we appreciate the Americans.”
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