Perspective: In Baghdad, a Last Stand Against Ethnic Cleansing

Members of the Shi'ite-dominated police force in Ghazaliya. Many members of Iraqi security forces are believed to have ties to militias.

Lt. Sam Cartee doubts the Sunni families barricading themselves in his sector can hold out much longer. Shi'ite militants thought to be from the Mahdi Army have mounted an aggressive campaign since this summer to clear Sunnis from the northern end of Ghazaliya, a formerly posh neighborhood in western Baghdad. The cleansing push has moved steadily southward, gaining ground house by house, day by day. Cartee says Mahdi Army fighters typically give Sunni families they threaten in Ghazaliya just 24 hours to leave their homes, which are then handed to Shi'ite families. Anyone who defies the deadline risks death. Few do, allowing the Mahdi Army to flip up to five houses a day. Many of the Sunni families forced from their homes have now gathered in an enclave in central Ghazaliya under the protection of a local sheik named Hamed Ne'ma Taher al-Obaydy, who has turned his block into an Alamo of sorts.

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