After IS Defeat, Fallujah Victory Takes on Sectarian Tones
A highway overpass in Fallujah is plastered with Shiite banners, graffiti and posters of militia leaders, a virtual shrine to victory over the Islamic State group in this majority Sunni Muslim city. The fight to wrest Fallujah from IS control appears to have inflicted considerably less damage to the city's infrastructure than past battles. But […]Susannah George writes for AP:
A highway overpass in Fallujah is plastered with Shiite banners, graffiti and posters of militia leaders, a virtual shrine to victory over the Islamic State group in this majority Sunni Muslim city.
The fight to wrest Fallujah from IS control appears to have inflicted considerably less damage to the city's infrastructure than past battles. But scenes like this have the potential to undermine the military's success and hamper the broader fight against IS by reigniting the sectarian tensions that helped fuel the militant group's rise in Iraq.
After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Fallujah, once a town made wealthy by trade and industry, became the epicenter of an insurgency against U.S. forces and the militant opposition to the Shiite-dominated central government. When it fell under IS control, Iraqi officials repeatedly pointed to Fallujah as a source of the car bombs and other explosives used to attack Baghdad and other areas from the front-line fight.
