Reopening of Iraq bridge symbolizes renewed unity
The Two Imams bridge in Baghdad was the site of a stampede that killed 1,000 Iraqis in 2005, and a link between formerly warring Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods, now rejoined.
Reporting from Baghdad — They gathered by the green steel-span bridge, where nearly 1,000 people died three years ago in a stampede set off when rumors spread through a crowd of pilgrims that a suicide bomber was in their midst.
On Tuesday, buoyed by renewed hopes for their country's future, clerics, politicians and ordinary citizens crossed the Two Imams bridge for the first time since the August 2005 tragedy, restoring the long-severed link between the Sunni Muslim neighborhood of Adhamiya and the Shiite Muslim stronghold of Kadhimiya.
First sealed off in early 2005, the bridge, with blast walls like giant gray tombstones, has served as a symbol of Iraq's fratricidal religious divisions. The reopening ceremony Tuesday was evidence that the nation's warfare has abated enough to allow Baghdad to try to work its way back to its pluralistic, multiethnic past.
"There was a saying that if Kadhimiya and Adhamiya united again, then all the Iraqi people will unite also," said Duraid Nouri Salih, who crossed the bridge Tuesday to visit a friend in Kadhimiya.
"To open the bridge now is clear evidence of security stability, and it is a huge victory and significant achievement," said Qassim Atta, a spokesman for the Iraqi army in the capital. "We will continue to lift the concrete barriers as we keep moving ahead in many areas of Baghdad."
For the Iraqi public, question marks remain despite the relative calm of late. Most of Baghdad is still walled off by a maze of concrete barricades aimed at separating long-feuding Sunni and Shiite armed groups. Violent acts such as roadside bombs and assassinations are still an everyday occurrence.
On Monday, for example, a triple bombing claimed the lives of 31 people in eastern Baghdad. Another bombing on Tuesday wounded six.
And then there are the memories, including those of that fateful day in 2005 when the bridge was briefly reopened for pilgrims heading across the Tigris River to a gilded shrine in Kadhimiya to mourn the anniversary of the death of a Shiite saint, Imam Musa al Kadhim. After rumors of a bomber sparked panic, hundreds of pilgrims were trampled to death in the stampede or drowned when they jumped off the bridge to escape.
It was the highest death toll in any single incident since well before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
After the stampede, Kadhimiya and Adhamiya, with its tomb of the revered Sunni cleric Abu Hanifa, were again closed to each other. During the worst violence, the districts traded mortar fire across the Tigris.
