Update on Baghdad Bridges [Pt.3]

Two more items of interest on the demolition of a major Tigris River bridge in Baghdad last week and a follow-up suicide bombing at another bridge. The first is a Reuters article on the fears of numerous Sunnis and Shi'ites that there will be an organized bridge busting/bridge denial campaign to force a split in the city on sectarian lines:

"The terrorists are planning to split Karkh from Rusafa," said a senior Shi'ite lawmaker, using Baghdad's ancient names for the west bank (Karkh) and the east bank (Rusafa).

"This has been the plan by terrorists and their political allies all along to try and drive Shi'ites out of Karkh so they can split Baghdad in half."

On the other side of the sectarian divide, parliament speaker Mahmoud Mashhadani, an outspoken Sunni politician, called the destruction of Sarafiya a "conspiracy to isolate the two halves of Baghdad"......

Saad Eskander, director of Iraq's National Library and a historian, said blowing up Baghdad's bridges has been a military strategy to conquer and defend the city since ancient times.

Medieval rulers burnt Baghdad's bridges, then wooden planks laid over boats roped together, to stop invading Mongols from sacking the city. The U.S. military, in its wars against Saddam Hussein, destroyed bridges in Baghdad to hinder troop movements.

"Destroying the Sarafiya bridge is an attempt to break Iraq's unity and to polarise our society," Eskander said.

"It is a message that Baghdad will soon become two Baghdads

Larry Johnson over at No Quarter has a more detailed mapping of the Baghdad bridges and some ruminations on the tactical importance of the bridge network for US forces. The major US installations are on the western side of the Tigris with the Green Zone and Baghdad International Airport being the most prominent as well as the major north south highways that carry the vast majority of US logistic convoys.