BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The crack of shots fired by unseen snipers echoed on Monday through Baghdad's wholesale Shorja market, a day after U.S. Senator John McCain held up his visit there as one sign of improving security in Baghdad.
The Republican presidential hopeful said his hour-long tour of the sprawling market, where 71 people were killed by a huge car bomb in February, would have been unthinkable before the seven-week-old U.S.-Iraqi crackdown in the capital.
Shoppers and merchants agreed on Monday that security had improved since the start of the operation, when the market was blocked off to prevent further such bombings, but took issue with what they considered an overly upbeat assessment by McCain.
Many still do not dare venture into the northern half of the long street, beyond a overhead pedestrian bridge, and enter what is dubbed "The sniper zone", where people are picked off by gunmen on nearby rooftops.
Merchants said the snipers, whom they claim came from the neighboring Sunni Fadhl neighborhood, killed at least one person a day on average.
American diplomat stunned at how deep Iraq's sectarian divide remains
BAGHDAD John Melvin Jones has spent more than two dozen years in the Foreign Service, but he says he's never seen anything like this in his life.
Jones says he was "taken aback" by how deep-rooted Iraq's sectarian tension remains. Jones leads a State Department reconstruction team in Diyala (dee-AH'-lah) province, tasked with helping the government and community rebuild and move more toward democracy.
He tells A-P Radio it's very hard to get sect leaders to come together, whether in person or on issues. Jones says he's often forced to just deal with individuals, or with government go-betweens.
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 2:00 PM
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