U.S. troops who patrol the area simply call it "Village 8".

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20071115/tpl-uk-iraq-displaced-c3c492c_1.html

Iraq’s displaced struggle to restart their lives

By Andrew Marshall Reuters - Thursday, November 15 12:23 pm

NEAR NAHRAWAN, Iraq (Reuters) - Fadhlelah Daghel lives in a village without a name, unmarked on maps.

The dusty settlement of squat mud-brick houses, huddled near an arterial road that cuts through the barren scrublands beyond Baghdad's south-eastern fringe, is a place born out of bloodshed.

U.S. troops who patrol the area simply call it "Village 8".

Daghel, her husband and six children fled here last year with dozens of other Shi'ite families from a small farming community near Balad Ruz, 60 km (40 miles) to the north, terrified that Sunni militants were preparing to slaughter them.

"We were attacked, so many times, by mortar bombs, random shootings. They threatened us, sent messages telling us to leave," said Daghel, 33, as she stood baking flat, round loaves of bread in an earth-built kiln outside her home.

"My brother was killed, and then they attacked his funeral and killed one of my cousins, and kidnapped another."

Iraq's simmering sectarian tensions exploded into a savage cycle of bloodletting and revenge killings last year after militants blew up a revered Shi'ite shrine in Samarra.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/22/AR2006022200454.html

Bombing Shatters Mosque In Iraq

BAGHDAD, Feb. 22 -- Bombers blasted the gilded dome of one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines into naked steel and gaping blue sky Wednesday in a provocative assault that roused tens of thousands of Iraqi Shiites into angry protests and deadly clashes.

The highest spiritual leaders of Iraq's Shiite majority simultaneously rallied and restrained the outrage of their followers after the attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra, about 65 miles north of Baghdad. Though no casualties were reported, the bombing was the most destructive attack on a major shrine since the U.S. invasion, and Iraqi leaders said it was meant to draw Shiites and Sunnis into war. "This is as 9/11 in the United States," said Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite and one of Iraq's two vice presidents.

President Bush, as well as top U.S. military and civilian representatives here, appealed for calm. snip

Police said two bombs that had been planted at the mosque overnight exploded at dawn. Some local officials in Samarra said the bombers were dressed in the uniforms of Iraqi security forces. Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari, in one of several televised news conferences and appeals by Iraqi and U.S. leaders, said preliminary investigation into the bombing pointed to "infiltration'' of Iraqi security forces.