Mahmoudiyah, Iraq

Coordinates: 33°3′42″N 44°21′15″E / 33.06167°N 44.35417°E / 33.06167; 44.35417 Mahmoudiyah (also transliterated Mahmudiyah, Mahmoudi, or Mahmoodiyah, prefixed usually with Al-) is a Sunni Arab Iraqi rural city south of Baghdad. Known as the “Gateway to Baghdad,” the city's proximity to Baghdad made it central to the counterinsurgency campaign.

Mahmudiya District has approximately 550,000 inhabitants, about 92 percent of them Sunni Arabs and the rest mostly Shias.

War crime incident

For full article see Mahmudiyah killings

During the Iraq War, a war crime took place in Mahmudiyah in March 2006 in which five soldiers of the 502d Infantry Regiment, raped a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, Abeer Qasim Hamza, and then murdered her, her father, her mother Fakhriya Taha Muhasen and her six-year-old sister. The soldiers then burned the bodies to conceal evidence of the crime. Four of the soldiers were convicted of rape and murder, and the fifth was convicted of lesser crimes.

Earlier, in late 2003, The Observer and Human Rights Watch reported a less volatile incident in Al-Mahmudiyah associated with the soldiers from the 82nd Airborne’s 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment.^[vague]

Civil infrastructure

Efforts have been conducted into rebuilding the city.^[1] The current mayor (as of January 2007) is Muayid Fadil Hussein Habib.^[2]

See also

Iraq portal

• Triangle of Death (Iraq)

References

1. ^ U.S. Soldiers Tackle Dual Mission in Iraqi City - DefendAmerica News Article
2. ^ Mahmudiyah project helps boost local economy

External links

• San Diego Union Tribune article about Marines in Al-Mahmoudiyah.
• Map of Al-Mahmudiyah from multimap.com.
• Army article about the Al-Buhaira Elementary School remodeling project in Mahmudiyah from March 2006.
• Stars and Stripes article from February 2006 by Andrew Tilghman about militia vs. militia violence in Al-Mahmudiyah.
• A video from March 2006 (from Chris Brewer, who was in the Air Force in the 206th Broadcast Operations Detachment, American Forces Network) of Al-Mahmoudiyah's city center.