Background
Haifa Street runs through a majority-Sunni area, although there is an area of Shi'ite-dominated neighborhoods to the west, making the Haifa Street area a sectarian fault line between Shi'ite and Sunni neighborhoods. As a result, brutal killings by both sides drove the residents of the high-rise buildings out of the area, enabling insurgents to take over abandoned apartments.
In January 2007, the commander of Multi National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I), General Odierno, ordered a full-scale offensive to dislodge al Qaida from what one US commander called "the most dangerous street in Iraq".
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Haifa Street
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Pilate with his question What is truth? is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedys conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didnt approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldnt have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (19081973)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)