Meanwhile in Iraq, thousands of people marched through the Baghdad district of Sadr City Wednesday against the construction of a massive wall dividing Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods. The Pentagon has claimed the wall is an Iraqi initiative, but Iraqi officials have denied the charge.

Shiite leader Abdul Mehdi al-Mutairi: “We completely refuse the building of any walls on the land of Baghdad and on the land of the entire nation because the walls represent the politics and agenda of the occupiers. The occupiers started by fomenting a sectarian war and currently want to divide the districts of Baghdad in the form of areas or enclaves surrounded by walls with the aim of deepening the divisions between Sunnis and Shiites. We completely refuse this.”