Security walls return to Baghdad after series of bombings

For nine months the walls that divided Baghdad had been slowly disappearing. Neighborhoods estranged by rows of drab concrete throughout three years of civil war had been getting to know each other, while the government boasted it had reclaimed the capital's streets. Two weeks ago a series of devastating bombs changed everything. This week walls were again being erected across the capital in areas where they had only just been removed. The symbolism was unmistakable: foreboding landmarks of Iraq's descent into chaos were once again necessary. The security gains of the past year are starting to look like a false dawn. Cranes and lorries carrying barriers stacked like dominoes have begun creeping through thoroughfares in the battlefield suburbs of Adamiya in the north and Dora in the south, both former hotbeds of the Sunni insurgency.