THE recent lessening of violence in Baghdad, Iraq, has nothing to do with last year鈥檚 鈥渟urge鈥� in US troop numbers, satellite images suggest.
By comparing the number and brightness of lights switched on at night before, during and after the extra troops were deployed, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, were able to track the shifts of Sunni and Shiite populations. They found the lights had dimmed much more in certain Sunni districts, and that this trend began before the surge.
John Agnew, who led the study, suggests the Sunnis were driven out by their Shiite neighbours, reducing the scope for conflict between the two communities. 鈥淢any of the refugees in Syria and Jordan are Sunnis from these neighbourhoods and when they left they turned off the lights,鈥� he says.
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