Al-Saydiya

Al-Saydiya is a neighborhood in the Al Rashid district of southwestern Baghdad, Iraq. Baiyaa is to the north and Dora to the east.

A once middle-class district, much of Al-Saydiya was built within the last three decades on prime real estate between Baghdad Airport Road and the main highway where it forks into central Baghdad and south to Basra. Al-Saydiya is one of the turned-Sunni Arab areas after 2006-2007. Before that time it was mixed with respect to the facts that the majority sections of the neighborhood were overwhelmingly Sunni, like the officers' quarter reserved for Hussein loyalists. Minority were Shia. Others were mixed with other religions. Now, by general consent, Saydia is one of the worst areas of Baghdad, if not the worst. Sunni insurgents plant roadside bombs intended for American troops and fire at the mainly Shia policemen from mosques and other buildings overlooking their bases and checkpoints. Thousands of Shia residents have fled. They do not expect to return to Al-Saydiya anymore. As of 2015, Al-Saydiya remains an overwhelming Sunni neighborhood, boosted by an influx of Sunnis from Anbar due to the Iraqi Civil War.