Click to play videoBaghdad: Iraq’s capital is one of the most dangerous cities in the world, but even perhaps no other place is as dangerous as Adhamiya.
Adhamiya is one of Baghdad's oldest neighbourhoods and the birthplace of the Ba'ath party of executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. It was once upper class and regarded as the home to kings. Not anymore.
It's now a Sunni stronghold and is surrounded by Shia neighbourhoods. Both areas have hardcore insurgents, who fight each other and target the Americans.
"One of our guys got hit by a grenade in here; a f*** IED (improvised explosive device) went off here two days ago, right behind our truck," says a soldier of the US Army’s Charlie Company.
The Charlie Company, of the 1-26th Infantry, has a forward base in Adhamiya. The base looks more like a house with 120 soldiers living in the middle of probably the city's most dangerous area.
"Some guys call it the Alamo - it's just a house in the middle of Adhamiya. Nobody else around, no other units," says a soldier.
The soldiers are regularly fired on by insurgents, both sunni and shia. A couple of months ago, insurgents attacked the base and Charlie Company killed 38 of them.
The company has lost five men, two dozen wounded, and earned a fistful of medals for bravery. Lt Ryan Maravilla says the losses brought the men who live and work here even closer.
"You wouldn't have even thought we had lost five guys, it is not that we don't remember them, just we know that we gotta carry on," says Maravilla.
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