The old green bridge

The Old Bridge of Fallujah — an elegant single-span iron bridge over the Euphrates, often called the Green Bridge — was for generations the city's most recognisable landmark, linking its centre to the districts and roads on the far bank. It was built in the British Mandate era and named for King Faisal I; the sources place its opening somewhere between 1927 and 1932, the exact year now blurred by time.

For decades it was simply Fallujah's bridge, carrying carts, cars and crowds to the riverside market. Then, in the spring of 2004, a violent attack on the crossing thrust it into the world's headlines and helped set off the battles that would define Fallujah's place in the Iraq War. For a time, the name of this quiet iron bridge became shorthand for the conflict itself.

War caught up with it again under ISIS, when the bridge was put out of use and reportedly blown up, cutting the city's two halves apart. Its rebuilding became a small act of healing: coordinated with the Iraqi government and supported by the Netherlands and the United Nations, work began in 2017 — only to halt when explosives were found hidden on the riverbank and below the waterline. UN mine-clearance divers removed the charges, and in August 2018 the bridge reopened, an everyday artery restored to a city that had carried more than its share of history.