Salon.com > Rory Carroll

“Upholding their religion through death”

Thu, 15 Sep 2005 12:24:00 +0000

A car bomb tore into a crowd of laborers in central Baghdad Wednesday, killing at least 88 in Iraq's worst single attack since February. A fireball engulfed men who gathered in Khadhimiya, a poor Shiite district with high unemployment, hoping for a day's work gardening or building. Police at the scene said the bomb was detonated remotely, but some survivors claimed a suicide bomber had lured a crowd to his minivan.

It was the bloodiest attack in a wave of bombings and shootings Wednesday that left more than 150 people dead and 500 wounded. More than a dozen bombs shook the capital in a series of apparently coordinated blasts that started at dawn with the slaughter in Khadhimiya.

Health Ministry officials said 88 died, while the Interior Ministry put the toll at 114, not far off the 125 killed in a suicide attack in Hilla in February. Police said nearly 500 pounds of explosives were used.

Another car bomb, thought to have been detonated by a suicide bomber, immolated 11 people in a queue to refill gas canisters. In the town of Taji just north of Baghdad, 17 Shiite men were dragged from their homes and executed by gunmen in military uniform.

“We want our dad back”

Fri, 03 Jun 2005 15:55:00 +0000

It was meant to be nothing more than a family gathering, a chance for Hilal Jedda's four London-based children to meet their Iraqi relatives. Last September they flew to United Arab Emirates, sailed to Basra and drove to Baghdad. The relatives did not have British visas and Iraq was the only place they could be together.

An unconventional choice given the violence, but Jedda, a naturalized Briton, also planned to use the monthlong visit to lobby the British Embassy for visas for his two Iraq-based wives, hoping to return with them to London.

But on Oct. 10 American and Iraqi troops stormed the family's house in Baghdad, put a hood over Jedda and flew him to Shaiba, a British military base outside Basra, Iraq. The British military, it turned out, had deemed the 48-year-old father of six a dangerous terrorist who had plotted weapons smuggling and bomb attacks and said jailing him was "necessary for imperative reasons of security." Eight months later he has not been charged nor seen a lawyer but he is still interned at Shaiba.

"We want our dad back," his son Abdullah, 11, told the Guardian Thursday. "If he has done something bad why don't they tell us?"

An insurgency that’s losing momentum?

Thu, 21 Apr 2005 14:18:00 +0000

Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, Wednesday night escaped a suicide bomb assassination attempt, hours after officials said dozens had been killed in two separate massacres, raising fears of an escalation in the insurgency. Allawi's convoy was attacked as he headed to his home in the Iraqi capital after talks on the formation of the new government, details of which are likely to be unveiled Thursday, a government spokesman said.

One policeman was killed and two were injured in the attack, but the prime minister escaped unscathed. Bursts of gunfire were heard after the explosion rocked a police checkpoint in the western neighborhood where Allawi's home and party headquarters are located.

At least eight other Iraqis were killed in a spate of other suicide bombs that rocked the capital Wednesday.

Farther afield, officials acknowledged two grisly discoveries that yielded at least 70 corpses and, if confirmed, would underline the audacity of an insurgency that seems able to slaughter at will, despite coalition claims that it is losing momentum.

President Jalal Talabani said more than 50 corpses had been dragged from the Tigris River. And at Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad, 19 men were found dead in a stadium.

Poisoning Iraq’s wild east

Tue, 19 Apr 2005 13:22:00 +0000

Farmers and fishermen are devastating Iraq's marshes, considered by some to be the site of the Garden of Eden, with uncontrolled use of chemicals and fishing using electric shocks, researchers warned Monday. The illegal methods are wiping out wildlife, polluting water, endangering human health and undermining the recovery of one of the world's great wetlands, they say.

The marshes are part of what British troops stationed there call Iraq's "wild, wild east," a remote, lawless region where impoverished communities have a tradition of defying authority. Since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein two years ago there has been a boom in the use of electroshock -- with nets attached to car batteries -- to catch fish, says Iraq Nature, an environmental group. Many of the fish not caught are left sterilized or dead, the rotting bodies spawning organic matter that uses up oxygen, which in turn allows bacteria to flourish, upsetting the ecological balance. The damage is made worse by farmers using chemicals intended to treat lice in sheep as pesticides for their crops and by hunters using poison to catch birds.

Moans and sirens at rush hour

Fri, 15 Apr 2005 15:44:00 +0000

A late-morning sun baked Jadriya Street and life moved in slow motion, the traffic inching through rush hour, the rubbish collectors pausing for rest, the shoppers dawdling in cafes. A police convoy of Land Cruisers and pickup trucks weaved through the jam clogging the middle-class Shiite district of central Baghdad. No one noticed the minibus, one of the ubiquitous South Korean-made Kias, until it exploded into a fireball. The bang was like a clap of thunder inside your skull, said one survivor, and the heat wave like a giant oven door swinging open.

The bomb incinerated a dozen vehicles and hurled metal shards through cars, windows and flesh. Stunned, the police fired into the air. Guards from the Al-Hamra Hotel raced out and joined the shooting, though at what nobody knew. Then the second bomb, apparently packed into a Volkswagen 200 meters from the first, sent more shrapnel hissing up the street. Bodies burned in cars while the wounded staggered and slumped. Some survivors described a sudden, deep silence, but they had been deafened. Jadriya was filled with shouts and moans and sirens.

“We do not take hostages”

Mon, 11 Apr 2005 15:14:00 +0000

American troops were accused Sunday of violating international law by taking two Iraqi women hostage in a bungled effort to persuade fugitive male relatives to surrender. Soldiers seized a mother and daughter from their home in Baghdad two weeks ago and allegedly left a note on the gate: "Be a man Muhammad Mukhlif and give yourself up and then we will release your sisters. Otherwise they will spend a long time in detention." It was signed "Bandit 6," apparently a military code, and gave a mobile-phone number. When phoned by reporters an American soldier answered, but he declined to take questions and hung up.

Salima al-Batawi, 60, and her daughter Aliya, 35, were blindfolded, handcuffed and driven away in a Humvee convoy on April 2, leaving the Arab Sunnis of Taji, a town north of the capital, incandescent. Instead of surrendering, her sons Ahmad, Saddam and Arkan alerted the media. None of them is called Muhammad, but it is believed that the note referred to Ahmad and that the Americans wanted all three brothers.

The brothers have spent time in Abu Ghraib jail, but have not been charged and say they are citrus farmers with no connection to the insurgency.

Trial by television

Mon, 28 Mar 2005 14:52:00 +0000

Twenty minutes to show time and studio technicians are loading the tape for transmission to Baghdad when mortars thud outside. Four hit the lawn, three hit the motorway, carving craters but causing no casualties. The staff resume work, unfazed by the latest assault on the television station.

Aired twice a day, "Terrorism in the Grip of Justice" is a popular reality show, but those firing 62 mm mortars do not like it and have made the Mosul headquarters of the state channel Al-Iraqiya arguably the most dangerous posting in broadcasting. With watchtowers at the gate, sandbags on the roof and American soldiers patrolling the corridors, the two-story building resembles a fortress, but that has not stopped insurgents from bombing, kidnapping and murdering the Iraqis who work inside.

"I don't think they like the program very much," says the station's director, Ghazi Faisal, 52, with monumental understatement. Most of the staff have fled, but their boss remains, a mix of resignation, defiance and pride. He does not stop munching his kebab when the mortars land. "I'm the terrorists' most wanted man in Mosul."

Ayatollah in a suit?

Wed, 23 Feb 2005 15:42:00 +0000

Iraq's main Shiite alliance Tuesday chose a self-effacing man who used to be a family doctor in Britain as its candidate to be the first democratic prime minister since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, 58, is almost certain to head the new government after winning the unanimous approval of the Shiite bloc that won last month's election. The former exile has been dubbed an ayatollah in a suit because of his strong religious beliefs, but he is also seen as a conciliatory figure who will reach out to ethnic and religious minorities.

At a news conference in Baghdad to announce his nomination, he promised to tackle the insurgency ravaging the country. "The priority now is security. It affects all other issues, such as the economy and rebuilding," he said. Jaafari has resisted calls from Sunnis and radical Shiites to set a timetable for the withdrawal of the U.S. troops who have occupied the country since the March 2003 invasion.

Three years ago, the softly spoken married father of five was an exile treating patients in Wembley, north London, and barely known in the homeland he fled in 1980. His success was sealed when the only other candidate inside the alliance, former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi, withdrew from the race for Iraq's most powerful post.

Working the phones

Mon, 14 Feb 2005 14:11:00 +0000

Three rivals within the Shiite-dominated coalition that triumphed in Iraq's election moved swiftly Sunday night to bid for the job of prime minister. Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Adel Abdul Mahdi are barely known outside the country, and Ahmad Chalabi is more infamous than famous. Yet one of them is expected to become overnight a crucial player in the Middle East.

Sunday's announcement of the final tally from the Jan. 30 election confirmed a sweeping victory for the United Iraqi Alliance, though its 47.6 percent of votes cast was lower than some predictions. It was enough, however, for leaders of the three main groupings within the coalition to advance their claim for the most powerful post in government, working the phones late into the night and sending emissaries to potential allies. After the drama of Election Day, when millions voted despite threats from insurgents, politics will now become a game of largely behind-the-scenes deal making between and within coalitions.

Trailing far behind the Shiite list was a Kurdish alliance with 26 percent and a list headed by the outgoing Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, with 13.8 percent, giving the United Iraqi Alliance a strong claim over the prime ministership, a more powerful job than the presidency or National Assembly chairman.

The making of an Iraqi cop

Fri, 04 Feb 2005 15:22:00 +0000

Silence enveloped Baghdad's police academy Thursday as 2,000 cadets filed into classes to take a midterm exam of multiple-choice questions. Brows crinkled over ticklish selections, such as how to respond to bombs. You should: a) run away as fast as possible; b) evacuate the citizens; c) let the multinational forces handle the situation -- it is not your job; d) all of the above are correct.

When the exam ended American soldiers carried the papers away for marking, and the cadets stood in huddles, comparing answers. Which boxes they ticked could determine more than just grades. Most of these young men and women in blue will graduate in three weeks' time and then march from their parade ground into the daunting job of policing Iraq.

Under new plans for an accelerated pullout from Iraq, London and Washington hope men like these will increasingly move into the front line to face down the insurgents, replacing coalition troops. In his State of the Union speech on Wednesday night, President Bush spoke of a new phase in which Americans would train "more capable Iraqi security forces" to pave the way for Washington's withdrawal.

A war’s terrible legacy

Tue, 01 Feb 2005 22:29:00 +0000

Mwanvua Silimu has just told a lie and everyone in the room knows it. She stares at her feet, silent. The 14-year-old is back home after months as the prisoner of vagabond soldiers, relating her ordeal. It is the obvious question, and her family members ask it: How many of her 13 kidnappers raped her? In little more than a whisper, Mwanvua replies "one."

Her parents and siblings exchange looks but say nothing. Nobody believes her. Not taking her eyes off the earth floor, after some minutes Mwanvua speaks again, the voice firmer this time. "All of them. They all passed through me." Her mother, Mariamo, winces and looks away. Her father, Radjabo, blinks several times and gazes at his daughter. They had guessed the truth, but hearing it out loud, laid bare here in the family home, is not easy.

The family now fears further revelations. Mwanvua's period is late; she may be pregnant with the child of one of her captors. She may be infected with any number of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. There is no doctor in the village, and no means of testing.

Victor’s justice?

Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:35:00 +0000

The international tribunal for Rwanda was criticized Wednesday for its failure to charge Tutsis suspected of killing Hutus in the 1994 genocide. Filip Reyntjens, a Belgian historian and expert witness on the genocide, said he would stop cooperating with the tribunal because no Tutsis from the Rwandan Patriotic Front rebel army had been indicted.

Reyntjens said that prosecuting only Hutus amounted to victor's justice because the Tutsi force that ended the genocide by overthrowing the extremist Hutu regime also committed atrocities. The U.N.-mandated tribunal, which sits in Arusha, Tanzania, was supposed to foster reconciliation but was doing the opposite because its one-sided approach alienated ordinary Hutus, he said. "The ICTR [tribunal] risks being part of the problem rather than of the solution. I cannot any longer be involved in this process," he wrote in a letter to prosecutors made available to news agencies.

There was no response from the tribunal.

The killing of an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus by Hutu militants is well known; less so are the crimes of Tutsi rebels who subsequently took power and still rule the country.

The “worst catastrophe ever”

Fri, 10 Dec 2004 14:42:00 +0000

The HIV/AIDS pandemic is the worst catastrophe in history and is blighting childhood across the developing world, especially sub-Saharan Africa, the United Nations said Thursday. Advances in children's survival, health and education are being reversed by a "triple whammy" of AIDS, conflict and poverty, according to the U.N. children's agency, UNICEF. The disease is driving the destruction of basic services for 1 billion children and violating their right to grow and develop, said Carol Bellamy, the organization's executive director. "We believe AIDS is the worst catastrophe ever to hit the world," she told the Guardian. "It is just ripping up systems, be it health or education. Our children's childhood is being robbed from them."

But the agency and Bellamy have been strongly criticized by the editor of one of the world's leading medical journals, the Lancet. In an editorial published Friday, Richard Horton said UNICEF's "preoccupation" with children's rights meant that the fundamental right to survival was, "shamefully," not at the core of its work. "In sum, for almost a decade, child survival has failed to get the attention it deserves," he writes.

Mandela’s lost thoughts

Fri, 24 Sep 2004 14:03:00 +0000

For three decades the notebooks gathered dust in a cupboard, unknown to the world, forgotten even by their author, but cherished by the secret policeman who sensed history in their pages. As an apartheid agent, Donald Card's job involved the decoding of confiscated writings of Robben Island prisoner 46664, to read between the lines about where the liberation movement was headed.

Except by the time he received the two books in 1971 Card had lost faith in South Africa's white regime, and so without telling anyone he locked away the private thoughts of Nelson Mandela in a cupboard at his home in eastern Cape. This week the two notebooks surfaced when the retired spy handed them over in an emotional ceremony of restitution that Mandela said was the signal for a nationwide "recovery of memory."

The books will remain private until Mandela has read them. However, the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg Thursday revealed the contents of two pages, dated April 1, 1971, and addressed to "My dear Sisi," believed to be a sister.