|
|
IRAQ: Street Battles Still Rage in Baghdad
By Nasreen Al-Rafiq
BAGHDAD, Apr 11 (IPS) - Baghdad has become a battleground where no one is
sure who is fighting whom.
If ever there was a city of contradictions, it is Baghdad today. It is a
city of joy and also a city that is hell.
Baghdad is a place for celebrations such as people have never known in
their lifetime. As crowds ransacked one government building after another,
this appeared like a city unchained. The sanction to go for government
targets spoke of a release of anger against the Saddam regime, more than
just loot.
Mobs seemed drawn to the palaces of Saddam Hussein and his sons by some
sort of fascination as well as anger. The looting of the palaces and of the
homes of Iraqi ministers and leaders had something of the feel of a people's
revolution about it.
"I have never dreamt that we would live to see a day like this," a school
teacher said, as we listened to the sounds of gunfire and watched cars,
vans, trucks take away looted goods - tables, mattresses, table fans,
utensils - anything. The cars and vans too were perhaps looted.
The teacher, who had been vocal until only a few days back in condemning
what he called U.S. aggression, seems suddenly to have taken quite the
opposite view. "These problems will pass," he said, looking at the looters.
"But at least we are a free people."
Not all of Baghdad seemed to feel free. All of Baghdad has not fallen;
all of Baghdad is not celebrating - far from it. Shooting and gun battles
have been breaking out all over the city. Not all of the opposition to the
U.S. forces is dead.
After the long gun battle in Adhamiyah on Thursday, there was tension
again around the mosques in this area Friday. The Imam at the central mosque
had been making appeals repeatedly before the war, sometimes with gun in
hand, to fight the U.S. forces. Many seem to be heeding his call.
There is particular concern over hordes of young men who came into the
city and who are not to be seen any more. A large group had moved into
Palestine Hotel, where most journalists have been staying. U.S. officers
said a tank fired into the hotel, killing two journalists after someone
fired upon them from the hotel.
That claim is much disputed, none of the journalists at the hotel say
they heard or saw anyone firing from the hotel. But in any case, the silent
youths have disappeared as silently as they appeared. Whether they have
joined the groups engaged in gun battles now, or they have fled is hard to
say.
Baghdad is today a free-for-all city. On Friday new rumours began to
circulate that were more fearful than even the stories of shooting and
looting. New fears began to surface about stories of incidents of rape in
some areas of the city.
The complete absence of anything like the police or policing by the
military has sent people back to their homes, and most people seem to be
staying there. At Adhamiyah, a relatively well off and largely Sunni
neighbourhood, groups of men seemed to have formed their own defence groups
against looting mobs.
Down Sadoon Street, one of the main shopping streets in Baghdad, local
defence groups are reported to have fired on looters, leading to several
casualties.
"This is a bomb waiting to explode," said a man in a local defence group
in Adhamiya. "The looters are coming in from the Shia areas and they are
looting the property of the Sunni businessmen." Baghdad stands on the brink
of a religious civil war.
Any incidents involving women could make the situation more explosive. As
it is, just the rumours seem to have inflamed people.
U.S. military units took up positions on some streets in central Baghdad,
particularly around the bridges on both sides of the Tigris Friday morning.
That kept crowds away from the residential areas to the east of the Tigris.
But around Baghdad there were reports of firing and shooting, and there
were few journalists around even to report these incidents.
(ENDS/IPS/MM/WD/IP/NAR/RAJ/03)
= 04110929 ORP004
NNNN
(END/2003)
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
What is RSS?
