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IRAQ: Suicide Bomber Lives, and Rules
By Nasreen Al-Rafiq
BAGHDAD, Apr 14 (IPS) - It is the suicide bomber who is calling the shots in
Baghdad today, even when there are no suicide bombings.
The orgy of loot and destruction has continued unchecked for days in the
confidence that American troops turn the other way, or at least look the
other way. Despite a few firm positions taken in the very centre of Baghdad
along both sides of the Tigris, it looks like staying that way.
People have turned looters, people have also turned policemen. Every
Sunni locality has its own vigilante force now, and men with Kalashnikovs
stand ready to fight looters. That has not always stopped the looting.
Scattered sound of gunfire still does not cease. Every now and then there
are new fires, new columns of smoke that rise from different parts of the
city.
"It is the fear of the suicide bomber that is obviously keeping the
Americans away," says an elderly man carrying a Kalashnikov at the head of a
vigilante group in Adhamiyah district. "The Americans came to liberate the
city. Where are they? Is this what they have left for us?"
Much of Baghdad lives in fear, but paradoxically no one seems more
fearful of Baghdad than the U.S. troops. Military commanders are focussed on
minimising casualties among their troops; everything else takes second
place.
the east side of Saddam Bridge - also due to be renamed rapidly now like
so much in the city that took its name from its former ruler û U.S. troops
have taken position in and behind two Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Every
civilian who passes by is suspect; every passer-by is subject to a critical,
but distant examination of anything bulky they may be carrying. It would be
suicidal to look bulky these days and not to slow down before a U.S. check
post.
U.S. troops are turning out to be particularly ineffective in the areas
where they are needed most. These have been the relatively prosperous Sunni
areas that have been targeted by looters. It is here that anger against the
continued presence of the U.S. forces in Baghdad that cannot protect them,
is rising in evident ways.
Already here there seems some sort of nostalgia among some people for the
Saddam regime. "The government kept order on the streets," says another
Adhamiya resident. "If it was not for those sanctions America wanted, we
would have been a prosperous country."
U.S. troops are shielded by their armour but also by two patterns of
suicide bombing. It is Shia more than Sunni Muslims who are feared as the
more likely suicide bombers. That would make large-scale suicide bombing
less likely because it is the Shias far more than the Sunnis who have
welcomed the U.S. forces. The Shias have long been oppressed under the
Sunni-dominated regime of Saddam Hussein.
Also, suicide bombers are not likely to arise among middle class
neighbourhoods like Adhamiyah. This and other Sunni neighbourhoods have
taken a more defensive than aggressive posture.
U.S. forces now appear only in strength along main boulevards and at
central localities. Anyone approaching them is stopped at a distance and
questioned. Anyone not speaking English is usually sent back.
That leaves Baghdad a city without a police force, without electricity,
without fresh supply of food coming into the markets. As this situation
continues, it gets more desperate for the victims, the looters and also for
those who oppose the U.S. presence in Baghdad, and there seem to be plenty
of them.
A growing desperation in the situation of the city could fuel desperate
acts against U.S. forces, residents at Adhamiyah say. No one doubts that a
large body of suicide bombers exist in Baghdad today, waiting for their
moment to strike. Just their existence and the U.S. fear of them has brought
Baghdad down, and robbed the U.S. of what should have been a glorious
victory. (END/2003)
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