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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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December 3rd,
2006 - ‘Damascus is near, where is Baghdad?’ asks Fallujah |
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‘Damascus is near, where is
Baghdad?’ asks Fallujah The News - International December 3, 2006 Fallujah - For residents of
Iraq’s former rebel town of Fallujah, distant Damascus seems closer these
days than their own war-torn capital Baghdad, just 50 kilometres away.
Whether it be traders needing to replenish supplies or families taking their
loved ones for medical treatment, the highway to Baghdad is a road
inhabitants of this predominantly Sunni town would rather avoid. For them the long, rocky 900
kilometre journey to the Syrian capital is a far safer option. “Damascus is
nearer to us than Baghdad despite the odds on the long journey,” says
Mohammed Jayad, a trader from Fallujah, once a hotbed of Sunni rebels
fighting US forces after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. “Actually it should be the
other way, but Baghdad has turned into a far-fetched dream or rather a
Bermuda triangle,” he said referring to the mysterious region in the Atlantic
Ocean where ships and planes are said to disappear without explanation. Many districts of Baghdad,
the epicentre of Iraq’s violence, have become virtual death traps for Sunni
Arabs as rampaging Shia militias storm districts and neighbourhoods, killing
and kidnapping members of the formerly ruling sect. Despite a massive security
operation since mid-June by US and Iraqi forces, hundreds and hundreds of
Baghdadis are killed each week, some kidnapped and shot execution-style, some
blown apart in car bombs some caught in crossfire between security forces and
militia groups. The deadly sectarian carnage
has deeply affected the Sunni Arabs from Fallujah who once bore the brunt of
fighting between Iraq’s raging insurgency and US forces, who stormed the town
in November 2004 and sent its nearly 250,000 inhabitants fleeing. Fallujah has now emerged as
a relatively peaceful town in the otherwise flashpoint Anbar province and
residents say they now want to get on with their lives-and avoid Baghdad at
all cost. Hadi Jassim, a Sunni Arab, takes his ailing son, who suffers from
cancer, for treatment at a hospital in Damascus. “My son perodically needs
physiotherapy. I used to take him to
Baghdad regularly until a nurse told me to stop visiting,” Hadi told AFP. “I
had no option but to go abroad. I tried to go to Amman but was not allowed to
cross the border, so I left for Syria and had the first session there despite
the costs-which were higher than in Baghdad.” While Jassim and others like
him return to Iraq after completing their missions, many tens of thousands of
other Iraqis simply stay put once they have crossed the border. The UN High Commissioner for
Refugees estimates that there are at least 600,000 Iraqi refugees in Syria
and that their numbers are swollen by 2,000 new arrivals every day.
Fallujah’s traders, meanwhile, find it easier to import goods from Syria than
from Baghdad. The number of checkpoints on the highway to Baghdad and
incidents such as the massacre by Shia militias in the capital’s Jihad
neighbourhood of more than 40 Sunnis travelling by bus in July have made
people reluctant to head to the violence-wracked city. Traders have now decided to
come together and order bulk imports from Damascus. The goods are then
supplied to smaller markets across Fallujah and nearby regions. “Fallujah has
become the trade hub for many neighbouring regions. We no longer need big
trade centres like Baghdad,” Jayad said. Some goods they import are finding
their way to Baghdad through a two-step process in which they are transported
to wholesale zones near Abu Ghraib from where another group of traders picks
them up and take them on to the capital. A truck driver who regularly
transports goods to Abu Ghraib, on the outskirts of Baghdad, said they dare
not enter the capital. “The job of the drivers ends there as they can’t
proceed because they come from a certain sect,” he said, speaking on
condition of anonymity. External link: http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=34302 |