November 24, 2006
The nation seemed adrift. It was as if the main players in Iraq were asleep, unable to stop the mounting bloodshed around them and oblivious to the consequences. Iraqi politicians enmeshed themselves in vitriolic debates, while Washington waited for the results of various study groups to decide on a solution in Iraq.
Meanwhile, every day, corpses bearing signs of torture were dumped in the city; nightly mortar attacks rocked Sunni and Shia districts; Al-Qaeda militants expelled Shia civilians from Sunni neighborhoods; kidnappers abducted government employees.
An Iraqi friend started voicing his anxiety to me that something truly awful could happen now. He was terrified the moment would come without warning. This week, some militants in his western Baghdad neighborhood had been heavily mortaring a Shia district, called Hay Amal. He was sure if the mortaring kept up, the Mahdi Army would storm his street. He knew it would take
just one spark to unleash the chaos.
Last night, I spoke with my friend after the Sadr City bombings; he could hear mortars burst and gunfire barrages in the distance. The power had gone out in his house and he listened to the explosions in the dark. He wondered if the government or anyone could stop an armed group from breaking down his door and taking revenge. The government had slapped a curfew down on the city, but he thought that wouldn’t stop Shia militias, with ties to the security forces, from roaming Baghdad.
We spoke again this morning. This time, his little son was crying. He went outside and sat in his car while we spoke. The child loved the car and it usually quieted him. The street was empty. My friend said he hadn’t slept much because of all the explosions last night. He prayed things would stay calm.
Ned Parker is the Baghdad Correspondent for The Times and has been based in the country since March 2003. He has also filed extensively from Israel and the Palestinian territories. Ali Hamdani and James Hider will also be adding to this weblog.
Posted by The Times Baghdad bureau on November 24, 2006 at 10:57 AM |
http://timesonline.typepad.com/inside_iraq_weblog/
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment