'You must leave in 24 hours or your heads will be cut, your houses burnt'

Calling the Sunni death squads al-Qaeda is incorrect.

The Times December 09, 2006

Ned Parker, Baghdad

One Shia family saw their neighbours flee, one by one. They stayed - until the al-Qaeda death threat finally landed on the doorstep

Read Ned Parker's Iraq blog

The three Azzawi brothers, Hussein, Qadam and Ali, loved their home. Their late father had picked the two-storey villa because it was big enough for his sons to marry and raise children in. He hoped that they would always live there.

That dream ended with a letter, dumped after dark on the Azzawis’ doorstep. The death threat was organised like a business memorandum, with the helpful heading “Subject: displacement”.

It read: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. You should leave the Sunni areas, including Ghazaliyah, within 24 hours. Otherwise your heads will be cut, your houses and furniture will be burnt just as the militias have done to the Sunnis . . . Signed: al-Qaeda in the land of two rivers and the Mujahidin Shura Council.”

Two gunmen had walked down the street like postmen and dropped the letter off at every Shia home. Once they had covered the block, a car picked them up.

No one should have been surprised. Things had worsened since the bombing of a Shia shrine in Samarra 10 months ago triggered widespread Shia-Sunni violence. About 420,000 people have since been displaced across Iraq; 1.6 million have fled the country since 2003. The large-scale expulsion of Sunnis and Shia has been redrawing Iraq’s map.

The trend of religious and ethnic cleansing has overwhelmed Baghdad. “Maybe at the beginning we thought the neighbourhood bonds between Sunnis and Shia were stronger and able to overcome the intimidation factors,” said a Western diplomat. “But at this point, it is a little bit more of every man for himself.”

The al-Qaeda threat said that the expulsions were in revenge for similar attacks by Shia militias, that Sunnis had been killed, kidnapped and displaced in Mahmudiyah, Rashadiyah, Shaab, Shaoula and Hurriyah.

On November 19, on the evening that the Azzawis received the letter, Qadam looked out of his window to see nine families fleeing the neighbourhood — too frightened to wait until morning. They headed on foot for the Shia enclave of Shaoula, directly to the north (the Azzawis’ street sits right on the dividing line). Shaoula was controlled by the Shia Mahdi Army militia, which had been raiding Ghazaliyah for months. Qadam remarked bitterly that the normal Iraqi army checkpoints had disappeared that evening on his way home. They always did when there was trouble.

The Azzawis were now the last Shia family on their street. They had doggedly hung on for the past year as shadowy Sunni groups pushed to purge Ghazaliyah of Shias. They had watched others flee after getting similar death threats, but the family had always convinced themselves that they were safe.

The al-Qaeda letter changed everything. Their 62-year-old mother could not bear to leave her late husband’s home. He had died the year before from a heart attack, but she told her sons: “I’m not worried about me, it’s you. All of you are coming and going in the morning and afternoon. It’s too dangerous.”

That night, the brothers guarded their home. “We watched the road. Qadam was on the roof. I was in the main door and my brother Ali was in the other window until the sun came up,” Qadam’s older brother. Hussein. told The Times.

Hussein and Ali’s wives and their three sisters packed important papers and food. Their mother, already suffering from chronic asthma, sobbed in her room, clutching a picture of her beloved husband. Hussein’s two infant daughters and Ali’s little boy and girl slept, oblivious to the turmoil. Hussein spoke by phone every half hour with their brother-in-law, who lived on a neighbouring street.

In the morning, Qadam drove to Shaoula to find a truck, but all the moving companies refused. “The drivers were scared. They thought maybe we’ll get killed by Mujahidin.”

The brothers knew that they should leave. Hussein was certain that al-Qaeda or the Omar Brigades, another Sunni militia, would attack them that night. However, they could not bring themselves to abandon everything their father had collected over his lifetime.

Hussain ordered all the women and children to hide in the bathrooms and kitchens away from any bombs or bullets that might hit the house. But his mother refused to leave her bedroom. The brothers manned their shooting positions. “No one could help us, not the police, not the army, not even the Americans. We were alone,” Hussein recalled.

The next day, Qadam hired a moving truck for $300 (£153), but the driver said that he would come only if the army or police accompanied him. Qadam went to a police station first. They refused.

Then he headed to a nearby army base and asked a commander. At first, he said no, but Qadam pleaded: “Please, please, I am a Shia and you are a Shia. You know me, you know how bad the situation is.”

The commander relented and agreed to send three Humvees for protection, but once the soldiers pulled up to the area, they refused to enter the street. They warned Qadam they would circle the neighbourhood for just 30 minutes.

Qadam was terrified that someone would start shooting at his family as they packed the truck. Nevertheless, he stood in the middle of the street with a Kalashnikov and a pistol.

Five Sunni friends spotted them and came to say goodbye. “They started to cry ‘please don’t go, we will miss you’. Some women tried to convince my mother to stop crying because she was going to get sick,” Hussein said. “They hugged us and said they were losing a good family. They said even they would move because they hate this area without us.”

Qadam watched them and thought about the times when his Sunni friends used to bring him food or when he gave them discounts at his market. He realised that they probably knew the al-Qaeda militants forcing his family to leave. But then Qadam himself knew Mahdi Army members. All of them were too afraid to speak up and now it was too late.

The Sunnis left. About 20 minutes had passed. The Iraqi army Humvees had driven by a few times, but on their next turn they abruptly shouted “bye, bye”. “Stop, stop, stop,” Qadam screamed. “If you leave us my family will get killed. The Mujahidin will shoot rockets at us.”

The truck revved its motor and chased the army convoy. Its back doors flapped open as it sped off. Qadam yelled for Hussein to lock up the house. “You’ve got two minutes,” he said.


Then he chased the truck in his own vehicle. Ali followed on a motorbike. Hussein closed the gate to the house and dashed into his car, packed with 14 family members, including his two daughters and Ali’s infants, who crawled and screamed in the back seat. His mother sobbed and Hussein braced himself for a hail of bullets.

A giant cabinet, clothes and televisions were left on the kerb. The family had barely taken anything. Inside the home was their father’s gilded tribal robes, his headdresses and his walking stick; pictures of Hussein’s wedding; children’s toys, generators, heaters, clothes; even their mother’s gold jewellery.

“If you have just 30 minutes to go or you will be killed, what can you take with you?” Qadam asked.

The same afternoon, Qadam drove around Shia sections of eastern Baghdad looking for a home that could accommodate 16 people. He found a four-bedroom house, but had to pay $6,000 upfront for six months.

Estate agents were raising rents because they knew that Shia were being expelled from western Baghdad. The agent was not shocked by the story and easily arranged for them to move in that day. The story is the same across Iraq. Sunnis from Shia regions in the south have been moving north to Sunni parts of Baghdad or northern Iraq. Shias have left Sunni towns in Salahaddin province for Shia sections of Baghdad, or shrine cities such as Najaf.

The Azzawis hated the new place. They needed to buy so many things, from new clothes, furniture to carpets, a generator and a heater.

Meanwhile, the brothers kept hearing awful news about their old home. A friend told them that Sunni rebels were planning to move into the house. Already, the gate had been knocked down and the windows shattered by a mortar strike.

“What can I do?” Qadam sighed, resigned. He thought it was stupid to gather tribal members or friends from the Mahdi Army to attack the street. They could all die and he still dreamt that things would get better.

“They will take my house for three, four or five years. But after this Sunni-Shia war finishes, we will return.” Hussein fell into a dark mood. He cursed and threatened to take revenge. Only his baby girls calmed him down and made him realise the stupidity of the idea.

He sobbed thinking about the house. It was intertwined with his memories of his father. His father had told him he would head the family after his death and now he had lost his inheritance.

He had failed to protect his mother and brothers.

Sometimes, he thought about his father’s last minutes alive. “He said, ‘let me die here in my house’. Can you imagine how important his house was to him? The last thing he saw was his house, it was the last thing.”

He cupped his face in his hands and tried to gather himself. “His final words were ‘Hussein, this is your house. Take care of it’.”

(Names have been changed for security reasons)

The Times is the only British paper to maintain a full-time Baghdad bureau

The warning letter

‘In the name of the most merciful, compassionate God

[Koranic verse]

“Ye who believe turn not (for friendship) to people on whom is the Wrath of God. Of the Hereafter they are already in despair, just as the Unbelievers are in despair about those [buried] in graves.


Subject: Displacement

Due to the sectarian and criminal actions that have been taken by the so-called al-Mahdi Army (‘Shameful Army’) and the Badr forces (‘Betrayal forces’) against the Sunnis – killing, kidnapping and displacement in Mahmudiyah, Rashadiyah, Shaab, Shaoula and Hurriyah as well as forcibly taking money from the Sunnis – the organization, God willing, has decided to return the strike with two strikes and reciprocate an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth and wounds equal for equal.

Therefore it was decided that you should leave from the Sunni areas including Ghazaliyah within 24 hours otherwise your heads will be cut, your houses and furniture will be burned just as the militias have done to the Sunnis. Those who have notified you are excused.


Koranic verse

“If they have assaulted you, attack them in the same way they have attacked you.


-- Al Qaeda Organisation In The Land Of The Two Rivers and The Mujahadeen Shura (consultative) Council’