June 2014
IT WAS SOMETHING MENTIONED IN PASSING ON BAGHDAD RADIO. The Iraqis I was sitting with drinking tea in a café thought there was nothing particularly interesting about it – eight men with the name Omar had been found dead around Baghdad that morning. My Iraqi companions said when things got bad around the city – worse than normal – several Omars were usually found dead.
This is the type of story that stands out to a visitor. It’s one of the reasons foreign correspondents are valuable as they can see things with fresh eyes. I told my Iraqi fixer I wanted this to be my next story – why were so many men with the name Omar being killed, often shot in the head or mutilated?
What I discovered in my research helped me to understand the madness of the Sunni–Shia war inside Islam. It also showed me the reality of today’s Iraq.
Baghdad, this ancient, biblical city, is at the same time enchanting and horrible. My office sent me there in late 2014 because Islamic State was within 50 kilometres of the city. It was one of those requests that only journalists and aid workers get: the most bloodthirsty terrorist group of our time might be about to take over; could you get there as soon as possible?
Baghdad ‘International’ Airport has very little international about it. The plane made a steep descent which, I was told, was due to the security threat. Because the authorities could not guarantee that Islamic State or others would not try to shoot down incoming jets, they needed to descend sharply in a corkscrew formation. This meant that the plane descended over a small area which had been secured. To me this said everything. Despite the United States having spent US$1.06 trillion in Iraq since the invasion in 2003 – according to the US Congressional Research Service – neither the airport nor the road from the airport could be secured.
Walking out of the airport, the driver who was meant to pick me up was not there. Given the number of car bombs that had exploded at Baghdad airport, the authorities had come up with a solution – no cars near the airport. That meant you had to walk a significant distance to get a bus, which took you to the outer perimeter of the airport. Soldiers and tanks were positioned every few hundred metres along the road, until you reached a section for taxis. I had no idea who to trust, and knocked back a couple of drivers. Finally, I found someone I could trust – an unemployed journalist. I instantly bonded with this man who had become a taxi driver when his employer retrenched him.
The reality of today’s Iraq – which covers much of what used to be Mesopotamia – is illustrated by the use of the ‘magic wand’ as a security measure. Throughout Baghdad one is stopped at security checkpoints. This is due to the number of car bombings. To check for explosives, soldiers walk around each car with a black machine – if it detects explosives it will vibrate. Supposedly. The problem is that everyone, including the soldiers using it, knows this is a fraud. The British man who sold these to Iraq was imprisoned for fraud – he had bought parts from China and made the wands in his back shed. But even though everyone knows that, people go along with the sham. What it means is that there is no protection at all against someone going through a checkpoint with a boot full of explosives.
From my hotel balcony I could look down the magnificent Tigris River. The deep-red sun setting over the river was a magnificent backdrop. But due to the growing battle against Islamic State, the scenes played out against it could resemble Apocalypse Now – army helicopters snaking their way along the river as they returned to the capital after a day in the field fighting Islamic State, only 30 minutes down the road.
A telling feature of Baghdad on one trip was that as we drove around on every block or two we reached a checkpoint manned by Peruvians. The US pushed for contracted workers to replace US military personnel at the checkpoints so that should any be killed it would not add to the death toll of American servicemen and women. Some of the Peruvians worked in these dangerous jobs for a few months – sometimes paid up to $US500 a day – and then returned to Peru, loaded with cash. If they survived.
But what explained Iraq to me more than anything was ‘Omar’. Omar is a name only ever given to Sunni Muslims. No Shiites would ever name their son Omar. Iranian-backed Shia militia have joined Iraqi soldiers – who are also Shia – at checkpoints around the city. If someone was stopped and his papers showed his name was Omar he was liable to be taken aside – not by the army but by the militia. That gave plausible deniability to the army – they could always argue that they had nothing to do with whatever happened next. But often that was the last time that person was seen alive, taken to a remote location, shot and left where they fell.
The worst group for these executions is the Iranian-backed Shia group Asaib Ahl al-Haq – the League of the Righteous. One can always tell whether the Sunni–Shia war is escalating, based on this grim barometer.
The curse of Omar.