Where
Al-Qaeda Reigns
By Dahr Jamail
17 April, 2007
Inter Press Service
DAMASCUS, Apr 16
(IPS) - Refugees from Baquba city who have now found shelter
in Damascus describe their hometown as a "dead city" where
armed men roam the streets and al-Qaeda reigns.
Baquba, capital city of Iraq's
Diyala province is located 50km northeast of Baghdad on the Diyala river.
In 2002 the estimated population was 280,000. The city has been inhabited
continuously since pre-Islamic times and is the trade centre for Iraq's
commercial orange groves.
The city become a hot spot
of resistance from early on in the occupation. It has been torn apart
in fighting between occupation forces and the Iraqi resistance -- and
also between various militia groups and al-Qaeda, its fleeing residents
say.
Al-Qaeda has emerged as a
distinct new group, refugees from the city say.
By the end of 2006 the city
was largely under the control of Sunni resistance groups, but by early
2007 residents report that al-Qaeda has formed a larger presence in
the city.
As a result more than half
the people in the city have fled, refugees say.
"Life in Baquba nowadays
is unbearable," Aziz Abdulla, an unemployed university professor
from Baquba who arrived in Damascus last week told IPS. "There
is no security at all. Violence is increasing day after day because
there is no control from the government and no real existence of coalition
forces there. Terrorists and other fighters rule the city. Baquba is
a city of terror."
Abdulla said that killing
and kidnapping are rampant. "We have all become used to seeing
dead bodies in the streets. I've seen too many. When we see them, nobody
touches the body because if you do you are killed by gunmen. They watch
for who touches the body, and kill that person right then or later."
No Western journalist dares
go to Baquba.
"I think well over half
of our city has left, and those who remain never leave their homes,"
Abdulla said. "Those who are left sit in their homes and wait for
their death. They may take their fate from a terrorist entering their
house, or a car bomb, or a shooting."
Baquba General Hospital is
in a state of collapse, refugees say. Dr. Ahmed Shibad, a 30- year-old
doctor from the hospital fled Baquba a month ago and now lives in the
al- Qudsiya neighbourhood on the outskirts of Damascus with tens of
thousands of other Iraqi refugees.
"I left Baquba because
of the terrorists and the Iraqi Army. The conditions at my hospital
were very, very bad," he told IPS. "We had no supplies, and
the Iraqi forces occupied the hospital and used it as an observation
post, and use the roof as a sniper platform."
He, like Abdulla, said al-Qaeda
was largely in control of the city, and that U.S. forces were doing
little to stop them. But his main complaint was the Iraqi forces.
"The Iraqi forces determine
who enters the hospital or not, and this causes a big problem for the
doctors," he said. "They take many innocent people from the
hospital. Our morgue in the hospitals can holds 12 corpses, but it is
always over-filled."
Dr. Shibad said prior to
the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, Diyala province had 600
doctors. The last he knew, he said, there were only 124 and the number
is decreasing each month.
One of the U.S. bases in
the city is referred to as Camp Boom by the U.S. soldiers stationed
there because it takes so many attacks from armed groups, refugees said.
Another U.S. Forward Operating
Base (FOB) called FOB Scunion is separated from the larger Camp Freedom
I by a highway known as ‘RPG (rocket propelled grenade) Alley'
because of the many attacks against coalition forces there.
"Americans only control
one kilometre of road, which is the main road where the governor's office
and court building are in central Baquba, and they rarely run patrols
in the city because they are attacked every time," a refugee who
just arrived from Baquba told IPS.
He asked to be referred to
as Haida for fear of reprisal attacks from armed groups, al- Qaeda or
the U.S. forces. "Every day we see attacks against the Americans.
This is because the coalition forces created their own enemies by being
so rough on the people of Baquba since the beginning of the occupation."
Haida said that control of
the city is shared between Iraqi resistance groups who are fighting
coalition forces, and "the other group is al-Qaeda." Either
way, he said, - men carrying guns control the majority of Baquba."
Despite its small size, Diyala
province has seen the sixth largest number of U.S. troops killed in
Iraq among the 18 provinces in the country. According to the U.S. Department
of Defence, at least 144 troops have been killed there, 44 of them this
year.
Haida and Abdulla, who come
from different areas of Baquba, told IPS separately that the city has
almost completely shut down now. There are no markets open and those
who remain live on locally grown vegetables and fruit.
"There is nothing transported
from Baghdad because there is no way to travel there due to the unofficial
checkpoints controlled by militias," said Haida. "If you pass
through one and you are the wrong sect of Islam, you are killed immediately.
People have stopped going to Baghdad. We are cut off."
Abdulla said petrol is too
expensive for most people, and inflation is "out of control."
Petrol is in any case rarely available since "tankers can no longer
reach the city from Baghdad."
Money counts for little,
he said. "There is no money at the banks because bringing the money
from Baghdad to Baquba is too dangerous. The government cannot control
it, and the money will be stolen by so many different groups of people.
Our city has become a dead city."
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