What Else Can I say?

While covering the aftermath of the bombing that targeted one of the Shiites most revered Shrine in Samara, Atwar Bahjat became part of the story. Before the bombing, Bahjat, 30, an Iraqi reporter for the Dubai-based channel, Al-Arabiya, was assigned to report on the oil-rich city, Kirkuk said her colleague, Hadeer al-Rubaei. “When the Samara events happened,” Rubaie said, “she called and said she is going to Samarra to report on the attack. I tried to tell her not to go because it is very dangerous but she insisted to go.”

Ahmed Al-Salih, a reporter in the channel said that Bahjat was kidnapped as she was covering the explosion that targeted the holy Shiite Shrine in Samara along with two other colleagues, a technician and a sound engineer. “She was covering the news from the boundaries of Samarra because the security forces blocked all the entrances and exits” Salih said.

Salih said that Anmar Ashour, a cameraman for a Turkish news agency was with Bahjat at the time she was kidnapped but was able to run away from the kidnappers. After interior ministry commandoes found the three bodies, Ashour told them, two armed men in one car shot in the air to scare the people who were gathering to enter Samara. Then they shouted and said they want “The reporter”. People were scared. They escaped. Then, the two armed men kidnapped the three of them and took them to an unknown destination.”

Bahjat joined Al-Arabiya three weeks ago, Salih said. She was a correspondent of Al-Jazeera, a Qatari news agency. She was a writer, an artist and a poetess, her colleagues said.


When the news of her death came out, I was at my desk collecting news from our stringers in other provinces. I was completely shocked. I didn’t expect that the next victim would be the reporter.

As far as I knew her, Atwar Bahjat was one of the most active reporters Iraq ever witnessed. She was everywhere every time. I don’t remember she missed a conference even when Al-Jazeera’s office was closed, she attended the press conferences. I was very glad that Al-Arabiya hired her because I believed that she deserves them and they deserve her. Although she did not have that long time in the channel, she was a good example among her colleagues. She had a remarkable appearance on the screen with her Iraqi-map golden necklace she always wore.


I don’t know how to explain her death in the middle of this chaos the country is going through since the latest bombing. I cannot even find a way to express my grief. Tears have almost dried. I feel I am using blood instead of ink. What kind of cruelty is this to kill an innocent journalist who sacrificed her life just to tell the truth. She was there to tell the world that what happened was a crime and what is coming is worse as if she expected her death.

This morning when I was watching the news, my tears kept falling for the terrible accidents that happened to her funeral procession. These criminals opened fire at the procession when her coffin was taken to the graveyard and a car bomb exploded targeting it. what the hell is going on? She is dead for God’s sake. Let her be buried peacefully. Even the dead people have to suffer the misery of the situation.

Jill’s deadline is tomorrow. It aches me and makes me feel so terrible. She was my comfort along with J. I don’t know whether she’ll be released or not. I am afraid of one thing. I am afraid that her captors will kill her like what happened to Margaret Hasan during the Falluja battle. Oh Jill!! I am sorry to all what is happening to you. I wish I could do something to help you. But please remember that one day you had an Iraqi friend who really cares about you and loves you like his sister. I cannot believe that it has been almost two months since you were kidnapped. You know that we love you and we need you.

Last night I couldn’t sleep. How could I? Can you imagine someone’s country is being destroyed and he or she sleeps? Shootings and explosions rocked the neighborhood. I didn’t fear them because this became something normal in our life, just like drinking water and going to work. What made me stay awake is whether we will pass this war or not. The last time I had this feeling was in 2003 when I expected the US army or the Fedayeen break into our house and kill us. I hate this damn feeling. I can’t live like this. War war war! enough enough. I wish I didn’t hope for democracy and freedom to come to Iraq. Being oppressed but safe is better than being free and unsafe. Don’t tell me all these slogans of freedom and democracy. I am fed up with them. I don’t need anything more. I’ve had enough freedom and democracy. My best period in my life is destroyed. What kind of life is this when a young man cannot play sports, cannot date a woman, cannot walk freely, cannot work freely, cannot take his car and drive in the city, cannot cannot cannot and cannot???!!!! It just makes life so hard. I cannot say I want to die but I may say it one day if this continues. Why did the American administration come and destroy the remaining of the county that Saddam destroyed? And now what? Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia. Leave the countries in peace for God’s sake. Just try to fix your problems away from us. Leave us in peace. Iraqis did not fight each other for hundreds of years till you came.

Just in my neighborhood, four people were found shot dead. No one knows who these people were and why they were killed. We just heard the shootings at dawn and nothing more. Now, I have my rifle prepared. A friend of mine in another neighborhood called me last night. He was scared. Armed men are looking for Sunnis to kidnap and kill them, he said. I am so worried. I cannot even study for the TOEFL and GRE. I don’t even know if I will be able to have the tests or not. I am so worried about my parents. I am afraid that something bad happens to my sister, my brother-in-law and my beloved niece. I would kill myself is something bad happens to them. They are the last thing I have in this life and if they go, I don’t have anything in this life anymore.

It is hard for me to leave Iraq. It is in my blood, in my soul, in my prayers. I am afraid if I leave, I would never come back and this would be really my end. I love Iraq. I just love it. I am afraid if I leave I might die without seeing it again. I need to live in peace in my own country, marry an Iraqi woman and raise my children in their country. I need to have a normal life.

I’ve been patient for a long time. I’ve been tired of staying awake and worried. Even if I succeed and leave the country, my heart will stop and it will be like a stone. I will be like a robot and a machine that works for the sake of work because everything beautiful will be gone. Everything, my country, my roots, my friends, my family, and my whole life. I said it previously and will say it agains, “Farewell peace. We’ll miss you so much.”

Civil War, Sectarian Strife, and "Liberation"!

It was a sunny, cool, and beautiful day till the bad news was spread in allover the country. "One of the most revered shrines in Shiite Islam was bombed early this morning, causing the collapse of its dome," I heard the anchor saying on radio saw while I was going back to the office after a short assignment. Here is news again. I did not expect that this time it is not a mere explosion. It was worse than that. When I returned back to the office, I started working on gathering the information and then my bureau chief assigned me to write the story to the web.

The first footage I saw was shown on the CNN taken from a local Iraqi channel, Al-Masar. I was shocked by the fact that a huge part of the shrines of Imam Ali al-Hadi and his son Hasan al-Askari were damaged by the bombs. Iron bars poking into the sky were all that was left. I did not have a good feeling and thought this might be the spark unless Iraqis understand that this is what their enemies really want. "I hope they don't reach their goals," I said within myself of the terrorists act. But I was wrong. What happened was not so much expected until the Shiite Marjiya [religious authorities], the Sunni clergymen and politicians, and the educated people showed up on TV and radio stations. They called on Iraqis to be aware of the danger and to have self control. However, attacks against Sunnis have already started.

In the midst of the chaos and our continuous efforts to gather information and news, my cell phone rang. It was my friend A. "What's up?!" I asked. He said, "Well, I should ask you. Most streets are blocked by army and police. We hear shootings here and there," he added. I asked him where he was at the time and then I discovered that he and his other colleagues were asked to leave work and go back home as fast as possible to avoid any "possible attack". I told him the news as I found out he did not have the chance to see it or hear it in the news. Schools, universities, and government institutions were closed and everybody was sent home. A few hours after the news was spread in Baghdad, streets were full with raged Shiites and Sunnis.

Just in Baghdad, at least 27 Sunni mosques and an office for the Iraqi Islamic Party were attacked by gunmen after the bomb blast in Samarra. Police told Reuters that one mosque was completely burnt while others were attacked with small-arms fire and rocket propelled grenades. Three clerics and three bodyguards were killed, and another cleric was kidnapped, according to interior ministry sources. In Diwaniya, (110 miles) south of Baghdad, clashes erupted after militiamen loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr attacked the houses of Arab Sunnis. One of Sadr's men was killed, a member of the Diwaniya provincial council told Reuters. Southwards, in Basra, gunmen attacked a Sunni mosque with rocket propelled grenades and the local police said shootouts erupted between Sadr's militiamen and members of the Iraqi Islamic Party in the city.

Iraq's failure Shiite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari announced a three-day mourning in a televised appearance. "I call on my people to express their condemnation," Jafari said. He asked Iraqis to "close the door to all those who are fishing in the troubled water." Huh! Oh really?! Good morning Dr. Jafari! I am glad you woke up.

I decided to go back home early and work from there. I expected most of the streets to be blocked by the security forces. I made my driver take me in an armored car this time. I hate to use it but I had to. It was the sunset time. Most Iraqis usually seize the opportunity that it is not too late, so they hang out for shopping and having some fun. Today, Baghdad looked like the city of ghosts. All the way back home, I saw few cars and all were speeding to avoid any danger might happen. It was scary, specially it wasn't fully dark.

And now, I am sad to see a country suffered from tyranny will suffer from a civil war. I am afraid that we'll have the same fate of Lebanon. I don't know if this civil strife will stop or continue. Even under dictatorship and tyranny, we have not gone through such a day. It is hard to see this beautiful and ancient country destroyed. It seems what the Americans have done was not enough. Iraqis should suffer, be killed, watch themselves humiliated, and kill each other just because America wants to remove Saddam from its way to make the world safer. Or let's say to make America safer and hell be with the non-Americans as some of them say. Let the whole world be happy and "safe" now because Iraq's "liberation" made it safe for them, but unfortunately made it a hell for Iraqis.

Bitter Smile

Unlike everyday, I started my day looking at a picture of a beautiful Iraqi woman wearing a traditional Iraqi dress. As usual, Iraqis start their days with pictures of explosions, people running, a woman weeping, a child crying, a group of people shot dead and so on. This morning was different; they started the day with this beautiful smile which they miss a lot.
The picture showed a young Iraqi model putting on a beautiful Arabic traditional dress, Galabiya, with golden decorations. This model’s picture was taken yesterday during the opening of the Iraqi folkloric fashion show sponsored by the Iraqi culture ministry. “Wow! It’s weird. I thought I will see either a picture of a bombing or something like that,” I said to O. I cheered up and was so delighted to see a picture of a woman with a beautiful smile, a smile that is almost missing due to the daily suffering in an occupied and destroyed country.

I have to say that the daily pictures I see everyday makes me so sad and increase my pain to watch my country destroyed. But today, this picture changed my mood. I kept staring at it and thought about how we are far from happiness and smile to the extent I found this picture strange.

Now, back to reality!

Before the U.S.-led invasion, media in Iraq was not free. Newspapers, TV channels and radio stations flourished since then. Journalists become free to express reality of the situation without praising a leader or a specific party. However, these journalists did not expect their job to be one of the most dangerous and did not expect their newly “liberated” country would be the most dangerous.

Since 2005 to the meantime, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York-based nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide, published the names of the journalists who were killed since the invasion in 2003. The CPJ said that the number of the Iraqi journalists killed in 2005 and 2006 reached 23, 22 in 2005 and 1 in 2006. Anchors, cameramen, reporters, editors, news producers and directors are all subjected to the danger of the US forces and the widespread insurgents who do not believe in freedom of writing.

As a reporter, I’ve been at risk in Baghdad and other provinces several times. Working for an Iraqi media means something but working for US media means something else! As an Iraqi reporter working with a US media, I am considered a “spy”, “collaborator” or sometimes an “infidel” in the eyes of the insurgents who said have the “right” to kill me as I broke the rule of “true Islam” and become a “spy to the infidels”, which is nonsense.

At any scene, nothing is guaranteed. The journalist, whether foreigner or Iraqi, is subjected to different kinds of danger. U.S. and Iraqi forces are always hostile to journalists at scenes, mostly those of explosions. They have the “right” to shoot you in the head if they just “suspect” you. For instance, Waleed Khalid, 35, a soundman for Reuters, was shot by U.S. forces several times in the head and chest as he drove with cameraman Haidar Kadhem to investigate a report of clashes between armed men and police in Baghdad's al-Adil neighborhood, Reuters reported. However, I believe the main danger facing journalists in Iraq comes from insurgents. Iraqi journalists fall victims to revenge attacks by insurgents, mostly Sunni groups who do not let Iraqis work with foreigners, especially with Western news media. And those who murder journalists usually go unpunished.

So far, I haven’t heard any journalist was killed by Iraqi police. They just do not cooperate with journalists at scenes. Once, I was covering an explosion targeted a Church in Baghdad, I was shooting some photos and taking notes form the scene. Suddenly, an Iraqi policeman yelled at me and then he and other policemen handcuffed me despite my screams that I am a journalist. They did not care and were about to confiscate my camera till I convinced them to release me by deleting the pictures I’ve got.

Since I started working, I have been so cautious in telling people where I work. No one in my neighborhood knows what I do. If so, I would be finished in a minute as I live in a very dangerous neighborhood where three young men were killed just because insurgents discovered where they worked. When I leave my house, I look right and left to make sure no stranger is following me or monitoring me from distance. The same thing happens when I go back, which is always late at night. I said it previously that I had told my parents not to open the door if someone comes late. Instead, I go and open it incase someone wants to shoot me. I’d rather be killed instead of watching my parents be killed in front of me. Also, people started to ask. My neighbors are bothering my family by asking about me and why I don’t show up in the neighborhood as I used to be. My barber noticed that I did not show up for a month and a half. Well, of course, I was in the US at that time but do I dare to tell him this? I have to say that I am being cautious, but the question is: is this enough?!

Is that it? Of course, not. I have to mention that it is not only the journalist who faces danger; it is his driver, his interpreter and even his cook as well! Several drivers and interpreters of journalists were either threatened or killed just because they work for journalists. Few days ago, a driver working for a western media was shot dead in the middle of the street near his house in Baghdad. The security situation is getting worse day after day. No serious efforts are made to maintain security in the country. I know Iraqi police and army are doing their utmost efforts to control the situation, but this is not enough. People should cooperate with them to get rid of the dirty things that entered and destroyed our beautiful country. Journalists should be backed up not left unsecured. They have to speak out the truth that some people in the outside world don’t want to listen to it.

Death Squad

As Iraqis are trying to forget the misery of the footage and pictures of the prisoners and demonstrators abuse in 2003 and 2004, a new scandal showed up. This time, it came by Iraqi Police forces. In yesterday’s edition, the Chicago Tribune reported that “the U.S. military has stumbled across the first evidence of a death squad within Iraq's Interior Ministry after the detention last month of 22 men wearing police commando uniforms who were about to shoot a Sunni man, according to the American general overseeing the training of Iraqi police.”

As a response to this, Iraq’s interior minister’s deputy, Maj. Gen. Hussein Kamal, in charge of domestic intelligence, told the Associated Press that they “have been informed about this and the interior minister has formed an investigation committee”.

The Tribune said that the discovery of the death squad came about almost by chance, when an Iraqi army checkpoint in northern Baghdad stopped the men in late January and asked what they were doing. They responded truthfully, telling the soldiers that they were taking the Sunni man away to be shot dead.

It has been a long time when people in Baghdad and some other cities in Iraq expressed their worries concerning the continuous unexpected raids and kidnappings done by the Iraqi security forces. Sunni politicians and clerics have frequently urged the people, specifically Sunnis, to be more cautious and urged the Iraqi government to investigate in such cases. They have also called on the Prime Minister and the President to order the interior ministry to stop raids and kidnapings at night.

People in areas, where many are kidnapped or found shot dead, believe that the Badr Organization, the armed wing of the Supreme Council, is responsible. The Tribune quoted Maj. Gen. Joseph Peterson, who commands the civilian police training teams in Iraq saying that “The uniformed men were all subsequently found to be employed by the ministry as highway patrolmen, and investigations suggest the four "instigators" in U.S. custody owed their allegiance to the Badr Organization.”

For months, the Muslim Sunni minority in Iraq have relatives that have been kidnapped in late hours of the day or at dawn. They found their bodies few days later, blind folded, handcuffed and shot dead.

The last major incident where security forces kidnapped Sunnis was on Jan. 23. “Men in camouflage uniforms rounded up 53 Tobji residents, nearly all of them Sunnis, in pre-dawn raids. Two people were killed. Other than two old men who were released days later, none of those taken have been heard from since” the Washington Post reported in an article published last Saturday.

On the other hand, the Majority Shiite Muslims in Iraq have been massacred in different areas in the country since the Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab Zarqawi announced his “war” against the Shiites whom he considered as “infidels” according to the Salafi doctrine he follows.

In latest attack against Shiites in Iraq, “Gunmen killed at least nine farmers from the same family and wounded two others in the city of Balad, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, Iraqi police and hospital officials said Tuesday.” According to the Washington Post.

Today, Try to Taste Love, Just Love!

Take a deep breath for a minute and open your heart. Say “I love you” to your sweetheart, wife, husband, fiancée, father and mother. Forget about the bombs, killings and assassinations and leave a moment of happiness for your heart today. Ignore anyone bothers you. Feel the word “love”. Listen to love songs. Buy red roses and give them to your love. Don’t read bad news. Focus on the happy things you might not see soon and say, “Happy Valentine”.

Go out and find a presents shop. Start the engine of your car, challenge death, go out and buy a present to your beloved ones. Do not hesitate. If you see something you don’t like in the street, ignore it and think of the love present and the smile you are going to see on the face of your beloved ones.

If you don’t have fuel in your car, leave it and take a taxi. Don’t find an excuse to stay sad. Call your friends and tell them you miss them and you miss the old days and the happy times you had before the war. Go and see them, at least for 10 minuets. Go out for lunch with them. You’ll see how happy they will be when they see you.

Before it gets dark, take your wife, husband, fiancée, boyfriend or girlfriend and go to a restaurant and have dinner. Don’t say anything about the war, occupation or terrorists. Forget about the hard time you are going through and think of your love only. Think of how you are going to have babies and how you are going to be happy.

Keep your smile the whole day and keep your faith and hope. I know this sounds impossible these days but it is worth to try. Happy Valentine! :)

Hurray! Praise to be to the “Liberators”

Iraqi teenagers decided to practice their right, which was promised by the “liberators.” “Democracy” allows them to demand better life and better services. Unarmed, but with their frustrated words, and desperate, but of the forth coming “democratic country,” they marched to the British military base in Basra in southern Iraq.

As the day heated, demonstrators threw rocks at the walls of the base, not expecting what to be next. Their rocks energized the “protectors of southern Iraq” [as the British military spokesman in Basra called them a while ago.] The demonstrators did not expect the “running dogs” to attack that moment. But they did. British soldiers captured three of them and bit them joyfully.

The newly released video the News of the Day newspaper shows at least eight “liberators” cruelly DRAGGING four unarmed civilians, all teenagers, off the street and behind the high walls of a British army compound, BEATING them senseless with vicious blows from batons, boots and fists, IGNORING their pitiful pleas for mercy, until the incident climaxes with what appears to be an NCO delivering a sickening full-force kick in the genitals of a cringing lad pinned to the ground. All the while the callous cameraman delivers a stomach-churning commentary urging his mates on, cackling with laughter and screaming: "Oh yes! Oh yes! You're gonna get it. Yes, naughty little boys! You little f***ers, you little f***ers. DIE! Ha, ha!"

BBC quoted the British military spokesman Flight Lieutenant Chris Thomas, based in Basra, saying: "We hope that the good relations that the multi-national forces have worked very hard to develop won't be adversely affected by this material."

Nonsense! I wish he could be among the mothers and fathers of these victims to see how they feel and then let him hope. Is he trying to fool himself or fool the people? The people are no longer fools especially after the Abu Ghraib scandal. There should be an end to these vicious actions. It seems what happened in Abu Ghraib by the other “liberators” was not enough for these monsters. They need to see more and more people being humiliated and tortured. BOTH of the country’s “liberators” gathered and claimed to liberate Iraq. Is this is the way liberation is?! Someone should tell me!

Now, Iraqis are expected to throw roses at these “liberators”. Hurray! Praise to be to the “Liberators”.

Iraqi Children Grow Violent

While I was having dinner with my father last night, I laughed at something he told me. “Yousif wants to join Star Academy [the Lebanese version]!”. I kept laughing and laughing because I know that Yousif, our neighbor’s son, is only 4 years-old.

Yousif is like all other Iraqi children who are deprived of their beautiful childhood. Instead of spending his time in a children library or an amusement park, he spends it either in the street or in watching TV shows which adults always watch. When my father told me this, I realized that children in Iraq need to learn many things and I think the first step should be taken by parents.

In every Eid, Yousif and the other children who live in the same street, gather in their fancy Eid clothes and take to the streets playing. They don’t have dolls or educative toys. Instead, they have pistols and rifles. I remember seeing Yousif imitating a security contractor guarding a convoy and pointing his gun at his friends, who are in the shoes of average people in the street. Dhuha, his 5-year-old friend imitated a woman scared and running in the street while Younis, his 5-year-old brother, who always repeats his father words against the U.S. forces, imitated an insurgent carrying his rifle and calling his friends to chase and kill another friend, Omar, who was imitating an American individual. They were accurate in performing the misery of our life. I spent an hour, shocked, watching them playing, or to be more accurate, fighting.

What a tragedy! Instead of making the new generations learn how to build their country, they are learning how to destroy it. This phenomenon is not new, but of course it increased since the US-led invasion to Iraq in 2003. since then, Iraqis, mostly children, became familiarized with images of weaponry and violence; images of US forces, US security contractors and insurgents are shown on Television and in reality.

Back in the early 1980s, my father never bought a toy weapons for me. Instead, he brought children magazines and books. Of course, that was the same with my friends, relatives, and almost all Iraqi children at the time. Although Iraq was in an 8-year-long war with neighboring Iran, education was much better than now.

I believe that the reason behind seeing children playing a “war game” is the negligence of their parents who are being busy with the difficulties of their life in an endless war with insurgents and occupiers.

After dinner, I flipped through Al-Sabah newspaper. A title drew my attention, “A new Iraqi Educative TV Channel to be established and directed to children.” The article said that there are efforts being paid to establish a channel for the Iraqi children sponsored by The Childhood Cultural House, a pioneer center that is dedicated to educate Iraqi children.

The center also said that last year, it republished one of the most famous children magazines, “Majalati” and “Mizmar” and that they distribute them now to children for free. That cheered me up because these two magazines were my favorites along with other magazines like “Superman” and the different scientific and artistic books the center used to publish. The center also said that they reopened the Children’s Library in Baghdad which was burned and looted after and during the invasion.

Now, I think parents should do their best to seize this opportunity. They have to send their children to this center to read. I know, it is hard to get there but at least they should try. They should avoid making their children looking at US forces or insurgents fighting with each other. They should let them see a picture of an engineer in a construction location, a doctor in a hospital, or a teacher in a classroom. On the other side, I hope the image of fighting stops or at least becomes less in residential areas where children play and go to schools. Teachers in schools should also stop their personal attitudes concerning America, the west, or insurgents. They have to focus on how to create a new generation that thinks of building the country rather than imitating people that will leave sooner or later.