Baghdad Clashes Batter Residents’ Hopes

For a few chaotic minutes, it seemed that the mob might take control of the neighborhood.

Armed militiamen blocked roads with boulders and small fires and cordoned off sidewalks with razor wire. Overhead, a U.S. helicopter ducked gunfire as black smoke billowed from a burned-out military truck.

Seconds later, the tide turned. U.S. tanks rumbled down the commercial thoroughfare as attack helicopters opened fire, sending hundreds of black-clad militiamen and bystanders running for cover. It was over -- for now.

Street skirmishes such as this one -- which occurred this week in a middle-class Shiite Muslim-dominated community in Baghdad -- have horrified many residents of the capital and contributed to a growing sense that the recent mayhem will only worsen.

“I have a feeling that this violence is not going to stop,” said Ali Abid Hussein, a 35-year-old civil engineer. “I’m afraid this could be the start of a civil war.”

For the first time in months, the Iraqi capital has the look and feel of a war zone. The tanks are back. So are the foot patrols and the low-flying helicopters that roar over rooftops day and night.

In the northwestern section of the city, gunfights and mortar explosions are a nightly ritual. Terrified residents sit in their homes, praying that the clashes between American troops and the masked followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtader Sadr don’t drift down their street.

By sunrise each day, bleary-eyed residents emerge to inspect the damage. In the Sunni-dominated Adhamiya neighborhood Wednesday morning, the streets were littered with bullet casings. A red Volkswagen Passat, sliced in half by a tank, lay in a heap.

Shopkeepers in the Karada commercial district are closing early each night amid rumors that looting will resume. One Baghdad store owner welded his security gate shut, and another moved his goods out of his store for safekeeping.

“I’ve already transferred some of my things back home,” said Ali Mahoud Abbass, who owns a gold shop in the Kadhimiya area. “There is no doubt that there will be looting. I feel completely hopeless to see all this going on in our Iraq. The situation is getting worse.”

Several schools shut their doors this week, and the streets, usually congested, were less so. Baghdad’s technology university was also turning students away, not for security concerns, but because a group of students loyal to Sadr had seized control. Unarmed students blocked the gates, saying they were showing their support for Sadr, whose militia continues to clash with U.S. troops in several Iraqi cities.

“But we have to be back in classes,” said an exasperated Ali Abdul Nahab, 28, a computer engineering student, who stood across the street with other students. “We have exams soon.” However, in such uncertain times, most of the students and teachers said they would simply comply with the shutdown.

“People are afraid and don’t know what to do,” said Ahmed Khadum Kalaf, 30, a government employee. “Who is controlling the country? The Americans? The Iraqis? The militias? We’ve reached a dead end. God knows what will happen.”

Alaa Mohammed Jamal, 24, an English student at Baghdad University, fears that the opportunity to create a stable democratic government is rapidly diminishing.

“People are carrying weapons, and no one has any idea whether they are here to protect us or attack us,” Jamal said. “We thought we had a new future waiting for us. But now I feel like we are being drawn into a darkness worse than in Saddam’s time.”

One Iraqi woman, whose neighborhood has seen repeated clashes this week, said her family had grown accustomed to the violence. “Listen,” she said. “You can hear the helicopters in the sky right now. And there are my children playing outside. So it’s not bothering them.”

U.S. and Iraqi officials say the unrest is tied to the planned June 30 hand-over of power and that it will be contained.

“We have been expecting an escalation of unrest as the authority hand-over approaches. Therefore we are not surprised that some foreign elements are taking advantage of the whole situation to instigate further unrest,” said Iyad Allawi, who heads the security committee of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. “We know that this will continue as Iraq comes closer to independence. Some people want to undermine the transition, but the Iraqi people will prevail.”

A spokesman for the U.S.-led occupation authority said the violence was limited to a small portion of the country.

“A tiny percentage of the country is taking up arms, and they represent individuals and organizations that have a fundamentally different vision of the future of Iraq from our vision, and from what we believe the majority of the Iraqi people envision for the future,” said the spokesman, Dan Senor.

One Governing Council member said the unrest raised an ominous question about the transfer of authority: If the U.S., with the extraordinary powers of an occupier and more than 100,000 troops, is struggling to keep the peace, how will the new government be able to do it?

Samir Shakir Mahmoud, a Sunni Muslim and independent member of the council, said the interim leadership would need emergency police powers, which were not included in the interim constitution.

But several Iraqis said the end of the occupation would bring peace closer. “Everything will be all right,” Nasar Sadoun said. “We just want the Americans to get out.”

--- UNPUBLISHED NOTE ---

In stories after April 9, 2004, Shiite cleric Muqtader Sadr is correctly referred to as Muqtada Sadr.

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