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A Baghdad Neighborhood Holds Its Breath

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Times Staff Writer

Seated in the sanctuary of his darkened living room, cinema professor Sabah Mehdi Mosawi grimaced at the dangers he faces on a typical day in this typical neighborhood of Iraq’s capital.

“Today I went to the market and discovered later that I just missed passing over a mine,” he said.

Such risks have become commonplace around Muhallah 665, a district of Baghdad profiled late last year by The Times. So have assaults, robberies, kidnappings and other violence.

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Mosawi has an added concern: that his Polish-born wife and their children could be attacked by anti-Western elements because they have light skin and coloring.

“It is amazing how quickly all the norms of ethical and moral behavior were destroyed,” said the professor, who has a worn and sad face.

Nonetheless, in a week during which the 14-month U.S.-led occupation officially ended, an interim Iraqi government under Prime Minister Iyad Allawi took office and Saddam Hussein appeared in court to be charged with the abuses under his rule, Mosawi was not without hope that the country was entering a new phase.

“It is possible that life will change back just as quickly,” he said. “The moment that people feel secure, you will feel the difference, even in a matter of seconds.”

Outwardly, Muhallah 665 and the surrounding Ghazaliya neighborhood are little changed. A patina of dust still covers the streets and trees, the cars are still rickety, electricity is still a sometimes thing. But since open warfare erupted during the spring in Fallouja and Abu Ghraib, two insurgent-dominated cities along a highway just to the west, the area feels decidedly less welcoming to outsiders.

Even longtime acquaintances are reluctant to receive visits from foreigners, and feel uncertain of their guests’ safety.

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Some residents of Muhallah 665 have fallen victim to the violence. They include a young Shiite Muslim sheik, Wisam Fawadi, who last year commandeered the former Baath Party headquarters to make a mosque in the neighborhood. He was gunned down one morning in December after leading prayers. And a former senior official in the Baath Party, Abdul Qadir Naass Suweidi, collapsed and died a few weeks ago after learning that one of his sons had been killed, said a woman in mourning garb who came to the gate at his house.

The 53-year-old Mosawi wonders each time he goes to the university whether he will make it home safely, or whether he might fall victim to a mass suicide attack or random crime.

“If the man is afraid, how can the woman not be?” he asked.

A neighbor who came to join the living-room conversation, Hassan Naji, said he had known Prime Minister Allawi’s family for a long time and sees him as a good leader. Like Mosawi, he hopes that the new government will go on the offensive against the terrorists.

“These agents are paid for from abroad. Or they are brainwashed,” said the retired professor of organic chemistry, who was educated at the University of Texas. “The only way for Allawi to defeat them is to re-create Saddam’s security system.” Of course, he added, it should be with different personnel and without imposing suffering on ordinary people.

A few miles away, Sayed Abbas, a Shiite businessman who was appointed to the Ghazaliya area council set up by American troops last year, had even more reason to be fearful. He was shot and slightly wounded in front of his house in Muhallah 665 this year, and a few days later, he received an anonymous letter.

“Cease being a collaborator,” the letter said, “and cooperating with the occupiers and hurting the sons of your country. Otherwise, you will face the fate of the traitors.” It was signed: “The Detachments of the Islamic Jihad.”

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Abbas moved away. He agreed to speak only at his business in Shulla, a heavily Shiite area to the north of Ghazaliya across a fetid and garbage-filled sewage canal. As he spoke, friends watched the street for him.

Despite the experience, he said, he is hopeful that the new government under the leadership of Allawi and President Ghazi Ajil Yawer will begin to restore order. Although the government grew out of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council and is unelected, he said, even Shiites will support it if the new leaders show that they are in control and independent of the United States.

“Now, they are doubted and we are skeptical toward them, as they rode in on the carriages of our enemies,” he said. “But it is up to them; they will be able to beautify their portraits and cleanse themselves by their actions.”

That wait-and-see attitude is widespread here.

So far, area residents have heard little from their new government, except for news of its first steps this week toward putting Hussein on trial. They had the same mixed responses as their fellow countrymen, with his opponents calling for vengeance and his supporters longing that he be left alone.

However, residents were virtually universal in their applause for Allawi’s determination to put more uniformed Iraqis on the street.

“We are fed up with all the bloodshed.... What we are seeing nowadays -- the deployment of the Iraqi police and their attempts to revive enforcing the law -- is a positive thing,” said Ezzuddin Sammarrai, 45, a prosperous Sunni Muslim merchant who sells plastic goods from a shop along the neighborhood’s main road.

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His family, like most around here, faced recent trauma, the longtime resident said. Sammarrai’s 16-year-old nephew, Zaid, was taken by a gang of kidnappers. The plump, handsome boy spoke hesitantly about the ordeal. He said eight criminals burst into their home, pointed guns at family members and began taking their valuables.

“We were stunned and looking at them,” the teenager recounted. “After taking whatever they wanted, they asked for the key of the BMW parked in the garage, and told me to come with them.

“I stayed with them five days, and after long negotiations, my family paid 5 million dinars [about $3,500] to get me released.”

He is still shaken but feels better now that Iraqi police are taking greater charge of the security situation. “When I see the IP checkpoints and their men in the streets, I feel happy,” he said. “The Iraqis are better than the Americans.”

Sadoun Abdul Ameer and his wife, Sahira, spent the last few months fixing up their small house and recently had a baby. Late last year, he was among the most upbeat residents. A Shiite who narrowly missed being sentenced to death for a protest against the old government, he was intent on catching up on the time he had lost during seven years in the former dictator’s prisons.

True to his aim, he has been active. He is driving a taxi and working on behalf of Shiites and ex-prisoners. Although he feels that the new government is not fully legitimate, he too is willing to give it a chance -- even if it decides to impose martial law.

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“We want it to be applied, and we will cooperate,” he said. “The situation is critical. Nobody feels safe, not our women, not our children.”

But he also has deep misgivings about how things are going.

“Most of those who are ruling are opportunists. They are ready to leave the country as soon as the security gets worse. There is no optimism,” he said. “What I am saying I feel from the pulse of the street as a taxi driver, as a tribesman and as a politician.”

In spite of the lawlessness, many residents here say they would be happy if there were fewer U.S. troops on the streets -- some because they see the soldiers as a magnet for attacks by insurgents, and others because they feel humiliated and threatened by the armed foreigners.

A U.S. military battalion that was based in the area redeployed in January. Before leaving, the battalion helped set up an office for the neighborhood council. Today, however, the council members come only at irregular hours, fearful of being attacked as collaborators.

One member, Saleh Mehdi Saleh, who prefers to be called Abu Farooq, was lounging there dressed in a green track suit and surrounded by eight armed police. He said it was good that Iraqis now would have a chance to tackle the problem themselves.

“Let us give the current government a chance,” he said, “and see what it can do.”

Raheem Salman of The Times’ Baghdad Bureau contributed to this report.

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