Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

'Welcome to Tehran' - how Iran took control of Basra

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad — 2007-05-19T06:47:00Z

in Basra

On a recent overcast afternoon in Basra, two new police SUVs drove onto a dusty, rubbish-strewn football pitch where a group of children were playing. The game stopped and the kids looked on.

Three men in white dishdashas got out of one of the cars. One, holding a Kalashnikov, stood guard as the other two removed some metal tubes and cables from the back of a vehicle. As the two men fiddled with the wires, the man with the gun waved it at a teenager who wanted to film with his mobile phone.

Then, amid cries of "Moqtada, Moqtada" and "Allahu Akbar", there were two thunderous explosions and a pair of Katyusha rockets streaked up into the sky. Their target would be the British base in Saddam Hussein's former palace compound. Their landing place could be anywhere in Basra, and was most likely to be a civilian home. (...)

- / Guardian

Inside Iraq's hidden war

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad — 2006-05-20T09:55:00Z

As a new 'national unity' government prepares to take power in Baghdad, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad reports from behind the lines of a vicious sectarian conflict rapidly spiralling towards civil war

Some men hold paper tissues under their noses; others wrap their kuffiya ends around their mouths. It is a hot and humid day at the city's main morgue where 20 men stand in a yard, their faces pressed with silent urgency against the bars of a window, next to a white plastic sign that baldly announces the location of "The Refrigerator".

Inside sits the clerk of the morgue, his computer monitor turned towards them. Faces flash on the screen: a man with his face blackened and bruised; another man, older, maybe in his 50s, with a white beard and an orange-sized hole in his forehead; and another on a green stretcher, his arms twisted unnaturally behind him. (...)

- / Guardian

Saddam or Bush?

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad — 2006-04-10T16:41:20Z

Everyone I meet in the Middle East - the taxi driver in Amman, the shawerma seller in Damascus, the Palestinian refugee in the south of Lebanon, the old communist drinking home-made alcohol in an underground cell in Sana'a, Yemen - the moment they realise I am an Iraqi, all ask the same question: "Is the situation in Iraq better or worse than it was under Saddam?"

I thought that was just the Middle East, but even in New York a Bushite blogger I met there a few days ago reminded me that the situation now in Iraq is still not as bad as under Saddam and, if the Americans left tomorrow, Iraq would slide into chaos and civil war.

Exactly three years on from the day I stood in Firdous Square watching Saddam's statue fall, every time I try to answer this question I find myself squeezed into a corner, having to defend either an oppressive dictator that destroyed the country, led his people into three catastrophic wars and imprisoned and killed hundreds of thousands, or an American-led occupation that humiliated, imprisoned and led to the death of tens of thousands of Iraqis. (...)

- / Comment is free

Inside Baghdad's ER

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad — 2005-11-22T20:23:00Z

What happens to the victims of Baghdad's countless bombings? Ghaith Abdul-Ahad meets the doctors who battle to save them

Inside the compound of Yarmouk hospital, the mud-coloured buildings are filthy and falling apart. Smashed windows provide the only lighting along the corridors. Children touting sweets or cigarettes thread their way through piles of rubbish. Hundreds of people, some pushing wheelchairs, others supporting crouched figures - all clutching files of papers and x-rays - squeeze through narrow metal gates between the different sections of the compound.

There are the usual sort of hospital patients here: those with intestinal pains or broken limbs. But there are also Baghdad specialities: patients with car-bomb damage or mortar-shrapnel injuries or gunshot wounds.

Yarmouk, one of Baghdad's biggest hospitals, was built in the late 1970s when the oil-rich Iraqi government launched a five-year school, factory and hospital-building programme. That ambitious undertaking left Iraq with a modern and respected health-care system. But three wars and two decades later, it is in a shambles. (...)

[pages 8 - 11 | Features - G2]

- / Guardian

'We don't need al-Qaida'

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad — 2005-10-27T11:40:00Z

Abu Theeb is the leader of a band of Sunni insurgents that preys on US targets north of Baghdad. Last week he openly defied al-Qaida in Iraq by actively supporting the referendum. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad spent five days with him - and uncovered evidence of a growing split in the insurgency

'We don't need al-Qaida' Abu Theeb is a tall, handsome, well-built man with a thin beard and thick eyebrows. His name is a nom de guerre: it means Father of the Wolf. He is a farmer during daylight and a commander of a mujahideen cell, a group of holy warriors, at night. He and his men roam the farmland north of Baghdad in search of prey - a US armoured Humvee, perhaps, or an Iraqi army unit. On the eve of last week's constitutional referendum, Abu Theeb, the leader of a group of Sunni insurgents, was to be found in the middle of a schoolyard in a village north of Baghdad. The school was to be a polling centre the next day. He stood flanked by 10 bearded fighters in white robes and chequered headscarves.

There were a few posters on the walls, and plastic ribbons marking out lanes where voters would queue, but other than Abu Theeb and his men, the building was deserted. The security guards hired by the referendum committee in Baghdad had failed to show up - not all that surprising an event in one of the most dangerous areas in Iraq. The local tribe, ie Abu Theeb and co, are notorious for kidnappings and executions. (...)

[pages 12-15 | Features]

- / Guardian

'How can you establish a free media in such fear and anarchy?'

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad — 2005-09-26T13:05:00Z

Last week Fakher Haidar al-Tamimi became the 36th Iraqi journalist to be killed since the start of the war. His friend Ghaith Abdul-Ahad explains how, in the postwar carnage, his fellow countrymen have become the softest targets

I had been dreading this moment for weeks, but I knew it would come inevitably. The night before leaving for Baghdad; preparing for yet another trip to that doomed city to report on yet more violence. For weeks at a time, I had lived in denial. I had told myself, no, it's not happening; no, I am not going back there. I have had enough, I am not going back to Iraq . But then I gave in, I started assuring my worried friends that I would be safe there - after all, it's not that dangerous.

Last Monday night I sat, sheepishly, in my bedroom, packing my bags. I was drowning in depression - a mixture of fear and anxiety smouldering in my guts. I wanted to distract myself, so I started going through my favourite bedtime routine: checking the wires for the latest pictures from Iraq. What atrocity had I missed that day by hiding in London?

I soon came across an out-of-focus image of a policeman lifting a cover to show a dead body lying in a hospital morgue. It was the sort of photograph I had seen a hundred times before. Then I read the caption: "A policeman lifts . . . the body of Fakher Haidar al-Tamimi . . ."

My heart stopped and my eyes started watering. It can't be Fakher, I told myself, and started to frantically search the web for more details. Seeing his byline on a New York Times story from the day before, I was briefly reassured. But then I read the story of his death on the same website. (...)

[pages 16 - 17 | G2]

- / Guardian

Fiddling while Baghdad burns

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad — 2005-08-28T14:20:00Z

IN 1453, THE Ottoman armies were marching towards the gates of Constantinople while inside the city walls, the Greek Orthodox priests and a delegation of Latin Catholic cardinals were trying to come up with a Manifesto of Understanding between the two sects before forming an alliance that would fight the marching Muslim Turks. The clerics were engaged in futile discussions on issues such as how many angels can stand on the end of a pin and whether the angels were males or females.

They never found out the answers as the Ottomans soon overran the city.

Sunni, Shia and Kurdish Iraqi politicians and clerics, sitting in the fortified green zone behind huge, concrete blast walls and besieged by escalating waves of violence, have indulged themselves in the same sort of futile discussions to define the shape of their country, the role of religion and the influence of the clergy on family and state matters. (...)

[page 25 | Comment]

- / Guardian, Observer

Tigris Tales

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad — 2005-06-03T12:23:00Z

A grey, drizzling morning in Mosul, northern Iraq. A column of four American armoured vehicles moves slowly through the muddy, narrow, crowded streets of the old souk. Eight US infantrymen and I sit knee-to-knee inside one of the Strykers, guns resting between their thighs. Our helmets crack on the metal hull of the vehicle as the eight-wheeled beast jumps and bumps between carts, dogs and banana boxes.

Water drips in from the open hatches, soaking everything in a thin layer of mud. Two men peer out of the hatches, pointing their guns nervously at the people outside. Another three spread out a poster from a men's magazine and gawp at the eight gorgeous models in their swimsuits. "I'll take the blondie and the hot babe with the dark hair," says one of the three, who is wearing black goggles.

It's too humid inside. I feel like Jonah trapped in the stomach of a metal whale.

"Those poor bastards of the 101st still drive Humvees," says another soldier. (...) [page 7]

- / Guardian

Therapy, Baghdad style: 'We are living in a state of constant fear'

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad — 2005-03-02T09:00:49Z

As the violence in Iraq continues, the number of people traumatised by the conflict grows. Yet little or no psychiatric treatment is available to them - and what there is can be terrifyingly crude. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad investigates

Hafid al-Qadhi is one of the most precarious places in the new Baghdad. Gangs, brothels and piles of rubbish fill its dark, unelectrified alleys, where kids play around lakes of green sewage. It has been known for decades as the crazies' neighbourhood, not only for the eccentricities of its inhabitants, but also because since the late 50s it has been home to the country's most celebrated psychiatrists. (...) [pages 2 - 3 | G2 features]

- / Guardian

Tigris Tales

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad — 2005-02-22T18:10:02Z

A truck arrives. 'This is American garbage,' shouts one of the boys. Welcome to the recycling district

South-east of Baghdad, a few kilometres beyond the checkpoint that is manned by three teenage policemen and just before the checkpoint that is run by the resistance, the urban landscape starts to change. On one side of the road, the city's "high-rise" buildings give way to scattered concrete block houses, with a few palm trees here and there breaking the view to the horizon. On the other side, a huge wasteland stretches for kilometres, with mountains of garbage peppering the landscape like dunes. (...)

[page 7 | G2 features]

- / Guardian

Rare sight on stump: a candidate in public

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad — 2005-01-27T14:03:00Z

in Sadr City

The scarred streets of Sadr City are more deprived than most in Baghdad, but yesterday residents were accorded a rare electoral treat - a candidate actually appearing in public to campaign.

Fatah al-Sheikh, a Shia journalist turned politician and close ally of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, risked precarious security to tour the slum in eastern Baghdad for several hours, thumping out anti-US rhetoric in a campaign foray that reminded Iraqis that elections are about more than posters on walls. (...) [page 19 | News]

- / Guardian

'The US is behaving as if every Sunni is a terrorist'

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad — 2005-01-26T13:32:00Z

For centuries they have comprised the ruling class, but since the fall of Saddam everything has changed for Iraq's Sunni Arabs. This weekend's elections are likely only to reinforce their disaffection, reports Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

Two weeks ago, Adnan al-Janabi, the then minister of state in the Iraqi interim government of premier Ayad Allawi, and a tribal leader of one of Iraq's largest predominantly Sunni tribes, was arrested, handcuffed and insulted by US soldiers manning a checkpoint leading into the Green Zone where he worked. Only when a senior bodyguard of the prime minister intervened was he released. That same day he resigned from government. (...) [page 4 | G2 features]

- / Guardian

Tigris tales

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad — 2005-01-25T13:39:00Z

A large sandstorm has covered Baghdad in a yellow shroud for the past five hours. The streets are still flooded with water and sewage from the morning's rain. The sky is shaking with explosive thuds every few minutes - or are those rumbles of thunder?

Hopping between sewage pools is a man in his early 50s, wearing an old blue jacket and a pair of torn brown trousers. His shirt is buttoned up and his grizzled hair laid flat on his head. Thick glasses rest on his nose. (...) [page 8 | G2 features]

- / Guardian

Tigris tales

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad — 2005-01-14T14:22:00Z

Avoiding kidnap, risking car bombs and coping with electricity shortages. A 'normal' day in the life of Manhal Fadhel

Manhal Fadhel, is a 35-year-old engineer. He has dark eyes, black hair and sometimes can be funny. He is always wearing a pair of sandals with some stupid, cheap blue jeans. He lives in the al-Mashtal, a mixed Sunni, Shiite and Christian neighbourhood, and he shares a small brick house that has a small garden with his father, mother, wife and his three children.

In other words he is a normal, boring Iraqi. (...) [page 5 | G2 features]

- / Guardian

Bleeding the weak

Ghaith Abdul-Ahad — 2005-01-03T14:25:00Z

Without political power or tribal muscle, Iraq's Christians have become ideal victims for gangsters and extremists. Many are now fleeing the country, says Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

Yaqub Moussa sits in his liquor shop in Baghdad. One hand is hidden under the counter holding a black pistol, the other taps nervously on the surface. "People from the Hawza [the Shiite religious authority] come here every month; they take $100 from me every time. If I don't pay they say they will burn my shop because I am breaking the sharia Islamic law." (...) [page 9 | G2 features]

- / Guardian