Azzaman (Iraq): A Lawless Baghdad 'Descends into Chaos'

[BurtWorm]

http://www.watchingamerica.com/azzaman000110.shtml

Azzaman, Iraq


“Most of the carnage in the city goes unreported, and the world sees only a fraction of the daily atrocities.”

December 4, 2006


Baghdad is becoming a city almost completely at the mercy of savage militias and gunmen who have taken the law into their own hands. Kidnappings and assassinations take place at a scale never before seen, and both American and Iraqi troops are practically powerless to restore any semblance of order, anywhere in the city.

International journalists, confined to heavily protected hotels, homes or apartments, can hardly cope with the burden of reporting major bombing attacks or deaths of U.S. Marines. In fact most of the carnage in the city goes unreported, and the world sees only a fraction of the daily atrocities. Even the kidnapping of senior officials no longer grabs headlines, as has been the case of Lameh Omar, an adviser to the Ministry of Defense. Omar was kidnapped and his body found riddled with bullets shortly after his abduction.

In another recent attack, marauding gunmen attacked the Doura district, stormed several homes, and snatched every young male. Their mutilated bodies were later found in an open space in the same district.

Every one of the nearly six million people of Baghdad has a horrendous story to tell. Shiites kill Sunnis, rebels kill Americans and Iraqi troops, U.S. and Iraqi troops kill rebels and civilians, and so on. Baghdad has become a killing field to such an extent that no one in the city can be sure of returning home safely from even a short shopping trip.

Reports of killings, kidnappings and bullet-riddled bodies dumped in public places are pouring into newspapers. If all were published, they would easily fill the pages of Azzaman every day....

[Karenina]

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