Inside Iraq Blog - Times Online - WBLG

Amnesty award for interpreter series

The Iraqi interpreter tugged urgently at my sleeve as I was watching a group of British soldiers train Iraqi recruits at a base in southern Iraq.
“Please, can you help us?” he asked. I looked at him, puzzled. He continued: “The Danish are flying their interpreters back to Denmark where they will be safe. Our lives are also in danger because we work for the British. What is the British Government going to do for us?”
I did not have a clue what he was talking about and, to be honest, was slightly irked at being distracted from my work. Fortunately, the interpreter persisted, telling me how a colleague had been gunned down weeks earlier by Shia militiamen who regard any Iraqi working for the British military a traitor who deserves to die. He was one of many to be killed.
This brief conversation led to The Times highlighting the plight of Iraqi interpreters who worked for the British military. The series prompted the Government to devise a new policy to offer financial assistance or asylum to its Iraqi staff, both former and current.
Last night, I received an Amnesty International award for this series – a great honour and very exciting. However, it remains a sorry fact that eight months after the aid package was announced most of the Iraqi interpreters who took the asylum option are still waiting for a plane ticket to Britain.
The first interpreter who approached me last July, opened my eyes to how people who risked their life to work alongside British soldiers were being targeted by militants as a result of their job, with no means of escape.
He introduced me to three other colleagues, each with stories to tell of intimidation, fear and despair, particularly in the wake of a decision by Denmark to airlift any Iraqi who had worked for its military to safety.
They all implored me to help. I remember looking at them and thinking, what the hell can I do? Will writing about this really prompt anyone in power to act?

A life spent waiting

Face creased with concern, the former Iraqi interpreter sits on a cheap-looking sofa in a rented flat in Amman as his two young children play on the floor and his pregnant wife rests in the bedroom.
“We are worried about what is going to happen to us. The [asylum] process takes too long. I am shocked,” the man said.
In April, he and his family boarded a plane to Jordan in the belief that they would fly on to Britain within weeks to escape a life of fear and intimidation in Iraq because of his previous job as an interpreter for the British military.
More than seven weeks later, they, along with about 30 other former interpreters and their dependents, are still waiting for news.
“We received a lot of promises,” said the man who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons.
“I did not expect to go to the UK directly but maybe after six weeks or two months. If I had known that it would take a long time then I would not have come. My wife is pregnant. It is expensive here,” he said of Amman.
“If by the end of August we are still waiting we will quit from the programme and try to go somewhere else. We can’t go back to Iraq. My city is too dangerous.”
The stranded interpreters are trying to travel to Britain through a programme set up in cooperation with the UN’s refugee agency, the UNHCR. It requires them to gain refugee status in Jordan before travelling to Britain, a process that takes time and offers no guarantees.
“We have been told that some maybe rejected,” said a second former interpreter who lives with his wife and 10-month-old daughter in the same apartment bloc as the first.
This man is one of a lucky handful of candidates, however, who were interviewed by a team from the Home Office who travelled to Amman last month. There is a chance he and his small family could receive the green light to travel to Britain as early as July. The others must continue to wait.
“I would like to go to the UK to save my life,” the 30-year-old said, sitting in his rented flat with three other former interpreters who also live in the bloc.
“If I go back to Iraq, I will be killed,” he said, looking down at his daughter who was gurgling without a care in the world as she crawled across the floor.
The interpreters have been living in hiding ever since they were forced to quit their work because of death threats from Shia militia groups in southern Iraq who view anyone who works for the British military as a traitor or a spy.
Many believe that their lives are in even greater danger now, after accepting the offer to travel to Jordan in a bid to make it to Britain. Rejection and being forced to return to Iraq would be a death sentence, they say.
“People back home think that we are already in London,” said a third interpreter, 28, one of the few men who is single and travelling alone.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot does that mean?

BLUF: Complex attack IVO PB ECP: SVBIED, SAF, and IDF. BDA: 1x CF(US) WIA, 2x IA KIA, 2x LN INJ, 2x AQI/ISI Killed, 1x CHU FUBAR. POO: Sadr City.
Military acronyms sound like an unfathomable foreign language to civilian bystanders.
As a journalist, I spend a fair amount of time asking someone to translate into real English (or at least real American English) what is being said when on an embed with soldiers.
The multi-letter formations also have a way of sterilizing the most horrific of occurrences. For example, KIA makes me think of a South Korean car manufacturer, whereas on the battlefield it means shot dead or blown up (Killed in Action).
On occasion, acronyms dreamt up to describe something really serious, sound to the (admittedly slightly immature) outsider quite funny.
I thought someone was having a laugh when they stuck a bunch of brown-coloured pins on a map in the TOC (Tactical Operations Centre) of a COP (Combat Outpost) with the letters “POO” on them. It turns out this means Point of Origin and is used to pin-point where IDF (Indirect Fire – namely rockets or mortars) came from.
Over the past few embeds, I started to compile a list of acronyms that are frequently used. You should be able to decipher what is going on in the first paragraph of this blog post by referring to the table below.
Also, feel free to suggest your own. There are literally thousands of them.
TTFN

Behind the scenes at golden dome building site

In an instant, 18 mounds of professionally buried explosives blew apart a revered golden dome in Samarra. They also obliterated the walls, covered in hand-painted porcelain tiles, that surround the shrine and took out the entire ceiling.
Fixing the mess will take time, but a team of Iraqi architects and engineers is determined to return the al-Askari shrine to exactly the way it was before the attack almost two-and-a-half years ago. That blast was followed by a second bombing that brought down two golden minarets on either side of the dome in June 2007.
The United Nations’ heritage agency, UNESCO, is overseeing the reconstruction effort in partnership with the Iraqi Government, with a contract for detailed designs of the shrine and its famous dome due to be handed out in the coming days.
Originally designed by Iranian architects, it is undecided yet whether Iran will play a part in reconstructing the site. Too much Iranian involvement will unlikely go down well with the local Sunni population. However Shia Iran will be very keen to ensure that the shrine is restored to its former glory.
Preparing the ground, scores of labourers in blue boiler suits have been hard at work since February shoveling away rubble in tractors, storing anything worth saving and boring holes into the remains with electronic drills.
The structure alone is not forecast to be completed until August 2009. Then begins the pain-staking task of re-fitting hundreds of gold-plated copper tiles that adjourn the outside of the 32-foot high dome as well as the golden minarets.
Most of the tiles were salvaged from the carnage but some are bent out of shape and may have to be replaced.
Restoration work is always difficult and time-consuming. In the case of the al-Askari Shrine, it is also hugely politically and religiously sensitive.

Delivering aid to Sadr City

Smiling excitedly, the skinny orphan clutches a new rucksack given to him by a group of Iraqi soldiers as part of a limited mission to distribute aid to the many needy people in Sadr City.
Rasoul Mohamed Sharif, 12, and the other 30 boys at a ramshackle orphanage are among the lucky few to gain access to this assistance, which is only being distributed in the southern sector of the Baghdad Shia slum.
Ongoing clashes between US and Iraqi forces and gangs of Shia gunmen who have controlled Sadr City for the past five years, means that soldiers have been unable to deliver supplies of food, water and medical assistance any deeper.
As a result boxes of bandages and other basic medical equipment lie untouched outside a Baghdad military base, while hospitals and medical centres in the northern two-thirds of the impoverished district are fast running out of supplies.
First Lieutenant Mostafa Zeid, a doctor, said that it was very frustrating to know that people were in need of help and to have the necessary assistance, but be unable to deliver because it is deemed too dangerous.

“We know that they [the hospitals] are suffering from a lack of drugs, medicines and doctors and they need help,” he said, noting that the supplies had been sitting around for more than three weeks.
“I am very sad and frustrated.”
The Ministry of Health had offered to help deliver the equipment to the hospitals but the soldiers say that they prefer to hand it over themselves. The Health Ministry has a record of being closely connected with the al-Mehdi Army militia that controls Sadr City and there is a suspicion that the medical aid will end up with wounded militiamen rather than civilians.
First Lieutenant Zeid is hopeful that the army will be able to reach the cut-off hospitals and medical centres soon, following a ceasefire agreement signed on Monday between the Government’s Shia political bloc and supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr, the Shia cleric who commands the Mehdi Army.
Clashes continue on the streets, however, and no move has yet been made to cross beyond a wall constructed by US forces to seal off the southern sector.
The military doctor predicted that this would change. “I believe in one week we can take this [the medical supplies],” he said, speaking to me on Tuesday.

Iraqi forces see victory in Basra

Iraqi soldiers are standing proud in Basra one month after launching a surprise offensive to wipe out murderous gangs of Shia militants that had been allowed to flourish under Britain’s watch.
Many of them say the operation has boosted their confidence, but the militiamen warn that the only reason the fledgling Iraqi army had any success was because they continue to observe a ceasefire order by the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Soldier Hassan Sha’an said the past four weeks has tested the training he received from British forces in conducting raids and pulling security for an important person. The 25-year-old is part of team charged with guarding the Iraqi commander of forces in Basra, Lieutenant-General Mohan al-Furaiji.
“When we conducted raids I remembered what we had been taught about covering our backs and looking out for our colleagues,” Mr Sha’an said.
“After the achievements of the Charge of the Knights operation I feel as a soldier more confident to go on raids and patrols or search for people.”
Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, launched the Basra offensive on March 25 after alerting US and British commanders at the last minute. The original plan that Lt-Gen Furaiji had drawn up anticipated the campaign to start in mid-July.
Encouragingly, the first wave of attacks caught the militants off-guard, but two days later they launched a counter offensive, prompting at least one entire Iraqi Army battalion of 1,400 men to flee.
Threats by Mr Maliki to disarm rang hollow and the mission appeared to be on the brink of failure before thousands of Iraqi re-enforcements backed by hundreds of American and British soldiers joined the fight at the start of April.
“They [the militiamen] collapsed,” said Lt-Gen Furaiji, claiming that the gunmen were a fraction of the 12,000-strong force that some had anticipated.

Rogue elements of the al-Mehdi Army militia, loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, are accused of being behind much of the violence and intimidation in Basra, where the population was forced to follow a set of strict religious codes or be punished.
The Iraqi commander said: “Those who fought are from special groups who received training in Iran.”
But the Basra leader of the Sadr movement, the cleric's political wing said the Government had launched a witch hunt for anyone linked to the Sadrists to ensure rival political parties and their militias gain power in Iraq’s second city.

Iraqis belt-up in road safety drive

On my first trip to Iraq four years ago my driver told me off for trying to put on a seatbelt when I sat in the car because such a move – aside from the blonde hair and blue eyes – would clearly mark me out as a foreigner and a potential target.
“Iraqis don’t wear seatbelts,” he said, though I subsequently wondered whether it would be better to run the risk of attracting unwanted attention rather than endure the daily hazard of racing through the streets of Baghdad without a safety harness.
Over the past fortnight, however, a transformation has taken place. Iraqi drivers are (albeit in many cases reluctantly and/or in bemusement) wearing seatbelts for the first time following a Government order.
Many see the new rule as a bit of a joke given that the authorities have yet to stop the far more serious crimes of car bombings and kidnappings, but others welcome the move as a tiny glimmer of order in their otherwise chaotic lives.
Keen to write a story about seatbelts (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article3761059.ece), I headed off around Baghdad in the back of a taxi to see if people were belting up.
Incredibly, to a greater extent, they were, largely because no one wants to be stung by the 30,000 dinar (13 pound) fine.
My taxi driver, who is still getting used to the sensation of wearing a seatbelt, is pleased that Iraq’s traffic laws are catching up with the rest of the world’s, but he just doesn’t place car accidents very high-up on his list of concerns.
“I don’t have safety in my own house and garden so why should I worry about safety in my car?” Mohammed Farid said.
The 29-year-old knows only too well the perils of living in Iraq. Four years ago he was injured in the leg by a bomb blast when out driving. A couple of months later, criminals stole his car.
Mr Farid also noted that the countless checkpoints, road blocks and blast walls across Baghdad prevent anyone from driving fast enough to hurt themselves if they were to crash. “I only wear this strap to avoid paying a fine,” he said.
The law is imposed to a lesser extent on the roads leading to the capital, with some drivers saying that they belt up only when they approach Baghdad. However in the southern city of Basra and the northern city of Mosul traffic police are also out in force.
Ehssan Jabor, a taxi driver in Basra, is fuming at having to wear a seatbelt.
“I can't drive in this hot weather wearing this stupid rope around my body like I am under arrest,” the 45-year-old said.
“The authorities have to find real solutions to our real problems such as the [lack of] power, jobs and water instead of bothering poor drivers with these silly laws.”
Mohammad Ali, a 33-year-old car dealer, disagrees, saying: “If they want to start by imposing the law on small matters, then that is great. I agree with anything that will help the city become safe again.”
Up in Mosul, opinions are similarly divided.

The story of seven Baghdad families

Here are the stories of seven different Baghdad families and how their lives have changed since the United States and Britain invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein.
Largely interviewed by Ali Hamdani, an Iraqi journalist for The Times, these individuals offer a personal insight into the impact of the past five years and the violence that has left, at the very least, tens of thousands dead and forced many more - Shia Arabs, Sunni Arabs, Christians and Kurds alike - to flee their homes.
The people who suffered most are least optimistic about the future. Those whose lives are becoming stable sound more upbeat.

Family 1: The Shia family forced to move from a Sunni neighbourhood

Mina Ta’e, a Shia Arab, lived with her brother and mother in Ameriyah, a predominately Sunni neighbourhood in the west of Baghdad. Al-Qaeda militants forced the family to flee to nearby Mansour, but that neighbourhood also became a battlefield between Sunni Arab extremists and the Shia al-Mehdi Army militia.
The 26-year-old bank employee said: “I felt very happy when the invasion happened. My father was executed by Saddam so I couldn’t believe that we were finally rid of him. I started dreaming of a new Iraq, a free Iraq. Five months later our dream started to vanish.”
Gunmen began killing anyone in Ameriyah who worked with the US forces. Nightly clashes erupted on the street between Sunni Arab insurgents and US troops, while in the daytime, theft and carjacking was rife.
Ms Ta’e said: “Armed groups started setting up checkpoints in the middle of the road, stopping girls who weren’t wearing a head scarf. They also told us not to wear jeans or drive a car.”
She and her brother moved separately to other districts but their mother remained until a gang beheaded the son of one of their neighbours in front of his parents. “That was the moment that we decided enough was enough and we should leave immediately before they come after us,” Ms Ta’e said.
Her family rented their house to a displaced Sunni family that wanted to move to Ameriyah. Ms Ta’e and her mother then moved to nearby Mansour, a mixed Sunni and Shia area. Shortly after arriving in Mansour, that neighbourhood also descended into chaos with al-Qaeda fighting the al-Mehdi Army for control.
Ms Ta’e said: “Two of my uncles were shot dead in front of our house while they were visiting us because they were members of the district council.”
About six months ago, the situation started to improve with the arrival of Iraqi soldiers, concrete barriers and checkpoints. “Some families have started to come back but not many. I still can’t return to my house in Ameriyah. It’s a very dangerous place for Shia.”
Asked about her thoughts for the future, Ms Ta'e said: “My life is better in terms of getting rid of the man who killed my father and also we are now able to travel outside the country and see the world … but that’s not enough because we are missing an essential thing in our life and that is safety.
“We found alternatives for everything else. We bought generators to replace electricity, we changed our houses, we changed our clothes, but we still haven’t managed to find a replacement for safety. I don’t want to live like a refugee inside my home country.”
Ms Ta’e said that she did not want the US forces to leave at the moment because the Iraqi Government was too weak to handle to Sunni and Shia gangs. “I hope things will get better the next year. We have nothing more than hope to live for.”

Joking even though there is no gas, water, electricity, money, jobs...

Jump into a taxi in Baghdad and within minutes the driver will most likely have steered the conversation onto a favourite topic here – power and water, or at least the lack of both.
“Makou falous, makou kaharaba, makou maie,” is a phrase, meaning: “No money, no electricity, no water”, that is often uttered with a wry laugh because people feel that the situation has barely changed since the invasion and there is nothing they can do.
Another line follows: “Makou nafut, makou shi”, which translates as “No gas, no-anything.”
Officials say that electricity levels are improving all the time but Iraqis on the street insist that they still have to rely largely on private generators to power their homes or make do without.
Winter is also surprisingly cold in Iraq given the ridiculously high temperatures that are hit in the summer, forcing people to wrap up in blankets and extra layers of clothing at night if they have no fuel to burn for heat.
Such discomfort prompts many to turn to trademark, Iraqi black humour to make light of their misery.
“Black humour is well known following so many wars and shitty conditions,” said one Iraqi man in Baghdad. “It helps us psychologically and is often the only way to deal with a stressful situation.”
As a result, sarcastic remarks about the dearth of essential services - such as the "makou" list above - are widespread. Even the violence that has plagued the country for almost five years makes ripe joke fodder.
One recorded message on a mobile phone that can be sent to a caller says:
“I am sorry but the person you are calling has either been kidnapped or killed in a car bomb.”

Get out of my house, shrieks the Iraqi woman

“What are you doing in my house?” screamed the furious Iraqi woman as she walked in on a group of American and Iraqi soldiers who were crashing around her living room after kicking down her front door.
“Get out, get out,” she shouted in broken English, shaking her fists in rage at the troops who had frozen as if caught in the act of doing something naughty.
Surveying the damage, the woman shrieked: “Are you happy now?”
American soldiers, and increasingly their Iraqi counterparts, have been conducting house-to-house searches since the invasion, checking neighbourhoods for weapons, insurgents, dead bodies and kidnap victims in a bid to quell the violence that has consumed Iraq.
Hoping to cause minimum inconvenience, the military has softened its approach, always knocking on the front door of a house and waiting to be shown in.
Many homes in dangerous areas, however, are empty after the occupants fled the escalating violence, leaving the soldiers with no option but to break open the front gate and bust down the front door, either with a boot or a crowbar.

Unfortunately on this occasion last Thursday during a search through Saydiyah, a flashpoint mixed Sunni and Shia neighbourhood in southern Baghdad, the owner of one rundown house that had appeared unoccupied showed up after her door had already been knocked in.

Basra handover, no sleep and a broken plane

Covering the British handover of Basra was always going to be painful after a sleepless night.
Unfortunately I had to wait for my correspondent in the city to file some overnight quotes to me for an on-the-ground piece to run that day. An Internet meltdown at his end meant that this did not happen until 2 o'clock on handover morning and I spent the next three hours writing up the story.
Camped at a US military press centre in Baghdad’s Green Zone where embedded journalists stay when in transit, I gave up any chance of sleep after finishing the work and had a shower instead.
That was when it dawned on me that I had forgotten to pack any form of soap or a towel.
Figuring that water alone was better than nothing, I stepped into one of the plastic shower cubicles in a trailer at the press area before drying myself off with a miniscule flannel, which for some obscure reason I had remembered to bring.
Then my mobile phone rang.
It was 5.30am my time and 2.30am in London where by best friend Louise was calling me from the middle of the dance floor at a rugby club party to let me know that the original version of a classic tune we used to love (Apparently Nothing by The Young Disciples) was being played.
Standing there with my flannel, I sportingly bopped along for a few moments before telling her that I really ought to go as I had a flight to catch.

Interpreter dismay at British rejection

Two other former interpreters are also dismayed at being denied access to the Government's assistance package because their contracts were "terminated for absence".
I.K. Salman, who has featured in an earlier blog, left his job and fled Iraq with his wife and two children after an armed gang turned up outside his house in Basra in March 2005.
“They [the British forces] must know very well that attending work after receiving the threat was going to be like a death sentence to me,” said the 43-year-old.
“When I informed one of the British officers about my resignation over the phone immediately after receiving the threat he never told me that I need to send them a written letter and he just accepted my resignation over the phone and said to me that he feels sorry to hear this.”
Mr Salman, who currently lives in Damascus, continued: “It’s not only my case it’s also the case with all the other interpreters who were threatened.
“I think the British Government was only trying, by making us fill these forms, to show the public and the media that they are going to help those people who served them in Iraq ... but then they put this sophisticated criteria just so none of us or maybe only a handful of interpreters will be eligible for this scheme.”

Yanked from sleep by machine gun fire

The explosion of gunshots shook my bedroom window, yanking me out of sleep in an instant on my third night back in Baghdad.
Iraqi police had come under fire from a building near my hotel and were responding. An army unit also stepped in, adding extra rounds of heavy machine gun fire.
After three weeks out of the country, the gunfight in the early hours of Tuesday morning was a harsh reminder that although violence in Iraq on the whole is down there are still plenty of dangers.
Sitting up in bed trying to work out what was happening, I sent a text message to a fellow journalist friend who was sleeping a few floors below me in the same hotel.
“What the f*** is going on outside?” I asked.
She replied: “No clue. Just keep away from the windows.” Followed by: “Don’t they know there are people trying to sleep around here!?”

'I don't want my kids to watch me slaughtered like a useless sheep'

Scared, alone and in fear of their life, scores of Iraqi interpreters who worked for the British Army have been in touch with The Times since the newspaper launched a campaign in August to highlight their plight.
Here are some extracts from emails and telephone conversations that offer an insight into the world of these people, many of whom live each day like fugitives, terrified of being found by militiamen, tortured and killed.
Mr I.K. Salman left his job as an interpreter in March 2005 after gunmen raided his house in Basra. He moved his family to Syria, hoping to gain refugee status and be resettled elsewhere. Mr Salman is still waiting for help.
“I worked with full loyalty for the British Army, risked my life and my family’s lives. Now I found myself forced to leave my own country, brutally cut from my roots. I have lost my career and finally here I am neglected in Syria, jobless and within a few months [when the money runs out] homeless,” he said.
“Believe me, it would be better to be beheaded in my own country than have the feeling that I have been cheated like a useless idiot. The only thing that stops me from going back to Iraq is my family. I don’t want my kids to watch their father slaughtered like a useless sheep.”
Mr Salman believes that an offer from Britain of financial compensation will not be enough to secure his family’s future away from the threat of militia death squads. Similarly the option of entering a special refugee programme will also not be a quick fix as the process is long and the outcome uncertain.
“We all do believe that money, whatever the amount will be, or resettlement in Iraq will not protect me or my family from facing a callous end,” the 43-year-old wrote in an email.
“All I want from the British Government is to have the option of ‘exceptional leave to remain’ in the UK.
“I don't want to be a heavy burden on the British economy and community; I'm a well qualified translator, an English language teacher and I can work there to earn my living and cover the household expenses. I do believe that I deserve what I'm looking for and my kids deserve a better future than having their father's body lying in the rubbish like a scabby dog.”
The father-of-two added: “If I am given the desired option to leave to the UK, if will be like a rescue operation for me and my little family.”

Dying on the frontline unless he gets a new kidney

Gazing out of his bedroom window hoping for a miracle, Habib knows he will die in the next few months without treatment for a debilitating kidney disease but his family are unable to afford the life-saving transplant operation.

The young man’s parents, Kurdish Christians, spent most of their money moving Habib and six of his siblings to a village on the Turkish border of Kurdish-run northern Iraq last year to escape the violence in Baghdad.
Adding to their dilemma, the family's new home sits on the frontline of what could become a war zone if Turkey decides to launch a military operation to fight Kurdish rebels based across the mountainous border.
“He is very sick and needs a kidney transplant. If not he will die,” said Habib’s father, Shamoon Michael, tears streaming down his face.
Nadema Mosa, his mother, was also desperate. “Please, please somebody help us,” she said, stooping to touch her son gently on one shoulder as he lay in bed, too weak to move or speak.
Both of the 21-year-old’s kidneys no longer work, he is unable to eat without throwing up and even keeping down liquids is difficult.
“He cannot concentrate. He needs fresh air so we open the window a fraction to help him to breathe,” said the mother.
I first met Habib and his family last week in Dash Ta Takhe, a tiny Christian village tucked away inside Iraq’s border with Turkey.
The area, a target of Turkish artillery trying to hit the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has since been closed to journalists by the Kurdish region’s Peshmerga forces as cross-border tensions mount, but I was allowed access to the village again on Saturday to check up on the Michaels.
To my dismay, Habib’s condition had deteriorated rapidly.

Were they PKK fighters walking through the Kurdish village?

Locals often insist that there are no Kurdish rebel fighters in the areas where villages feel the brunt of Turkish artillery rounds along Iraq’s northern border with Turkey, but I spotted a couple of suspicious-looking men while on a visit last Friday.
Wearing what looked like the dull-green uniform of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) under their coats and armed with Kalashnikovs, the pair appeared to be conducting a sort of patrol through the village of Sharos, a few miles down the road from Dash Ta Takhe.
“What are you doing here?” the taller of the two men inquired of me.
I told them that I was a journalist finding out about the impact of Turkish shelling on the villages, before asking: “As members of the PKK, what are you two up to?”
The men looked at me for a second. Then the taller one denied that they were seperatists.
I shifted the conversation to the shelling more generally, before returning to the subject: “Come on, you are both wearing PKK outfits, you must be part of the movement.”
Pulling a wry smile, the taller man responded: “Maybe your instinct is right.”
He paused, before adding: “And maybe it isn’t.”
With that, the two men turned and walked out of the village towards a section of the mountains that is known for having harboured PKK camps in the past.
The harsh, mountainous terrain between Iraq’s Turkish border and an internal defence line established by the Kurdish region’s Peshmerga security force feels a bit like no-man’s land.
Some of the villagers who live in the area complain that they do not see Peshmerga patrols, though a border patrol officer I spoke to insisted that his soldiers were out and about at regular intervals.
One thing is certain, the Turkish shelling has had a devastating impact on tourism in the region, which is famed for its grassy ravines and tree-framed river banks.

Fleeing the Kurdish rebel base

When the warning came of a possible air strike against the Kurdish female rebel base in northern Iraq that we were visiting, my fixer jumped into action.
“We have to go,” he said to me as I was engrossed in conversation with one of the women at the makeshift camp in the Qandil Mountains.
“They say it is serious, we really have to go,” he said, sensing that I was reluctant to leave the area as it had taken several hours and lots of manoeuvring along treacherous paths to get there.
It became clear, however, that this was not some sort of ruse. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is on high alert as Turkey steps up attacks against the outlawed group.
The women, mostly one-time PKK fighters who say they now do educational and co-ordination work in support of women’s rights, were scattering further up the mountain, while we were instructed to head in the opposite direction.
An interpreter, who was accompanying us and knew the area well, led the way.
We had driven to the base in a hired truck but our driver left about an hour earlier to head for a village because it had been raining and he was worried that the mountain path would become too difficult to drive back down.
With no other choice, we headed on foot to a perilously steep slope, my fixer struggling in particular because he had opted for a pair of smart, city shoes rather than walking boots for the occasion.
It occurred to me that we were sitting ducks out in the open if an air strike was really imminent so I tried to pick up my pace.
Unfortunately this was rather tricky without risking serious injury due to the sheer angle of the slope and its uneven, loose-stoned surface.
I was still able to move considerably faster than my fixer, however.
“Wait for me!” he yelled, as I scuttled past him, rather concerned that if he fell he would take me out with him.
Feeling a bit mean, given that I was the one who had asked him to accompany me to the base in the first place, I stopped and waited. And took a few more pictures of his descent...

Threat of death still hangs over interpreters

Casting a shadow over the euphoria of the Iraqi interpreters who Britain has decided to help, are reports of people still being kidnapped and killed in Basra allegedly because they worked with the British forces.
At least one man was executed a fortnight ago. Friends, neighbours and police said that Khalid Salem Ali was targeted because he had been employed as an interpreter.
Two other men – again apparently one-time interpreters – were also killed in the past week.
It is difficult to confirm their status with the British troops because Iraqis often work under a false name to protect their identity.
There is also an air of skepticism at the military press office that it plays into the interests of interpreters to make their situation seem as dire as possible.
In addition, a host of other reasons could explain the killings in a part of Iraq where criminal activity and clashes between rival militias are a daily hazard.

(Picture: Three former interpreters for the British and US forces in hiding in Amman)

My seven minutes with Gordon Brown in Baghdad

A prime ministerial visit to Iraq is always shrouded in secrecy, carefully choreographed and over very quickly.
Yesterday’s trip by Gordon Brown was no exception.  
He and his entourage of aides, armed guards and a gaggle journalists from London flew into Baghdad at about 10.00am only to jet out three or four hours later to Basra before flying home that same day.
Myself and several reporters who work for American newspapers and are also based in Iraq were invited to tag along for the Baghdad part of the flying tour.
We assembled at a car park outside the British embassy from 9.00am, where the Nepalese guards on duty had kindly placed two benches for us to perch on.
An hour later, a press officer instructed us to lay out our bags, cameras and dictaphones on the tarmac for a sniffer dog to inspect – security, not surprisingly, is always extra tight for visiting prime ministers and presidents.

A lot happens in a month in Iraq

Sitting back in my bureau in Baghdad after a month away, nothing much about my immediate surroundings has changed.
- The cranky, metal air conditioner still rattles as though someone is playing a permanent drum roll on the inside of it with long nails;
- The toilet still doesn’t flush;
- I remain addicted to samoon – an Iraqi version of bread, which looks like a flat rugby ball, has the consistency of naan but tastes like a bagel.
Despite such points of familiarity, life outside my office has definitely moved on.
Iraq changes by the day so a month contains a host of developments and these past four weeks have been no exception.

(Picture: A piece of samoon against the backdrop of my bureau)

Tragedy of the 'Terps'

“Where’s the ‘terp’?” asked a British soldier wanting to speak to a suspicious-looking Iraqi policeman during a night patrol near Basra Palace, aimed at countering the threat of rocket propelled grenade attacks against an arriving helicopter.
The ‘terp’, an expression used by both the British and American forces for their mini-army of interpreters, dutifully emerged from the back of a small tank and trotted over to help.
Whether on patrol through a dangerous neighbourhood in Basra, busting into a house or simply guarding the gates of a military base, British troops frequently bring along an interpreter.
Such English-speakers are vital when it comes to communicating with Iraqis while on an operation, or forging relationships with local communities through building schools and clinics, a task that British officers see as paramount in the battle for “hearts and minds”.

(First picture: Ali Kamad, a 20-year-old interpreter for the British Army in Basra. He was kidnapped and shot dead by gunmen as he tried to return home from work one night at the beginning of June)

Will this little Iraqi girl lose her sight?

This little Iraqi girl might lose the sight in one eye after it became infected following an operation.
Her mother said the local eye doctor had left the rural area south of Baghdad where the family lives and there is no other specialist clinic or hospital she can visit safely.
She brought 9-year-old Nihad Jabouri to a make-shift US medical post set up without warning (to prevent insurgent attacks) in a village in Arab Jabour one morning this month.
Unfortunately the head nurse lacked the skill and equipment to treat the girl himself but promised to mention her plight to some military doctors back in Baghdad. I don’t know what became of Nihad.
Others who turned up to the temporary clinic – erected in a bid to win the community's trust – had better luck.

Morbid fear of stepping on a bomb

Stumbling down a dirt path at night, I could feel my heart racing as I tried to follow in the footprints of a US soldier up ahead to avoid stepping on a hidden bomb.
Unlike him, however, I had no night-vision goggles so could barely see as far as my hands let alone watch where my feet were going.
It had seemed like a great idea to join one of the nightly foot patrols that fans out across the dusty farmland of Arab Jabour, south of Baghdad, in order to get a better feel for the work conducted by US troops as part of President Bush’s ‘surge’ plan.
The reality, however, was absolutely terrifying.
Insurgents have littered the roads and footpaths that crisscross this lawless region with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) – their most effective weapon to counter the new push by US forces to bring the area (a haven for al-Qaeda) under control.

Three hours to kill in the Green Zone

I was left with three hours to fill yesterday inside Baghdad’s Green Zone, also called the International Zone (pronounced ‘Eye Zee’), after a morning meeting was cancelled. So I decided to do a spot of sight-seeing.
Jumping into a taxi – regular taxi drivers work inside the fortified compound, typically picking up and dropping off Iraqis – I sped off along one of the main roads towards the Hands of Victory.
These are two enormous arches, formed by a pair of crossed swords, each held by a stone hand, which rise up on either end of a football-pitch-sized expanse of land.
Halfway between the two arches is a large grandstand where Saddam Hussein used to stand and survey his army, which would gather on the stretched out gravel below.
Gone are the former days of pomp and ceremony, however.
The seats in the stadium are now broken and covered with dust, while a semi-circle-shaped pond on the other side of the parade is filled with slimy water and scrawny birds. The only other form of life – apart from me and my two colleagues – were three mangy dogs.
  Adding to the scene, a tanker with the words “SEPTIC WASTE” printed on one side rumbled past.

(First picture: Me under one pair of crossed swords in the Green Zone. Second picture: 'Septic Waste' tanker rumbles past old grandstand)

Bomb alert at Heathrow, gunfire in Baghdad

Just as I handed my passport over the counter at the Heathrow Airport check-in on Sunday evening, a bomb alert went off and the whole terminal was evacuated – a fitting way to embark on my latest Iraq stint.
Britain has again felt the terror and inconvenience faced by Iraqis every week following the failed car bombings in London last Friday and the flaming-Jeep attack on Glasgow Airport.
Gunfire outside my bureau as I settled down for my first night of sleep back Baghdad on Monday served as a sobering reminder of the deadly dangers in this city.
But meeting up with my Iraqi staff again, I felt strangely guilty about being able to enjoy the luxury of going away.

(Photograph: Police secure Terminal 3 at Heathrow Airport after it was evacuated following a bomb alert on Sunday evening)

Stranded in Baghdad

Right now I am supposed to be sitting on a plane winging my way to Amman where a second flight is waiting to take me home to London for a wedding this weekend.
Instead I am stuck in my Baghdad office unable to move because the Government decided to slap a curfew on the city last night that looks set to hold until the weekend.
As a result, my attendance at the wedding is in serious doubt (sorry Naomi and Anton – hope you have an amazing day), but I am keeping my fingers crossed in case the situation changes.

Iraq 1 Italy O

Stephen Farrell in Baghdad

Video Diaries:         Checkpoint Roulette    In a Black Hawk

Haifa Street     From Hell to Paradise (Sq)    Welcome to Hell

There are ways to avoid a direct question. There are ways to ignore it. To fudge it, deflect it, invert, parry, mock, rebut, minimise, personalise, contextualise, legalise, duck, weave, circumvent, sidestep, misunderstand, dissemble, lie, cheat, fib, ad hominem, be economical with the actualite, run out of time, plead the fourth, fifth (or whatever it is), bluster, pretend not to hear and storm out.

Or you just kill the question. Stone. Parrot. Dead.

A masterclass in Plan B was given in Baghdad in recent days when Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister gave a rare roundtable interview to western journalists - a handful of Americans, The Times, and the Italian journal, Corriere della Serra.

An Islamist Shiite who lost more than 60 close relatives to Saddam's regime and was at that moment sitting in the former home of Saddam's cousin Kamal Hussein, he was about to be challenged on the former dictator's unseemly execution, and he knew it.

Seated first right as we went clockwise around the table, the Italian journalist got to ask first question, and it was a zinger.

"Prime Minister, President Bush said the death of Saddam ....looked like revenge, a sectarian revenge. And in Italy the Prime Minister, Mr Prodi, condemned the death penalty and asked you to cancel it. Can you comment on that?'

There was a pursing of Islamist lips, a 15-minute justificatory address in Arabic, all par for the course.

Then the killer coda.

"I would like to remind Prime Minister Prodi about Mussolini and the way Mussolini was dealt with."

All thoughts in the room turned to an upside-down Italian dictator and his mistress hanging from piano wire in Milan's Piazzo Loreto. Both manifestly un-legal-processed and riddled with machine gun bullets delivered by - depending on who you believe - Italian partisans or British intelligence agents.

Sniggers from the Americans to the left. Shia imperturbability straight ahead. And I think I even detected a half-muttered 'ciao.' It might have been 'ouch'. Hard to tell.

Next question.

State of the Disunion

From Stephen Farrell in Baghdad

Video Diary: Sounds of Baghdad

Video Diary: Haifa Street Battle

Video Diary: Inside a Black Hawk

Every so often The Times's Baghdad bureau uses its staff of Iraqi stringers around the country to take soundings of public opinion, and gauge the concerns of ordinary Iraqis.

In recent days President George Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki have given keynote speeches outlining the US troops 'surge' and a crackdown in Baghdad - to be called 'Operation Imposing Justice.'      

Under pressure domestically and internationally Mr al-Maliki has emphasised in recent weeks that he is determined to bring security to all Iraqi citizens, whether Sunni or Shia, despite criticisms of his Shia-led government that it has a nakedly sectarian agenda.

Mr al-Maliki dismissed such allegations in an interview to The Times and other western newspapers last week, in which he also called on the US to accelerate the process of equipping his government's Iraqi security forces, and thereby hastening the departure of US troops.

While many hope the US-Iraqi plan will end the killings, banditry and polarisation, few are optimistic.

Here we present reactions from some of the key political and military players in Baghdad and below - from the Iraqi 'street'

Nouri al-Maliki, Iraqi Prime Minister

"The state should have the monopoly on weapons and should be the only side that deals with security. Anyone who defies the state will be dealt with by force.

"One of the main things that I have made very clear is that we will not allow any politician to interfere with this Baghdad security plan because we want it to be a military professional operation that deals with all people who break the law whether they are Sunni or Shia, Arabs or Kurds, militias or parties, insurgents or terrorists.

"The coming days the whole world will witness how we deal with people who break the law, or with the military who differentiate between one outlaw and the other."

Ashraf Qazi, the United Nations envoy in Baghdad, appealed to the country’s politicians to "save the country from sliding further into the abyss of sectarianism."

Condemning a series of bombings in the build-up to the Baghdad crackdown he said: "These deplorable outrages again underscore the urgent need for all Iraqis to reject violence and together choose the path of peace and reconciliation."

Zalmay Khalilzad, US Ambassador in Baghdad

"This is an Iraqi-led plan with the U.S. in support. We are muscling up in the short term to set the stage for the Iraqis to deal with the situation themselves over the long term. 

"With more resources brought to bear for Baghdad,  I believe that there is a good balance between ends and means in this plan.  This is a defining moment.  We are in a new phase.