And the weirdness continues.


Ahmad’s father is attacked while in a taxi in the Shula district. Mind you, nothing personal, he is just a lowly employee in a government job he means nothing on the scale of the big fish. Just some freak who probably was bored and decided to shoot a random car. Luckily he and the taxi driver are only wounded and rushed to the hospital near by.

Ahmad gets a phone call and leaves work to go check on his injured father. Shula is a Shia district and although it has seen its share of violence it was never as mad as neighbouring Ameriyah, so he wasn’t that worried about going there.

When he gets there he finds out that his father will survive and other than the injury he doesn’t have much to worry about. He walks out of the hospital and before he gets to his car he is bundled up and kidnapped.

A couple of hours later his body is found, decapitated. His head in a plastic bag near the body and no explanation.

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The latest news from Ameriyah is that the Jihadis there have distributed leaflets advising women against wearing that devilish invention called Trousers. A friend of my mother who usually goes to work in the local bank in trousers has taken a couple of days off to go look for skirts.

The driver of the mini-bus who drives my cousin to university from Ameriyah has told all the girls that if they don’t wear a headscarf they are not getting on the bus “they won’t kill you, they will kill me”.
My cousin now has her first collection of scarves matching her purses.

Islamists:2 Freedom & Democracy: Nil

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It should not be a surprise to you if you have been following the news of Iraqi ministries that the Ministry of Health is controlled by the supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr and it is not yet clear whether in the new government this will be the same.

And since every good Muslim knows that when a man and a woman are alone the devil will be their third the minister, in an effort to minimize the possibility of such devilish threesomes, has segregated the elevators. When you walk into the ministry today you will see the elevators marked like toilets, one for men and one for women.

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One of my parents’ friends house was robbed last week. It’s a big house but they are both retired and they don’t really have much, which really pissed off the 6 armed men who barged into the house late that night.

While the house was being ransacked they found the couple’s passports. Chief-thief threw it at them and asked a VERY wise question: “When you two have passports can you tell me what you are still doing here?”

I ask myself the same question almost everyday. And clearly answering “this is home” really isn’t cutting it anymore.

Boys and girls do yourselves a favour and go read Iraqi Screen.
You will thank me.

She is funny, she is wise and she could kick your ass if you looked her up the wrong way.

This is a bit related to the earlier post. It seems the ministry of Higher Education (Universities) has joined the ministry of Education (Schools and High Schools) in admitting that they cannot really take responsibility for their charges. The ministry of Higher Education has announced today that it is giving Universities the right to choose the date for their final exams which is sort of telling them you can have them as early as you want.

Elementary and High Schools have all but closed down. Principals have telling parents that kids don’t have to come to school until the final exams on the 20th.

The District of Ameryiah (west of Baghdad) has entered some sort of parallel universe. It has been living this one for a while but from what I had heard yesterday it has officially left the galaxy we know and entered a galaxy ruled by an alien race called Sunni Fundamentalists .
There have been killings of barbers who shave beards for a while there. Shops were bombed because they sell un-Islamic clothing and Shia shop owners slaughtered on the streets.

The latest news coming from this far and distant galaxy is that a school deep in that dark and cold world have told Shia kids not to come to school anymore. The purity of Sunni land shouldn’t be tainted by those dirty Shia coming to their schools.

Parents who got the not-so-subtle hint and decided to move out of the district were also in the same not so subtle way informed that they were not allowed actually take anything with them. No trucks with a load that looked like a house move was allowed to get out of the district and the drivers were killed. The houses of those dirty Shia were legitimate loot for the Sunni Jihadists who are working hard to insure the purity of the district.

Today there was an interview with the minister of Justice in the newspaper.
There have been rumours that inmates who have been sentenced to death for crimes related to terrorism have been walking out of their cells by the truckload. And there is one wild rumour circulating about a group of another terrorists in a “high security” Iraqi jail in a remote area digging a tunnel out of their jail.

What was his response? He admitted that death-row inmates have been bribing the prison wardens and they were letting them go. He didn’t think it was his or his ministry’s fault. Apparently it is the fault of the National Assembly. The law laid down by the NA for death sentences make it necessary to do a lot of paper work which has been taking the ministry up to two months to finish and this time is apparently more than enough for indicted terrorists to become chummy with their wardens and find out how much it would take to let hem walk and then get in contact with their buddy terrorists and arrange for payments.

R is a shop owner - electronics, mobile phone accessories that sort of thing – he’d gotten married recently and his wife was pregnant. He also had his parents and sister to support which is why he thought it would be a good idea to expand his business a bit so he borrowed some money to expand. He borrows and lends money all the time. Part of doing business but this time he borrowed from the wrong people.

The lenders wanted their money back after a couple of months but R didn’t have it. This wasn’t what the lenders wanted to hear so they threatened to kill him if he didn’t pay. Nothing new here, Baghdad is the new Wild Wild West and death threats are almost issued with the monthly food rations.

R’s family did inform the police and file a report but the father knew there was nothing they would do.

R’s family asked him to leave Baghdad for a while so he went to Kurdistan where he had relatives and everybody thought he would be safe there. But the lenders thought this was just too annoying and they just weren’t going to tolerate this rudeness.

It happened at 6am in the morning.
R’s mother has knee trouble she can’t walk well and his father is a simple elderly man and R’s sister, a 26 year old woman, is also home she doesn’t work and takes care of here father and mother.

R’s mother was woken up by an explosion at six, not too loud. Maybe something in the distant. Her husband wasn’t beside her; he usually wakes up early for the morning prayer and walks a bit in the garden.

R’s sister ran out to find here father only to find that the sound of the explosions wasn’t loud not because it was far away but because this was a small bomb that exploded in their drive way, under their own car.

The “lenders” had come early in the morning tied up R’s father who was probably walking in his garden, put him in the car and set an explosive device under the car. R’s father died in the burning car. The “lenders” had left a note of warning as well.

R’s mother and sister have been on the move since that day, they couldn’t even do a proper funeral. The police never bothered to do something deciding it is just another gang and they can’t really help.