"People Are Seriously Suffering"

by Karen Button

Operation Steel Curtain, launched near the Syrian border in western Iraq two weeks ago by US/Iraqi military forces, marks not just another offensive in this beleaguered region, but an on-going military presence since early May. Since then, repeated offensives with names like Matador, Sword, Arrow, River Gate, and Iron Fist have created a humanitarian crisis, leaving thousands encamped in desert shelters. The Iraqi Red Crescent has reported difficulties currently reaching civilians due to an inability to cross the Euphrates. According to locals, US-led troops have blown up five bridges, effectively isolating many of the communities on the other side and preventing many from fleeing.

Operation Steel Curtain, which has targeted the city of Al-Qaim, has been using US planes to drop 500-pound bombs on targets claimed to be “terrorist safe houses” However, sources inside the city have reported dozens of civilian deaths and families buried in the rubble of their targeted homes.

Residents attempting to flee were warned via loudspeaker they must do so by foot and would be shot if they left in vehicles, reported the Associated Press. 3,500 troops have sealed the city of Al-Qaim, cutting communications and imposing a military curfew.

According to the United Nations affiliated news agency IRIN, doctors reported dozens of civilians were killed and injured in the latest attacks on Husaybah, a community close to Al-Qaim. The attacks have forced thousands to flee to makeshift camps, in place since the fighting began in May.

“The situation is becoming critical,” Ferdous al-Abadi, spokesman for the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS) told IRIN. “People are seriously suffering.”

Most press coverage actually from the region is coming from embedded reporters, such as those reporting for The New York Times and CNN. Mainstream outlets reporting from Baghdad are often quoting US military spokespeople. Not surprisingly, USA Today is reporting a 50 percent decrease in foreign fighters entering from Syria. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-11-06-iraq-border_x.htm) This, according to “a US General,” not even named in this report.

Though independent press coverage has been minimal--Iraqi reporters have claimed often being turned back at military checkpoints--Sabah Ali was able to get through and has one of the few independent reports from the region.

“Arriving in Alqaim general hospital …we listened to different stories of the last attack. A big black banner says that the ambulance driver, Mahmood Chiad, was shot on Oct 1, 2005 by the American troops while he was trying to help some injured families.”

Chiad was on a call, enroute to Karabala, when he was shot in the chest and killed, leaving a widow and six children. “The ambulance was then hit by a grenade which ripped it in two parts, and burnt it,” Ali said. She said they were not allowed to photograph the remains of the vehicle.

As in other military operations, witnesses at Al-Qaim hospital claim the US is using snipers. “A young man, H.Khalaf, was lying on a trolley, soaked in blood. He was shot in his genitals by an American sniper while he was going home from the market just across the street. ‘There was nothing, no shooting, no bombing, nothing,’ said a neighbor who brought Khalaf to the hospital said. ‘We heard the shot, and he was lying there bleeding. We could not reach him. He crawled to the side street.’

“In the ward another young man, Salah Hamid, was shot under the belt too. He was driving his taxi at 10 am on Monday Oct 17, 2005 in the market place when he was shot by the American snipers. The doctor explained that a large part of his intestine had to be cut.

“The hospital’s assistant director described how bad and difficult the situation is, the continuous bombing of houses and cars, the snipers who shoot indiscriminately any moving thing (two days ago they killed 6 donkeys), the besieged city, the closed highway. ‘I do not understand why they cut the highway and let families go through the desert, they are searching everything and everybody! Now, on top of everything else, the oxygen tubes are not allowed in the hospital.’

“The administrative assistant explained the situation in the bombed areas across the river (Euphrates) after the bridges were bombed in the attack: ‘There are many villages: Rumana, Al-Beidha, Al-Ish, Dgheima, Baghooz, Al-rabot….etc where families sought shelter from the bombing. These villages are cut of any kind of help now, and are exposed to regular bombing. There is no doctor or clinic in an area of 110 kilometers along the river. The injured families have to be brought by boats, bleed to death, or die under the rubbles. It is impossible to count the dead, their families bury them on the spot, without any document, and of course no media coverage. Civilians, relatives and neighbors help evacuating those buried under the rubbles. Snipers are still hurting us most. On the Referendum day Oct 15, no one would dare to go out; I would not, even if I was given the post of a president.’

“Early next morning, around 7 am, there was noise and crowd in the hospital. Two cars covered with dust, and few men were standing at the emergency gate. One old man, over 60, was sobbing and talking to the sky, repeating hysterically, ‘please come and see what happened to me,’ other men were crying silently.

“A girl of ten was lying on one trolley, and a young woman on another. They were still conscious. The girl, Yosr Jasim Mohammad Al-Ta’i, 10, (going to 5th grade, as she said proudly), was injured in her feet, back, and right ear, which were covered with blood. She did not know that she is the only survivor of a family of 8. Her father, her mother Ibtisam Thiyab Othman, and five of her brothers and sister were buried dead under the rubbles when the American airplanes bombed Al-Ish village at 2 am that day, Oct 26, 2005.

“The woman, Sa’diya, 35, was injured in her thigh. She was [w]rapped in a burnt out quilt. Sa’diya was in her uncles’ house. Her house was blown up by the American troops the day before "they took the women and children out, and blow the house, I do not know if they arrested the men or they blow them inside the house. We came to my uncles’ house yesterday, today at 2 am we were bombed again". Sa’diya was terribly shocked. "I do not know how many people were killed. We were more than 30 in the house. My three uncles, their wives and children, my aunt, and five guests in the diwan (guest room), were killed. I do not know if there are any survivors, I was buried under the wall. I saw my uncle Idan, and two of the children Farooq and Ahmad, they were dead". (Sa’diy did not know that Yosr, one of the guests and herself are the only survivors of the many families in that house).

“Khalifa Mokhlos the only survivor among the 4 men in the guest room said that the other 4 men were killed when two missiles hit the house. "Jasim M. Mokhlos (30), Idan Abdulla Mosa (52), Awad M.Mosa (45), and Moslem K.Hussein (30) were all killed".

“K., the chief of community council in Al-Risala district, himself handicapped in the Iraqi-Iranian war, was telling us many stories of demolished houses and killed families. We asked to visit some of them. He was hesitant, but then suggested that we only visit those in the relatively safe districts. Alqaim now looks so different from Alqaim we saw 18 months ago in the first major American attack in April 2004. Then it was a city full of life, shops, offices, people, police…there was movement in the street. Now it is a dead city. Fear and suspicion are the kings of the streets.

Sabah Ali documented numerous cases of civilian deaths (for the full report, go to: http://www.brusselstribunal.org/ArticlesIraq2.htm and page down), and the fear many refugees now have of returning to their homes.

Now complicating the situation, Reuters is reporting that the military claims to be making the area “safe for residents to vote in December 15 elections, and unlike in previous operations Iraqi security forces will remain in the area to make sure insurgents do not return.”

A further complication is that most of the military operations now being conducted in Iraq are in the minority-Sunni regions; most of the Iraqi forces are comprised of Shiites and Kurds.