Baghdad diary: Living in fear

By Andrew North BBC News, Baghdad

NEIGHBOUR CORNERED

"For the first time, I am really thinking we will have to leave."

US troops stage almost constant raids across Baghdad

The words of Ali, a friend of mine, recently.

He told me how members of Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi militia had recently come knocking at his apartment building.

They demanded one of his neighbours give up his flat. They needed it as a safe house, in case US forces came looking for them.

The neighbour was cornered, my friend said. He made excuses. "So you don't like the Mehdi," the militia men responded. The man was terrified my, friend said. What could he do?

Every day when I go to work, I have this feeling I will not see them (family) again Baghdad office worker

It is all getting too close, he said.

The other day, he rushed home from work to move his family out, because a firefight had broken out nearby.

"We have gunbattles in the area every two or three days now."

Ali is like many Iraqis. He was happy to see Saddam Hussein overthrown.

And in many respects life has got much better for him and his family - primarily because he earns far more than he used to as a doctor.

The extra cash has made it worth hanging on, despite the constant chaos and violence, the lack of basic services like electricity.

He doesn't want me to say what he does now - or his real name - to protect his identity.

NO POWER, NO WATER

Talking of electricity, many parts of west Baghdad have not had power or running water for a month now.

Petrol queues are also more common again. The line at the nearest petrol station to our house often stretches several hundred metres.

Sectarian violence claims more victims every day

The unluckiest can spend several days trying to fill their cars, eking out the last few drops in the tank. But each time they reach the front of the line, the petrol station runs out and they have to start again.

All this Ali has borne with a weary sigh.

It depresses him, but he always clung to a hope the situation would eventually turn.

He thought that turn might have come as the US and Iraqi security campaign got under way in February, as the first of the extra thousands of troops began to flow onto the streets.

For a few weeks, the city seemed safer. Many other Baghdadis said the same.

Roll forward to today, and the militia - supposedly one of the main targets of the plan - appears as strong as ever in his area. They are openly running checkpoints again, he says, although they keep weapons concealed.

The talk now in Baghdad is of how a new "Golden Unit" of the Mehdi is operating, trying to impose more discipline on the rag-tag movement, reining in some of the rogue elements beyond his control.

How significant this is remains unclear - these rogue elements have taken much of the blame for the widespread sectarian killings of Sunnis - but it is another sign of how quickly this and other armed groups adapt.

Many in Baghdad see what's going on now as a waiting game - waiting for the Americans to leave.

They hear how opposition to the war in the US has hardened. So, too, do the various Shia militias and Sunni insurgent groups.

A US withdrawal at some point in the next couple of years is therefore starting to look very possible and some are preparing, making sure they are in position.

This is why what hope Ali had is fast running out.

For several others I know, it already has - one of them an academic who I've written about here before.

She has now fled to Syria, adding to an already calamitous brain drain from Iraq since the US and British invasion.

Much as he dislikes them, Ali admits the militiamen are still seen as the last defence against al-Qaeda car bombers who have targeted Shia districts relentlessly.

NUMBER-ONE TARGET

The extremist Sunni group has again caught the Americans off guard.

As the security plan got under way, it was the Shia militias who were the number-one target.

But as the bombing onslaught got worse, US commanders had to do another about-turn and go after al-Qaeda all over again.

Militants have outlawed card games in some Baghdad cafes, but not all

It is under massive pressure now, with almost constant US raids.

But like a Hydra, it keeps coming back - testament to its organisation and funding.

Facing opposition from many tribes in its former stronghold of Anbar province, it has developed new roots in the capital.

Through a mixture of coercion and financial inducements, many residents in the mainly Sunni districts of western Baghdad say it has actually managed to tighten its grip there in the past few months.

As soon as one local al-Qaeda amir or prince is killed or detained, another takes his place.

Ali has seen this change himself.

To get to his home, he now has to take a circuitous route to bypass a neighbouring Sunni area regarded as being totally under al-Qaeda's sway.

"We used to go there sometimes to buy food," he says. "I would never go there now."

He can see the graffiti though, at the edge of the neighbourhood.

"Long live al-Qaeda", it says. And "Death to the rejectionists" - the term Sunni extremists use to describe Shias.

America and Britain's overthrow of Saddam Hussein got rid of one kind of fear.

It has been replaced by another - but a much more unpredictable kind, which flows from chaos and turmoil and myriad armed groups who have carved out their own mini-states across Baghdad.

An office colleague was describing his fear every time his wife goes out just to buy groceries from a nearby shop.

"I ring her constantly. I am too terrified to let her or my children out most of the time. Every day when I go to work, I have this feeling I will not see them again."

Another colleague lives in another area under Shia militia control.

That control now means residents have to obey a Taleban-style moral and behaviour code.

In local cafes, the militia men have outlawed popular games such as dominoes and cards. They say they are against Islam.

Children playing on electronic games are told to put them away.

These are the ordinary stories of ordinary people trying to go about their life. It is a life that becomes ever more restricted and terrifying.

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Previous Baghdad diaries:

Relative lull

First, worst, biggest

Technology at war

On another planet

The 'what to do' debate

The morning after

Looking for options

Delayed, 16 years

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