Iraqi families watch bombing unfold

Iraqi families watch bombing unfold

By Dominic Casciani
BBC News Online community affairs reporter

Fareed Sabri: Watching the conflict unfold live on TV

Fareed and Zaynab Sabri would love to return home. But all they can do is watch live pictures from Baghdad which show their country is being bombed again.

They, like the rest of the exiled Iraqi community living in the UK, can only wait for a time when, perhaps, they will be free to help rebuild their country.

But as bombing began, Fareed, Zaynab and their two young daughters, channel-surfed between the BBC and Arabic news channel Al-Jazeera to get the latest.

Twelve years earlier, Fareed had done the same - watching solidly for four days as the then war unfolded.

Like many exiled Iraqis, the Sabris face real moral dilemmas over the war.

On the one hand, it may remove the man responsible for their forced absence. On the other, they believe it will bring more suffering to their compatriots.

Backgrounds

Fareed, now in the digital photography business, arrived in the UK as a university student in 1982 and graduated in computer engineering.

Today in Britain we feel far safer - this is a free country

Zaynab Sabri, with her daughter Nur

The Iran-Iraq war prevented his return, as did the 1991 Gulf War and the subsequent deterioration of conditions in the country.

He became a British citizen in 1999 and he sends a great deal of his income to his mother, two brothers and three sisters.

Since being granted a British passport he has felt safe enough to enter Iraq twice.

Zaynab has effectively been exiled since she was a teenager. Her father is a prominent politician who fled in 1980.

The family were eventually given asylum in Britain after their past followed them wherever they tried to settle in the Middle East.

"When I was applying for university in Jordan all they seemed to be interested in was my father," she says.

IRAQ'S PEOPLE

Arabs comprise 75-80% of the population

Kurds make up 15-20%

Other ethnic minorities, such as Turkmen and Assyrian, 5%

95% are Muslim, 5% Christian and other minorities

Iraq's rich mosaic of peoples
Click here for more

"We became increasingly worried that we were not safe anywhere in the Middle East.

"You become wary of speaking to strangers or of giving anyone any kind of information about yourself.

"Today in Britain we feel far safer. This is a free country."

Fareed has tried to get through to relatives in Baghdad all week but when he can't he knows it's because the phone lines have been cut by the Iraqi government.

"When I did get through, they were terrified. They just sounded very, very sad," he said.

Everyone of these phone calls is a strain as it is impossible to talk openly.

In the last couple of weeks, their relatives have dug a well and started work on a trench. They have been stockpiling what food and fuel they could find.

"When we last spoke they were totally resigned to the war," said Fareed. "From their experience of the last time, the first thing to go is the electricity and the water purification."

Mixed feelings

Fareed and Zaynab had no hesitation in saying war would not solve Iraq's problems.

THE EVE OF WAR

Shops are shuttered - Most people are in fortified rooms at home

The BBC's Paul Wood, Baghdad

Braced for war
Click here for full story

"The question is - at what cost?" said Fareed.

"If America had supported the Iraqi people [in 1991] they would have finished it. But they didn't and the sanctions have crippled our people.

"People are extremely cynical at American motives because they know the end of Saddam will come at a very heavy price.

"If this is about democracy then why has America ignored the United Nations? If this is about freedom then why does the US support some of the most backward regimes in the Middle East? Why is there no equal treatment for the Palestinians?

"Every time America gets involved it comes with its own agenda and makes problems worse."

Contrasting views

Many Muslims in the UK are vehemently opposed to the war because of what they regard as double standards.

Most Iraqis are not in the UK through choice - they would always want to return home

Fareed Sabri

But their views contrast sharply with some of the Iraqis at home whose unfiltered views are known. Many say they will welcome the Americans. Doesn't this prove the exile community is out of step?

"There is a saying in Arabic - show someone death and he will accept fever," says Fareed. "The Iraqi people are desperate because life is so difficult."

The nightmare scenario for the exiles is for a post-Saddam Iraq to collapse into ethnic strife.

They fear the three main groups - the majority Shias, politically dominant Sunnis and the northern Kurds will begin settling scores which will fracture the nation.

This, believe Fareed and Zaynab, would make it even harder for people like them to ever return home.

"There will always be those who seek vengeance. But ordinary people only want to live their lives.

"I have been here for 20 years and my daughters go to school here.

"But in Baghdad we have a large family home, paid for by my income here, that we never see.

"Most Iraqis are not in the UK through choice. They would always want to return home. But I think that whatever the Americas do in the coming days it will still be impossible for many to do so."