Ransom kidnappings rattle Iraqi capital already beset by violence, shortages

News, September 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Jordan Times, Tuesday, September 30, 2003

BAGHDAD (AP) — On a sweltering July afternoon, high school student Ali Bashir was chatting with friends after a chemistry exam when two men jumped from a white Mercedes, pointed pistols at his head and back and forced him into their car.

Before he could realise it, the 17-year-old was speeding away, the victim of one of Baghdad's kidnapping gangs.

Such abductions, unheard of under Saddam Hussein's iron-fisted rule, have flourished in the turmoil following the collapse of his regime, generating fear in the capital — and anger at the United States.

For the next five days, Bashir was held in a tiny, bare room, where his kidnappers punched him in the face, thrust rifles into his mouth and fired weapons over his head until his family bought his freedom with $25,000 cash and a Toyota worth $15,000.

The family had to sell their home and borrow money to pay the ransom. They are now selling off their furniture to repay the loan.

"I was thinking this must be the end, I will die," Bashir said of his ordeal. "My mother is sick and my father is diabetic so I was thinking what would happen to them when they learn their son had disappeared." It is unclear how many people have fallen victim to ransom kidnappings in Baghdad since US forces seized the city from Saddam's troops in April. Police suspect many of the abductions are never reported.

Abdel Jabbar Abu Nateya, a police officer with Iraq's Major Crime Unit, said 11 kidnappings were reported in western Baghdad in June, the only area for which figures were available.

By August, the figure had dropped to three, due in part to an Iraqi police crackdown on several major gangs.

Staff Sgt. Michael Lawzano, an American National Guardsman who works with the Iraqi police, said many of the kidnappers arrested in the August crackdown turned out to be ex-convicts freed last October when Saddam declared a general amnesty.

However, it is the Americans — not Saddam — who get much of the blame. Many Iraqis accuse US forces of failing to live up to their responsibility to maintain law and order.

"Since the Americans came here, there's been all this looting and kidnapping and murder," Bashir said. "There's no security at all. It was very safe before. We used to see this kidnapping thing only in Hollywood movies. Now, it's in Baghdad."

Lawzano, who has worked as a police officer in Hannibal, Missouri, for about 10 years, said the kidnapping spree began in the wake of the widespread looting in Baghdad after Saddam's regime collapsed. The first victims were often the looters themselves, kidnapped by criminals who wanted some of the money and goods that had been taken from banks, private homes and government buildings.

"Now that they went through all the gang members, somebody got the idea we could do the same thing with wealthy families," Lawzano said. "Some people they think are wealthy are really not, and they make these high ransom demands and the families can't meet them at all." Bashir's kidnappers first demanded $60,000 and a Toyota.

After negotiations, the kidnappers settled for the $25,000 and the car. They dropped him off on a Baghdad street and warned not to watch their getaway or they would shoot him.

Some families are not so lucky. In the headquarters of the Major Crime Unit, a stocky man with sad, dark eyes waited helplessly for word of his 11-year-old son, who was kidnapped this month as he went to borrow soap from a neighbor about 8:30pm.

The man, who identified himself only as Kadhim, said he sold his wife's jewelry, pawned his car and borrowed cash to try to raise the $150,000 the kidnappers demanded.

They threatened to sell his son to another gang if he failed to give them at least $7,000. But he has been able to raise only $3,500.

"They warned me not to report this," he said, his eyes lowered.

Kadhim said he communicated with the kidnappers by satellite telephone and gave the number to the police in hopes they and the Americans could trace the call. Lawzano said, however, that the technology to do so was not readily available and tracing the call would take time.

"The Americans are now responsible for the security of the Iraqis so any negligence is their fault," Kadhim said, turning his palms upward. "The Iraqi police are trying but they have no capabilities." Some Iraqis are clearly reluctant to contact authorities and prefer to deal with other criminal gangs who will mediate for the victims' release.

When Omar Raad Abdel Majeed's two brothers and sister were kidnapped, he decided not to report it because he believed the Americans were corrupt. Instead, he paid other gangs to tell him where the kidnappers were. After negotiations, the family paid the kidnappers a ransom of $50,000 rather than the $1 million they initially demanded.

After the experience, Abdel Majeed, whose father was an army officer who died of a heart attack in April, decided to leave Baghdad. He shipped his brother and sister to Mosul and the whole family plans to move to Tikrit, Saddam's hometown.

Bashir's family is staying in Baghdad, but fear still lingers. A few days ago, the screeching sound of a car hitting the brakes brought flashbacks of his abduction.

"I thought they were after me," he said. "I got very scared and my heart pounded...They haven't arrested the gang members so far. They are free, and I expect them to carry out more kidnappings."

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

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