Who else wants to die in Iraq?

I was at work yesterday when my mother called to see if everything was fine and if I am going to come back home early or not. While we were chatting, she told me something that made me freeze on the chair I was sitting on.

As she was at the school where she teaches, one of her colleagues was sobbing in the teacher’s room surrounded by other teachers who most of them were crying. “I said to myself, it seems someone has died,” she said within herself. As she peered closely, she discovered that the teacher’s 6 month-old- infant was killed!

Few days ago, a group carrying identifications from the health ministry knocked at the door of the teacher’s daughter’s house. “Do you have children?”, the men asked the daughter. “Yes, one,” she replied. Then the men asked her to bring him to be vaccinated against polio. The infant was “vaccinated” but two hours later, he died.

The victim’s sobbing grandmother narrated how her daughter lost conscious when she discovered that her son was not vaccinated and was poisoned instead. At the same time nearly, two more infants in their early months were also poisoned the same way the first infant was killed with.

The teacher’s daughter was like all Iraqis who trusted the health centers teams who come each season to vaccinate infants against polio. This time, no one expected that the new target is going to be infants.

My mother said she immediately called my sister to warn her. She told her not to open the door for these people even if they were real health teams. My sister was shocked and decided to take her 9-month-old infant to the health center as she did in the previous times.

Things have never calmed down. It is going from worse to worst. A 28-year-old Shiite neighbor of mine was killed as he was driving with two friends in the Sunni majority neighborhood of Adhamiya. As they were driving, a group of armed men stopped their car. After 15 minutes of arguing with the armed men, the three young men gave up convincing them that they live nearby. The armed men decided to search the three men and found their IDs. The two Sunnis were told to leave the area immediately while the third one, a Shiite, was kept a hostage until he was killed. His friends received a call at night telling them he is killed. He left a widow and two infants.

Although I am a Shiite but I live in a neighborhood part of Adhamiyah. I spent all my teenage and college time with my friends there. I have great and nice memories I usually share with my friends in that area. But now, I fear even passing by it. I am a Shiite and my father’s name is a Shiite. If the insurgents discover that, they may kill me like my neighbor. The last times I went their to visit a friend, I did not carry any ID.

The western restive part of Iraq continues to be out of control. 15 Iraqi young athletes were kidnapped while driving to neighboring Jordan, police and Olympic Committee officials said. The 15 taekwondo athletes, hopeful to join the Olympics game one day, were heading to Jordan after a long month of training in Baghdad for a previous championship. Dressed in Training shoes and Tracksuits, the athletes went in two groups joyfully.

The kidnapping of the Korean martial art players took place last Monday on a road between the restless hostile cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, one of the most violent areas of Iraq where insurgents carry out armed operations against Iraqi and US forces. The athletes, in two GMC vehicles, were stopped by a group of armed men who forced the drivers to take the back seat letting them drive to an unknown area.

“They were on vacation,” said Jamal Abdul Karim, the head of the Iraqi Taekwondo Union of. “They weren’t going to Jordan in an official activity or championship. They were going just to have fun altogether,” Abdul Karim said.

The fifteen athletes were all in their twenties. Five of them were members of the Iraqi national team of Taekwondo, including a 27-year-old player who won the Bronze medal in the Asian championship of Taekwondo in Thailand couple of weeks ago.

"We are negotiating with the kidnappers through a mediator. They asked for a $100,000 ransom," said Abdul Karim from behind his desk at the national Olympic committee headquarters in Baghdad. “We haven’t slept since Monday,” he said as he looked deeply moved and about to shed a tear. “They are like our sons.”

Most of athletes were residents of Sadr City, a Shiite slum in eastern Baghdad whose residents are loyal to the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Armed men always cut off the road to Jordan robbing travelers. Abdul Karim said that he and some other athletes were robbed several times as they went to Jordan. “But this time, it was different,” he said.

By the time Abdul Karim was saying that they were contacting the mediator to ensure their release, he received a phone call. After he hanged up, he said, “The ransom was delivered. We are waiting for their release now.” Few hours later, Abdul Karim said that the armed men told them the hostages will be released either today or tomorrow.

Although the players were not on an official mission, Abdul Karim and his colleagues at the Taekwondo union decided to pay the ransom to get their colleagues released. “All the staff and I decided not to get our salaries for one year. Instead, we volunteered it to pay the ransom to free our sons,” he said.

A group of athletes, friends and colleague of the 15 hostages, were gathering outside the Union chief’s office chatting about how they spent their time training and working together. Haider Yousif, the taekwondo national team coach looked sad and moved by the incident. “We feel miserable. We’ve been crying for them for three days,” Yousif said with eyes gazing on the floor.

Yousif who met with the families of the hostages early this morning, said they came pleading to do something. “We told them we will never let them down. We’ll do everything to get them released,” he said. Sorrowful Parents and relatives gathered, some were crying and some were strong enough to control their feelings as they were talking to the officials and colleagues of the hostages. “Their mothers’ pain was far more than anyone else. I could see that in their eyes,” Yousif said. Some of the hostages were from other provinces in Iraq. The family of one player, kept calling from Amara in southern Iraq to see if their son has been released or not. “They will come all the way from Amara to Baghdad,” he added.

Taekwondo players from different provinces joined the sad company of families and colleagues this morning. “They came from Basra, Ramadi, and other provinces and said they would do anything to get their colleagues released,” he said.

Yousif recalled how one of the hostages, Wisam Oraibi, won the Bronze medal in Thailand and how he won a previous Bronze medal in the Taekwondo Championship of the Islamic Nation that was held in Saudi Arabia few months ago.

“Not only us, all Iraqis sympathize with these players,” Yousif said.

The New York Times and the Washington Post published two stories of how daily life looks like in Baghdad. Today’s story of the New York Times was a clear picture of how middle-class and educated people started leaving and thinking seriously to leave the country due to the daily violence.

Now, on the brink of a new, permanent government, Iraqis are expressing the darkest view of their future in three years. "We're like sheep at a slaughter farm," said a businessman, who is arranging a move to Jordan. "We are just waiting for our time."

In a story published in the Washington Post, a resident described how armed men tried to break into a nearby mosque.

"God is great!" cried a man he took to be the imam of one of the mosques of the neighborhood, the urgency and fear in his voice coming loud and clear over the electronic sound system. "God is great!"
The imam's cry was the alarm recognized in all neighborhoods -- Sunni or Shiite -- across Baghdad. The mosque was under attack.