Iraq: "Gunrunners in Baghdad Take Over Open-Air Food Markets"

[cuchulainn]

fromt the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/02/i...00&en=c7c60a544c7f0a2e&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

Gunrunners in Baghdad Take Over Open-Air Food Markets

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 1 — In the night, there is shooting. Sharp, sudden bursts of gunfire that keep Talib Juad and his family awake and afraid. Sometimes, he said, they find bodies in the morning.

This is how it goes in many neighborhoods across Baghdad. The main war is over, but in the power vacuum of no police force and no government, the shooting continues. Some residents in the wealthy Mansur district say they have not slept for two nights because of it. And a working-class neighborhood called New Baghdad has been the scene of shootings not just at night, but during the day.

Residents are wondering who is firing. Iraqi soldiers put up little resistance when Americans advanced into the city, avoiding a potentially bloody urban war. Are those fighters now mounting a guerrilla offensive? Or is it religious groups angry at the American occupiers? Or is it possibly criminals who, freed from Saddam Hussein's jails before he fell, are now back at their trade?

Evidence of possible answers can be found in the outdoor market in the New Baghdad district. Vendors here have new neighbors: gun sellers. Men bring weapons of all kinds, from handguns to automatic rifles, to hawk in a small area between stalls selling vegetables and soda pop.

Giant caches of arms, abandoned during the war, then presumably looted, are turning up in markets like these. The American Army is bringing about 50 truckloads of armaments out of Baghdad daily, according to Col. Alan King, who is in charge of the city cleanup.

The gun sellers, who would have had to go through a strict licensing procedure just two months ago, now peddle the arms openly. Mr. Juad said he saw two people die on Wednesday from reckless shooting near his stall at the market, where he sells bottles of cheap Scotch whiskey. In his view, it is these men who are also shooting at American troops late in the night.

"We need protection," said Mr. Juad, pulling open his sweatsuit top to reveal a handgun stuffed in his belt. "We don't care whether power is in the hands of Shiites, Sunnis or American soldiers. We just want this to be controlled," he added, gesturing with his hand toward the teeming gun sales area.

"They can kill you, it means nothing for them," he said, referring to the gun sellers. "Our people are poor. They took weapons during looting. But some of them are wicked."

Earlier in the afternoon, this had been a scene of nervous confusion. Three American soldiers had seized some of the weapons, wrestling one man to the ground to confiscate a handgun. A crowd of shouting men pushed in on the soldiers, who periodically lunged at them, telling them, in Arabic, to stand back.

A soldier, who identified himself only as Staff Sergeant West, said about 110 soldiers work in the market area. They collect about 20 guns a day from this particular gun market, he said. The man who owned the gun they took was shooting it just as they passed by.

People appreciated the policing. Hussein Abdul-Roda, another vendor, said he wanted more American troops in the neighborhood. The Iraqi police, he said, were corrupt and, at this point, virtually nonexistent.

"Policemen cannot protect people because we are in a time of no law," said Abed al-Hussein Salman, sitting in his small empty shop. "Only American forces can help."

At night in New Baghdad, he said, there is shooting "louder than during the war," said Mr. Salman, blaming young Iraqis, who, he said, "shoot to try to get the Americans to shoot back."

"They hope Americans will kill people so the media will come and give the wrong impression of the Americans."

A gun market has also sprung up in the Shiite slum once known as Saddam City and now called Sadr City. Abbas Jabur, a chicken seller, said he has witnessed two shootings right next to his stall.

"We are so afraid," he said. On Wednesday, he added, drunken men came to test out a gun and killed another two people.

American soldiers came once, he said, and drove the gun vendors away. But this week they are back.

There are about 20,000 American troops in Baghdad, said Colonel King. As of today, 3,212 Iraqi policemen have returned to work. The Army is discovering weapons caches at a rate of about five per day, he said, and he estimates they have discovered and dealt with less than 5 percent of the arms.

Colonel King, interviewed in the former presidential palace where the American military has its Baghdad headquarters, insisted that neighborhoods had become safer since his troops arrived.

"When we came in on April 9, there was a bunker on every street corner," Colonel King said. "AK-47's with a few rounds in each were inside. It was as if they had just all run away." He said the situation had improved since.

"When we first came here, people were getting shot every day," he said. "Now it's every other day."

Iraqis are losing patience nonetheless. Faisel Khoudairy, a well-connected entrepreneur in a wealthy neighborhood near where government ministers used to live, said an Iraqi interim government should be formed immediately.

"It's absolutely imperative that the Americans find a face that can bridge that gap," between the Iraqi people and Jay Garner, the retired lieutenant general who is the American administrator in Iraq, and his team in the palace, he said.

In New Baghdad, Dafer Ano-Aimi, a seller near Mr. Jabur's neighborhood, said his people were giving the Americans a chance, but so far they felt disappointed.

"America didn't have any resistance from the Iraqi Army, because we know who Saddam Hussein is — we don't fight for him," he said. His brother, standing by, had suffered the amputation of part of his ear for missing two days of military service. "But if America doesn't deliver what it promised, Baghdad will be a grave for American soldiers."

He gave American soldiers credit for trying, but said in the darkly conspiratorial tones common here that it seemed that "some hidden forces" in Iraq were trying to torpedo those efforts.

"We want to greet all Americans who are good men," he said. Still, "we are poor, we are humiliated. We will get angry if we are lied to."

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company