BAGHDAD, 22 March 2003 — It was almost like a normal Friday. Children kicked footballs in the sunshine, men and women shopped at corner stores — but everyone wondered when the next US missiles would start raining from the sky. “We were playing count-the-explosions yesterday,” said Umm Hiba, a mother of four who had hunkered down with her children in Baghdad as US and British airstrikes hit the heart of the city the night before.
“We were expecting the bombing so we prepared the children psychologically,” she said. The Iraqi capital’s five million residents were bracing for a third night of missile attacks but with Washington so far not making good on its pledge of “shock and awe” bombardments, many seemed to take their day of rest in stride.
This sense of domestic disquiet is the lot for most in this city of five million people. In such a sprawling metropolis, it is nearly impossible to pinpoint where the missiles are falling.
And tall buildings offering a sweeping vantage point are rare. The skyscraper Meridian-Palestine and Sheraton-Ishtar hotels have been swarmed by journalists.
The biggest concern voiced by Iraqis interviewed by AFP was the welfare of their children and their efforts to quiet them when the bombs are falling. “I have tried to explain war to them” said Louai, a 45-year-old journalist who described the conversation he had with his seven-year-old son Zuheir on Thursday evening.
“People aren’t hesitating to come out,” said Muhammad Latif, who was walking through a market carrying three doves in a cage. “We like to keep our animals for company.” Few dared take their cars to the roads, leaving the traffic lights blinking red then green over deserted intersections, but many people mounted their bicycles to take a tour around the city.
Samir Mehdi, a 38-year-old professor of English at Baghdad University, was weathering the storm with humor after spending the night listening to the BBC radio service. “London launched attacks against us but it’s their radio we’re listening to,” he said. “Even while they’re bombing us.”
But the outward cool could not mask the feeling that another evening of uncertainty lay ahead, another evening of listening to the radio and wondering if tonight the big assault would finally come. Thursday night’s raid sent missiles slamming into key sites of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime in downtown Baghdad, and the government said 37 civilians had been left wounded.
At least three buildings near Saddam’s main compound in the city were destroyed, and flame was still pouring into the sky nearly 24 hours later. Armed guards blocked access to the area, home to Iraq’s Planning Ministry as well as offices of Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan and Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz.
The war drew an angry sermon at the Umm Al-Maarek (Mother of all Battles Mosque), named for the first US-led war on Iraq in 1991.
Sheikh Abdelatif Homeim waved a Kalashnikov assault rifle as he called on believing Muslims worldwide to assassinate Americans. “Arabs, Muslims! Surround the Americans and kill them everywhere you see them!” he said.
