BAGHDAD, 23 February 2005 — Nearly two years after US forces stormed Baghdad, insurgents are firmly dug in along one of the capital’s main streets, just 1,500 meters from American military headquarters. A once vibrant area, Haifa Street is now an eerie no-go zone where a few nervous motorists speed past insurgents, only too aware that favorite attack methods include roadside bombs. American snipers are positioned on rooftops.
University professors who once frequented nearby cafes sit in apartment buildings scarred by shells and bullets, bracing for the next round of fighting.
The US-backed Iraqi government is struggling to end an insurgency of suicide bombings and kidnappings that shows few signs of easing after landmark Jan. 30 elections. “I am scared when Americans and Iraqi National Guards raid Haifa Street because once they attack they start to fire randomly,” said Al Hassan Mohsen, 24, a student.
“Haifa was one of the best areas of Baghdad. Now it is one of the worst. When we have exams we sleep with relatives outside Haifa Street in case we get trapped by fighting. In the old days under Saddam I used to go out at three in the morning.”
Taking control of Haifa Street would be an important psychological victory because Iraq’s fledgling security forces could show they asserted themselves in the capital. But insurgents remain defiant despite pounding of their positions by US forces in tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles.
Just two months ago, a group of election workers traveling along Haifa Street was pulled over, forced out of their car at gunpoint, made to kneel in the street and shot in the head by insurgents as alarmed drivers looked on. Many residents of Haifa Street said they were too scared to vote in the elections.
Guerrillas who have attacked and destroyed US armored vehicles have left flags from followers of the Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, hanging on the burning vehicles.
During Saddam’s time, Yemeni, Palestinian, Jordanian and Syrian university students rented flats along Haifa Street, lined by four-story German-, Dutch- and Korean-built apartment blocks built by Saddam in the early 1980s.
These days it is home to Arab fighters loyal to Zarqawi and other Muslim militants from a variety of groups seeking to drive out American troops and topple the government.
“Haifa Street now witnesses raids, clashes and shooting. We are scared and we fear a lot for our sons and husbands when they go to work or university,” said Mona Saleh, a housewife. “Now after five o’clock you would not find anyone out because they fear American snipers on high buildings.”
