BAGHDAD: Fifteen years ago, Abu Ali was thrilled to see American soldiers enter Baghdad. “The tyrant is finished,” he remembers saying, imagining a bright future for Iraq without Saddam Hussein.
But the years that followed have brought only misery, he said, looking at photos of three of his sons killed in attacks in the ensuing chaos.
After the US-led invasion of 2003, Iraq, freed from nearly a quarter century of dictatorship, descended into violence.
Sectarian clashes and jihadist attacks divided families and killed tens of thousands of people, leaving behind wounds that have yet to heal and a lagging economy.
In July 2007, Abu Ali’s eldest son, 18 at the time, was killed when a car bomb hit a busy street in Baghdad’s Karrada neighborhood.
He had been selling watermelons to passers-by trying to escape the summer heat.
Six years later almost to the day, the taxi driver’s two younger sons, Alaa, 23, and Abbas, 17, were also killed in an attack.
The losses are written in deep lines along his face, aged well beyond his 61 years.
Abu Ali used to dream of lives for his children that would be better than his own, but now he only visits them at the cemetery.
“I go to their graves every week, I feel like they’re sitting near me,” he said, wearing a white scarf and a traditional beige robe.
Abu Ali’s hopes for a brighter future have faded. “The situation does not bode well... no one thinks of the people,” he said. “The parties only seek to win seats.”
Things were different before, said Qais Al-Sharea, a hairdresser in the capital.
“Saddam Hussein was the strong man, the one who controlled everything and scared the entire world with his chemical weapons,” he said.
Each morning, when he opened his salon in Al-Ferdous Square in the heart of Baghdad, the dictator’s colossal statue stood guard outside.
On April 9, 2003, Sharea, who had stayed at home that day, watched on television as US soldiers with an armored vehicle helped a crowd armed with a sledgehammer pull down the bronze statue in front of his shop.
“Baghdad fell when the statue fell,” he told AFP at the foot of the giant platform, now covered with rubble poorly hidden by crumpled sheet metal — the site of a construction project that has so far failed to take shape.
Sharea, 27 at the time, thought “like all young people” that Baghdad would soon be filled with nightclubs and restaurants.
“We (thought) we would travel the world,” he said.
But instead of progress and opening to the world, life in Iraq has turned into a case of “one step forward and five back,” said Sharea.
Mahmoud Othman, a 65-year-old Kurdish politician who served as a member of Iraq’s transitional leadership after Saddam’s fall, dreamed of a better tomorrow.
But if “the Americans had a plan to overthrow Saddam Hussein, they had no agenda for post-Saddam,” said Othman, who had been a Kurdish peshmerga fighter since the age of 18.
State institutions and Saddam’s all-powerful Baath Party were dismantled as opposition figures returned from exile.
But corruption and sectarian tensions — fueled by militias born in the security vacuum created by the dismantling of the security forces — flourished.
“We thought we’d have a federal and democratic system, but we’ve had sectarianism and chauvinism,” said Rauf Maaruf, leader of the Kurdish opposition party Goran.
Members of Iraq’s religious and ethnic minorities say they have paid the highest price for the past decade-and-a-half of chaos.
“Our country has been going through catastrophe after catastrophe,” said the Chaldean Catholic patriarch, Louis Raphael Sako, who has watched his community shrink.
Every institution has been affected, according to Abdel Salam Al-Samer, a 58-year-old university teacher for the past three decades.
“The situation in Iraq has deteriorated and so have our universities,” said Samer, who has seen political factions interfere in education and colleagues killed by militias.
15 years after Saddam’s fall, Iraqi hopes fade
15 years after Saddam’s fall, Iraqi hopes fade
Israel’s Netanyahu to undergo prostate removal surgery
The procedure comes with Israel at war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip more than 14 months after the Palestinian militants carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 last year.
Netanyahu underwent a test at Hadassah Hospital on Wednesday, where he was “diagnosed with a urinary tract infection resulting from a benign prostate enlargement,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
“As a result, the prime minister will undergo prostate removal surgery tomorrow,” it said.
In March, he underwent a hernia surgery, while in July last year doctors implanted a pacemaker in Netanyahu after a medical scare.
Gaza amputees get new limbs, but can’t shake off war trauma
- Survivors are haunted by memories of war and their terror of losing loved ones
ABU DHABI: Layan Al Nasr, 14, thought she would never walk again after both of her legs were amputated following an Israeli bombing in Gaza one year ago.
Now, she stands proudly on artificial limbs fitted in the UAE. But fear for her family, still living under the attacks, gnaws away.
“When I was told about prosthetics when I arrived, I didn’t even know they existed,” she jokes, taking a few steps supported by crutches.
She is able to smile as she describes her operations, rehabilitation and her newfound hope. But emotion eventually catches up with her.
“What scares me today is losing my brothers, my sisters and my father,” she confides, bursting into tears.
Nasr is one of more than 2,000 wounded or seriously ill Palestinians flown with their closest relatives to the UAE during the Israel-Hamas war.
Plucked from shattered Gaza, much of it in ruins, they are lucky to escape a conflict that has left more than 45,000 people dead in the Palestinian territory.
The survivors brought to the UAE are haunted by their memories of war and their terror of losing loved ones, despite their new existence in calm, quiet Abu Dhabi.
“I don’t care what happens to me, the important thing is that nothing happens to them,” insists Nasr.
The complex housing them in the UAE capital has a school, mosque, grocery store and a hairdresser, as well as a care center offering physiotherapy, speech therapy and counseling.
“Thanks to the prosthetics and the care provided, patients have regained their autonomy,” says physiotherapist Mustafa Ahmed Naji Awad.
But the hardest thing to treat is the psychological impact, he admits.
Faten Abu Khoussa, who came with her 10-year-old daughter Qamar, can testify to this.
The little girl was caught in an air raid in Gaza when she went out to buy a packet of crisps, losing a leg from her injuries.
Qamar’s spirits have gradually improved over time, but “it remains very difficult for her. She loved nothing more than playing on her scooter,” says her mother.
“She feels alone without her brothers and sisters” who have fled to Egypt, Abu Khoussa adds.
The single mother, now separated from the other children she has been raising since her husband’s death, is desperately trying to reunite her family in the UAE.
Until then she feels her life is “suspended,” leaving her unable to plan for the future.
The Emirati authorities say the afflicted Palestinians and their family members will be asked to return home when conditions allow.
Ahmad Mazen, 15, who came with his mother to have a lower-leg prosthesis fitted, was looking forward to being reunited with his father and brother.
But shortly after his arrival, he learned that they had been killed in a bombing raid.
His only consolation is football, his passion, and the “indescribable feeling” of finally being able to kick a ball again, he says.
Turkey and US discuss need to cooperate with new Syrian administration
- Turkish fForeign Minister Hakan Fidan tells Secretary of State Blinken that Ankara would not allow Kurdish YPG militia to take shelter in Syria
ANKARA: Turkiye’s foreign minister discussed with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday the need to act in cooperation with the new Syrian administration to ensure the completion of the transition period in an orderly manner, the ministry said.
In a phone call, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Blinken that Ankara would not allow Kurdish YPG militia to take shelter in Syria, the ministry spokesperson said.
During the call, Blinken emphasized the need to support a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political process that “upholds human rights and prioritizes an inclusive and representative government,” according to a statement from the US State Department.
Blinken and Fidan also discussed preventing terrorism from endangering the security of Turkiye and Syria, the statement said.
Damascus rally demands news of missing Syrians
- Dozens of somber protesters holding pictures of the disappeared assembled in central Damascus’s Hijaz Square
DAMASCUS: A silent crowd gathered in the Syrian capital Damascus to press the new authorities about the fate of relatives who went missing under Bashar Assad and to demand justice for their loved ones.
The fate of tens of thousands of people who disappeared under Assad — who was ousted on Dec. 8 by a coalition of rebels — is a key question after more than 13 years of devastating civil war that saw upwards of half a million people killed.
Dozens of somber protesters holding pictures of the disappeared assembled in central Damascus’s Hijaz Square, a journalist said.
“It is time for tyrants to be held accountable,” read a black banner unfurled from the balcony of the elegant Ottoman-era train station.
Other placards read: “Revealing the fate of the missing is a right,” and “I don’t want an unmarked grave for my son, I want the truth.”
Such a demonstration would have been unthinkable under Assad’s rule, but it is now possible under the new authorities dominated by the radical group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, which led the offensive that overthrew him.
“Unfortunately for many years we were united in the grief of absence and uncertainty, waiting for our loved ones, one amnesty after another,” said Wafa Mustafa in a speech in the midst of the protesters.
Her father Ali was arrested in 2013.
“We all saw the scenes of prisoners being freed. It was a source of joy, but it was also very difficult because we did not see our own loved ones among them,” she said.
“We are here to say we will not accept anything less than the whole truth, to know what happened to our relatives, who tortured them, and if they were buried, where they are,” she added.
Amani Al-Hallaq, 28, was seeking news about where to find the remains of her cousin, who was kidnapped in 2012 when he was a student dentist.
“I was once one of those who was afraid. This is the first time I am protesting,” the 28-year-old Amani said.
Her cousin was abducted as he came out of the university, said the young woman in a headscarf.
“They pulled out his nails. He died instantly,” she said.
“We want to know where the disappeared are, their bodies, so we can identify them.”
Qatar PM meets Hamas delegation for Gaza ceasefire talks
- Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani held talks with a Hamas team led by senior official Khalil Al-Hayya
DOHA: Qatar’s prime minister met a Hamas delegation in Doha on Saturday to discuss a “clear and comprehensive” ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza, a statement said.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani held talks with a Hamas team led by senior official Khalil Al-Hayya, the foreign ministry statement said.
It is unusual for Sheikh Mohammed, who is also Qatar’s foreign minister, to be publicly involved in the mediation process that has appeared deadlocked for months.
“During the meeting, the latest developments in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations were reviewed, and ways to advance the process were discussed to ensure a clear and comprehensive agreement that brings an end to the ongoing war in the region,” the statement said.
Earlier this month, the sheikh expressed optimism that “momentum” was returning to the talks following Donald Trump’s election victory in the United States.
“We have sensed, after the election, that the momentum is coming back,” he said at the Doha Forum political conference.
The incoming Trump administration had given “a lot of encouragement in order to achieve a deal, even before the president comes to the office,” the premier added.
The Gulf emirate, along with the United States and Egypt, has been involved in months of unsuccessful negotiations for a Gaza truce and hostage release.
In November, Doha announced it had put its mediation on hold, saying that it would resume when Hamas and Israel showed “willingness and seriousness.”
But Doha then hosted indirect negotiations this month, with Hamas and Israel both reporting progress before again accusing each other of throwing up roadblocks.
