Basra family meeting shocks and awes Iraqi-Briton

ADVISORY-Witness story on meeting family in Basra
21 Dec 2008 00:00:11 GMT
Source: Reuters
Mohammed Abbas is a Baghdad-based correspondent for Reuters. He was born in Basra, Iraq, but emigrated with his parents to Britain when he was one year old in 1980. In the following story, slugged WITNESS/BASRA-RETURN and headlined 'WITNESS-Basra family meeting shocks and awes Iraqi-Briton', he describes his experience returning to Basra and meeting family for the first time.

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WITNESS-
21 Dec 2008 00:00:21 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Mohammed Abbas

BASRA, Iraq, Dec 21 (Reuters) - My family in Britain argues with the neighbours about noise, but for my cousins in Iraq, one of a host of less trivial grievances was their neighbours' hospitality to cross-dressing al Qaeda fighters.

I met cousins, aunts and uncles for the first time on a recent trip to Basra in Iraq's Shi'ite south, which I had left 28 years ago to live in Britain. Some cousins looked like me and were about the same age, but our lives had been very different.

Basra was once the front line in Iraq's war with Iran and my Shi'ite aunt and her five children fled in the 1980s and went to live in western Anbar province, a mostly Sunni region.

My aunt told me the people there were very welcoming, until the sectarian blood-letting started shortly after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

A stream of what looked like women in all-enveloping black robes, or abayas, would come to their neighbours' door, then lift their veils to reveal bearded al Qaeda fighters.

The Sunni Islamist group and other Sunni insurgents, many smuggled in from neighbouring countries, came to rule Anbar at the height of the anti-U.S. insurgency.


My cousins would have to let al Qaeda members into their homes and pretend to be Sunnis, and with a $700 "donation" in their pocket, the al Qaeda types would pretend to believe them.

The neighbours' son went on to blow himself up in a botched suicide bombing, and his mother distributed sweets to celebrate his "martyrdom".

Eventually the sectarian hatred was so bad there were calls from mosque minarets for Sunnis to kill Shi'ites, and insurgents would come to my aunt's door asking for her sons. So the family fled again, back to Basra.

MORBID SAFARI

For another aunt, a Sunni, Basra was no refuge. Her husband's brother was kidnapped and held for ransom. He was returned severely beaten.

Until a government crackdown last March, the oil-rich and mostly Shi'ite city was largely run by militias and armed gangs.

Despite the sectarian violence, my mixed-sect family in Basra all got along. Many families in Iraq contain both Sunnis and Shi'ites, belying media representations of two mutually exclusive groups out for each other's blood.

But on the six-hour drive down from Baghdad, my hope that Basra would be the green city of palm trees and canals described to me by my parents gradually faded.

Besides the Iran-Iraq war, the city had been through two Gulf wars and sanctions since my parents left to study in Britain in 1980. They were against Saddam Hussein, and had decided not to return.

I was less than 1 year old when I left Basra. Although I had no memories of the city, I had patched together an image from what I was told were comparable scenes on family trips to the Middle East. My mother had taken the best of the region and created Basra in my head.

My first sight of it as an adult were the slums on its outskirts, which were swimming in filthy pools of rainwater.

The sides of the road were piled with rubbish, including a dead horse, dead dogs, dead buffalo, dead cats, dead sheep and one nearly dead camel -- a morbid safari of Iraqi fauna.

Basra had once been described as the "Venice of the Middle East". With a lot of imagination -- and while holding your nose -- you can get an idea of the rubbish-strewn city's past.

Bridges criss-cross numerous canals, but the water is filthy. There are some palm trees, but many were destroyed during the war with Iran. There is the Shatt al-Arab waterway, with its corniche, but it too is full of rubbish and rusty sunken ships. One of Saddam's yachts lies grounded on its side.

HIP AND SWINGING

As elsewhere in Iraq, the people of Basra dress conservatively, the women in veils and most men in the drab largely Chinese-made clothing that has flooded the country.

Flicking through an aunt's photo album, I was shocked to see how hip Basra once was. In the sixties and seventies it had a reputation as a swinging cosmopolitan city.

My Shi'ite aunt, who was stooped and wore an abaya, had once with her beehive hairstyle, thick eyeliner and A-line dress looked like British singer Amy Winehouse. Her late husband looked like a member of the U.S. band the Blues Brothers.

My grandmother, now virtually toothless, veiled and in constant prayer, was stunning in a little red dress with matching handbag and pumps.

More recent photos showed more conservative clothing, as Iraq descended into war and chaos under Saddam and later fell under the sway of religious parties.

My family in Basra did not begrudge my life of relative comfort and safety in Britain, and were glad I had not gone through what they had.

One evening my Sunni aunt took me to where my parents once lived, in the old part of Basra. For once, it was just as my parents had described.

A full moon illuminated grand villas with arched doors and windows. Wooden intricately carved balconies leaned over a narrow canal below.

It was beautiful, and I didn't have to hold my nose. (Editing by Michael Christie and Sara Ledwith)

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First Turkish Airlines lands in Basra
6/28/2011 7:02 PM

BASRA / Aswat al-Iraq: The first Turkish Airlines plane landed today in Basra airport within a program to organize flights between the two countries, Basra's Airport director announced today.

Director Abdul Ghanim told Aswat al-Iraq that the plane carried 75 passengers, including the Turkish ambassador to Baghdad and head of the Turkish airlines.

The Turkish airlines will make three trips per week, in addition to its trips to Baghdad and Arbil.

Basra lies 590 km south of the capital, Baghdad.