Subscription 790/year or 190/quarter

The water is so contaminated that your skin flakes off

Not if, but when something happens to you. An abduction, a murder – in Iraq there is a certainty.




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

And suddenly everything is white. Everything is empty. We are dead. So, all of a sudden, someone is still shooting. Burst. Short bumps. With shots so subdued that they barely penetrate the dusty air, they shoot in the fog, straight ahead, shoot without a precise target, and you realize that you are alive, while you hear, through a blanket of smoke, earth and rain, the crackling of the jihadists' corpses. On the other side of the last barrier of sandbags lie countless burning remains scattered throughout. Of the car that came behind us at full speed, filled with explosives, no more than a piece of clear metal remains. The Kurds tried to stop the car with rocket-propelled grenades, but they sniffed the armor as if blowing. Nine. One after the other. Then, suddenly, the explosion. Void. An American aircraft. "But it's not a sign of strength whatsoever," Colonel Abu Noor says upset as he reaches me. "This is all they are capable of: attacking us from above. But this is a war, we are not in the cinema now. That way you will not advance a meter. But at the same time, if that plane had not happened by now, ready to bomb, we would have been dead, all together. And for nothing. 'A bomber is not far off. A wall collapses. He just says, "You want sugar, right?" And goes to make coffee. We are in Kirkuk, and the front is, in theory, 15 kilometers from the city. But in reality, the whole of Iraq is a single front area. Here the front is a bit like a Sunday outing. In the morning, sit down at the breakfast table with a map, and then choose where to go. Unless the front comes to you – not a day goes by without an attack. For this is such a war: a war in which one attacks, conquers, withdraws. You quickly attack another place – yesterday Tikrit, today Ramadi – and you never understand who has won, who has lost, if anyone has won and if anyone has lost. You never understand who controls what, who fights for what purpose. It's a war where you die, and that's all. IS occupies a third of the country. And the Iraqi army, which should exterminate them, constantly ends up falling apart, while weapons and tanks are left in the streets. Of the 50 brigades, only half are loyal to the Baghdad government. And in any case, only 5 of 14 divisions are in good enough condition to participate in the matches. The Kurds are leading the offensive. However, they are united to fight for independence, and they are united in the north. Thus, it is above all the Shiite militias who take the lead – those who obey the orders of the most influential of the ayatollahs, Ali al-Sistani, and who are the most structured. The most effective. Also because they have a large repertoire: The reports from Human Rights Watch testify to very varied crimes. And abominable – including beheading.

Sooner or later something will happen. "There is no real authority here. We are alone, "say Kirkuk's residents.

Everything is a checkpoint here. You will be stopped every two minutes. Guerrilla soldiers of all kinds. "Do not think you are in Iraq," they warned when I arrived at the border, while my passport was stamped. "Do not think that you know who you are dealing with. Iraq does not exist. " And in reality, it would have been strange if Iraq existed. One of the new features presented by the Americans during the occupation was the Turkmen Barish school. In fact, today, based on the protection of minorities, everyone has the right to attend a school belonging to their own ethnic or religious group. More than one right is a requirement – there are no longer any Iraqi-only schools. It is very reminiscent of Kosovo, where before the war everyone also spoke Serbian – the language of Yugoslavia – while after the war they only spoke their own language, and neighbors could no longer understand each other. When NATO arrived, the problem was defending the Albanians against the Serbs, while when they left, the problem was defending the Serbs against the Albanians. "But we are many who choose Arab schools anyway," says Turk Arai Ali Arafa. "It does not make sense for your children to learn marginal languages. And this system, which is thoroughly rotten, also costs a fortune: To have an Assyrian school, you end up with a school without an internet connection. Or rather: without electricity. " "Protecting minorities means integrating them, not separating them," he continues, "not isolating them." Also because the books and programs are the same for everyone. Only the language is replaced. The result is that little you see, classrooms with benches and chairs and little more, a handful of old computers, are purchased with charitable donations. The dean's mouth is toothless, only the remains of the teeth that have fallen out are left – on a teacher's salary in Iraq you can not afford a dentist. He assures me that all schools also teach the history and culture of the other minorities. But Hawre Khalid, the Kurdish photographer, can tell me that he never learned anything about Turkmen or Christians. "Besides, Kurdish is not just a niche language in a Middle East where everyone speaks Arabic, and in a world where everyone speaks English – it also has two versions," he says. "In Kurdistan, one cannot understand each other between north and south. If you use Kurdish at school, you will be limited to a language you cannot communicate with, not even with other Kurds. " Here, everyone is armed. Always. Despite Kirkuk has its tired, 50s-inspired appearance with low houses and pale colors, Kirkuk has more than one million inhabitants. And technically, the city is not part of Kurdistan – it is further south. But for the Kurds, it is their Jerusalem. Under Saddam Hussein, repression was violent and systematic, with more than 400 forced to flee. It does not mean that the Kurds today do not make up the majority, or that the population is a mixture of 000 percent Sunni Arabs and 30 percent Turkmen who are Shiites. Thousands of Kurds are demanding the right of return and restoration of the confiscated property. To them, Kirkuk is Kurdish, regardless of what the numbers say. And when the Iraqi army, in the face of IS 'advance, fled on June 15 last year, the peshmerga quickly emerged to take control of the city – and oil. Underground here is one of the largest deposits in Iraq. In reality, IS is violent and brutal, but not strong. Every time they face real opposition, as in Kobane, as in Aleppo and as in Tikrit, they are outcompeted. But it is in a city like Kirkuk that you understand why it is so difficult to fight them: here the Americans do not have anyone they can trust. And they not only need ground forces, local forces – above all, they need someone who can control Iraq. The country is so on the verge of collapse that many are sleeping on the streets – but it is not people who have been displaced by the countless conflicts in recent months. These are people who sleep outside the gas stations to stand in line first thing in the morning. There is only enough petrol for the first ten, twenty customers. Iraqis are swimming in oil. But they do not have petrol. No electricity either. The water is so polluted that your skin peels off. After all, it is a mosaic of minorities, ethnic groups, religions, but also of power groups. And each of these power groups is fighting its own battle. Among the Kurds, for example, everything is shared between Barzani, the family of Masoud, president of Iraqi Kurdistan, and the Taliban, the family of Jalal, the first non-Arab president of Iraq. Their idea of ​​a state is symbolized by a cell phone. One side uses Korek, the other Asia Cell. Both work abroad, the advertiser promises – but not in the Kurdish areas under the control of the other party.

In reality, IS is violent and brutal, but not strong.

And for years, analysts have been discussing possible solutions. From balance to reconstruction, from Sunnis and Shiites. Arabs and Kurds. For years, they have discussed constitutions, elections, confederations. Amnesty International was more concise in its latest report. According to them, it is useless to negotiate, to propose one ceasefire after another – the problem in the Middle East is that everyone is armed. The problem is that Kalashnikovs are sold on the market. In the middle of the fruit. Occasionally there are some who approach, among the butchers and fruit sellers, and ask for a launcher. And the problem is not least that in Kirkuk only the Kurds are allowed to buy weapons. It is obviously the Sunnis who are the target. All Sunnis. "For they all have a brother or a cousin in Mosul. A cousin in IS, »you hear. "And if he is killed by the peshmerga, it is likely that the family will take revenge on you. As soon as the rumor of a collision spreads, it takes two minutes before everyone draws a weapon. Two minutes, then everyone is hunting for the Arab. " This is strictly speaking not just after rumors of collisions. It is enough to observe a man parking – any man. As he gets out of the car, he points to the pistol he has in his waistband.

Here, everyone is armed. Always.

And finally, it is inevitably not just the Sunnis who are in danger. Because the war against IS, against terror – the war against an enemy that is too difficult to define – opens up for abuse and distortions of any kind. The fear is that it is not only the culprits who are affected. The fear is that from the culprits you quickly go to the suspects, and from the suspects to partners – and that is, everyone who cares for those in power. "About 500 Kurds have joined IS," said A., a public servant. "In other words, any of us could end up on the blacklist. No one is safe. And it does not matter if the weapons are only sold to Kurds. You can control who buys a weapon, but not who it is used against. "It simply came to our notice then. 'No, he's not here. He was abducted this morning, "they replied. At a construction site nearby, they need another bricklayer, today they are looking for a 16-year-old boy who lived on the floor above us. In Iraq, that's how you get the news of another abduction. Along with the coffee. "He came from Tikrit," says Miray, coordinator of an association for internally displaced people, and sends me the sugar – the verbs are already in the past. "They are modest families. Now that they have used up the savings, they live one day at a time via precarious small jobs and help from the neighbors. In other words, it is obviously not blackmail that is the purpose of the abductions. " The abductions, she says – in the majority. In the group of five families upstairs, this is the third case. But no one reports anything to the police. "There is no real authority here. We are alone. When something happens to you, God is the only one you can turn to. " Not ifbut when something happens to you. An abduction, a murder – in Iraq it is a certainty. Sooner or later it will happen. Kirkuk has one million inhabitants and 200 internally displaced people – as if Oslo suddenly had 000 refugees on the streets. They all come from the zones under the control of the Islamic State. But they are not fleeing IS. They are fleeing the war against IS. Nur Zuhir is from Diyala province on the border with Syria. She is ten years old, with a red dress, black hair in braids, gold earrings. She seems decorated for a party, with ballerina shoes on her feet. She is always like that, spotless – because she lost her mother, the three brothers and her sister in a bomb attack, and now she is here alone, in Laylan Camp, one of the two refugee camps in Kirkuk. And that's her cynical encouragement – she meets journalists every day. Her father was stopped by the Shiite militia and has disappeared. She has no one anymore. "It all started when IS came. Or rather, when the Shiite militia, covered by the air force from Baghdad, came to hunt down IS. They recaptured everything. In other words: They massacred all the Sunnis, "says Hazmar, who is the father of her father. He has no intention of returning home. He is not waiting for the fights to end, he is looking for another job. Another city. Another country, if he had a passport. "There is no difference between the Islamic State, the Shiite militia and the Iraqi army. We can not trust any of them. But if I had to choose, I would have chosen IS – because if nothing else, you know what rules apply. If nothing else, you know why you are being killed. " For IS will be, in Iraq as in Syria, often seen as the least evil. And where in Syria you can be on the IS side simply because you are against Assad, and not against the infidels, there are many in Iraq who link the hostility between Sunnis and Shiites not to the Koran, but to Paul Bremer. To the American occupation. "They were convinced that Iraq was the artificial creation of colonialism, that the problem was hated by Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. And they ended up creating just that. They introduced the quota system, and they linked each agreement and each title to an ethnic or religious group. But in that way you strengthen the division, "says Maan Mohammed Ibrahim, deputy member of Kirkuk," since everything now depends on the group you belong to. One does not look at competence or consensus. Nothing. The head of state will be Kurdish, the prime minister will be Shia and the president of parliament will be Sunni. That's the only thing that counts, "he says. "With such a system, no one benefits from being just Iraqis." Laylan Camp is also home to Adam Abkar Abdullah (60). It's hard not to notice him: he's black. He is from Sudan. He moved to Iraq in 1989 because the regime at the time controlled everything, it was a safe country – he did not choose Iraq despite Saddam, but because of Saddam. He is a supporter of the dictatorship's virtues. "We are not able to live without a commander-in-chief," he said. "We are not created for democracy." Abdullah is a supporter of IS: "If you are an ordinary citizen, they will not touch you. The most important thing is that you are not politically engaged. I am basically free to listen to music in my own house. I do not smoke, I do not drink. The crucial thing is to have a job, and find a city where you are not abducted in the middle of a walk. The rest is, frankly, secondary. " And anyway, he says, "Everything is better than Sudan."


Borri is a war reporter. Translated from Italian by Emma

Francesca Borri
Francesca Borri
Borri is a war correspondent and writes regularly for Ny Tid.

You may also like