Forces open prison for looters
2003-04-15 08:18
Baghdad - The courtyard of Baghdad's town hall is filling up with some of the city's looters, on their knees, heads covered with cloth sacking and hands tied behind their backs.
What was once a symbol of Saddam Hussein's quarter century rule of terror has been converted by US forces into a prison for those Baghdadis who were caught indiscriminately ransacking their city in the days after the Iraqi strongman's regime collapsed.
US marines have deployed tanks, Humvees and jeeps around the courtyard between two town hall buildings.
Some heavily armed soldiers stretch out on the grass while others take aim at nine sweating looters, barefoot and in rags, trussed and with heads lowered.
One prisoner is pushed roughly to the floor. A marine pulls the detainee's shirt up over his head so he can't see what's going on in the complex. He is made to lie out in the dust, as his fellow looters are.
One of them cries out "Please!", but soldiers shout "Shut your mouth! I am not your friend!"
Several marines keep guard over the prisoners.
A jeep pulls up with a man face down on the front. His hands are bound behind his back and feet tied tight with the strong, thin tape shopkeepers use to gift wrap presents.
"He robbed a bank," the driver says.
In the back of the jeep are four Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles.
"They belong to these nine looters. They attacked shops and passers-by while threatening them with their weapons," the soldier explained. "From now we are banning looting and carrying arms in the streets. Order must come back to the city."
The nine looters were arrested in the main shopping precinct in the Baghdad district of Sorja by a squad of marines to the applause of passers-by exasperated by widespread looting.
"Bush, Bush!" cried the people, but the soldiers were so nervous they shouted at them to back off.
"We want security. We want to be able to open our shops. We don't want to see these bandits. The Americans must act. What they've done is good, but it's not enough," said trader Kazem Ali.
In a Humvee transporting them to the townhall, the soldiers mete out tough treatment to the prisoners. If one raises his head in an effort to breathe, he is screamed at to lower his head at gunpoint.
US troops on Monday started joint patrols with Iraqi security forces in a bid to restore order to the capital hit by looting and violence after the fall of the Baghdad regime.
The decision to institute the joint patrols was taken at a meeting of US military officials, Iraqi civilian leaders and officials of humanitarian groups operating in Iraq.
Iraqi anger had been growing over continued lawlessness in the country, with a spate of looting breaking out in the capital and other cities after Saddam's regime fell on Wednesday. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA