Oil prices crash, virus hits, commerce stops: Iraq is in trouble

Iraq depends on oil revenues, which have plummeted. The country is so desperate it is asking for donations to help it weather the pandemic.

When Iraq recorded its first cases of coronavirus, its health minister asked the government for $5 million in emergency funds. But there were no funds to be had.

“There is no money and we are in a difficult situation,” said the minister, Jaafer Sadiq Allawi, as he appealed for help from a cleric at a wealthy Shiite shrine.

An oil well near Mosul. The plummeting price of oil has slammed Iraq, which depends on oil for 90 percent of its revenues. Credit... Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

Iraq is cratering on almost every front. Oil revenues, the government’s main source of income, have plummeted as the world price of oil has crashed and the government has resorted to asking for donations to help it weather the pandemic.

A nationwide curfew, imposed to slow the spread of the virus, has shut down commerce and thrown the vast majority of nongovernment workers out of jobs.

The government itself is foundering after antigovernment protests ousted the prime minister in November and Parliament has been unable to agree on new leadership.

On top of that, Iranian backed militias still launch regular attacks on American troops — the latest on Thursday when two rockets landed near the American Embassy in the Green Zone — threatening to drag Iraq deeper into the cross-hairs of Iranian-American hostilities.

“These are the worst days we have lived through in Iraq,” said Riyadh al-Shihan, 56, a military veteran. “I lived through the Iraq-Iran war, the uprising, Saddam Hussein, but these days are worse.”

A strange silence has descended over much of Baghdad, a capital of eight million people. The highways out of the city are mostly free of cars because of travel restrictions and on Friday, when most people are off work, the usually crowded parks were empty thanks to the curfew.

Antigovernment protests that began in October, above, have continued, despite a curfew. Credit... Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

Iraq had 547 confirmed cases of the coronavirus by Sunday, but has been doing extremely limited testing. The true number is thought to be many times greater.

What makes the situation especially bleak is that the combination of crises has effectively wiped out almost the entire economy, said Basim Entiwan, an economist in Baghdad.

“The current economic situation is worse than what we have seen before because all productive sectors have been suspended,” he said. “There is no industry, no tourism, no transportation, and to some extent agriculture is affected as well.

“We are seeing a nearly complete paralysis of economic life and that comes on top of the ongoing protests. And also borders are blocked both within the country between provinces and on Iraq’s frontier with other countries.”

A pilgrim in the courtyard of the Shrine of Imam Ali this month in Najaf. Credit... Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

Oil is now selling for half the price, or less, than it did three months ago because of a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia. It has dropped from about $60 a barrel at the end of December to less than $30.

The price plunge has dealt a severe blow to oil-dependent economies, said Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, based in Paris. But Iraq, he said, stands to take the hardest hit.

“Iraq is the number one country in terms of impact because it does not have financial reserves and because 90 percent of its revenues come from oil,” he said. “And all these economic pressures are coming in an already very tense political environment.”

Iraq’s reserves are on the order of $62 billion, Mr. Entiwan said, which the International Monetary Fund considers inadequate.

The government has created a fund for donations to help it through this period, which has collected less than $50 million in pledges, said Sayid Jaiyashi, a member of the National Security Council who is also on the prime minister’s coronavirus crisis committee.

A bank in Baghdad is sanitized a bank after a customer was suspected of having the coronavirus. Credit... Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

Even if the pledges come through, they will hardly make a dent. The government is currently running a monthly deficit of more than $2 billion just for current expenditures.

Iraq has a limited private sector, some of it supported by government contracts, as well as a thriving informal economy. But both have been dealt a body blow by the coronavirus because of the nationwide 24-hour curfew, which has been extended until April 11.

Construction workers, street vendors, domestic workers and taxi drivers have been forced to stay at home. Because most of them live day to day on what they earn and have little or no savings, they could soon be on the edge of hunger.

In some neighborhoods, the police are enforcing $80 fines for anyone who tries to sell goods on the sidewalk — far more than most of them could make in a day.

How long such tremendous economic pain can be borne is hard to say, but it is especially difficult in the absence of political leadership, Iraqis said.

Iraq was already facing its worst political crisis in years before the virus hit and oil prices dropped. Hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets since October, demanding a new government, an end to corruption and a curb on Iranian influence.

While the numbers had dwindled with the colder and wetter winter weather, curfew has not been rigorously enforced at the protest sites and a few hundred protesters remain in the major squares in Baghdad and other cities. As they continue to keep pressure on the government, they also now pose a potential health risk for spreading the virus.

Iraqi citizens crossing the border from Iran. Iraq has closed its borders since the coronavirus outbreak.

Credit... Ivor Prickett for The New York Times

“This crisis is more difficult because, to be honest, we do not have a government,” said Hassan Ali, 20, who was making a pilgrimage to a Shiite shrine in Baghdad despite being urged to stay home, a warning he discounted because he has no faith in the government’s advice.

“The government is very weak, it’s very tired, they have no solution for the crises, no solution for the youth who have no jobs. With corona it is very difficult because no one can rely on the government.”

In many ways he is right. In mid-March, the health minister, Mr. Allawi, said he would need $150 million a month to purchase the equipment he needs to fight the virus. The donor fund has only collected a fraction of what the ministry believes will be required to protect health care workers, house and treat patients.

So far not a single politician has spoken directly to the country about the financial obstacles ahead. In recent addresses encouraging citizens to follow the instructions of the Health Ministry both the caretaker prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, and the president, Barham Salih, mentioned the economy in passing but did not explain the situation.

One reason, said economists, is that they have little comfort to offer. Iraq has no control over worldwide oil prices and while consultants, foreign governments and economists have all pushed Iraqi leaders to diversify the country’s economy, it has not happened. Some of the reasons are practical, including the country’s armed conflicts, but some are cultural.

For more than 60 years, Iraq’s economy has been dominated by the government: Its oil companies are majority government owned and so are its factories and many of its companies. Even some of the private ones count on government contracts, making them often disproportionately dependent on the public sector.

For many people, the only worthwhile job is one with a government paycheck. So some 4.5 million Iraqis, about 30 percent of the work force, are either salaried government employees or have government contracts, said Mr. Entiwan, who was an economic adviser to former Prime Minister Haider Abadi.

So far the government has not cut salaries, which account for more than 40 percent of the government budget, but it has been forced to consider pay cuts for mid- and high-level employees, said Mudher Muhammed Saleh, an adviser to Mr. Abdul Mahdi. Another possibility under consideration was to require Iraqis to pay for their electricity, which few now do, he said.

When the price of oil crashed in 2014, Iraq was aided by access to $4.5 billion in financing from the International Monetary Fund. However, in the midst of the coronavirus many countries are hoping for largess from the IMF.

“In 2014, Iraq was fighting against ISIS and could bank on the support of its partners, on other countries, but now the whole world is occupied with the coronavirus and it may be more difficult to raise the money,” said Mr. Birol, of the International Energy Agency.

“The most important issue right now is the health system,” he said. “If the health system cannot get finances from the central government, it will have serious implications for coronavirus and for social stability.”

(Source: NYT)

Qatar temporarily suspends entry for travellers from 14 countries

Qatar’s Government Communications Office said Sunday that in addition to Qatar Airways' announcement regarding flights to and from Italy, entry to Qatar is temporarily suspended for all those intending to travel from certain countries, as of March 9, 2020.

The decision comes as a preventive measure due to the spread of coronavirus, COVID-19, worldwide.

Hamad International Airport (file photo)

The GCO statement said the decision covers the following countries: Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Syria and Thailand.

The decision affects all individuals intending to enter from these countries, including visas upon arrival, those with a residence or work permit, and temporary visitors.

The statement said the step comes in line with Qatar’s efforts to take all necessary preventive measures to limit the spread.

The State of Qatar urges all citizens and residents to avoid all but essential travel at this time.

The statement said that these precautionary measures may be subject revision on the timely guidance of the national health authorities and international organizations on the spread of coronavirus, in order to ensure safety of all residents.

(Source: The Peninsula)

Iran attack: Oil prices rise after Iraq missile attacks

Oil prices have risen after two bases hosting US troops in Iraq were hit by ballistic missiles.

Brent crude was up by 1.4% at $69.21 per barrel in the middle of the Asian trade, easing back from earlier gains.

So-called safe haven assets, like gold and the Japanese yen, also rose on the news.

At the same time global stock prices were sent lower on concerns over the growing conflict in the Middle East.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 stock index fell by 1.3%, and Hang Seng in Hong Kong was down 0.8%.

Iranian state television said the attack was a retaliation for the killing of the country's top commander Qasem Soleimani.

The attack happened just hours after the funeral service for Soleimani, who was killed by a US drone strike on Friday.

His death had raised concerns that the conflict between the US and Iran could escalate further.

That could disrupt shipping in the world's busiest sea route for oil, the Strait of Hormuz. Around a fifth of global oil supply passes through the strait which connects the Gulf with the Arabian Sea.

The Strait of Hormuz is vital for the main oil exporters in the Gulf region - Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the UAE, and Kuwait - whose economies are built around oil and gas production. Iran also relies heavily on this route for its oil exports.

Qatar, the world's biggest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), exports nearly all its gas through the strait.

After the latest attacks, the US aviation regulator banned American airlines from flying over Iraq, Iran and neighbouring countries. The ban includes the Gulf of Oman and the waters between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the decision was in response to heightened military activity, and increased political tension in the region.

Before the latest guidance, the FAA had already prohibited US airlines from flying below 26,000 feet (7,925 metres) over Iraq and from flying over an area of Iranian airspace above the Gulf of Oman since Iran shot down an American drone in June 2019.

At the same time Singapore Airlines has said that all of its flights would now be diverted from Iranian airspace.

(Source: BBC)

Iran plane crash: Ukraine deletes statement attributing disaster to engine failure

No explanation has been offered after page vanishes from official site

Ukraine’s embassy in Iran has appeared to delete a statement suggesting technical problems were to blame for the crash of a passenger jet near Tehran on Wednesday morning.

That statement appeared to back up earlier assertions by Iranian officials that a faulty engine had led to the accident. 

“According to preliminary information,” the statement had read, “the plane crashed as a result of a technical failure of the engine. The possibility of a terrorist attack or missile strike are currently ruled out.” 

But by 10am local time, that page was no longer accessible from the embassy’s site, with no additional information given about the details of the crash. 

Later, a new statement appeared at the same web address saying that it was for an official commission to determine the cause of the accident. 

There was no immediate explanation for the apparent retraction. 

Flight PS752, a Boeing 737-800, took off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport at 6:12 am, losing contact two minutes later. The crash happened a few hours after Iran launched missile strikes on US military bases in Iraq.  

According to the Ukrainian Security Council, 177 people were registered on board the flight, the vast majority of them Iranians. Iranian authorities were quick to blame technical problems for the crash. 

Qassem Biniaz, a spokesman for Iran’s Road and Transportation Ministry, said the pilot “lost control of the plane” after a fire broke out in one of its engines.

But in a hastily arranged press conference on Wednesday, Ukrainian International Airlines (UIA) discounted the possibility of technical problems. 

There was “nothing wrong” with the plane, insisted UIA's president Yevgen Dykhne – it was three years old and had only two days previously undergone a scheduled technical check. 

"We guarantee the safety of our aircraft and the high qualification of our crews," he said. 

The airline announced it would be suspending all flights to Iran until further notice. 

(Source: Independent)

Tony Benn's iconic speech against bombing in Iraq remains as relevant as ever

Donald Trump's unprecedented airstrike which killed Iranian military general Qasem Soleimani has caused tensions to soar around the world. 

Some fear that World War 3 may break out, while others are concerned that they will get drafted into a war against Iran. 

It remains to be seen what will happen next but for many, it is proving to be a reminder of previous conflicts between the west and the middle east.

Back in 1998, MPs debated whether the UK should carry out a bombing raid on Iraq in conjunction with the United States after Iraq failed to comply with the UN's security councils' demands over disarmament and relinquish their weapons of mass destruction.

On the day that MPs voted to bomb Iraq (Februay 17 1998), the much-celebrated Labour MP Tony Benn gave a now iconic and passionate speech that highlighted the fundamental problem with war and how it ultimately has a greater effect on innocent people than those that should be held culpable. 

I finish just by saying this: war is an easy thing to talk about; there are not many people - a - of the generation that remember it. The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup served with distinction in the last war. I never killed anyone but I wore uniform. But I was in London in the blitz in 1940, living in the Millbank tower, where I was born. Some different ideas have come in since. And every night, I went down to the shelter in Thames house. Every morning, I saw dockland burning. Five hundred people were killed in Westminster one night by a land mine. It was terrifying. Aren't Arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab and Iraqi women weep when their children die? Does bombing strengthen their determination? What fools we are to live in a generation for which war is a computer game for our children and just an interesting little Channel Four news item.

Every Member of Parliament tonight who votes for the Government motion will be consciously and deliberately accepting responsibility for the deaths of innocent people if the war begins, as I fear it will. Now that's for their decision to take. But this is a quite unique debate. In my parliamentary experience, where we are asked to share responsibility for a decision we won't really be taking, with consequences for people who have no part to play in the brutality of the regime which we are dealing with.

And I finish with this: on 24 October 1945—the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup will remember—the United Nations charter was passed. And the words of that charter are etched into my mind and move me even as I think of them.

"We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our life-time has caused untold suffering to mankind". That was the pledge of that generation to this generation, and it would be the greatest betrayal of all if we voted to abandon the charter, and take unilateral action and pretend that we were doing it in the name of the international community. And I shall vote against the motion for the reasons that I have given the house.

In light of recent events, Benn's speech has resurfaced on social media and his message is just as relevant as ever.

In light of the recent events about Iran and Iraq, there is no one better to turn to than Tony Benn.

“...What fools we are to think War is just an interesting channel 4 news item”

Must watch for all Brits ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/azWkSW9VXV

— - j (@Iibdem) 3 January 2020

Tony Benn speaking on war. Please, just listen and reflect. pic.twitter.com/VO17dpIVPR

— Hasan Patel 🌹 (@CorbynistaTeen) 3 January 2020

ALL OF THIS!

"Aren't arabs terrified? Aren't Iraqis terrified? Don't Arab Iraqi women weep when their children die?...What fools we are to think war is just an interesting channel 4 news item" 🗣

LISTEN TO THIS 😭💔

pic.twitter.com/gsMVt63C5O

— StanceGrounded (@_SJPeace_) 4 January 2020

Former Tory MP Ken Clarke echoed Benn's words, in an equally provocative speech which gave prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

He warned that a war would only create more terrorists and destabilise even more countries. Sage words which are depressingly still needed today.

It wasn’t just Tony Benn, Ken Clarke’s words on war still ring true today. pic.twitter.com/LIBHRCeES3

— - j (@Iibdem) 3 January 2020

(Source: Independent) 

They escaped ISIS. Then they got sucked into Baghdad's sex trafficking underworld

Nadia's handshake is strong, but her voice trembles as she says hello. Leaning against a window, she describes in painful detail the twisted journey that saw her evade the grip of terrorists only to fall victim to Baghdad's sex trafficking underworld.

Stories like Nadia's have become all too familiar in the wake of ISIS' defeat in Iraq. The decline of the militant group has given rise to another evil: human trafficking networks that thrive on the spoils of war, the displaced and the desperate.

And she was the perfect mark.

Nadia was living in Sinjar, northern Iraq, in 2014 when ISIS rounded up thousands of women and girls like her from the Yazidi ethnic minority and forced them into sexual slavery. But she says she managed to escape, fleeing with her family through scattered hills to an IDP camp in Iraqi Kurdistan. CNN is not using Nadia's real name out of concerns for her safety.

Still, she was haunted by the fate of others who were not as lucky. She said she started sending money to a man she believed was a trusted friend, who she had met while on the run from ISIS and who said he was coordinating humanitarian aid for other Yazidis. Encouraged by their conversations and propelled by her desire to help, she began organizing demonstrations at the camp, demanding the release of Yazidi women.

Then the calls started. "I would get the threats by phone," Nadia said, explaining that she wasn't sure who was harassing her. "I wasn't afraid for myself, but for my little sister. They said, 'If you don't come, we know where your sister goes to school.'"

When she received a letter from an NGO supporting her application for asylum in the United States, she reached out to her friend, asking for help to get to the embassy in Baghdad. "He said, 'My sister, I can take you. I know a guy in the Iraqi parliament, I can take you to him.'"

On the road to the capital, she sensed something was wrong. "He kept stopping to talk on the phone and send messages," she told CNN. "I said, 'Take me back, I want to go back.' He said, 'No, it's ok, it is about a group of Yazidi girls I freed from Fallujah, they are waiting for us in Baghdad.'"

"He knew my weakness, I was happy when I heard that some of our girls were freed. He convinced me to continue the trip," she said.

When they arrived in a rundown Baghdad neighborhood, notorious for its drug gangs, the unthinkable happened. The old man, who her friend had told her was a parliamentarian, greeted them in a dilapidated building. "He said to me, 'You are mine now, you are mine now.'" He was the head of a sex trafficking gang.

Nadia was shocked. The friend she had trusted all along -- with her money and with her fears -- had sold her into sexual slavery.

"I started fighting ... I started hitting them. They both beat me hard," she said. She says they sedated her with an injection and everything went black.

When she came to, she said she was surrounded by empty bottles and dirty plates, naked and in pain from having been raped by multiple men. She says she thought it was as many as 10, judging by the mess they left behind. "I lost my life, I was destroyed," she said. "Three months they would torture me like this, every day."

Anti-trafficking NGOs try to spread their message through word of mouth, but they say there are some Baghdad neighborhoods so dangerous they don't dare go.

Nadia tried to run away, but each time her captors caught and beat her. One time they attacked her so brutally that she had internal bleeding and was taken to the hospital. She heard doctors talking about how they had to save her organs.

In the hospital room, Nadia said the head of the gang would sit at her bedside, stroking her hair and calling her his daughter. He told the medical staff that she had a mental illness and had fallen down the stairs.

When Nadia was released from hospital, she said another woman -- another victim of the gang -- was brought in to keep watch over her. Nadia begged the woman to let her go, but the woman just laughed.

The woman lifted her shirt, revealing a scar on her stomach she said she got when they stole one of her kidneys. "'This is what they did to me. I had two little children and they sold them,'" she told Nadia, before adding: "'you will be forced to stay with them, you will get used to this, all that is happening to you.'"

After months of abuse, just when Nadia thought her life would end, she was rescued. She said she wasn't sure who the men were that saved her, but they took her to a hotel run by a Yazidi and she was ultimately reconnected with her family.

Now, Nadia says she wants justice.

"I am fighting this," she said. "I am using what is remaining of my breath to be a voice for us all, so that this doesn't happen to anyone else."

"Everywhere, there are victims"
Statistics are difficult to come by due deficient identification guidelines and a lack of referral procedures in Iraq. A dearth of coordinated agencies tracking trafficking activities in the country also means that accompanying data is nearly nonexistent.

But by many accounts, human trafficking has become rampant in the refugee camps dotted across Iraq, as well as in cities like Baghdad, where modern day slavery and forced prostitution networks are growing. Agents from trafficking networks often promise to resettle refugees from Kurdistan, but instead bring them to hotels and brothels in Baghdad, Basrah and other cities across southern Iraq, according to reports from by both the US State Department and SEED, a Kurdistan-based nonprofit.

"When you look everywhere, there are victims," Dr. Ali Akram al-Bayati told us, sitting on a bench on the bank of the Tigris river. Pointing to families picnicking and teenagers snapping selfies, he said there was a lack of awareness within Iraqi society about what was happening behind closed doors.

Al-Bayati works to combat human trafficking as part of the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights, which was set up and funded by the government. Ostensibly set up as an independent institution, the commission's mandate is to gather information, investigate cases and bring them to court, but al-Bayati says it lacks the finances and power to do so effectively.

Dr. Ali Akram al-Bayati works to combat human trafficking as part of the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights, which was set up and funded by the government.

Nadia's case is among the many that the commission is trying to support. According to Nadia, the Iraqi justice system is failing her: the case is being buried in both Iraqi Kurdistan and Baghdad.

On paper, the Iraqi government has stepped up efforts to prosecute and convict traffickers, but al-Bayati said it has failed to tackle the sweeping nature of the problem. His claims are backed up by the State Department's 2019 Trafficking in Persons report.

Iraq's government "increased law enforcement efforts, but did not hold criminally accountable officials complicit in trafficking, including child soldiering and sex trafficking," the State Department said, citing reports that officials in key security positions had played a role in protecting traffickers from prosecution. "The government continued to lack implementing regulations for the anti-trafficking law, hindering its ability to enforce the law, bring traffickers to justice, and protect victims."

Inconsistencies in Iraq's 2012 anti-trafficking law, which criminalized some forms of labor and sex trafficking, has opened opportunities for wrongful convictions.

According to the State Department, the Iraqi government also failed to report what efforts it had made to pursue allegations that security and military personnel in IDP camps were complicit in sexual exploitation and trafficking of women and girls.

"If you are talking about human trafficking, of course when you investigate you will see some of the officials who are involved in that," al-Bayati said. "Whether they are higher or lower officials, of course it's not in their interest to reveal all the facts."

Naming the officials would be pointless. They are too powerful, and his own commission is too weak, al-Bayati says. He told us he had received subtle threats but when pushed he wouldn't go into detail at the risk of putting his life into more jeopardy.

Gaps in the government's referral procedures have also prevented many victims from receiving appropriate services -- the government-run trafficking shelters in Baghdad remained empty throughout 2017, according to the US State Department Trafficking in Persons report.

Al-Bayati said he was aware of around 150 reported cases of sex trafficking across Iraq in 2018. Only four to five women were placed in government shelters, he said.

Last year, al-Bayati said, 426 people were detained for alleged involvement in trafficking crimes -- only 53 were sent to prison.

But available figures aren't reflective of the scale of human trafficking in the country. Fear of retribution and stigma, as well as a lack of faith in the government and the judicial process, silences victims and those who work with them.

Still, there are those trying to help -- albeit, discretely.

Operating in plain sight
When we arrived at the address for the anti-trafficking NGO, there was no way to know that we were in the right place. There's no sign outside and the first-floor masquerades as something else. We aren't naming the NGO to protect the safety of its employees.

Such a level of secrecy came as a surprise given the relative security in the Iraqi capital these days. The NGO is afraid of getting targeted by gangs and militia groups operating with impunity beneath the city's vibrant veneer.

Inside a room, Ahlam sat in a plastic chair, trembling under a black abaya which concealed her face.

All we could see were the soft billows in fabric created by the wringing of her hands as she described how she became prey for sex traffickers in Baghdad.

"It all started with my older brother," said Ahlam, whose name has been changed for her safety.

Ahlam, a former ISIS bride, left her husband to start a new life in Baghdad, where she was sold into prostitution.

In 2014, Ahlam's brother joined ISIS in their home province of Diyala, north of the capital, quickly rising to the rank of Emir. He married Ahlam off to an ISIS fighter, but when her husband was detained a few months later, she moved back in with her brother.

Ahlam said her brother had become more radical and more cruel during his time with ISIS. She said he beat her and her sisters and imprisoned her in a room with no food. When she complained to another relative, her brother threatened to kill her.

A cousin ultimately helped her flee to Baghdad, but once she got there she had no one to turn to for help.

"I was in the street, going around lost. Baghdad is a big city, a crowded city," she said. "I got in a taxi. The driver asked me where I want to go, and I said I don't know."

Confused and scared, Ahlam poured her story out to him. He was sympathetic and offered to help. "I thought a savior had arrived. I said to myself finally there is good in the world. He said he could find me something with a relative," she recalled. "I said 'where?' He said, 'you will find out later.'"

First, Ahlam said she was brought to a casino, before being sold to a brothel.

"He brought me to another woman who took me to a house," Ahlam recalled. "I realized that the girls there work as prostitutes."

Iman al-Silawi, the head of the NGO where Ahlam sought shelter, says they try to identifying potential victims before they are trafficked.

The NGO where Ahlam ultimately sought shelter is focused on identifying potential victims before they become ensnared in these networks. They have teams working across the country with vulnerable populations, displaced people living in camps, those desperate for work, and others living in the streets.

They try to spread their message through word of mouth and alert potential victims to warning signs, but Iman al-Silawi, the head of the NGO, said there were neighborhoods they don't dare go to.
Ahlam says she begged to leave the brothel, but the madame beat her, broke her phone and sold her on again.

"She forced me to work as a prostitute. She would bring men into the house and she would force me to have sex with them," Ahlam said, sobbing. Ahlam was trapped in the brothel for a few months before seizing an opportunity to run away.

According to people who work with victims, Ahlam's story is representative of the way trafficking rings operate today across Iraq: in plain sight. Those with ties to the networks -- like the taxi driver -- keep their eyes out for vulnerable women and try to lure them in. And, with a large population of vulnerable people, those networks have swelled, their tentacles reaching across the country and up to the highest levels of government.

"What is my crime?" Ahlam asked. "What have I done to deserve this?"

She bowed her head and contemplated her future. Gone are her childhood hopes of a happy life, a loving husband, a family -- dreams that were first stolen from her by ISIS, then by those exploiting her vulnerability, and finally by her own government which failed to protect her.

(Source: CNN)

Ancient palace emerges from drought-hit Iraq reservoir

A 3,400-year-old palace has emerged from a reservoir in the Kurdistan region of Iraq after water levels dropped because of drought.

The discovery of the ruins in the Mosul Dam reservoir on the banks of the Tigris River inspired a spontaneous archeological dig that will improve understanding of the Mittani Empire, one of the least-researched empires of the Ancient Near East, the Kurdish-German team of researchers said in a press release.

"The find is one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the region in recent decades," Kurdish archeologist Hasan Ahmed Qasim said in a press release.

The palace would have originally stood just 65 feet from the river on an elevated terrace. A terrace wall of mud bricks was later added to stabilize the building, adding to to the imposing architecture.

Ivana Puljiz, an archeologist from the University of Tübingen's Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies, describes the palace, known as Kemune, as a carefully designed building with mud-brick walls up to two meters (6.6 feet) thick.

Some of the walls are more than two meters high, and various rooms have plastered walls, she added.
The team also found wall paintings in shades of red and blue, which were probably a common feature of palaces at the time but have rarely been found preserved.

"Discovering wall paintings in Kemune is an archaeological sensation," she said in a press release.
"Kemune is only the second site in the region where wall paintings of the Mittani period have been discovered," Puljiz told CNN in an email.

Ten clay tablets covered in cuneiform, an ancient system of writing, were also discovered and have been sent to Germany for translation.

"From the texts we hope to gain information on the inner structure of the Mittani empire, its economic organisation, and the relationship of the Mittani capital with the administrative centers in the neighboring regions," Puljiz told CNN.

Archeologists first became aware of the site in 2010 when water levels in the reservoir were low, but this is the first time they have been able to excavate.

However, the site was submerged shortly after the dig, Puljiz said, adding: "It is unclear when it will emerge again."

Qasim also worked on another project with the University of Tübingen, uncovering a Bronze Age city in northern Iraq in 2016.

The team unearthed the city, which lies beneath what is now the small village of Bassetki in the autonomous region of Kurdistan, close to territory that was held by ISIS.

Days after the dig was completed, Iraqi security forces began their push to take Mosul back from ISIS.

Measuring a kilometer in length and 500 meters across (about 1,000 yards by roughly 550 yards), the ancient urban area features grand houses, a palace, an extensive road network and a cemetery.

(Source: CNN)

Thousands of ISIS children suffer in camps as countries grapple with their fate

Many of them were barely school age when their parents took them to the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Thousands of others were born there.

The children are the most vulnerable of the Islamic State’s captured followers — the remainders of the more than 40,000 foreign fighters and their families who came from 80 countries to help build the caliphate. Many are now detained in camps and prisons across eastern Syria, Iraq and Libya.

“What have these kids done?” said Fabrizio Carboni, a Red Cross official, after witnessing the misery surrounding him on a recent visit to Al Hol camp in Syria. “Nothing.”

Children detained at Al Hol camp in eastern Syria. “What have these kids done?” said a Red Cross official during a recent visit. “Nothing.”CreditCreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

Yet even when it comes to the children, the foreign governments whose citizens are marooned in the camps and prisons have struggled with what to do with them.

The Islamic State, researchers say, employed children as scouts, spies, cooks and bomb-planters, and sometimes as fighters and suicide bombers. Propaganda videos showed young children beheading and shooting prisoners.

Some have had years of ISIS indoctrination and, in the case of older boys, military training.

“They’re victims of the situation because they went against their will,” said Peter Neumann, director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London, “but that doesn’t mean that they’re not, in some cases at least, a risk.”

If figuring out what to do with the children is that complicated, deciding what to do with the women and men is even more difficult.

There are at least 13,000 foreign ISIS followers being held in Syria, including 12,000 women and children. That number does not include the estimated 31,000 Iraqi women and children detained there. Another 1,400 are detained in Iraq.

Women and children who fled the Islamic State’s last territory in Syria waiting to be screened by Kurdish forces in February. Most ended up in camps in eastern Syria.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

But only a handful of countries — including Russia, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Indonesia and France — have intervened to bring back some of their citizens.

The debate is more pressing than ever.

In overflowing camps in eastern Syria, the wives and children of ISIS fighters who fled the last shreds of ISIS territory are dying of exposure, malnutrition and sickness. Children are too spent to speak. Women who have renounced the group live in dread of attacks from those who have not.

The local militias running the camps say they cannot detain other countries’ citizens forever.

Across the border in Iraq, government authorities are administering hasty justice to people accused of being Islamic State members, sentencing hundreds to death in trials that often last no longer than five minutes.

But most foreign governments are reluctant to take them back, leaving them international pariahs wanted by no one — not their home countries, not their jailers.

“Who wants to be the politician who decides to repatriate Individual A who, two years down the road, blows himself up?” said Lorenzo Vidino, the director of the George Washington University Program on Extremism.

The fact is, Mr. Vidino said, few extremists return to stage attacks in their home countries. But the exceptional cases — including the 2015 Paris attacks that killed 130 people and two of Tunisia’s deadliest terrorist attacks — have made the idea of repatriation politically toxic in many countries. At least one of the bombers who carried out the attack in Sri Lanka on Easter was a Sri Lankan who had trained with the Islamic State in Syria.

Some countries, like Britain and Australia, have revoked the citizenships of their nationals suspected of joining the Islamic State abroad, effectively abandoning them and their children to indefinite detention without charge and potential statelessness. Britain alone has canceled the passports of more than 150 people, the home secretary, Sajid Javid, has said.

While bringing them home could pose an obvious danger, so could leaving them in the camps, desperate and disenfranchised.

Historically, fighters who gained experience with one extremist group have been the ones who seed new ones, said Seamus Hughes, the deputy director of the George Washington program.

A bus packed with women and children fleeing the last ISIS-controlled area in Syria headed to a detention camp in February. Their countries are grappling with what to do with them.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

“Do we ignore the problem because it’s easier in the short term?” he said. “If so, it’s going to become a problem in the long term.”

But bringing them home requires foreign governments to answer virtually impossible questions, like how to separate those who committed crimes from those who did not, and those who still pose a threat from those who do not.

The puzzle has been hardest to solve when it comes to the tens of thousands of women and children affiliated with the Islamic State.

The once common view that ISIS women were passive prey, “jihadi brides” seduced into joining the caliphate and marrying its fighters, crumbled as evidence emerged that women had served as enforcers for the caliphate’s morality brigade or, in some cases, taken up arms in battle.

“The rhetoric from the media and politicians is they’re brainwashed, they’re deceived, they’re lovestruck, they don’t know what they’re doing,” said Meredith Loken, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst who has studied women who join violent extremist groups. “But even if they didn’t pick up guns,” she said, many were “actively contributing to this group.”

Some were reluctant accessories while others were violent zealots. Some were both victims and perpetrators, experts say.

Women like Shamima Begum, a British teenager, and Hoda Muthana, a young American-born woman, have drawn headlines in recent weeks partly because it is so difficult to size up their roles and the risk they pose.

Ms. Begum was unrepentant when a journalist found her in a Syrian camp in February, asking to return to Britain for her unborn child’s sake while insisting that the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing, in which 22 were killed, was justified. Ms. Muthana later said she regretted joining the Islamic State, insisting that she had been “brainwashed.”

Experts contend that bringing ISIS members home to be prosecuted or monitored is smarter, safer and, in most countries, more humane than leaving them stranded in the desert or outsourcing their prosecution to the Iraqi justice system.

“I don’t have words for how much regret I have,” says Kimberly Gwen Polman, 46, a dual United States-Canadian citizen who joined ISIS in 2015. Now she is one of thousands detained at Al Hol camp in Syria.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

The Trump administration has called for foreign governments to repatriate their citizens, though officials have suggested that some detainees who cannot be repatriated could be sent to the military prison at Guantánamo Bay.

“They are your citizens, and, for better or for worse, you’re responsible for the mess they’re creating,” said Tanya Mehra, a researcher at the International Center for Counter-Terrorism at The Hague.

Some countries say that Iraq should be able to prosecute foreign ISIS members for crimes against Iraqis committed on Iraqi soil. The American-backed forces in Syria have handed over at least 150 Iraqis and foreigners to be tried in Iraq.

Yet Iraqi due process standards fall glaringly short of Western ones. Many defendants have been convicted on the basis of confessions extracted through torture, including, according to Human Rights Watch, teenagers who said that they were beaten until they confessed.

Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council has said that at least 185 foreign children had been convicted on terrorism charges and sentenced to prison by the end of 2018. Iraq is also negotiating with the Kurdish-led militias who oversee the camps in Syria for the return of the 31,000 Iraqi women and children but Iraq’s government has been unable to decide what to do with them.

Abandoning ISIS followers to the camps or to Iraqi justice, experts argue, may only postpone a reckoning later on.

“If you leave them there and you lose track of them, sooner or later they’ll try to come back and you have no clue what’s happened with them,” Ms. Mehra said. “At least it’s a controlled risk if you bring them back.”

Several countries have proposed an international tribunal to try ISIS suspects. While the idea has gained some traction among countries eager to avoid handling the problem themselves, other international tribunals — which have generally tried only top officials — have proved unwieldy, expensive and of limited effectiveness. Experts view the prospect as unrealistic.

Prosecution at home is also complicated.

Many countries were so unprepared to deal with returnees that they did not have laws to prosecute them until a few years ago; even now, those laws generally carry sentences of only a few years.

Foreign women and children at Al Hol camp in eastern Syria. Most countries have been reluctant to take back their citizens who joined ISIS, but leaving them in the camp poses other dangers.CreditIvor Prickett for The New York Times

Successful prosecution often requires resources that are hard to scrape up and evidence that has long since disappeared on the battlefield.

Countries have also struggled with imprisoning former ISIS fighters in a way that prevents them from radicalizing other prisoners, and then reintegrating them into society once they are released.

While no nation has yet developed a large-scale, tried-and-true model for detention — to say nothing of deradicalization, which remains an elusive goal — Mr. Neumann, the radicalization expert, said that those that have developed a more sophisticated approach have found that it often requires labor-intensive, case-by-case tailoring.

Some governments have appeared more willing to repatriate children than their parents, though few seem ready to send people to Syria and Iraq to collect them. Several countries require children born in the caliphate to undergo DNA testing to prove their parentage, and therefore their citizenship, before repatriation.

Kosovo, Russia and Kazakhstan are among the few countries that have retrieved children on a large scale, with the Chechen ruler, Ramzan Kadyrov, organizing the return of dozens of Russian-speaking children and, in some cases, their mothers. In the largest one-time repatriation to Europe so far, Kosovo flew 110 of its citizens back from Syria last month, including 32 women and 74 children.

To help reintegrate them into society, some countries have favored separating children from radicalized parents and placing them with relatives or in foster or adoptive homes. While this approach may be the fastest way to rescue innocent children, it also means tearing them away from their mothers, many of whom refuse to part with them.

Tunisia, which had one of the largest contingents of foreigners to join ISIS, has balked at repatriating its citizens, leaving at least 200 Tunisian children and 100 women marooned in Syria and Libya, according to Human Rights Watch.

It has taken months of urging by activists and families for Tunisia to repatriate three children, including a 4-year-old who was orphaned when his parents were killed in airstrikes and two children whose mother remains detained in a camp, the rights group said.

“Every day they spend in the camp is one more day outside of school and their fundamental rights,” said Khawla Ben Aicha, a member of Tunisia’s Parliament who has pushed the government to retrieve the rest of the children. “They didn’t choose where they were born, or to have a jihadist parent.”

But the fragile Tunisian government has stalled, despite calls from Ms. Ben Aicha and others for it to take responsibility.

“We’re in an election year,” Ms. Ben Aicha said. “It’s not something people want to deal with.”

(Source: NYT)

Christians are tentatively moving back home after Isis – but many are staying away

Thousands have returned to Iraq and are celebrating in the streets, but the picture is mixed in the north

A little over two years ago, the northern Iraqi town of Qaraqosh lay in ruins. Its churches, shops, houses and farms were mostly destroyed by Isis during its occupation.

Some 50,000 Christian inhabitants of the ancient town fled the terror group’s onslaught when it captured swathes of northern Iraq in 2014. Many feared they would never see their homes again.

Today, around half of that number have returned. Thousands took to the streets last weekend to commemorate Palm Sunday, and more will come out again for Easter.

But the picture for Christians across northern Iraq is less hopeful, with high unemployment, fears over security and a lack of infrastructure stopping many returning.

“Qaraqosh has been one of the most successful in bringing its residents back,” said Faraj Benoit Camurat, president of Fraternity in Iraq, a French organisation that supports Iraq’s religious minorities.

“But overall, it’s a situation of big contrasts. You have towns which seem almost normal like Qaraqosh, and you have some where things are not so good,” he added.

Archbishop Yohanna Petros Mouche of Mosul inspects the damage at the Saint Barbara Church in the town of Qaraqosh (Getty )

Qaraqosh is the largest Christian town in Iraq and can trace its Christian identity back to the fourth century, when Assyrians adopted the new religion and began building monasteries and churches. It was relatively affluent before Isis came along, drawing its wealth from farmlands and trade with the metropolis of Mosul, just 20 miles away.

When Isis captured Mosul in 2014, it sent a chilling warning to Christians in nearby towns and villages, announcing that they must convert, pay a special tax or “face the sword”. The group waged a campaign of violence and murder against other minorities – Yazidis and Shia Muslims suffered greatly too.

More than 100,000 Christians fled their homes in fear of the Isis advance and many of them are still living in displacement camps in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Around 37,000 Christians returned to their homes in the Nineveh plains between 2017 and 2018, according to the Nineveh Reconstruction Committee. But tens of thousands more are still displaced in camps, mostly in Iraqi Kurdistan.

In a recent survey of displaced minorities in Iraq by the United Nations International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Christians were most likely to say they do not plan to return home, with only 22 per cent saying they would go back.

They were also the most likely to say they planned to settle abroad, at 42 per cent. Compared to those numbers, the 25,000 who have returned to Qaraqosh makes it something of a success story.

“Because of its size, it reached a critical number of people coming back, which meant services and infrastructure was relaunched,” said Mr Camurat.

“It was also key that the educational system of Qaraqosh continued to work when they were displaced. Schools are back to normal work very quickly, because all the structures were still alive.”

This is Qaraqosh, Christian city in Iraq, in 2014 it was overrun by ISIS terrorists who looted the town, destroyed churches&deported indigenous people. After the liberation, more than 4800 Assyrian families returned.
Picture is taken today as people attend the Palm Sunday mass. pic.twitter.com/koLcMISQ87

— Em Zeki (@holylandsalt) 14 April 2019

The Palm Sunday celebrations last weekend were the largest since the town’s liberation, and they had an added poignancy for many who have returned.

“Seeing the huge number of people of my town all walking and singing hymns together in a procession is a solid evidence that we are still here, that Christianity in Iraq is not dead, and never will be,” said 24-year-old Fadi Banno.

“For me, it’s a great joy to see this happening again after what happened to us because of Isis,” he told The Independent.

But other towns in the Nineveh plains, which have been home to a Christian community for two millennia, have not been so quick to recover.

In Bartella, around 10 miles down the road from Qaraqosh, fewer than a third of 3,800 Christian families have returned home, according to the Associated Press. Many of them now complain of harassment from Shia militias which now control security in the town.

“There are no jobs here,” one resident, who asked to remain anonymous, told The Independent. “A lot of the homes are still destroyed.”

"Hochana" retentit avec force dans les rues de #Qaraqosh comme un formidable cris d’ #esperance #Irak #Rameaux2019 #Rameaux pic.twitter.com/Qj8CCPfrTg

— L'Œuvre d'Orient (@OeuvredOrient) 14 April 2019

Iraq’s Christian community has faced instability before. There has been a rapid decline in the Christian population in the country over the last two decades, beginning with the onset of the US invasion in 2003. At that time, there were an estimated 1.4 million Christians in the country. Today, fewer than 300,000 are thought to remain.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq sparked a wave of Islamist militancy in nearby Mosul that led to many Christians fleeing. Many left the country for the US and Europe – as they still doing today.

Open Doors, an organisation that tracks persecution of Christians, said: “The territorial defeat of Isis reduced the level of persecution across the country. However, threats from extremist groups make it difficult for returning Christians to feel safe and secure from acts of Christian persecution.”

The problems affecting Christians are by no means exclusive to the minority. According to the IOM, more than 1.8 million people remain displaced across Iraq five years after the Isis onslaught began.

“Many live in a state of limbo – often working in the informal labour sector, still crowding extended families into small living spaces and relying on funds from family members or government pensions,” the IOM said in February. The same report said a lack of economic opportunities and public services were the main factors in keeping them displaced.

(Source: Independent)