Children of Jihad: A Young American's Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East (25 page)

His tone was almost angry. “I told you; you shouldn’t go there!” I asked if I could change his mind by offering more money, but he didn’t budge. He reiterated his same point and stood firm in his refusal to take me there. He became both defensive and neurotic, telling me that he didn’t think it was even possible to cross the border into Iraq and then asking me to promise that if I did make it into Iraq, I wouldn’t tell anybody that I knew him or that he’d driven me.

Once the tire was fixed, I climbed into the front seat of the pickup truck. We drove in silence for a little while before he once again reminded me that he didn’t know anyone in Deir-e Zur and there was no point in mentioning his name to people. This was in stark contrast to when I’d met him and he pawned himself off as the socialite of eastern Syria. His comments were particularly odd, because he’d told me earlier that he was from Deir-e Zur. He could see I was confused and questioning his level of truthfulness. In an effort to remedy the situation, he contrived the story that the name he had been given was not what people called him. He explained that he went by his father’s name, which was Khalid, and assured me that where he was from they would not know any “Raja.” We reached another checkpoint and stopped just before the metal spikes that a guard had placed in the road. My driver had said he didn’t know if it was possible to cross into Iraq, so I figured I would ask the guard. I sounded like an inquisitive tourist, except I was just a few hours from the Sunni insurgency. Nonetheless, the guard answered that it was possible to cross from Abu Kamal, but I would need a visa to enter Iraq. Raja, or Khalid, or whatever my driver’s name was at this point interjected, and demanded the guard explain to me why this was a terrible idea. The checkpoint guard seemed amused and, with great delight, clenched his fist and gestured a decapitation by sliding his thumb across his throat. It sent chills down my spine but was music to my driver’s ears. He now seemed to be waiting for me to give in and give up on Iraq.

But I didn’t say a word. We hadn’t been more than five minutes past the checkpoint when he pulled his truck to the side of the road. He was confronting me and explained that he would drop me off just before Deir-e Zur, using the excuse that there was too much traffic and he had to deal with replacing the tire. He was making excuses. Before I had mentioned Iraq, he had no problems with anything. But now he didn’t even want to be associated with me.

Given the controversies and attention surrounding the porous border between Syria and Iraq and given how many insurgents were allegedly hiding out in Deir-e Zur, I wasn’t surprised that he had concerns. He was concerned about traveling with an American in the car. If they thought I was CIA, they might think he was helping the United States and then that could put his life in jeopardy. Or maybe he was concerned that if he proved to know anything about the border or took me there, the United States might think he was a friend of the insurgents. Either way, he felt that any association with an American going to Iraq would be bad for him.

Through my experience with Raja, I got my first glimpse of what I was about to encounter in Deir-e Zur. Raja or Khalid or whatever his name was now dropped me off at a roundabout just before the bridge leading to the city center. Before I gathered my belongings and went to find another taxi, he said to me again, “Remember not to tell anyone how you got here or that you know me. I am just a taxi driver.” But that wasn’t true. He had already told me he was from the city. He knew what kinds of people were living between Deir-e Zur and the Iraqi border. His paranoia was frightening.

The city of Deir-e Zur rests right along the Euphrates River at the bank of the southwestern part of ancient Mesopotamia. The famous civilization was comprised of the Fertile Crescent, the arable land that rested between the Euphrates River in the south and the Tigris River in the north. Deir-e Zur has historically been an important farming city and a trading center for business between Syria and Iraq.

The city of more than 133,000 people stirred controversy immediately after the 2003 United States intervention in Iraq. Reports began to surface that Sunni insurgents were crossing into Syria through Abu Kamal and settling in Deir-e Zur. I had heard from a number of people that there was actually a substantial number of insurgents who were either hiding out in Deir-e Zur or had assimilated in an effort at career change.

Its contemporary significance was not the only reason I was interested in traveling to Deir-e Zur. During the Armenian Genocide in 1915, the Deir-e Zur province of Syria was the scene of horrific death marches and mass executions of Armenians. Today, there are caves filled with skulls as a reminder of what happened.

I got into another taxi after parting ways with my driver. Within five minutes, I arrived at my hotel in Deir-e Zur. Everybody was rude to me. At the hotel they gave my blue passport a look of disgust. I really felt like I stood out. People would whisper about me and follow me around. It was not by any stretch of the imagination a comfortable place to be. I spent a few days in Deir-e Zur, exploring and trying to strike up conversations with people. Hardly anyone was interested. On my second day in the city, I hailed a taxi at one of the city roundabouts.

I wanted to see the famous ruins of Dura Europa, which was home to Syria’s oldest synagogue, and the ancient city of Mari, which was an old Mesopotamian city. I negotiated a price with the driver that he agreed on, but by the time we left the city center and had gone halfway to Dura Europa—a ninety-minute drive away—he doubled the price. I was furious and I refused emphatically. He abruptly stopped the car, turned around, and pulled over.

“If you will not pay, then get out of my car!” he screamed at me. I was in the middle of a long road with nothing else around me, so I didn’t have much of a choice but to give in to my driver’s extortion. The rest of the ride was hostile and uncomfortable. The glove compartment of the car had been concealed by the seat in front of me, but when I glanced over it, I saw something appalling. It was a decal of Osama bin Laden, with Arabic writing that I recognized as “Death to America.” I wanted to get out of the car and I prayed that there would not be a checkpoint; I didn’t want to think what this driver might do if he realized I was American.

We arrived at Dura Europa. I had heard so much about it but, at first glance, was unimpressed. It just looked like two mud walls. Because I was paying my driver to wait for an hour and I was desperate to get away from him, I agreed to pay a hundred Syrian pounds for a motorcycle ride through the ruins. I was glad I did, because on the other end of the vast archaeological site was the most spectacular view of the Fertile Crescent that I saw in all of my travels. I sat on the back of this motorcycle with a Sunni man, who comfortably drove me to the old synagogue, told me the story of its history, and was extremely friendly. When we got to a lookout point of the Euphrates River I asked him why my driver had a decal of Osama bin Laden on his dashboard. He told me that my driver is one of the foreigners.

When I asked the Sunni man what he meant by that, he explained that “he came from Iraq.” He left it at that and wouldn’t give me any more information, but I inferred that this guy had been an insurgent. As our travels continued, I saw that everywhere we went, people treated my driver like a foreigner. Despite my being an outsider as well, people seemed to take my side. When I really wanted to stir up hatred for him, I would tell people about his decal of bin Laden. This was a great way to get people on my side, because nobody wanted to be associated with bin Laden or Al-Qaeda. Even their fellow Sunnis viewed the Iraqis who had come into Deir-e Zur as harmful to the community. To begin with, Syria and Iraq had been historical enemies. More important, the Syrians had come to resent the lack of security and the international scrutiny that had resulted from Iraqi Sunni infiltrating Deir-e Zur.

From the hostile province of Deir-e Zur, I went by taxi to the northeastern Syrian town of Qamishli, which was my last stop before heading to Turkey and on to Iraq. Qamishli had been a historically peaceful town. The city of two hundred thousand people is a remarkable mix of Shi’a, Sunni, Christians, and Jews. It also has a substantial Kurdish population that has been harshly suppressed by the Syrian regime; there is a long history of Kurdish oppression in Syria, which has continued into the present. After repeated hostility in Deir-e Zur, this quiet village was a great place to relax for a few days before I put my life to the test again.

For sixty dollars, I was able to catch a ride from the Syrian-Turkish border all the way to Ibrahim Khalil in northern Iraq. The whole trip took five hours and I spent most of the time wondering what would happen once I got to Iraq. I will never forget when I first saw those large gates at Ibrahim Khalil after crossing from Habur, Turkey, into no-man’s-land. This was it. The border area was chaotic, as lines of people waited in a gathering area in the middle of several hideous cement buildings. The place was swarming with children lugging large coolers on their backs trying to sell cold drinks. Given that the place felt like a sauna, I’d imagine business was good for them.

I had been told by experts that going through Habur, Turkey, was the safest way to enter Iraq, but the extent of that safety was debated. Some said I was walking into a death sentence, while others suggested that I would be fine. But nobody denied the existence of a risk.

By the time I got to the Iraqi border, I was sweating bullets, both from the unbearable heat and my nerves.

I prepared myself to enter what I thought would be a war zone. As I stood before the Ibrahim Khalil border post in the gateway to the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, it did not look like the Iraq I had seen on television. The border was peaceful, surrounded by gorgeous green hills in the distance. Just in front of me I saw a small blue sign that said, “Welcome to the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.” I took a photo with my Turkish driver and then he left me.

Before I arrived, I had been promised escort by the Kurdistan Democratic Party. I really hoped this would work out, as I was now all alone and without a car on the border between Turkey and Iraq.

I could hardly breathe, partially because of the excruciating heat but mostly because I was sandwiched between two rather large Kurdish men on a short wooden bench. Surprisingly, the Iraqi border was less chaotic than others I had been to, and despite the fact that it was in truth the entrance to a war zone, it was a pleasant calm. One of the men beside me had defined and cartoonlike features. His head was covered in a tightly wrapped cloth and he wore baggy gray pants held up by a stylish Kurdish cummerbund. We were both curious to speak with each another. I wanted to ask him about Iraq, and he just wanted to know what I was doing there. I noticed him glancing at my American passport.

Just as I began to zone out, he asked me if it was my first time in Iraqi Kurdistan, to which I replied that it was. The fact that he could offer me one of my first perspectives of the region animated him. He adjusted his turban and looked right at me. I don’t think I have ever had someone stare at me with such a direct, focused gaze. If he hadn’t been so friendly and well-intentioned, I might have found it somewhat abrasive. He told me I would love Iraqi Kurdistan and then asked me what had brought me to Iraq.

I explained that I had come to Iraq to meet Kurdish youth and get their perspective on how they felt about politics, democracy, the war in Iraq, and the United States occupation. Before I could finish, he interrupted. His eyebrows wrinkled as he looked at me sternly and told me, “It is not an occupation. It is liberation.” Wow, I thought, FOX News must really be popular in this part of the country.

I extended my hand. “My name is Jared.” I didn’t know how else to respond. I had not expected to hear this while I was in Iraq, let alone have it be the very first thing said to me.

“I am Safeen,” he said proudly. Our conversation was cut short as I heard my name called loudly from inside the customs office. It had been brief, but this interaction with Safeen led me to believe that much of what I would see in the Kurdish part of Iraq would differ from my initial impressions of a country at war.

I was escorted to one of the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, where I found myself sipping tea and relaxing on a comfortable couch. Within minutes there were several Kurdish officials there to greet me. They had known I was coming and had been expecting me. It was at this moment that one of the officials sitting in front of me took his blue Nokia cell phone and placed it on the table. He pushed it toward me and said, “You should call home.”

IRAQ, 2005

T
he Iraqi Kurdistan Region was physically breathtaking, and with each turn in the road came an even more magnificent landscape. When I first crossed the Tigris River into the Fertile Crescent that once harbored the world’s most magnificent civilization, it was easy to bask in the glory of the Mesopotamian fantasy.

Besides the picturesque setting, just being in Iraq was enough to sustain a feeling of constant excitement, and I wanted to photograph everything and anything. This was a feeling I hadn’t experienced since the first time I went to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Back then, I was collecting dirt in film canisters, taking pictures of fences, and relishing everything about being in such a place. My driver laughed as I took pictures of objects as banal as signs and cones on the side of the street; he even opened the sunroof so I could stick my head out and get clearer shots. In the first fifteen minutes alone, I photographed an advertisement, a truck, and other trappings of the peaceful, everyday life that I hadn’t expected to see in Iraq.

“I think you are very happy to be in Iraqi Kurdistan,” my driver said to me with an air of pride. He was a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and he seemed very proud to be driving me. He was slender and he wore a suit that was far too big for him. I think he either thought I was older than I was or that I was a representative from some important organization. It was doubtful that he knew I was just a graduate student who had wanted to go to Iraq.

“Yes, I am,” I said. “It doesn’t seem dangerous here. Is it safe for me to stick my head out the window and take pictures?”

“Here in Iraqi Kurdistan, everything is safe. You will feel most welcome.” After these reassuring words, we did not speak much. There were a lot of smiles, but his English was minimal and he spoke Kurdish, not Arabic. I found that people in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region often downplayed their knowledge of Arabic. During the time of Saddam Hussein, they had been forced to speak Arabic instead of Kurdish, making memories of this language all too reminiscent of the Ba’ath Party. Though they are Muslims like most people in the Middle East, the Kurds are not Arabs; their status as an ethnic minority is of far greater significance to them than religious identification.

Consisting of the northern third of Iraq, the Iraqi Kurdistan Region contains high-value oil fields in Kirkuk and strategic borders with Syria, Turkey, and Iran. Home to some of Iraq’s most aesthetically pleasing landscape—large canyons, gorgeous mountains, and impressive waterfalls—many of the Sunni and Shi’a from other parts of the country come to the Iraqi Kurdistan Region on tourism. The waterfalls at Geli Eli Beg, the famous natural wonder once depicted on the Iraqi dinar, are among the region’s most popular sites for Sunni and Shi’a from other parts of the country. The Bexal Waterfall is another popular destination, where Iraqis from all over the country come to enjoy the riverside bazaars, outdoor cafés, and magnificence of the view. Once known primarily for their beauty, the resorts of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region have become popular refuges for those who can afford to take extended vacations from the sectarian violence that plagues the rest of Iraq.

The Iraqi Kurdistan Region is by no means home to the world’s largest Kurdish population, but the Kurds living there are the most pro-American and pro-Israeli people in the Middle East, possibly even in the world. I was not so naïve as to assume that the Iraqi Kurdistan Region represented the whole of the Republic of Iraq. I knew that the overwhelming praise for the American government and its undertaking in Iraq was unique to the region; things were most certainly different in the Sunni Triangle in central Iraq and in Moqtada al-Sadr’s Shi’a stronghold in the south. But the “amount” of support and love for America and Americans in Kurdistan was still surprising.

At the time of my trip in northern Iraq, there was an insurgency in the Sunni-dominated center of Iraq that had killed forty-five Americans in just the last ten days of my trip. There also continued to be violence in the Shi’a south, including the shooting in the head of one Western journalist. When I was in the north, however, I saw no hint of an insurgency. Instead, I saw signs of democracy, freedom, and liberty; I saw a thriving culture of socially and politically entrepreneurial youth who had carved themselves a place at the table.

T
he modern Iraqi Kurdistan Region
dates back to the aftermath of the Ba’ath Revolution in 1958, when Iraqi Kurdish leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani returned from exile to establish the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Three years later, Barzani led a revolution for self-determination and autonomy of the Kurds. The violent revolution lasted until 1971, when the Iraqi Kurdish leaders reached an agreement with then Iraqi vice president Saddam Hussein. The agreement promised the Kurdish people of the north autonomy, but Saddam failed to hold up his end of the bargain. As a result, life changed very little for the Kurds and by 1975, the agreement wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.

Since the Kurdish Revolt, the shah of Iran had been funneling money into Iraqi Kurdistan to help destabilize Iraq through the Kurds. Needing to find some way to cut off the Iranian funding to insubordinate sections of northern Iraq, Saddam sought to rid himself of the Kurdish predicament. Preoccupied with the need to consolidate his power and pressured from the West, he met with the shah of Iran to draft the 1975 Algiers Accord. Under the terms of the Algiers Accords, Iraq would hand over the Shatta al-Arab region of Iraqi Kurdistan to Iranian control and Iran would in exchange effectively cut its funding to the Kurds.

No longer challenged by a Kurdish revolt that had Iranian money—which in those years meant American money as well—behind it, Saddam moved back into northern Iraq and began “Arabizing” the Iraqi Kurds. For Kurds, this was a brutal lesson in realpolitik, one they would never forget. Despite their overwhelming support for the United States, the Iraqi Kurds consider the 1975 Algiers Accord the first chapter in a saga of abandonment by the West.

The Kurds were in sustained revolt for almost the entirety of the Iran-Iraq War, but Saddam used the violence of the conflict as an opportunity to use excessive brutality against the insurrectionists. During the war, massive amounts of Kurdish land were destroyed, as the eastern flank of Iraqi Kurdistan became a battleground that would take years to repair. I visited several of these cities, and they looked as if they had never quite recovered.

Almost three years after the Iran-Iraq War ended, Iraq was once again at war. In August 1990, Saddam invaded and annexed Kuwait, Iraq’s small, oil-rich neighbor. Within six months, the Iraqis had been driven out of Kuwait by American forces. As the war ended, President George H. W. Bush publicly encouraged Iraqi Shi’a and Kurds to rebel against the apparently vulnerable Saddam Hussein. Drawing on Bush’s rhetoric for motivation, the Kurds staged a rebellion in the north, while the Shi’a responded with an uprising in the southern cities of Najaf, Karbala, and Basra. His encouraging words of support notwithstanding, President Bush chose to remain on the sidelines for both uprisings, with bloody results for the Shi’a and Kurds alike.

As the Shi’a attempted to oust the Ba’ath government from southern Iraqi cities, Saddam’s forces initiated a brutal crackdown that left thirty thousand Iraqi Shi’a dead. The Kurdish uprising met equally violent resistance but was nonetheless successful in its ultimate objective. During the 1991 Kurdish uprising, the statues of Saddam Hussein came down, the posters and murals were defaced, and the Kurdish flag with its pronounced sun in the center replaced the Ba’ath Party flag. Kurdish autonomy became a reality as United Nations Security Council Resolution 688 declared the Iraqi Kurdistan Region to be a safe haven for the Kurds. The UN Resolution was carried out by Operation Provide Comfort, where the Kurds were encouraged to come back from Iran, Syria, and Turkey to a newly autonomous Kurdistan region under the protection of a UN no-fly zone.

While the Kurds were relatively protected from Saddam by the UN no-fly zone and Resolution 688, the early years of Iraqi Kurdistan were not easy. With the common enemy appeased for the time being, the tensions that had been simmering between the KDP and the Public Union of Kurdistan (PUK) began to surface. These tensions were exacerbated by new economic and political challenges. While autonomous, Iraqi Kurdistan was still technically part of Iraq and therefore also subject to the UN embargo that followed Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. In addition to withdrawing all of his troops, Saddam had also withdrawn all funds and resources, contriving his own domestic embargo on the newly autonomous region. This led to economic strangulation on both the international and the domestic fronts. Making matters worse, the Kurds had been banking on acquisition of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, but Saddam was not so anxious to relinquish control of this important city. Without oil money, central government revenue, or the opportunity to attract international investment, the Kurds were left with mere customs and border taxes as their primary source of public revenue. Meanwhile, the KDP and PUK feuded over resources and territory and the political tensions escalated into an all-out civil war. The violence got so bad that KDP officials actually appealed to Saddam to intervene in the civil war, and the Iraqi dictator happily sent thirty thousand troops to seize PUK areas.

By 1997, with Saddam reestablishing a foothold in Iraqi Kurdistan and the conflict expanding to include Turkey, it became clear to both the PUK and the KDP that if the conflict were to continue, the only losers would be the Iraqi Kurds. After a ceasefire agreement was reached, American secretary of state Madeleine Albright helped broker a deal that led to de facto reunification of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. Ultimately, the disputes between the KDP and the PUK were internal and political; in reality, the rival parties had the same approach to the Kurdish national question and ideological differences between the groups were insignificant.

United and autonomous, Iraqi Kurds continued to live in fear until March 2003, when Saddam finally fell. While Saddam had withdrawn his troops from the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, he had continued to sponsor terrorist attacks against Kurdish establishments. Saddam was a malevolent threat to Kurdish autonomy; only the end of his regime would bring peace and comfort to the Iraqi Kurdistan Region.

O
n my first day
in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, I was excited to explore. Still not fully aware of the extent to which Iraqi Kurdistan was a world removed from the turmoil in the rest of the country, however, I was cautious. For my first few days in Iraq, I took taxis everywhere—even to cross the street. Taxi drivers laughed at me when I would pay them five dollars to go fifty feet, but they didn’t complain.

In those first days, I kept waiting for something to frighten me. Where I expected to stumble upon insurgent training grounds, I found kids playing soccer; where I foresaw hatred toward Americans, I found individuals who wished to embrace me. This was not the Iraq I had seen on the news. Then again, how frequently is the Iraqi Kurdistan Region actually given attention in the mainstream media?

I began my exploration of Iraq in Arbil, the regional capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. The city, believed by many to be the oldest inhabited city in the entire world, was surprisingly urban, consisting of busy markets, a vibrant downtown, and a tremendous citadel that dates back to 7000
B.C
. Once one of the most important cities in ancient Mesopotamia, Arbil fell under the control of various empires and modern regimes, ultimately evolving into the capital of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. In front of the ancient citadel stood a shrine of one of the city’s former leaders, as if the rock statue of this spiritual figure were guarding the walls of the ancient city.

I learned that the ancient city was comprised of three quarters: Takiya, Topkhana, and Saray. The walled city, or the Qalah of Arbil, as it is known, has “witnessed all epochs of Mesopotamian history and prehistory from 7000
B.C
. until the present.”
*
In 705
B.C
. it became not only the religious center of the Assyrian community, but also the primary source of water for the region. Its magnificent twenty-two-kilometer aqueduct was one of the most impressive structures of its time. Today, however, the Qalah is a dirty and run-down community for some of the poorest people in Arbil; the citadel is home to as many as five thousand Iraqi Kurds, who continue to struggle in a quest to rebuild the lives they lost under Saddam Hussein.

It was isolated, with garbage-strewn streets, and sheltered from the new developments of the city center. It was an Iraqi slum located within an ancient treasure. Yet as I’d seen in Iran, Lebanon, and Syria, even the slums in the Middle East are connected to the world at large. Amid the squalor and poverty, I saw street children walking around with cell phones and I saw satellite dishes on top of every single home.

I asked a couple of people to explain to me how these homeless children could afford a cell phone. They told me that groups of children share a single phone. Obtaining old cell phones is neither particularly expensive nor difficult, especially since there are young “businessmen” who steal them from the crowded markets and then sell them for a cheaper price. The only challenge is obtaining the SIM card to make the phone work, but several of these poor young people will pool their resources to buy one for their shared phone. In truth, these street children don’t really have anyone to call. Then again, that is not what the phone is for. It is about having something modern to play with; it is about having something that they have control over. It is a toy for them and a way to learn. As soon as one of these boys gets a SIM card, he immediately learns new tricks with the phone and learns its features; he is free to explore new avenues for communication. Despite the limits of their own lives, these kids know how wide the channels of communication span. They are free to dream of another world and another life.