Eid in Iraq Making the most of it

by **Ponee** Wed Jul 30, 2014 11:10 am

07/30/2014

Eid in Iraq Making the most of it 560704671

TO ENTER Baghdad's sprawling al-Zawra amusement park visitors must pass through security pat-downs before boarding red British double-decker buses—"Mind Your Head", a sign inside reads in English—that shuttle them along the mile-long, blast-wall-lined road to the park's main gate. After more searches and bag checks they are greeted by portraits of the controversial Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and hundreds of anxious soldiers. Once inside, al-Zawra is another world within Iraq. Arabic pop music thumps from dozens of speakers as hawkers peddle candyfloss, ice cream, fresh juice and stuffed animals from stalls fronted with flashing, multi-coloured lights. Families stroll along snapping pictures and queuing up for rides on the towering ferris wheel, the creaky rollercoaster, and bumper cars. All around, people are dancing and singing.

On July 28th Iraqis marked Eid al-Fitr, the first day of a three-day festival that marks the end of the month-long Ramadan fast. The month has been blisteringly hot and bloody In Iraq. In early June jihadists from the Islamic State, an extremist group that grew out of al-Qaeda, in alliance with former Baathist men of Saddam Hussein's regime and Sunni tribal fighters, overran the country's second-largest city, Mosul, before battling their way to the northern approaches of Baghdad. Since then Iraq has succumbed to yet another round of bloodletting, largely along sectarian lines. Shias, Sunnis and Kurds are bitterly divided over the formation of a new government and over how to share Iraq's lucrative oil revenues.

The capital is not immune. On July 24th a double car-bombing killed nearly two-dozen people in a middle-class neighbourhood, mortars rained down on police and army bases, and a prominent Sunni politician was kidnapped from his home. Rumours circulate that uniformed death squads, a grim feature of the 2006-07 civil war, are again running rampant in districts across the city. Bodies are piling up in morgues. There are rumours of jihadi sleeper cells. The crippled government is increasingly detached from reality.

But many Iraqis are trying to make the best of things. "This Eid is better than last year," says Ali Adnan, a 31-year-old electrician and father of a nine-month-old son visiting al-Zawra. "We have a strong army that protects us." He shrugs off suggestions that the Iraqi army, which largely disintegrated in the face of the onslaught last month, is not up to the task of defending Baghdad, or anywhere else in the country for that matter.

But many others aren’t so sure that Iraq's security forces have what it takes to push back and retake lost cities and towns. They resent politicians, including Nuri al-Maliki, the prime minister, for looking out for themselves rather than the country. During frequent power cuts the government's fortified Green Zone, which borders al-Zawra park, remains well lit, while Iraqis languish without electricity in a month when temperatures can reach 40°C (104°F) at midnight. "I'm scared of the future," says Ghassan Mahmoud, a 30-year-old computer-engineering graduate. "Maybe one day I will leave Iraq. There's no difference between the army and the militias.” http://goo.gl/jgtYcU