By Ali al-Mawsawi
Azzaman, November 4, 2006
Iraqi gunmen, insurgents, terrorists, or whatever you might call them, have recently introduced new tactics to deter their enemies but their victims are mostly ordinary and innocent Iraqis. The gunmen are supposed to be fighting foreign occupiers or what they term their Iraqi ‘lackeys.’ But the fodder of their carnage is mostly innocent Iraqis.
The nearly six million people of Baghdad live under constant terror in the presence or absence of these gunmen. Iraqis are now afraid to touch or even come close to any item outside their homes be it a barrel for garbage collection or the corpse of a human being. Almost everything unattended in Baghdad can be a booby trap.
Car bombs are the weapon of choice but recently the gunmen are resorting to motorcycles as their speed and size makes it easy for them to bypass checkpoints and sneak into cordoned off areas. The use of motorcycles is not limited to attacks against U.S. or government troops. Criminals and thugs are using them to kill, rob, steal and assassinate rivals. There is no shortage of motorcycles as is the case with almost anything the gunmen need to execute their dirty plans. In the absence of strict border controls, everything can enter Iraq and there more motorcycle shows in Baghdad than anytime before. Motorcyclists do not have to obtain a driving license or a registration as do most drivers in Iraq. And even if the authorities want to impose such restrictions they lack the means to do so.
The gunmen have resorted to motorcycles following government measures to block certain headquarters with concrete slabs. They find it easy to drive through,” said Marwan Ahmad from Adhamiya. Sameer Amer says motorcyclists have been attacking targets in residential areas “but the police always fail to catch them.”
Iraqi police or U.S. troops do not use motorcycles in their operations and the gunmenÂ’s large-scale use of them has given them an edge in fighting, said Amer.
Amer says motorcycles are widely used in breaking into super markets and shops in the area of Amiriya in Baghdad. Motorcycles are even employed widely in the restive district of Doura, one of the violent areas in Baghdad.
Khatab Ahmad said: “Most of the military operations and assassinations taking place in Doura are carried out by gunmen using motorcycles.”
Ahmad Abbas, a police officer, says there has been “a marked surge” in operations using motorcycles as bombs. “They are easy to get and their impact when booby-trapped can be as lethal as that of a car-bomb,” said Abbas.
You can get a motorcycle for about 25,000 dinars (about 17 U.S. dollars), rendering them within reach of many in Iraq. There are not exact figures on the number of motorcycles in Iraq, but, according to Ihsan Abdullah, a motorcycle dealer, there are more motorcycles than cars in the country.
“Motorcycles have dramatically increased in number in the past three years. We have motorcycles of all sorts and origins. We import them from Japan, China, Thailand, Iran and many other countries,” Abdullah said.
He said traffic jams and closure of streets and districts particularly in Baghdad have made the motorcycle one of the most attractive means of transport. “But I am afraid nearly 30 per cent of all the motorcycles in Iraq have been used in terrorist operations,” says Hassoun Bader, another motorcycle dealer.