Ghaith Abdul-Ahad
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/ 27 October 2005

‘We don’t need al-Qaeda’

”Abu Theeb is a tall, handsome, well-built man with a thin beard and thick eyebrows. His name is a nom de guerre: it means Father of the Wolf. He is a farmer during daylight and a commander of a mujahedin cell, a group of holy warriors, at night.” Ghaith Abdul-Ahad goes behind the lines with Iraqi insurgents.

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/ 28 January 2005

‘It’s the election that counts’

Election fever is picking up. Almost every single wall in the city is covered by hundreds of posters, some pasted over others, giving a sense that Baghdad is itself one big collage of big heads, white beards and moustaches mingled with the Samsung phone ads. By far the most distributed poster is that of the Shia list.

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/ 27 January 2005

No hope for the former rulers

What started as secular socialist rule under the Ba’athists ended as a tribal Sunni regime led by Hussein. For centuries they have comprised the ruling class, but since the fall of Hussein everything has changed for Iraq’s Sunni Arabs. This weekend’s elections are likely only to reinforce their disaffection.

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/ 11 October 2004

Any violence today?

For the first time in more than 35 years Iraqis are free to talk, discuss and debate — publicly and relatively without fear — the political and social aspects of their daily life. But for most of them all they can talk about is violence. What happened this morning? How many mortars fell on your neighbourhood yesterday? Did the Americans free your cousins or are they still being ”interrogated”?