Hundreds of international fighters have flocked to Syria to join the war against Bashar al-Assad’s government, most of them ill-equipped.
Former comrades are pitted against one another –and against a besieged government.
On a side street off Mogadishu’s Wadnaha Road frontline a young officer is explaining the unwritten rules of the city’s intractable civil war.
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/ 28 October 2008
Dizzying construction boom relies on migrant labourers who are lured into a life of squalor and exploitation, writes Ghaith Abdul-Ahad.
In most cities of the world, a person might expect to be feted for surviving a single bomb attack. In Baghdad, survival stories can be found on every street corner. Ali, a survivor of two bomb attacks, tells Ghaith Abdul-Ahad that Iraqis are living in a state of hysteria.
On the banks of the Shatt al-Arab in southern Iraq, a family business is thriving. For the Ashur, a small clan of 50 families, it’s worth several million dollars a week. Costs are steep, especially for security. But profits are tidy and business is booming. The Ashur smuggle oil. For years under Saddam Hussein, they worked as mere guards at Abu Flus terminal at the mouth of the Gulf.