Five years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, his memory lives on through wrist watches as people in his home town and birth village seek reminders of a time of safety, jobs and cheap living. In Saddam’s home town of Tikrit, north of Baghdad, watches featuring an image of the former Iraqi leader on the dial sell like hot cakes to a mostly older crowd.
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/ 11 February 2007
A suicide bomber slammed an explosives-laden van into a police station in northern Iraq on Sunday, killing at least 12 people and wounding 25 more, officials said. Lieutenant Colonel Hur Baz of the police in Ad-Dawr said that 12 people were killed outright when the blast devastated the local police department.
Insurgents in Iraq have released a video showing the burned-out wreckage and 11 victims of a helicopter crash, as Washington insisted it is able to stop rebel attacks amid another horrific discovery of corpses. Amid fears that violence is spiralling to new highs, Iraqi politicians continued to quarrel over the make-up of the new government.
When he climbs into his huge ”husky”, a South African-made armoured tractor used to detect mines, Josh Streeter thinks of a 24-year-old friend who was killed in December by a bomb planted on the main road linking Baghdad to the northern city of Mosul.
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/ 14 November 2003
A United States helicopter gunship killed seven people allegedly preparing to fire rockets at a US base in northern Iraq, a military spokesperson said on Friday. Ground troops deployed to the scene found a flatbed truck carrying 50 missiles and a bunker containing 300 rockets as well between 200 and 300 missiles.
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/ 7 November 2003
Six US soldiers were killed on Friday when a Blackhawk helicopter was ”forced down” outside an American base near the northern Iraqi city of Tikrit, US military officials said. ”The total number of people on board was six. All six have died,” said spokesperson Major Josselyn Aberle.
Twenty-four years after a local boy called Saddam Hussein came to power, later dragging Iraq into three ruinous wars, Tikrit residents still have time for the man they say at least knew how to keep order.