Highway Perils

For many Iraqis, the fall of the former regime brought at least one immediate benefit: an end to dreaded checkpoints up and down the country’s road network. But now, many hope for their return.

The former regime’s highway checkpoints disappeared in April 2003 to the delight of Iraqis who suddenly found inter-city travel free of hassle and much faster.

"It used to be so hard driving on those roads," said long-time Kirkuk-Baghdad taxi driver Kawa Muhammed. "I never imagined those checkpoints would ever be removed."

But hardly had they gone than highwaymen – better known as "Ali Babas" – rendered many roads dangerous.

They were followed by insurgents who placed improvised explosive devices, IEDs, along the roads to ambush Coalition convoys and Iraqi police.

Soon, Coalition troops and the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, ICDC, installed many new checkpoints on major highways. Most Iraqis were relieved and saw them as a source of protection, not harassment.

But some of these posts have been attacked recently and others abandoned by ICDC, making travel between major Iraqi cities perilous once again.

The renewed danger now leads travellers to regard a simple trip to Baghdad with some trepidation.

"Once travelling on a road becomes a [dangerous] adventure, people do not feel safe or comfortable," said Muhammed Rahim, a business traveller on the Kirkuk-Baghdad highway.

Rahim says the previous government's practice of setting up road-blocks to snoop on drivers was contrary to basic civil rights, as they restricted freedom of movement.

Security forces manning these posts would interrogate travellers and check for people wanted by the government. They often harassed and degraded drivers, especially Kurds.

Many have bad memories of the Saddam-era checkpoints, but some feel the anxiety and fear they experience today is worse. Taxi-driver Muhammed says travelling is "twice as hard as before".

In the old days, travellers could move fairly easily between major cities, if they were not involved in opposition politics, had completed their military service and bribed the security forces working the checkpoints.

Before, Muhammed says, he at least knew what to expect, "But now, driving on these roads - especially on the Kirkuk-Baghdad road - we don't know what we might run into."

Other drivers agree that it is the uncertainly today that causes so much anxiety.

"Now there is no guarantee," said Othman Ahmed, a cloth businessman who has travelled the Kirkuk-Baghdad road for more than 15 years. "If someone comes up against a highwaymen, he could be robbed or killed."

Anwar Qadir, a regular traveller on the Baghdad-Kirkuk road, believes no Iraqi highway today should be without security posts, especially those crossing Iraq's many sparsely populated areas.

"The government should maintain security before anything else," said Qadir, who has witnessed highway robberies on his travels. "We have seen many people lose their lives or their property on these roads."

Twana Othman is an editor with Hawlati, an independent weekly newspaper in Sulaimaniyah.