Highwaymen on “Death Road”

Muhammed Ameen Mahmood has been driving on the road from Sulaimaniyah to Baghdad for two decades, but has vowed to steer clear of it after being injured in a terrifying kidnapping incident.

He’s one of many Kurdish drivers who are taking longer and less convenient routes to and from the Iraqi capital until security is stepped up on what locals are now calling “Death Road”.

The 43-year-old taxi driver told IWPR that his ordeal began a couple of hours after he had picked up a passenger in Baghdad and headed for Sulaimaniyah.

A car drove up alongside him and the armed men inside gestured to him to pull over, but Mahmood sped up, hoping to reach the safety of the Hamreen mountains and the Kurdish area of Iraq.

However, he was unable to outrun his pursuers. "After they caught up with me, three gunmen fired shots over my car and I was forced to stop. As soon as I did, they pulled me out of the car and shot me in the foot I use to operate the accelerator," Mahmood told IWPR.

The gunmen put him and the passenger into the boot of their Daewoo car and took them to a village nearby. They were then forced to phone their families and ask that a ransom be paid for their release, otherwise they would be beheaded.

But Mahmood, who has 13 children, can barely support his family on his earnings, and warned his abductors that no ransom could be paid.

"When they realised that our families did not have any money, they released us that night,” he continued. “We were dumped on the main road – and if we hadn’t been released near a roadside restaurant, I would have bled to death.”

Mahmood is one of many Kurdish drivers who have faced gunmen known locally as the Hamreen Highwaymen. The number of incidents have increased rapidly since the beginning of 2005, leading many drivers to take a much longer – but safer – route to Baghdad through Baquubah to the east.

The Kurdish drivers claim Arab drivers on the Sulaimaniyah-Baghdad road are not targeted.

Fuad Arif Khumayyis, who represents the Kurdish drivers who use the route, told IWPR that 14 cars have been ambushed to date. “All those kidnapped have been released, most after paying some form of ransom,” he said. “However, not all of the cars have been recovered.”

General Anwar Hamad Ameen, commander of the Iraqi National Guard in Kirkuk, agrees that violent crime on the highways is a very real problem.

“I have asked the interior ministry to form a special regiment to be deployed in the Ozem area, and they’ve agreed to do so," he said.

"It used to be only bandits and thieves who were involved, but now insurgents are doing it as well – and it’s not easy to distinguish between the two groups. The main danger is on the 50-kilometre stretch between the towns of Khalis and Ozem, and this could be patrolled by around a thousand soldiers."

However, Ameen told IWPR that no date had yet been set for the deployment of such a force due to administrative problems.

In the meantime, Osman Faizullah Narullah – who was also targeted by the robbers – told IWPR that he would continue to use the main road because the alternative, via Baaqubah, is in such poor condition.

"I have come to believe that the Death Road of Ozem is better than the Baaqubah road,” he said. “I know one doesn't get kidnapped or killed on the Baaqubah road but driving on it is a form of psychological torture."

Sirwan Ghareeb is an IWPR trainee journalist in Iraq.