Conflict in Iraq

News of the terrorist attacks reached Aqeel Ibrahim Lazim while he and his fiancé were discussing their wedding plans. They were running through the details of the reception when the freshly qualified dentist glanced up at the television screen which flickered in the background.

He was immediately captivated by the images of burning towers and people jumping to their deaths. But only gradually did he realize that what he was witnessing was not a scene from an action picture, but real-life horror in that far-off land which the Iraqi propaganda mill had always sold as an enemy power.

'I thought it was the apocalypse'

Ten years later, Lazim finds it hard to describe what he felt on September 11, 2001.

"It was a mixture of astonishment, sympathy and shock," he told Deutsche Welle. "I thought it was the apocalypse, the total collapse of human civilization." He recalls feeling outraged at the loss of life, but also a sense of nervousness.

"As a human being I was very sad about the victims, but somehow it was an unusual feeling of sympathy because the perpetrators expressly described themselves as Muslims," he said.

At the time, Lazim couldn't have known that the attacks in America would not only overshadow his wedding, but plunge his country into another war and finally unclench dictator Saddam Hussein's iron-fisted rule.

One topic of conversation

But by the time night fell on September 11, Lazim had become aware he was not the only one feeling nervous. He remembers security forces and armed members of the leading Baath Party suddenly starting to patrol the streets "as if Iraq itself might become a target of such attacks."

At his stag party and the wedding itself, that was the only topic of conversation. "I received more news than I did congratulations," the dentist and lecturer said.

Around the time of the wedding, the regime organized rallies in honor of Saddam Hussein. Lazim describes how citizens were forced to take part, but like most Shi'ites, he was very critical of the Sunni dictator.

Signs of war

With the US government making no bones about its belief that Saddam Hussein was in possession of weapons of mass destruction, and wondering aloud if his regime might be directly connected to al-Qaeda, Lazim became increasingly aware that the 9/11 attacks meant Iraq was facing the prospect of a new war.

That new war started on March 19, 2003, and Lazim remembers well the mixed feelings he had about it.

"Many Iraqis I knew rejected the invasion of our country, but at the same time we were hoping Saddam would be brought down," he said. Just 22 days later, that was precisely what happened - much to the joy of many Iraqi citizens.

"It was amazing, suddenly we could speak our minds," Lazim said. "But it was also a sad feeling to see foreign troops occupying our towns."

Chaos and war

Although the post-Saddam era gave Lazim the new-found freedom to open his own dental practise and teach at the university in Basra, the country has paid a price for such liberties.

For many years chaos and bloody violence characterized daily life in Iraq, with Sunnis and Shi'ites massacring one another, and nobody safe from attack and abduction.

"That was not the kind of freedom we had been hoping for," Lazim said.

The Iraq Body Count projects says as many as 100,000 civilians were killed in fighting between 2003 and 2010, with another 50,000 military lives lost.

Unexplained killing

In 2006, Lazim's cousin Mohammed was kidnapped, and his family searched for him in hospitals, police stations and morgues across the country. The images and the stench of the morgues will stay with Lazim forever.

"I stood there in shock and asked myself why all these people had been killed," he said. His cousin was later pronounced dead, but his remains were never found.

These days when Lazim looks at pictures of the September 11 attacks, he thinks about how terrorism affects those it doesn't kill - not least the scores of Iraqi children unwittingly born into a climate of war, violence and horror.

"They have experienced everything up close and they carry a great fear inside them: fear of being kidnapped, fear of murder and a fear of car bombs that claim many lives." And Lazim fears for them, so much so that he insists on personally escorting his own children, Mohammed and Sarah, to school every day.

Author: Munaf Al-Saidy, Basra / tkw
Editor: Rob Mudge