Siniya: A whole city suffers

Posted by Isam Rasheed on February 10, 2006. Filed under International,Iraq. Posted with the tags:Iraq
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Siniya is a small city of 30,000 citizens, 220km north of Baghdad, near Tikrit where Saddam was born.

The Occupation Forces have launched a military operation on the city, building a blockade out of earth around Siniya to cut it off from surrounding cities.

I hadn’t heard of any problems between the citizens of Siniya and the Occupation Forces, so I decided to go there to find out what had happened.

At first I thought it would be easy to get there, as it’s only two hours from Baghdad by car. But just as we left Baghdad, there was an attack on US forces near Taji, 20km north on the road to Siniya. The road was blocked.

It was raining, and difficult to distinguish the sound of thunder from the sound of bombs.

After two hours, our driver decided to use another road, which would take much longer but there was no other way.

We were stopped many times at checkpoints, and in total spent five and a half hours on our journey to Siniya.

The blockade ran for 10km around Siniya and was over 2m high. There was a long queue of cars waiting at the main checkpoint to enter Siniya, and the people in the queue were very angry.

When our car arrived at the checkpoint they didn’t allow to us to enter Siniya because I am a journalist. The soldier said there is no way in.

I asked why.

“This is our order,” he said.

I didn’t want to speak with him more because he might have arrested me. That would have been easy for him because there weren’t any other journalists with me, which is usually a kind of protection.

I decided to interview Siniya citizens in the queue, because they know what happened in their city.

I spoke first to Mr Mohammed, a 34 year old engineer. He said:

“On 7 January, US troops started building this block around Siniya. They are trying to isolate Iraqi fighters who are attacking them. Every day, US troops have been exposed to attacks from resistance near Siniya, by road bombs and by different weapons, and also the resistance exploded the petrol pipelines (which come near Siniya) towards Turkey.”

Why do they blow up the petrol pipelines, I asked.

“Because this petrol goes to Turkey and then will be stolen by the Occupation Forces,” he said. “Or when Turkey buys this petrol, the money will taken by the Occupation Forces.”

I next interviewed Mrs Sumiya, a housewife, 33. She said: “Siniya became a real battlefield and the Occupation Forces destroyed most of our houses.

“There is no security inside Siniya at all and it’s worse than any place in Iraq now. Occupation Forces and Iraqi National Guard are raiding Siniya houses everyday and arresting many people. Every day a curfew runs from 5pm to 5am.” In Baghdad, the curfew is from midnight to 5am.
“And the other problem is,” she added, “my kids stopped going to school because of this bad situation.”

Mr Ammar, 20 years old and a student, was another Siniya citizen waiting in the queue. He said:
“I don’t think that the Occupation Forces will stop resistance with these steps, but on the contrary, because violence makes violence.
“And it’s normal. In all history there is resistance in any occupied country.
“But there has never been an occupation force that has used violence like this now. They put many mines near some houses inside Siniya where they think the resistance come from.
“But I want to ask them, what is the offence of the innocent families and the innocent kids who lived near these mines?
“They arrested many innocent people and we don’t know who will support their families.
“I think all of that makes the resistance grow and grow.”
“My personal problem,” he went on, “is that my college is outside Siniya and it’s very difficult for me to go there and back every day with these checkpoints.”

My last interview was with Mr Abdullah Jabar, who is 45 years old.

“I left my job because it was outside Siniya and it’s impossible for me to go to my workplace every day because of this block and these checkpoints.”

I asked him how he supports his family now.

“I have enough for one or two months but I don’t know what I will do after that.
“We are in very bad situation. We live in a very big jail for 30,000 people. It’s called Siniya.”