Beyond security

Nermeen Al-Mufti relates the everyday tale of Iraq's kidnap victims

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On Saturday, 4 December, Inji, a 29- year-old veterinarian, left her home in Kirkuk to make the 15km journey to her clinic in Taza Khurmatu. Her husband tells her to take care as she is leaving and she jokes that he is worried he may have to pay a ransom if she's abducted. He says he loves her and is worried because she trusts people too much. Inji reassures him that her assistant never leaves her side and that she is friends with the inhabitants of the area in which she works. They agree to meet later in the afternoon at his parents' house.

Inji is fasting that day. At 10am someone who has been buying medication from her over the previous few weeks arrives and asks her to accompany him to inoculate his cattle. Inji and her assistant Mohamed accompany him. The car turns off the main road on to a dirt road and the cattle owner pulls up.

"I didn't expect anything bad to happen," says Inji. "The roads to the nearby villages are all unpaved and deserted. Then another car stops. It has three passengers, people I expect to be his relatives or friends."

One of the passengers approaches Inji and hits her on the head with the butt of his gun. She is in pain but aware that a second person has hit Mohamed. The man with the gun pulls her in to the car. Fifteen minutes later she moves her head and attempts to speak. The man hits her again. After two hours of driving along dirt roads Inji is dragged out of the car. Two other men pull Mohamed from a second car. The place is deserted except for a mud-brick room with a metal door. The men order Inji to take off the jewellery she is wearing. They beat her until she can no longer feel the pain.

Iraqi papers publish daily reports of kidnappings involving women and children. Two weeks ago Al-Zaman reported that 11 children had been kidnapped in Baghdad in a single day. The figures do not cover cases where families do not inform, fearing that if they did so the captives would be killed. The numbers of the kidnapped are as unreported as the number of casualties in Iraq.

At home Inji's husband, Turhan, is worried. At 5pm his mobile rings. Inji's number appears on the screen. He asks why she's late. A stranger replies. He is told his wife has been kidnapped and he has 24 hours to pay $20,000 in ransom. He is then told that the kidnappers are god-fearing and will not touch his wife. The husband is horrified. He doesn't know what to say, except that he lives in a rented home and does not have that kind of money. "Twenty-four hours," he is told, "and after that we'll sell her."

Inji is lying on a bare floor begging for a drink of water. The place is dark. Mohamed, who has been badly beaten, is sitting near her. It gets colder. One of the captors brings Inji some water to drink and a dirty quilt. He tells her to phone her husband and her family and his family and ask them to prepare the money, and to call Mohamed's family and tell them to pay $20,000 as well. Inji swears that her family cannot afford this money.

"We used to work before for the special agencies and were making good money. Let the democracy that you call for collect money for you," she is told.

Inji is lost for words. She breaks her fast with a sip of water. She is feeling cold and her head is spinning. She calls her husband and tries to be coherent. She begs to be saved. The captor snatches the phone from her and tells Turhan not to call the police or else his wife will be killed.

Inji spends the night praying and crying. She was under the impression that the only people who get kidnapped are those who deal with the Americans or else the rich. She is not rich, has no dealings with the Americans, does not belong to any party and is not working for the government.

At home her husband frantically tries to raise the money. Early in the morning he receives a call from the kidnappers who agree to extend the deadline by 24 hours. The husband is told not to be late and not to expect another call. The phone card is running out and his wife's captors will not buy another. Turhan is given an address where he must deliver the money.

By Monday afternoon the money is delivered to a place near Jabal Hamarin, 70 km distance from Kirkuk. The man who collects the money warns the family against mentioning the place to anyone. Two hours later Inji is freed.

The case is far from unusual. A man I am interviewing was asked to deliver a sum of money to a basketball court. He was told that if he called the police or failed to pay he would be killed or else his son would be abducted. I ask him what he will do.

"I will pay without telling the police and will keep my son from going to school for at least a week," he says.

Others are less compliant. Seif was a sixth year student at Baghdad Medical School. His family informed the police when he was abducted. The police managed to find the captors and during the ensuing exchange of gunfire Seif was killed. This was a few days ago and Seif's father is unable to speak of the events. The family did not have the $40,000 ransom the kidnappers had asked for.

A senior Iraqi official, who asks for anonymity, says that 13 groups, operating under a variety of names, are involved in fighting in Iraq. The groups used to receive finance from abroad. This has now dried up and now, he claims, the groups are resorting to kidnapping to raise funds.

A source close to the Iraq Brigade of the Islamic Army denies that Iraqi resistance groups are involved in kidnapping. The perpetrators, he says, are criminal gangs taking advantage of the collapse of law and order.

According to Kirkuk police chief Turhan Youssef security services in Kirkuk have arrested two kidnapping gangs and released many captives. Members of the gangs were mostly former security and intelligence officers.

The gangs claim that they only target people who deal with the US or provide them with information. A father who paid $50,000 to ransom his daughter was told by her kidnappers that they needed the money to buy weapons to fight the Americans, and that they knew he was working as a contractor for the Americans. The Islamic Army source denies that this is possible. "Anyone proved to be dealing with the Americans gets killed," he says. "They are not abducted for ransom."

Two billion dollars have been taken from the US grant for infrastructure to bolster security in Iraq. The government's 2005 budget has prioritised improving domestic security. The kidnappings continue.