HALA JABER- Sunday Times Online - May 7, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2168496,00.html
EVEN by the stupefying standards of Iraqs unspeakable violence, the
murder of Atwar Bahjat, one of the countrys top television journalists,
was an act of exceptional cruelty.
Nobody but her killers knew just how much she had suffered until a film
showing her death on February 22 at the hands of two musclebound men in
military uniforms emerged last week. Her familys worst fears of what
might have happened have been far exceeded by the reality.
Bahjat was abducted after making three live broadcasts from the edge of
her native city of Samarra on the day its golden-domed Shiite mosque
was blown up, allegedly by Sunni terrorists.
Roadblocks prevented her from entering the city and her anxiety was
obvious to everyone who saw her final report. Night was falling and
tensions were high.
Two men drove up in a pick-up truck, asking for her. She appealed to a
small crowd that had gathered around her crew but nobody was willing to
help her. It was reported at the time that she had been shot dead with
her cameraman and sound man.
We now know that it was not that swift for Bahjat. First she was
stripped to the waist, a humiliation for any woman but particularly so for a
pious Muslim who concealed her hair, arms and legs from men other than
her father and brother.
Then her arms were bound behind her back. A golden locket in the shape
of Iraq that became her glittering trademark in front of the television
cameras must have been removed at some point it is nowhere to be seen
in the grainy film, which was made by someone who pointed a mobile
phone at her as she lay on a patch of earth in mortal terror.
By the time filming begins, the condemned woman has been blindfolded
with a white bandage.
It is stained with blood that trickles from a wound on the left side of
her head. She is moaning, although whether from the pain of what has
already been done to her or from the fear of what is about to be
inflicted is unclear.
Just as Bahjat bore witness to countless atrocities that she covered
for her television station, Al-Arabiya, during Iraqs descent into
sectarian conflict, so the recording of her execution embodies the depths of
the countrys depravity after three years of war.
A large man dressed in military fatigues, boots and cap approaches from
behind and covers her mouth with his left hand. In his right hand, he
clutches a large knife with a black handle and an 8in blade. He proceeds
to cut her throat from the middle, slicing from side to side.
Her cries Ah, ah, ah can be heard above the Allahu akbar (God
is greatest) intoned by the holder of the mobile phone.
Even then, there is no quick release for Bahjat. Her executioner
suddenly stands up, his job only half done. A second man in a dark T-shirt
and camouflage trousers places his right khaki boot on her abdomen and
pushes down hard eight times, forcing a rush of blood from her wounds as
she moves her head from right to left.
Only now does the executioner return to finish the task. He hacks off
her head and drops it to the ground, then picks it up again and perches
it on her bare chest so that it faces the film-maker in a grotesque
parody of one of her pieces to camera.
The voice of one of the Arab worlds most highly regarded and outspoken
journalists has been silenced. She was 30.
As a friend of Bahjat who had worked with her on a variety of tough
assignments, I found it hard enough to bear the news of her murder. When I
saw it replayed, it was as if part of me had died with her. How much
more gruelling it must have been for a close family friend who watched
the film this weekend and cried when he heard her voice.
The friend, who cannot be identified, knew nothing of her beheading but
had been guarding other horrifying details of Bahjats ordeal. She had
nine drill holes in her right arm and 10 in her left, he said. The
drill had also been applied to her legs, her navel and her right eye. One
can only hope that these mutilations were made after her death.
There is a wider significance to the appalling footage and the
accompanying details. The film appears to show for the first time an Iraqi
death squad in action.
The death squads have proliferated in recent months, spreading terror
on both sides of the sectarian divide. The clothes worn by Bahjats
killers are bound to be scrutinised for clues to their identity.
Bahjat, with her professionalism and impartiality as a half-Shiite,
half-Sunni, would have been the first to warn against any hasty
conclusions, however. The uniforms seem to be those of the Iraqi National Guard
but that does not mean she was murdered by guardsmen. The fatigues
could have been stolen for disguise.
A source linked to the Sunni insurgency who supplied the film to The
Sunday Times in London claimed it had come from a mobile phone found on
the body of a Shiite Badr Brigade member killed during fighting in
Baghdad.
But there is no evidence the Iranian-backed Badr militia was
responsible. Indeed, there are conflicting indications. The drill is said to be a
popular tool of torture with the Badr Brigade. But beheading is a
hallmark of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by the Sunni Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
According to a report that was circulating after Bahjats murder, she
had enraged the Shiite militias during her coverage of the bombing of
the Samarra shrine by filming the interior minister, Bayan Jabr,
ordering police to release two Iranians they had arrested.
There is no confirmation of this and the Badr Brigade, with which she
maintained good relations, protected her family after her funeral came
under attack in Baghdad from a bomber and then from a gunman. Three
people died that day.
Bahjats reporting of terrorist attacks and denunciations of violence
to a wide audience across the Middle East made her plenty of enemies
among both Shiite and Sunni gunmen. Death threats from Sunnis drove her
away to Qatar for a spell but she believed her place was in Iraq and she
returned to frontline reporting despite the risks.
We may never know who killed Bahjat or why. But the manner of her death
testifies to the breakdown of law, order and justice that she so
bravely highlighted and illustrates the importance of a cause she espoused
with passion.
Bahjat advocated the unity of Iraq and saw her golden locket as a
symbol of her belief. She put it with her customary on-air eloquence on the
last day of her life: Whether you are a Sunni, a Shiite or a Kurd,
there is no difference between Iraqis united in fear for this nation.
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