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Iraqi Women Take On Roles Of Dead or Missing Husbands
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The war in Iraq has displaced about 2.7 million residents, according to the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental organization. Hundreds have occupied government buildings, a situation Iraqi officials say is untenable.
The campaign to evict squatters from these buildings was one of the cornerstones of a plan launched last year to improve security.
Brig. Gen. Abdullah Abdul Karim Abdul Sattar, commander of the Iraqi army brigade responsible for Zayouna, said squatters have brought crime to neighborhoods. He said many rent out their own houses in other parts of the city.
"Every government building should be empty from intruders," he said in an interview in his office, which is decorated with several photographs of him with Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq. "Many of these families have houses."
The general said a member of the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, lived in the building in Zayouna. Iraq's government, controlled by political parties at odds with Sadr's, has cracked down on the militia in recent weeks.
Abadi acknowledged that the Mahdi Army member was a resident and said that she often urged him to leave the militia.
Early this month, the residents were given two weeks to abandon the building. Initially, Abadi was defiant. "I will stay inside and have them destroy the building over my head," she said at the time.
If they were forced out, she said, her son Muqdam, 19, an engineering student, might be forced to drop out of college to help support the family.
"This is how you push young men to become terrorists," she said angrily, as her son stood quietly nearby, clicking on a cellphone, eyes downcast.
The women in the building should lead the fight, Abadi decided. Shortly after the soldiers gave them an ultimatum, she packed the women into a handful of taxis and traveled to the military base where Abdul Sattar works.
Soldiers at a checkpoint told the women the general was not inside. The women assumed he was lying and walked toward the building.
"Shots were fired in the air," Abadi said.
