| Page 2 of 2 < |
Baghdad Resident Is Haunted by Friends' Betrayal
Muhammed Kurmash, a Shiite, was abducted last year by a gang that he said his then-best friends, both Sunnis, were part of.
(By Qais Mizher -- The Washington Post)
TOOLBOX
   Resize
COMMENT
 Discussion Policy
 CLOSE
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Who's Blogging  |
Instead, Kurmash handed the keys to Khudair.
"I trusted Khudair," said Kurmash, who fled to Abu Disheer, a mostly Shiite neighborhood.
Two months later, Khudair phoned. He said a Sunni extremist had ordered him at gunpoint to turn over the keys to Kurmash's house. Khudair advised Kurmash to speak with Taha, who had contacts with the insurgents, Kurmash recalled. Taha told him to come to the neighborhood. The brothers would protect him, Taha promised.
So Kurmash met Khudair in front of a shop near their houses. They greeted each other like long-lost cousins. They asked about each other's families.
Suddenly, gunmen pulled up in a white car. They ordered Kurmash into the back seat. Khudair told him to go with the gunmen and said he would call Taha for help.
The car passed through two Iraqi military checkpoints, but Kurmash was worried the gunmen would kill him if he tried to alert the soldiers. "I thought Taha and Khudair would help me," he recalled. The gunmen stopped at a house, where they blindfolded and handcuffed Kurmash, then took him to other houses.
Over the next six days, they beat him, causing his face to swell. They demanded his relatives' phone numbers. They wanted $20,000 in ransom.
Worried, Kurmash's relatives called Khudair. He told them that he hadn't seen Kurmash. But during the ransom negotiations, one of the kidnappers let something slip to Kurmash's brother: Khudair and Taha were part of the gang.
Kurmash's family now knew the identity of the kidnappers.
One of Kurmash's relatives called Taha and Khudair's relatives. He warned that if anything happened to Kurmash, his tribesmen would seek revenge. The ransom was paid, and the kidnappers released Kurmash the same day. "They were going to kill me," Kurmash said.
Kurmash learned later about his best friends' betrayal, although the brothers professed innocence.
"I think about Khudair every night," Kurmash said. Khudair and Taha could not be reached for comment.
Ehsan Abdul Latif Ahmed, a community leader in Amil who knows the three men, confirmed much of Kurmash's account but denied that Taha and Khudair were involved in the kidnapping. "They are good people," Ahmed said.
Their section of Amil has become safer, he said, and is protected by an Awakening council, the U.S.-backed alliance of residents and former insurgents that conduct neighborhood patrols. Displaced families are returning, he said.
"There is no danger for Muhammed Kurmash. He should return," Ahmed said.
Last month, as Kurmash clutched the phone, as he listened to his former best friend and neighbor, the memories and the suspicions rushed back.
"After what you did to me, I will never return," Kurmash recalled yelling.
And the line went dead.
