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Authors: Duncan Falconer
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also of a taste for strong drink, a suspicion confirmed most mornings by Hassan’s fetid breath. Hassan disapproved of everything about Abdul. But then he disliked everyone, it seemed, except his younger brother Ali. Hassan’s animosity towards Abdul was partly due to his resentment of Abdul’s more privileged upbringing, something which Hassan often sarcastically referred to. As far as Abdul was concerned the man was a lowlife and rotten to the core. Hassan was one of the thousands of prisoners that Saddam had released from jails all over the country shortly before the war, although he would deny the accusation. But after several men confirmed that they’d known Hassan while in Abu Ghraib prison he took to explaining his incarceration as an administrative error: he’d been inside for nothing more serious than a driving offence. Since most prison records had been lost or destroyed during the war, Hassan’s included, it was not possible to disprove his claim. Abdul suspected his team sergeant was lying. To him, Hassan was quite simply a criminal in a police uniform.
The truth was that Hassan had always been a criminal, since childhood, and like his brother and the rest of the squad he had joined the police only to further his unlawful ambitions. They were all Sunni Muslims from the Dora district in southern Baghdad, near the large power station which with its smoking chimneys dominated that part of the city’s horizon. It was an area notorious for its criminal element as well as for the insurgents who lurked there. The resistance and the crooks were hard to tell apart: their operational methods overlapped in places, both groups often working hand in hand.
Abdul could not understand why the police hired such men when their backgrounds and motives were so obvious. It seemed bizarre to Abdul and he could not believe his bad luck when, soon after joining the squad, he realised what kind of men the rest of his team were. He had initially assumed that his placement with them had been because he too was Sunni but then he learned that many of the other squads were of mixed faith. A week after joining the team Abdul applied for a transfer to another but his request was not even considered, his bosses having far too many more important things to worry about than a young police recruit’s unhappiness with his fellow officers.
Iraqi Sunnis had a reputation for being more aggressive and militant than the Shi’a, and Hassan and his cronies were a perfect example. When it came to murder, for instance, an Iraqi Shi’a was likely to accept a financial payment from the murderer in compensation for the family’s loss, as the Koran advised. But a Sunni was more likely to demand blood, an eye for an eye - and immediately, too.
There were two other police officers in the team besides Abdul, Hassan and Hassan’s brother Ali. Arras and Karrar were boyhood friends, originally from the Sunni stronghold of Ramadi, west of Fallujah, and they had moved to Dora as teenagers. Ramadi, was notorious for its robbers and highwaymen, skills on which Arras and Karrar hoped to build in Baghdad. All four officers were strong and determined characters who could see nothing wrong or even un-Islamic in what they did and believed it to be an acceptable way to make a living. The chance to commit crimes while working as legitimate police officers was seen as heaven-sent. It removed practically all the dangers and, better still, their victims had nowhere to turn to complain. They were certainly not the only officers of the law who practised extortion on the general public. Corrupt policemen were an accepted part of daily life in Iraq. Before the war a police officer took his life in his hands if he was corrupt. Saddam once had three officers hanged in public after they were caught demanding the equivalent of three dollars from an errant motorist.
Abdul was the smallest and most frail member of the squad. In fact, he was one of the least substantial men in
The truth was that Hassan had always been a criminal, since childhood, and like his brother and the rest of the squad he had joined the police only to further his unlawful ambitions. They were all Sunni Muslims from the Dora district in southern Baghdad, near the large power station which with its smoking chimneys dominated that part of the city’s horizon. It was an area notorious for its criminal element as well as for the insurgents who lurked there. The resistance and the crooks were hard to tell apart: their operational methods overlapped in places, both groups often working hand in hand.
Abdul could not understand why the police hired such men when their backgrounds and motives were so obvious. It seemed bizarre to Abdul and he could not believe his bad luck when, soon after joining the squad, he realised what kind of men the rest of his team were. He had initially assumed that his placement with them had been because he too was Sunni but then he learned that many of the other squads were of mixed faith. A week after joining the team Abdul applied for a transfer to another but his request was not even considered, his bosses having far too many more important things to worry about than a young police recruit’s unhappiness with his fellow officers.
Iraqi Sunnis had a reputation for being more aggressive and militant than the Shi’a, and Hassan and his cronies were a perfect example. When it came to murder, for instance, an Iraqi Shi’a was likely to accept a financial payment from the murderer in compensation for the family’s loss, as the Koran advised. But a Sunni was more likely to demand blood, an eye for an eye - and immediately, too.
There were two other police officers in the team besides Abdul, Hassan and Hassan’s brother Ali. Arras and Karrar were boyhood friends, originally from the Sunni stronghold of Ramadi, west of Fallujah, and they had moved to Dora as teenagers. Ramadi, was notorious for its robbers and highwaymen, skills on which Arras and Karrar hoped to build in Baghdad. All four officers were strong and determined characters who could see nothing wrong or even un-Islamic in what they did and believed it to be an acceptable way to make a living. The chance to commit crimes while working as legitimate police officers was seen as heaven-sent. It removed practically all the dangers and, better still, their victims had nowhere to turn to complain. They were certainly not the only officers of the law who practised extortion on the general public. Corrupt policemen were an accepted part of daily life in Iraq. Before the war a police officer took his life in his hands if he was corrupt. Saddam once had three officers hanged in public after they were caught demanding the equivalent of three dollars from an errant motorist.
Abdul was the smallest and most frail member of the squad. In fact, he was one of the least substantial men in
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