From NPR:
A small Sunni Arab town north of Baghdad put up a fight when Sunni Muslim extremists from the so-called Islamic State tried to impose their rule on the town. The residents lost, and now the town, Zowiya, just outside of Tikrit, is destroyed.
More than 200 of its homes have been blown up, and the residents have fled. The Islamic State leveled the town as a warning to anybody else that dares to fight them.
"My town is gone," says Abu Saad, a businessman in his sixties. "They bombed all our houses. Everything we have is gone."
'We Fight Them, They Destroy Us' Abu Saad and many of Zowiya's wealthy came to the northern Kurdish city of Erbil for safety.
Many have rented homes in a small compound for about $1,000 a month, each home with five or more families. Abu Saad rented a little home in Erbil he shares with his four married sons and their families.
"We have good houses, very luxury houses," he says. "I'm businessman. I have two houses for my sons. They bomb it." Everything is gone: passports, furniture, memories. "Because we fight them, they destroy us," Abu Saad says.
Online, the Islamic State posted picture of what it called the "purification" of Zowiya. Pictures of homes burning, of rubble and of bodies of people they called "collaborators."
During the fight, no one came to help from the state, the residents say. Abu Saad blames America for the tragedy.
Since the U.S.-led invasion, they've lived under 10 years of chaos, with a corrupt government that divided the nation between Sunnis and Shias.
"Everything is wrong in Iraq because of America," he says. "Because America, they bring us a fake government."
No comments:
Post a Comment