Mafia Militia a Profitable Business in Post War Iraq.

Kafah Ata a Sabean from Iraq and her 3 sons in their apartment in Amman, Jordan. Kafahs' husband was a personal bodyguard for Saddam Hussein and his son Oday. Photos of Saddam Hussein take center stage on their living room wall. They remain faithful to Saddam saying the chaos that is in Iraq now would never have happened if Saddam was in power.

The youngest son of Kafah looks out the window, he is often too afraid to go out and play with the neighborhood kids, Palestinian or Jordanian, because they hit him and call him names.

Kafah praying in her home.

“In my family they kidnapped my husband “M”, nephew, uncle, brother-in-law, shot and killed my aunt and her son,” said Kafah Ata of why she and her family are in Jordan waiting to be resettled. “In 2004 we paid US $2000 for my husband, we came to Jordan right after. My husband was a paramedic in the Iran war, the Gulf war, and this war, he was honored with 12 medals. When there was no war, my husband was a personal bodyguard for Saddam and his son Oday. He saw Saddam or Oday almost everyday, they were good to him, Saddam was like a father.”

The people who worked with Saddam were given a card which stated that they were a friend of Saddam and therefore untouchable. The family is Sabean, were allowed to go to church, pray as they wanted, and had no problems with other religious or ethnic groups in Iraq. Sometime in 2003 “M” was sitting in his office when he got a letter, which read, ‘either you convert to Islam or we will kill you.’ “We all stayed in our house in Baghdad but kept hearing news of friends being killed, so we left for Dialla,” said Kafah. “In Dialla, my husband had a business selling police dogs. After one year in Dialla we heard from friends that it was safe to return to Baghdad - so we went back.”

“M” was kidnapped shortly after their return. They don’t know who kidnapped him; the men were masked just one of the hundreds of Mafia Militias doing business by kidnapping people. They called “M’s” brother, the sound of M’s screams while being tortured in the background, and told him to pay 2000 American dollars or they would kill “M”. The family paid the ransom and “M” was released.

This was not the case for Kafahs nephew, uncle, aunt or brother-in-law all of whom were kidnapped and killed or shot in the attempt of being kidnapped. “Now there is no law, no order, no justice, no nothing, its uncontrolled,” says Kafah of the situation in Iraq. “They kidnapped my nephew at the university when he was walking on the road. We paid the money, but he never came back. My uncle, we also paid the money, then our neighbors called us saying to come quickly. We found my uncle dead on the street. My brother-in-law was kidnapped from his shop, the kidnappers phoned us and demanded 70,000 American dollars! They told us to throw the money over the bridge and don’t worry he will come back. That was a year and a half ago, we never found his body. In the beginning the Mafia Militias asked for 1000 or 2000 US dollars, like with my husband, then they got more and more successful and started demanding more and more money. So now if you are from a rich family you pay a lot of money and they kill them anyway, so tell me where is the democracy, the justice, the security the Americans promised,” asked Kafah looking visibly upset.

In Amman though they live the waiting game at least they are safe, they can sleep without the fear of being kidnapped, tortured, raped or whatever else the Mafia militias are doing to the people of Iraq.

Kafah wanted to say this to those of you reading her story,” I know the world is not happy because of what happens in Iraq. I know you support us, but we get nothing. You think we are okay because you support us be we aren’t. Iran is taking Iraq because they want the oil and to get revenge for the Iran/Iraq war. The government is speaking Farsi, not Arabic. Look at Muhktar Al Sadr, he even changed his name to an Iranian name.”