Iraq fighting disrupts economy across nation

Drivers skirt dangerous crossroads

A man sits in front of his shop that was damaged in a Saturday car bomb attack near a Kebab restaurant, in the mainly Shiite Habibiya neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, May 11, 2014. A series of bombings on Saturday in Iraq killed and wounded scores of people, a day after army shelling killed many civilians and gunmen in the militant-held city of Fallujah, authorities said. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)
A man sits in front of his shop that was damaged in a Saturday car bomb attack near a Kebab restaurant, in the mainly Shiite Habibiya neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, May 11, 2014. A series of bombings on Saturday in Iraq killed and wounded scores of people, a day after army shelling killed many civilians and gunmen in the militant-held city of Fallujah, authorities said. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

BAGHDAD -- Fighting in Iraq's western Anbar province, now in its fifth month, appears to have bogged down, with government forces unable to drive out Islamic militants who took over one of the area's main cities. But the effect is being felt much further, with the repercussions rippling through the country's economy to hit consumers and businesses.

The large, desert province is a major crossroads. The main highways linking Baghdad and other parts of Iraq to Syria and Jordan run through it. So fighting has not only dislodged thousands of residents from their homes and forced shutdowns of their businesses. It has also disrupted shipping, inflating prices of goods in Baghdad and elsewhere. Fears of the road have gotten so bad that Iraq has had to stop shipments of oil to Jordan.

Anwar Salah, co-owner of al-Baqiee travel agency in Baghdad, said his company used to run more than 13 trips a day by SUVs shuttling passengers between Baghdad and the Jordanian capital, Amman.

Now people avoid the highway, which runs near the flash-point Anbar cities of Fallujah and Anbar, fearing militant checkpoints or clashes. So his firm is down to one trip every other day, and profits have plunged by 90 percent, he said.

"Most of the drivers who used to work for me are now either jobless or working in other professions," he said. "We are part of the country's miserable situation."

Militants, from the al-Qaida-breakaway group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, overran Fallujah and parts of Anbar's capital, Ramadi, at the beginning of the year, taking advantage of tensions between the Sunni community, which dominates Anbar, and the Shiite-led central government.

The violence has uprooted around 75,000 families from their homes, according to United Nations figures.

Abu Abdullah, owner of a small dairy factory in Fallujah, shut down his business in January and fled the city. His factory used to produce yogurt, cheese and cream with 20 employees. He closed because milk supplies from nearby villages stopped and his employees were afraid to come to work.

"Business was good before Anbar crisis," said Abu Abdullah, who spoke on condition he be identified only by his nickname for security reasons. Now he's in the northern city of Kirkuk with his eight-member family, hoping for calm to return. "We are out of business and our savings will not last forever," he said.

Anbar, Iraq's largest province, is the heartland of Iraq's Sunni minority and was the birthplace of insurgency that arose after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime and brought the long-oppressed majority Shiites to power.

It has significant strategic value. Besides its desert borders with Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, it also stands on the doorstep of the capital. Some militant-held villages are only about 18 miles from Baghdad's western edges.

A real estate broker in western Baghdad said prices of houses there have dropped, some by as much as 20 percent, and sales have dwindled because people are reluctant to buy, fearing the violence. He spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

In eastern Baghdad, grocery store owner Hussam Abdul-Ridha said fruit prices have risen by about a quarter because of fewer shipments from Syria and Jordan. Few customers are willing to pay extra, so his sales have dropped.

Truck driver Ali Mansour Hussein used to transport vegetables, fruits and meat from Jordan and Syria down the Anbar highways, around a two-day trip that earned him slightly more than $900 for each shipment.

Now he has to take a longer road avoiding Ramadi and Fallujah, extending the trip to up to 10 days because of security checkpoints where he sometimes has to wait for hours. His earnings per shipment are now half what they were.

"It is a deep suffering," said the father of five, who fled his home in Fallujah and now shares a small house with three other displaced families just outside the city. "We are displaced, I can't meet family's demands, I can't see my children for long days. And, much worse, I can't even see a solution in the horizon."

Militants in Iraq launched an audacious attack on a military barracks in a remote area in the country's north and killed 20 troops overnight, including some who had been bound and shot at close range, authorities said Sunday as other attacks killed 18.

The killings at the military barracks in the village of Ayn al-Jahish outside of Mosul mirrored two previous assaults earlier this year in the area targeting security forces.

Gunmen staged the assault late Saturday night, two police officers said, shooting some at short range while others died fighting the insurgents when they stormed the barracks. A medical official, who confirmed the casualty number, said 11 troops had their hands tied behind their backs and suffered close-range gunshots to the head.

The slain troops were in charge of protecting an oil pipeline that sends Iraqi crude oil to international markets and guarding a nearby highway. Attacks on the pipeline are common in that area near Mosul, about 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Oil Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said the government has stopped shipping the 10,000 to 12,000 barrels a day of oil it sells to Jordan at preferential rates because the only route for sending it -- by truck down the Baghdad-Amman highway -- has become too dangerous. The Iraqi shipments made up only about a 20th of energy-poor Jordan's daily needs, and it has turned to increased imports from Saudi Arabia to make up for the loss.

Jihad also said insurgent attacks against the main oil pipeline that sends oil to international market through Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan have left it idle since March.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the barracks attack. However, it mirrored a February attack in the area claimed by the al-Qaida-breakaway group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. In that one, fighters from the group killed 15 soldiers at the barracks, beheading some of them. In April, militants killed at least 10 soldiers at a base outside of Mosul.

In the town of Adeim, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, gunmen in a speeding car opened fire on members of the Sahwa militia, which joined forces with U.S. troops at the height of the Iraq war to fight al-Qaida, killing seven, police and military officers said.

Outside of Mosul, gunmen attacked a joint checkpoint for Iraqi police and the Sahwa, killing three police officers and one Sunni militiaman, another police official said. Another Sahwa member was killed along with his brother and son when gunmen stormed his house in the town of Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad.

At night, police said, a suicide bomber drove his explosive-laden car into a security checkpoint in Mosul, killing three soldiers and a policeman.

Medical officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to release the information to journalists.

Information for this article was contributed by Sinan Salaheddin and Sameer N. Yacoub of The Associated Press.

A Section on 05/12/2014

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