Not even the dead can draw out the living in Baghdad, where fear of suicide bombers keeps many mourners away from funerals. But there are some things the most cautious Baghdad resident cannot avoid: school, shopping and traffic.
Baghdad's attackers are indiscriminate: They hit Sunni and Shiite Muslims alike. People worry that by emerging from their homes even to pay their last respects to the dead, they risk becoming the next victim.
Last Saturday, a suicide bomber walked into a tent where 50 people were holding a funeral outside a Sunni mosque in Baghdad and blew himself up, killing at least three people and wounding 10. He was one of eight suicide bombers on a day that saw more than 50 people killed around Baghdad.
Even buying bread is a risk. Gunmen opened fire Thursday on a Baghdad bakery, killing two people and wounding a third.
"Bombing's become part of our daily life," said Hamdiya Jassem, a 24-year-old graduate student. "The worst thing is that you go out to work, or to university, and you don't know if you'll come back. All Iraqis have car phobia now."
Nearly two years after the US-led invasion, and almost a month after elections, Baghdad remains a terrifying place.
US and Iraqi authorities spoke of a post-election lull, attributing a drop in attacks to ramped-up security before the Jan. 30 vote. But that's all relative.
More than 40 people were killed on election day alone, while nearly 100 died last weekend.
Although exact figures are not available, attacks against Iraqis seem to have increased steadily as militant groups vow to undermine what the government and the US military see as progress.
When a suicide bomber hit on Feb. 8 and killed 21 people, militants led by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the attack and promised more.
"This is the beginning of the escalation we promised you," read a statement posted on the Internet. Its source could not be verified.
In a letter to Osama bin Laden found on a captured al-Qaeda courier last year, al-Zarqawi proposed starting a civil war between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
First the militants targeted Iraqi security forces -- who the US hopes will soon be able to take over much of the security burden. Then the insurgents set their sights on Saturday's Shiite Muslim holiday of Ashoura, a time of mourning for the country's largest religious group.
Suicide bombers walked into mosques, mortars hit processions and one man boarded a bus and set off explosives, killing everyone inside. That was the day the suicide bomber walked into the funeral, but those grieving inside were Sunni -- not the Shiites routinely targeted by the largely Sunni insurgency. The two main branches of Islam are often at odds.
It wasn't clear if the Sunni funeral was attacked by mistake. What is clear, though, is no Iraqi anywhere is safe.
Ikhlass Hussein carries her Koran whenever she goes shopping, so she can read the verses Muslims recite when they're about to die.
"I say, `I testify there is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is the prophet of God,'" she said..
The 31-year-old teacher can't shake the thought that she and her husband could be killed anytime.
"These thoughts are with us every day. We cannot forget them, because they've become just like food and water for us," she said.
Baghdad's markets, normally buzzing with people, are deserted these days. Vendors stand at their fruit and vegetable stalls waiting for customers who don't come. Pharmacies close early. Even the shopping district of Karada -- usually open late -- is shuttered by 4pm and the hawkers have packed away their piles of Levi's, Nikes, fake DVDs and Arabic music cassettes.
RSS