Iraq’s Security Threatened by New Al-Qaeda Tactics

by Sarah Price
YourMiddleEast.com, October 2012


Iraq's security is again under attack as al-Qaeda sets new tactics in motion, and the numbers of police and army personnel are in sharp decline. Corruption within security ranks is also adding to the system's frailty.

Suicide bombers are still being recruited for mass killings, but al-Qaeda are also now targeting specific victims within the police force and army, using weapons equipped with silencers – partly in a move to deter others from taking security jobs, and partly to weaken areas into which they intend to expand. Killing them has the added benefit of further arming al-Qaeda, because they leave with the weapons of the dead soldiers.

The militant group is also using new approaches to blend in, abandoning their usual black clothing, and using people who can get close to and be trusted by the soldiers in the areas they are trying to infiltrate, as was the case of one soldier who asked to be identified as Ali Nawar.

Nawar's unit was assigned to guard a village in Samarah, where they befriended a man they believed to be part of the tribe. Much of the food and supplies the soldiers received was being stolen by the officers, leaving the soldiers standing post hungry. The man took care of them, and fed them, and they came to like and trust him. What they didn’t know was that he was being used by al-Qaeda. One day the villager approached them with food, and as they ate, he killed them all. Nawar, who had been taking a sleep break away from the checkpoint, found them all dead around the food the assassin had brought as bait.

Corruption in the ranks is playing a part in making it easier for Al-Qaeda operatives to get to their targets. The security forces are low in numbers, and most are posted in dangerous places. Knowing the soldiers don’t want to be there, many officers demand as much as 50% of their salary to let them stay home. But because so many cannot afford to lose half or more of their pay, the majority of the work lands on the poorer Iraqis, and lengthens their work days to 12 hours or more – from their previous six-hour shifts – often with no breaks, food, or days off. Their subsequent exhaustion makes them easy prey.

Army soldier Tala Thabit was serving in western Baghdad, when an attack on his unit was carried out by a group of teenagers playing loud western music in a car. They approached, quickly killed the five soldiers guarding the checkpoint, and fled.

“Since the Americans left, things are very different,” he says. “They used to supervise all the checkpoints in the hot spots, where al-Qaeda is strongest and most active. We used to serve for six hours, with 16 soldiers at the checkpoint. But now, we have only four, because so many of the soldiers pay half of their salaries to their officers so they don’t have to serve, and we have to take on their responsibilities.”

Deciding he would rather lose money than to be in danger, Thabit tried to pay off his officer, but he was told that the payoff had gone up to 80%. Unable to part with that much, he stayed on the job.

According to Baghdad Operations Command spokesman Colonel Dhia al-Wakil, Iraqi forces have discovered and broken up many al-Qaeda workshops that are being used to build silencer-equipped guns and explosives, but it has not yet had an effect as on the number and frequency of attacks. But he does believe the raids, as well as added security at the border checkpoints, have helped to limit the number of weapons coming into the country.

A security source at the Ministry of Interior added that they are also adding trenches and speed bumps at the checkpoints, to try to reduce the ease of access.


Nizar Latif contributed to this report from Baghdad.

A Look Into Iraq’s $4.2bn Arms Deal With Russia

by Sarah Price
YourMiddleEast.com, October 2012


Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki met on October 10 with Russian President Vladimir Putin to seal a $4.2bn arms sales deal, supplying Iraq with 30 Mi-28 attack helicopters, 42 Pantsir-S1 surface-to-air missile systems, and at a later time, several MiG-29 fighters. A joint statement claims talks for the deal – which makes Russia Iraq’s second-largest arms supplier, behind the United States – have been ongoing since April.

This is the first significant military deal between the two countries since 2008. According to Konstantin Makienko, the deputy director of Russia's Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, this is a statement by Iraq to take an independent position in the region, regardless of political pressure by the United States, adding that Iraq is much more used to Russian-made weapons.

The U.S. is currently fulfilling an estimated $11bn deal with Iraq that would supply Iraq with arms, F16 fighter jets, tanks, and training to rebuild their army and air force, as well as supplies already received by Iraq to help protect its fragile domestic security forces.

While Maliki maintains his relationship with the United States remains strong, he also made the point in advance of the meeting that he did not want Iraq to be part of “someone else’s monopoly,” referring to the arms export deal with the United States. The premier added that he would buy arms based on his country’s needs, stating that he does not want Iraq to be encircled in conflict.

“While Iraq may be exploring other available options for arms purchases, there is a large and growing Foreign Military Sales program that the United States shares with the government of Iraq,” said an official from the U.S. State Department. “In fact, Prime Minister Maliki said as much at his press conference before he departed for Moscow, when he said that arms deals with the U.S. were still in progress, and will not be replaced with deals with Russia.”

Within Iraq, there is dissenting opinion about the state of the arms deals, and how beneficial it will be for the country at this point.

With the ongoing strain between two governments, Iraqi Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani has expressed concern over Baghdad having advanced weaponry, fearing a war on his region. He has previously been unsuccessful in preventing arms deals, despite voicing his fears that the weapons would be used on Iraq’s Kurds.

Many in the Sunni districts have also expressed fear of escalated fighting, should the available weaponry become more sophisticated.

Furthermore, al-Qaeda in Iraq has adopted new tactics, including assassinating security personnel to acquire their weapons, and to deter young Iraqis from joining the army and police forces. Baghdad has added 90 new checkpoints in the past two months to protect against al-Qaeda attacks, but with the security forces at an estimated quarter of its previous strength, it has instead made the city more vulnerable to attacks, and there is a fear that the new weapons could land in their hands, rather than be used to protect against them.

Iraqi military expert Mohammed al-Jubori claims the deal with Russia comes from frustration with the “loitering of the U.S. to supply Iraq with weapons, particularly F16 fighters.”

“We are committed to working with them to fulfill these military equipment orders as quickly as possible,” the State Department official said. “The FMS program that the U.S. shares with the government of Iraq is one of our largest, and symbolizes the long term security partnership envisioned by both countries.”

The first of the U.S. F16s are due to arrive in Baghdad in September of 2014.

“We’ve been struggling with this region for years, but it’s foolhardy for the U.S. to think these countries aren’t going to arm themselves against the other countries around them,” said Jeffery Lay, a former TOPGUN fighter pilot, who flew several combat missions in Iraq. He added that it is hard for the U.S. to keep a military monopoly, as it no longer has the technological edge it once did.

But still, it is important for the U.S. to keep its military commitments, he said, as they will be armed, one way or another.

“Iraq is tougher to defend because of its porous borders,” he said. “That’s going to be the question, whether the Iraqis are committed to protecting those borders.”


Baghdad-based reporter Nizar Latif contributed to this report.

Baghdad Checkpoints Frustrate Citizens

Iraqi security forces search a car at a checkpoint in Basra, southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, on Tuesday. Nabil al-Jurani // APPhoto

By Sarah Price and Nizar Latif
The National, September 2012

BAGHDAD // Maysam Ahmed, an emergency-room surgeon, walks three hours to work at a Baghdad hospital, because it is faster than going through the vehicle checkpoints that have been set up after a spate of Al Qaeda attacks during Ramadan.

He believes the nearly 100 security checkpoints could have the opposite of the intended effect. "The bombs have occurred," he said, "and what's happened has happened. We all know that the bombings are not over, but these extra checkpoints will not prevent them; they will only make them worse."

He explains that Al Qaeda wants concentrated areas of people for their attacks, and that is what these checkpoints facilitate for them.

"I woke up early and went out before 5am, hoping to reach work by 8," he says, adding that before the security checks were in place he could drive to work in 20 minutes.

Vehicles are searched and vehicle identification papers and drivers' licences scrutinised at each checkpoint. Some security points use dogs to help in the search, causing additional delays.

"Where do you come from?" and "Where are you going?" are the always-asked questions.

Al Qaeda's front group, the Islamic State of Iraq, said it carried out 131 attacks, mainly against security forces and Al Qaeda militiamen in Diyala province and south of Baghdad, this past Ramadan.

More than 400 people were killed in attacks countrywide during that time, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) tally based on security and medical sources.  Eight policemen were killed and 12 more injured in two armed attacks on checkpoints in the mainly Sunni Mashada neighbourhood in one incident. In another, gunmen killed three security members of the Sahwa, or Awakening movement, at a checkpoint north of Baghdad.

The Sahwa are Sunni Arabs who joined forces with the US military to fight Al Qaeda at the height of Iraq's insurgency. Abo Malik, 61, who now walks two and half hours from his house to a medical centre, to get his blood pressure medication, agrees that the extra security is causing more problems than it is preventing.

"The checkpoints do nothing and can't stop any terrorist action," he said after a two-and-a-half hour walk to the Khadimiyah Health Centre. "I just want them to open all the streets and let us live our lives normally. It's hard to live, seeing thousands of soldiers filling the streets, like we live in prison. I want to have my medication on time. I want my life to become easy. I just don't care about the security procedures."

The additional checkpoints have also created problems for those trying to help people who have been injured.

Rajah Saied, an ambulance driver for Khadimiyah General Hospital, said sometimes it is impossible to get his ambulance through the narrow traffic jams caused by the stops, directly endangering the lives the security points are supposed to be saving.

"It's hard to make my way through, when I'm responding to a call or picking up people injured by bombs," he said. "People are hurt by the bombings, but are losing their lives in the crazy traffic jams, because they are losing blood, and I feel guilty, because I can't save them."

At least 179 people were killed and 676 injured in attacks in Iraq this month, according to an AFP tally.

James McCartney Questions Life Through Music

By Sarah Price

When James McCartney took the stage at Liverpool, England’s famed Cavern Club on April 3, to play music from his new CD, it was a step he didn’t take lightly.  With his entry into the music world, he knew what he was inviting into his life: high expectations, comparisons, and criticism. Much of the appraisal of him and his music has been harsh, particularly in the British press, who seem at once to disparage him for having a Beatles legacy, and for not living up to it – a standard few have ever approached.

“It is an adjustment, but I’m actually pretty used to attention and scrutiny at this point,” he says. “The adjustment comes when it’s pointed at you, so directly. I knew it would be a change, which is why I wanted to wait until I felt both myself, and my music, were ready.”

But he says the comparisons don’t bother him.

“No, I’m not concerned really,” he says. “Honestly I like to embrace it, without either running towards it, or running away from it. I want to enjoy letting it all unfold, and then just be who I am.”

Born in 1977, the only son of Paul and Linda McCartney, James was involved with his father’s recordings early on, lending his spoken voice to the song, “Talk More Talk,” from the album, Press To Play, at the age of eight.  Later, he played guitar on 1997’s Flaming Pie and 2001’s Driving Rain.

He knew from an early age that music was where he was headed, although he says, like most kids, he did also think about being a fireman or policeman.  But by his teens, his mind was set.  With a wide range of influences, including The Beatles, Kurt Cobain, The Smiths, Radiohead, PJ Harvey, The Cure, Jimi Hendrix, Hank Williams, and Neil Young – whose “Old Man” he covers on his current double-CD release, The Complete EP Collection – he launched himself into music, learning to play several instruments, including the piano, guitar, and bass, and developing his songwriting skills. 

“I usually start with music first, and then lyrics,” he says of his technique. “But I’m actually trying to go about it in different ways now, to evolve further.  It’s really about whatever works – even singing nonsense words over a melody until the words begin to take shape. Sometimes you can get a foothold on something that way, and then you’re off and running. I’ve often blocked the lyrics out or written them in my notebook too, sort of like poetry. I also bounce from instrument to instrument to free things up.”

The Complete EP Collection, produced by Paul McCartney and David Kahne, is the CD set of two previous digital releases, Available Light and Close at Hand, plus five bonus tracks.  He plays most of the instruments on his CDs, which, like the influences who helped shape them, are an amalgam of different genres.  He says he doesn’t “prefer a style per se, just great music.”

A talented singer and musician, his own style is effortless and flowing, with alternately catchy and ethereal melodies, and his voice has a natural sweetness that lends itself well to the vulnerability of his lyrics.  He also infuses his spirituality into many of his songs. 

“I’m really interested in existential questions, theology, religion, and philosophy,” he says. “And transcendental meditation is important in my life, as well.”

His questions and subsequent back-and-forth of settling on answers is evident in his lyrics, which at times sounds like a stream of consciousness as he tries to work them out, as in “Jesus Be My Friend:” “Jesus be my friend/I tried to understand/Why God is close at hand/I don’t understand/Just why you let me down/You never let me down.”

While there is a definite soul-searching and questioning of the universe in his lyrics, for the most part, the conclusions he comes to are optimistic, even when it comes to the ongoing emotional fallout of the loss of his mother.

Linda died in 1998, after a long battle with cancer, when James was 20, but she has a continued influence not only on his music, but also his way of life.  He says that Tucson, Arizona, where they spent much of her life, and ultimately, her passing, is his favorite place. “Aside from it being incredibly beautiful there,” he says, “it’s a special place for me because of my mum, and the time we spent there.”

In his song, “Wings of a Lightest Weight,” his thoughts of her are a melancholy reminiscence that is finally accepting of how her life ended: “One moment I’m arguing with you/Thinking I could put up a fight/But I only love you/I love you whoever is right/Then I think to myself/It couldn’t be any other way.” 

He also deals with other internal tugs-of-war, as in “I Only Want to Be Alone”: “…I’m still on the run/From this place of complete pretension/All I want is a real life mind/With thoughts that go off in a tangent.”  But the majority of his songs are embracing of life, and seem to rest on one main theme: we struggle, but we come back to love, and there is something bigger than us out there, making sure we’re alright.

Currently on his first North American tour, he says he looks forward to working on his next CD.

“I’m working on it now actually,” he says, “and I’ll be recording more this summer. It’ll be my first full-length record, so what I do next will certainly be different, as an album has a different flow than an EP, and a different process in making it, too. I’m looking forward to continuing to evolve musically.

“I guess it’s really something both my mum and dad each have really impressed upon me,” he adds, “which is that in the end it’s really all about the songwriting. It’s about the songs.”

But, he says, his personal evolution is important to him, as well. 

“I’d love to feel that I realized my full potential both as a person, and as a songwriter. That feels like a great, fulfilling goal to shoot for.”

Regrets and Anger Despite the Removal of a Cruel Dictator

By Sarah Price and Nizar Latif
The National, April 2012

BAGHDAD// Ahmed Majeed Al Musafer studies the images on the wall of his Baghdad studio. For decades, he was a premier photographer of Iraqi entertainers and politicians and visiting Arab actors and dignitaries. One wall of his studio is adorned with their photos - memories of a long-lost life.

Before the US-led invasion in 2003, he says, photography was a joy. To him, it was honest work that paid well, and that he could enjoy doing. He used the medium to seek out and display what was beautiful about Iraq, whether Iraqis at a local market or a well-known actor or artist. But the photographs today have changed from Iraqis enjoying life, to just trying to survive it.

He and the photographers he knows now have to document the destruction in and outside of Baghdad.

"Many have to seek out bloody photos, to sell to a news agency, to have money to live on," he says. "The once-beautiful Baghdad is now virtually gone. It is dirty now, and covered in ash and rubbish."

Fadil Abed Rahi is a former Republican Guard soldier who sells kababs at night from his cart on a street in Baghdad.

Mr Rahi, 38, says that during his time in the guard, he and his fellow soldiers were treated badly by Saddam Hussein, so initially he was happy to see the Americans arrive. But in retrospect, he says, if he could go back and stop the invasion, he would.

He says that even though he did not like Saddam, his life was much easier then. Today he works as a day labourer, picking up daily jobs in the morning, and running his kabab cart at night to support his wife and four children.

"Now," he says, "people have to work three jobs just to feed their families. Our lives have become much more serious and difficult. I would rather have died in the invasion of 2003 than live like this now."

According to the CIA, Iraq's unemployment rate has hovered around 15 percent for the past few years. About 25 percent of the country lives at or below the poverty line of about US$1.25 a day (Dh4.60).

Economic growth slowed from 9.5 percent in 2008 to under 1 percent in 2010. But it went back up to nearly 10 percent in 2011, and the CIA Factbook says "an improving security environment and foreign investment are helping to spur economic activity, particularly in the energy, construction, and retail sectors".

But the promise of further growth are of little comfort to Iraqis who are still suffering lasting effects of the war.

Um Basim is raising eight children without her husband, who was killed in sectarian violence in 2007, which she blames on the American invasion. She says the violence started with the US soldiers coming in and killing Iraqis by any means.

"This is what American democracy brought to us," she says. "Poverty, illness, and terror to our borders,"

But the Iraqi journalist Mohammed Hameed disagrees. He believes that Iraqis have freedom now that they never had before, and that their lives are better for it.

"We can speak and say everything we want, and Saddam's security forces are not there to arrest us," he says. "There is corruption and terror in the country, but nothing compared to Saddam."

He said Iraq was sick from Saddam's wars, but that the country is now on the way to recovery.

"I don't blame the Americans for anything that has happened in Iraq," he says. "The Iraqis brought this to themselves. They didn't work as a united people to build their country."

After bin Laden, al-Qaeda in Iraq Looks for a Leader

Iraqi men read newspapers in Baghdad on May 3, 2011, displaying front-page headlines and photographs in response to the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, a day after he was killed in a U.S. raid at his compound in Pakistan.

Ali Al-Saadi / AFP / Getty Images

By Nizar Latif and Sarah Price / Baghdad

TIME Magazine

Sunday, May 15, 2011

The death of Osama bin Laden comes at a time when al-Qaeda in Iraq has been shifting strategies in an effort to recover from years of setbacks. A source within the security department of the Iraqi government tells TIME that according to Baghdad's intelligence work, "al-Qaeda is setting up new plans in Iraq — changes in their leadership and locations, moving them from south to north, from one city to another. That makes us more worried that they could carry out successful attacks — and maybe a very big attack or revenge attacks for the death of bin Laden. Al-Qaeda promises to do these things, and I'm afraid that with all the added support they have now, they will be able to." Recent bombings, he says, prove they are still able to hit out at practically any moment.

After 9/11, when the U.S. war on Afghanistan destroyed bin Laden's ability to run al-Qaeda as a centralized organization, the terrorist leader anointed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq to lead the campaign to take over the country in the post-Saddam era. But al-Zarqawi was killed in 2006, and so were his successors: first Abu Ayub al-Masri, then Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. As a result, al-Qaeda in Iraq adopted new tactics, says Mutlak Ak-Aljbori, a former al-Qaeda fighter turned U.S. ally in the Awakening movement that was key to the success of the 2007 surge. The embattled group kept its choice of new leadership a secret and changed the way it communicated with adherents. Instead of making physical contact, group members corresponded through encrypted text messages and the Internet. They also started wearing Western attire and shaving their beards so they would not stand out to the Americans or the Iraqi government.

But bin Laden always remained the inspirational core of the al-Qaeda ideology. He put his directives and vision of al-Qaeda leadership into a manifesto that spread across terrorist sites on the Internet, engendering like-minded organizations in Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Morocco, European nations and Russia. Even without a central command, these various al-Qaedas could connect with one another to conduct attacks or train new fighters in safer environments. The test now is whether the various al-Qaedas can continue their informal linkages without the unifying symbol (and facilitation) of bin Laden, who, according to what U.S. sources describe as his diary, remained keenly interested in approving his distant lieutenants as well as fomenting attacks against the West in spite of his fugitive status.

Bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, retains seniority in the organzation, but although al-Qaeda in Iraq has formally pledged support to him, most of the al-Qaeda leaders do not want to replace bin Laden with al-Zawahiri. First, they see the Egyptian physician as too old; second, many of them do not agree with his leadership methods; and third, they don't see eye to eye with him in his interpretation of the rules of Islam. TIME's sources were unwilling to detail these differences of opinion.

If anyone emerges as the new symbol of al-Qaeda ideology, it may be Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born Yemeni cleric who is the constant object of drone attacks in his ancestral country, one as recent as May 5. In contrast to al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda adherents in Iraq see al-Awlaki as young and sharp. He has charisma and a strong personality that al-Zawahiri lacks and at the very least has inspired a number of attacks against Americans. Al-Qaeda sources see him as determined, even savage. Among Iraqis sympathetic to al-Qaeda, al-Awlaki possesses the traits of courage, leadership and manhood that they look up to. "In the end, I expect the one who will lead al-Qaeda after bin Laden will be Anwar al-Awlaki from Yemen," says Sadoun al-Mayahi, a political analyst and specialist in al-Qaeda and extremist groups in Iraq. "He is a young man and fresh, with a strong personality like bin Laden."

The only thing that appears to be in al-Awlaki's way is that he does not appear to have had bin Laden's approval. A story in ProPublica cites U.S. sources familiar with the documents found in Abbottabad saying bin Laden rejected the offer of the al-Qaeda leader in Yemen to step down in favor of the more popular al-Awlaki. The story also said bin Laden disapproved of the content of al-Awlaki's online magazineInspire.

Los Angeles Protests Support Middle East Revolutions

By Sarah Price
Guest Writer
The Independent Monitor, March 2011

The January 2011 uprising in Tunisia and removal of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali opened the door to citizen self-empowerment across the Middle East. But before the eruptions of the current revolts in Libya, Iraq, Bahrain, Iran and Yemen, Egypt led the way with its example of peaceful protests winning over violent government reactions.

Protests in support of the Egyptian people spread quickly across the world, largely being organized the same way: not by organized religious or idealogical groups, but by individuals, drawing people of all backgrounds together for a united cause, utilizing the fastest and most widespread forms of global communication: Facebook and Twitter.

Organizers of the February 5 protest at the Federal Building on Wilshire Blvd, Mohamed Kolkela, Amr Elshennawy, and Tamer Abdelrahim live in Los Angeles, but are all native Egyptians, and unaffiliated with any group, used the same methods to bring several hundred people together to voice their support.

Kolkela is from Mahalla El Kobra and has been in the United States for nine years.

“We can’t guarantee the result,” he said. “The people’s movement is the important part. They know they will lose their lives. They have no problem with that. If [Mubarak] stays, it will be chaos. When you kill the hope, you can’t get it back.”

Supporter Mazen Al Moukdad is from Syria, and has lived in the US for 32 years, and knew that the toppling of Mubarak was imminent and unavoidable.

“It’s a matter of time,” he said. “The revolution is going peacefully. The people organizing the protest have no desire for bloodshed. They speak for 85 million Egyptians. They will do whatever it takes. This corruption has been happening for 30 years. My prediction is he will be out by next Friday (February 11 – the day Mubarak did step down). I had a good feeling this was coming. It was a matter of time.”

He added that family and friends in Syria had suggested that there were similar stirrings happening there, and that there were issues beyond the obvious oppression in Egypt that needed to be addressed.

“There are more Egyptian doctors in the US than in Egypt,” he said. “It’s draining the resources, when you create intellectuals and they leave the country. But they had no option but to leave. [Mubarak] doesn’t care. That’s the problem.”

Addressing the crowd, Sarah Knopp, an American supporter from the International Socialist Organization, said, “We have a responsibility to get the boot of our government off the necks of the oppressed people around the world. We don’t just want [Mubarak] to go, we want him to give the money back to the Egyptian people, that he stole from them.”

Within hours of his resignation, the Swiss government moved to freeze any funds and assets in their banks that may belong to him or his family.

“Thank you to the Egyptian people,” Knopp said, “for setting the example of peace to the rest of the world.”

Unfortunately, the peaceful protests in Bahrain and Libya, in particular, have been met with extreme violence from police and military units. Libya’s Col. Moammar Gadhafi, proclaiming that he is not going anywhere, has asserted his authority by claiming he would crush those opposing him, and has followed through on his threat by using warplanes and helicopters to fire on his own people. Soldiers who have refused to kill the protesters have been killed themselves.

In Bahrain, authorities unleashed a brutal attack on sleeping protesters in Manama’s Pearl Square, using live rounds and tear-gas canisters, killing two and injuring more than four dozen, including children.

In Sana’a, Yemen, protesters demanding the immediate resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh have been energized by the attacks on them, making them more resolute to remove Saleh, who has been in power for 32 years, and had previously announced that he would not run again when his term ended in 2013. On February 23, seven members of parliament resigned in protest of the government’s violence against the demonstrators.

Currently in Iraq, protesters are taking to the streets in cities across the country to protest the lack of leadership and action, and continued corruption in the government. They want this parliament thrown out and an actual democratic election to follow – one with leaders they can hold accountable, and whom they can believe have their best interests at heart. Several large protests are planned, despite numerous deaths and injuries at previous protests.

In Iran, despite government-voiced support for the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings, days after Mubarak’s ousting, protesters in Tehran’s Enghelab (Revolution) Square were fired upon by police, and motorcycle police were reported to be chasing protesters through the streets. Later, the announcement of further protests caused the government to shut down phone service. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had even taken credit for the peaceful protests in Egypt, claiming the Egyptians were taking their inspiration from the 2009 demonstrations in Tehran. Demonstrators at that time were protesting what they believed was a corrupted election, leaving him in power. The activists were met with violence during the demonstrations and even imprisonment and torture after they had left, as police would go into their homes to arrest them.

This year’s widespread protests have been compared to the Eastern European revolutions of 1989/90, but it remains to be seen where these uprisings will lead. Despite the seeming victories of the activism in Tunisia and Egypt, and the resoluteness of the protesters across the Middle East, there is an aftermath that has to be dealt with – holding elections whose outcomes citizens feel they can trust; building an economy based on a new form of government; and electing a government that can help a country hold its own in a changing national landscape and foreign policy. But for those who are putting themselves in the way of danger or even death to make a change, these new problems are far more desirable than one more day with the old ones.