Sectarian Strife Fuels Gun Sales in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 29 — With chipped, painted fingernails, Nahrawan al-Janabi picked up a cartridge and slid it into the chamber.

"Like this," she said, loading her new Glock pistol with a loud, satisfying click. "You see, like this."

Akram Abdulzahra now keeps his revolver handy at his job in an Internet cafe. Haidar Hussein, a Baghdad bookseller, just bought a fully automatic assault rifle and has been teaching his wife how to shoot.

Iraq has long been awash in guns. But after the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra in late February, sectarian tensions exploded, and more Iraqis than ever have been buying, carrying and stockpiling weapons, adding an unnerving level of firepower to Baghdad's streets.

The average price for a Russian-made Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle, which is perfectly legal here, has jumped to $290 from $112 in the past month, according to several gun dealers. Bullets have climbed to 33 cents each from 24 cents.

Hand grenades, which are not legal but are easy to get, run $95. Pre-Samarra, they were about half that. The swiftly rising prices are one clear sign that weapon sales are hot.

Militia ranks are swelling, too, with growing swarms of young, religious, mostly uneducated men taking to the streets with automatic weapons slung over their shoulders.

Hussein Abdul Khaliq, a foot soldier in the Mahdi Army, a Shiite militia, was guarding a strip of curb in eastern Baghdad the other day and violating several laws in the process — all within sight of a police patrol.

Mr. Khaliq did not have a permit to carry the AK-47 that his militia had issued him. He had many more than the authorized limit of 50 rounds. He was well below the minimum age of 25 for carrying a gun. "Let them try to take it from me," said Mr. Khaliq, a muscular 17-year-old.

The American military has added to the arsenal also, by shipping in hundreds of thousands of firearms and millions of rounds of ammunition, in an effort to equip the fledging Iraqi security forces so American troops will be able to leave.

Iraqi leaders are increasingly worried about this gun glut.

"We collected most of the heavy weapons out there, but we should have collected all the light weapons," said Haider al-Abadi, an aide to the prime minister. "This is not good."

But the reality is that Iraqi politicians have been reluctant to disband militias or to disarm the populace. The Shiite leaders who control the government rely on militias to stay in power. And guns have become so embedded in Iraqi life that they are now as ubiquitous as palm trees.

Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was one of the most militarized societies. He issued rifles to Baath Party loyalists and set up summer camps for Baathist boys to learn how to kill. One of his favorite photographs was of him firing an antique hunting rifle — with one hand.

After he was toppled, security evaporated, opening the floodgates for looters, carjackers, kidnappers and thieves. Baghdad became a place where the good guys wore masks and the bad guys wore police uniforms; at least that was how it often looked as officers covered their faces to protect their identities and kidnappers posed as police officers. In response, many civilians bought guns, and a frontier mentality set in.

"Maybe I'm kidding myself," said Haidar Hussein, the bookseller who is teaching his wife to shoot. "But having a gun makes me feel safer."

L. Paul Bremer III, the former top American administrator in Iraq, did not step between Iraqis and their guns. He issued an order that essentially upheld Iraqi law: everyone 25 and older with a "good reputation and character" could own one firearm, including an AK-47, the world's most popular killing machine.

As crime rose, insurgent attacks increased and a sense of lawlessness began to creep across the country, more people armed themselves. Office clerks started strapping leather holsters under their armpits, and elderly, veiled women started stashing Kalashnikovs under their beds.

But the destruction of Askariya Shrine in Samarra in February uncorked a different kind of bloodshed and a different kind of fear, ratcheting the personal arms race even higher. Mobs of mostly Shiite men killed Sunni civilians. Some Sunnis fought back, killing Shiites.

Sectarian revenge has become the new common form of violence. Baghdad's homicide rate since the Samarra attack has tripled, to 33 killings per day.

"Baghdad is the battlefield," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, an American military spokesman.

Few killings have been investigated, eroding what little faith there was in law enforcement. The suspicion is growing that officers in the Shiite-controlled police forces are linked to the death squads.

"I don't believe anyone can protect me," said Ms. Janabi, the new Glock owner. "Not the Americans, not my government."

Ms. Janabi, 27, is a television journalist. She is East-meets-West, coming from a religious Shiite family but favoring snug jeans and insisting that women should carry guns — though, she admits, "it makes you feel a little like a boy." A friend in the Interior Ministry showed her how to use her pistol.

Until recently, Ms. Janabi resisted owning a gun, because she felt safe in her neighborhood in central Baghdad, where she lives with her parents in a walled compound. But Samarra "was a spark that turned the sects against each other," she said. "Now, each day, when I go to work, I fear I might not come home." She rides the bus with her pistol in her lap.

Not everyone in Baghdad feels safer carrying a firearm. Some are repulsed by guns, others frightened. Many say that with death squads and suicide bombers running around, what good is one pistol or rifle?

The weapons flow from many places. Arms dealers say good, cheap ammunition comes from Syria, and scratched-and-dented assault rifles from Iran. Several dealers said former Iraqi Army soldiers were a reliable source of grenades.

After Mr. Bremer disbanded the Iraqi Army, Baghdad was transformed into a weapons bazaar, with kiosks offering bargains on pistols, carbines, rifles, shotguns, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

Iraqi law requires gun sellers to have a government permit. Few do.

One seller, who gave his name as Abu Abdullah, said that after Samarra, so many people were buying arms he had trouble filling orders.

"I didn't like to do it," he said, "but I had to raise prices."

Still, he said, business was booming.
NYTimes