Fallujah residents still feel effects of Iraq war 20 years on

The names of the residents Al Majalla spoke to for this article are being withheld for security reasons and on their request.

War time jobs

One man, who told Al Majalla that he had graduated university abroad and who speaks English fluently, said that during the years after 2003 he had worked for a period in Baghdad assembling parts for devices used to detonate IEDs targeting foreign forces.

"I never did any fighting, though," he said. "I couldn't risk it as I had too many mouths to feed after some of my brothers died and their wives and children became my responsibility."

He never got caught or spent time in jail, he said.

"But every time I approach a checkpoint or see police anywhere, even now, my stomach knots up and I can't breathe," he said.

Unlike many Iraqi Shiite leaders actively involved in the fight against the US then and who can now openly boast of it, Sunni Arabs from these regions say that they are afraid of being associated with al-Qaeda and/or IS should they speak openly about their activities in those years.

Civilians shot dead

Between the US-led invasion of March 2003 and the Fallujah bridge incident, tension between the local community and the foreign forces deployed to the country skyrocketed.

On 28 April 2003, less than a month after the invasion, US soldiers fired into a crowd of Iraqi civilians protesting their presence at a Fallujah school. Several hundred residents of the city had marched through the streets first and had ignored a curfew imposed on the local population by the US forces.

About 20 civilians were killed by the US forces, who claimed they were responding to shots fired at them. A subsequent Human Rights Watch investigation found no physical evidence of any shots fired at the building where the US forces were.

On 31 March 2004, Iraqi insurgents ambushed four men working for the security company Blackwater USA in Fallujah. They killed them and then burnt and mutilated their bodies, dragging a body up and down a major street and videotaping the incident.

The insurgents then hung two of the corpses over the bridge so that any cars passing across it would necessarily pass under them.

The US Marines would be sent in to find the men's killers, in what became known as the First Battle for Fallujah. Multiple scandals and debates ensued about the use of private security companies in conflict zones and the rules of engagement.

Both this battle and the Second Battle for Fallujah, which began in November 2004 and lasted about six weeks, are now studied in military institutions around the world.

Today the Euphrates River flows calmly below the same bridge from which the contractors' bodies were strung up, date palms reflected in its green-blue waters.

Benches have been set up for the city's residents to enjoy the view along the banks.

Shops nearby sell military attire and military souvenirs, caps and t-shirts emblazoned with 'US Special Forces' and Iraq's Rapid Response Division insignia next to patches for Iraq's Shiite-dominated Popular Mobilisation Units. Nearby are fishing tackle and dust masks.

Anbar, Iraq's largest region, is dominated by vast swathes of desert land broken only by the fertile Euphrates Valley cutting through it.

Anti-IS operations continue

Operations against IS continue in several parts of the desert, often involving local tribal fighting units that were incorporated into Iraq's official forces during the 2014-2017 war against IS.

Multiple members of these tribe-based fighting units have told this Al Majalla correspondent over the years that they had previously fought against the US presence but later switched to fighting al-Qaeda and later IS.

The last two cities in Iraq under IS were Qaim and Rawa, both of which were retaken by Iraqi forces backed by US-led air support in late 2017.

In Anbar, IS remnants and cells are now known for targeting especially members of the Sunni Arab community that work against them.

Truffle season

March is truffle season and an abundant one at that, with Fallujah markets offering piles of ones bigger than a day labourer's roughened hands.

"Strong lightning and thunder during the fall and winter leads to abundant truffle seasons like this one," one resident noted.

Truffle 'hunters' that venture out into the Anbar desert to find this sought-after delicacy have been killed, at times on video, by IS. Though IS remains a threat, it has been significantly reduced, and many are willing to take the risk.

"Are you even Iraqi?" one Fallujah resident boomed angrily at a taxi driver who said he did not have time to take two foreigners where they wanted to go in the city.

"We do not treat guests like this. We do anything for guests. This is a matter of honour, for us. Especially here in Fallujah."

'City of Mosques'

Long known as the 'City of Mosques' due to its large number of houses for Muslim worship, Fallujah has long been seen as different from nearby Ramadi, the capital of the Anbar province.

Fallujah, it is commonly said, is a city in which people are judged by their religiosity, while in Ramadi people are judged first and foremost by what tribe they are from.

"Fallujah was always unique. We would go places, even abroad, and they would look at us with some sort of respect. We're different," one resident stressed.

"So many doctors, professors, engineers, and educated people, come from this city."

"I was shocked and frightened by what I saw then on that bridge [the day the contractors' bodies were hung up in 2004]. People cheering and laughing about killing and mutilating foreigners," he added.

The professor of religious studies told Al Majalla that Fallujah was where Sufism was traditionally strong — not Salafism.

"We recognise those guys immediately," he said in referring to extremists. "The way they pray, the way they don't shave parts of their faces."

"But now almost no one goes to mosques, anymore. No one wants to study the Quran. This is the effect that IS had. People here associate Islam with them now and they want nothing to do with it," he said, ruefully.

"That is the worst crime that IS committed. They took the name of Islam and claimed it is something that it is not."

No justice then, no justice now

"I was arrested multiple times by the US forces," one resident of the country who had been around 20 years old at the time of the US invasion told Al Majalla.

"But only for a few hours and one night, once. My English helped get me out. It has saved me so many times."

"One of my brothers has been in an Iraqi prison for over seven years," he added.

"We've paid so much money to lawyers and others to try to get him out, but it was all in vain. We think he was arrested simply because his name is the same as another man wanted by the authorities. But no one should spend so long in prison without a trial."

"There is no justice now and there was no justice then," he claimed, but admitted that some other things had improved.

"But not even close to what should have changed," he added.