Iraq: When a Checkpoint is More Than a ‘Check Point’

Sheri Laizer | Exclusive to iKurd.net

In Kurdistan, just as in Baghdad, the critics of those in power whose names find their way onto the blacklists are wisest to avoid check points – but that is, of course, impossible.

A short distance outside Baghdad International Airport along the airport road, the main control point, AKA, ‘checkpoint’ is more than a simple ‘check point’ as its designation may imply. Rather, it is akin to a fully functioning security and screening unit. Every traveller must leave their vehicle and enter a complex situated beside the barriers that straddle each side of the highway. The road narrows at this point between bomb blast obstruction barriers, the huge blocks being situated on each side of the highway. Traffic going from the airport is subjected to the same procedures as the vehicles that leave the terminal. Motor bikes are relatively rare and can reliably be associated with the Special Forces and Shi’a militias.

ID is taken from you for examination before being passed back. If you do not have valid ID at this point you are extremely likely to be detained. Photocopies are not sufficient: you must have fully valid ID to pass through this first major control point.

The screening building to one side of the road, with its bomb blast blocks, is equipped with sniffer dogs and manned by numerous armed functionaries. Baggage, despite already having been cleared inside the airport on arrival, is subjected to a second scan. Hand luggage is checked by hand. Body searches can be carried out to any degree deemed fit.

VIPs, and other travellers, including foreign diplomats and employees of international companies that pay the special airport courier taxi fee can avoid this checkpoint and pass through for a payment of $150. To take advantage of this you must have fully valid ID and then be taken from outside the arrivals terminal straight to the hotel or government office that is designated.

This screening point is an intensive security location akin to an international land border such as at the Ibrahim Khalil crossing point from northern Iraq into Turkey.

The screening point at the Samarra turnoff into Samarra town and the Shi’a shrine, or onwards north, being a highly sensitive location involves similar top level security and screening procedures including leaving the vehicle, sniffer dogs checking the empty vehicle and body searches to the side of the road in cabins with a curtain screen. Women are processed by gloved women in hijab. As well as thorough checking of documentation an oral interview takes place.

Another such control point is Scorpion Junction located a few kilometres south of Mosul. Al Razzaza in Anbar has a similar reputation as being among the ‘worst’ checkpoints.1

Al Hwesh checkpoint north of Samarra, and Owainat checkpoint a distance further north – just south of Tikrit – are also very sensitive control points where disappearances have occurred. The Shi’a militia are visibly present there. On the road that branches NE leading to Kirkuk, the Taza checkpoint is also extremely sensitive. 2 3

The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) cites a senior Human Rights Watch researcher in its 2019 report Iraq: Security Situation observing that “…there is a general suspicion toward Sunni Arabs that still remains an inherent risk when going through PMU checkpoints…travelling from Baghdad to Anbar, Salah al-Din, Diyala, Kirkuk, there is a very high risk for Sunni Arabs crossing PMU checkpoints… Much of the risk to a person depends on which forces (are) in control in the area. … where the group in control is linked to AAH (Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq) intelligence, Sunnis would be much ‘worse off’. She gave the view that those at higher risk are those whose name is on a wanted list, who originate from an area that was perceived as supportive of ISISL (such as Yathrib, Jurf al-Sakhr, or Suleiman Beg, for instance), or if they are travelling without civil documentation. She stated that arrests are still occurring but authorities will not provide information about the extent to which it is happening.”4

All checkpoints involve driving into a narrow corridor through bomb blast barriers to the booth where the armed operatives base themselves. Once having entered this corridor it is not possible to reverse out or avoid being processed. Valid ID and not photocopied documents are mandatory.

Disappearances can easily occur at these control points given the numerous armed functionaries present there, many being little or uneducated youth from the Shi’a militia groups. HRW detailed the checkpoints at which such disappearances were documented to have occurred over three years in the period of ISIS being routed in their report, Iraq: Life Without a Father is Meaningless: Arbitrary Arrests and Enforced Disappearances between 2014-2017. 5

The report names the range of security forces responsible for disappearances including “the Anbar Operations Command, Counter Terrorism Service (CTS), PMF, Federal Police, Ministry of Interior’s Intelligence and Counter Terrorism Office, National Security service (NSS), SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics), Prime Minister’s Special forces (a set of units charged with the protection of the Prime Minister, the International Zone in Baghdad, as well as the city itself), and Kurdistan Regional Government’s Asayish Forces.” 6

The Shi’a parties and their militias have exacted bloody revenge on Sunnis ever since being handed power in 2003 by the US and its allies. They have replicated the methods of the Ba’ath regime, which they had so claimed to abhor, when posing as opposition rebels in European countries.

Their crimes – that in fact date back to their founding – accelerated with vigour after regime change and are characterised by include torture on the basis of sect or religio-political divergence, executions at close range, kidnappings, massacres on the basis of sect and ethnicity – as in Tuz Khurmatu in 2017 – village clearances, enforced disappearances, Shi’a Arabization and the destruction of Sunni towns and cities. A heavy reliance has also been placed on the use of the death penalty.7

On my Autumn visit to Tikrit in 2018, Muqtada al-Sadr’s Saraya al Salam (Peace Companies) forces were strongly in evidence everywhere. Armed twenty-somethings, clad in T-shirts and rubber flip flops manned a road barrier under the banner of the deceptive white dove. An earth berm had been scraped together to block one side of the road. This was a short distance inside the turn-off to Saddam Hussein’s home village, Ouja. These trigger happy, uneducated youths constituted the security detail controlling all access. Access in my case was forbidden. “You will take photos and put them on Facebook”. Despite retorting that I was not the least bit interested in Facebook, they waved their guns in my face and that of my driver, who was growing angrier by the second, and demanded we reverse away. This is the style of authority present across much of Iraq – local, hybrid and sub-state forces(LHSFs).

The Global Public Policy Institute (GPPI) report from 18 February 2019, At the Tip of the Spear: Armed Groups’ Impact on Displacement and Return in Post-ISIL Iraq observed of these: “Many of these forces were hastily organised militias with weak command and control structures and criminal elements within their ranks. Others were mobilized along ethnic, sectarian or political lines, and were reported to be using their positions of control to harass the most vulnerable members of opposing groups, including by detaining or abusing IDPs, encouraging further displacement of rival groups, or blocking families or individuals from returning to their homes. Many IDPs reported that fear of these security actors was a major deterrent to their return.”8

The report further noted in a sub heading Power to Control, Power to Exclude: Displacement and Blocked Return by Leading PMF Forces: “Another important distinction is that, while PMF forces were involved in acts of forced displacement or blocked return, these violations were frequently carried out with the tacit or overt approval of other government officials or communities…” 9

Such has also been the case with the violent attempts to crush the anti-government demonstrations in which the PMF militia forces have played a leading role.

Checkpoints in the Kurdistan region of Iraq AKA Iraqi Kurdistan

To access the KRG from Baghdad by road, a traveller has the choice of skirting Mosul or passing via Kirkuk. Both routes are dangerous. ISIS has continued to attack the checkpoints themselves given that they are manned by a range of state agents. IEDs also pose a serious danger.

The main Kurdish parties play a double game with Baghdad, demanding their share of the national budget when it suits them and playing the autonomy card when it doesn’t. Internal and external foes can be made to disappear through threat or stealth. Security priorities of a political nature determine who gets to walk the streets without looking over their shoulder. Kirkuk has been host to much ethnic and sect-based violence. Its status is unresolved. Although controlled anew by Baghdad (and patrolled by the militias and forces often from the south) the Kurds have not relinquished their claims.

The character of the Peshmerga forces and Asayish (Security) has however shifted progressively since the 1991 uprising from that of freedom fighters, dedicated to Kurdayeti10 to party security forces. Action is dominated by the agendas of the KDP and PUK. Responses to criticism by human rights organisations over actions constituting human rights abuses usually meets with denial. The top figures have become accustomed to acting with impunity. They also directly control the judiciary as well as judicial appointments. They literally get away with murder. The streets of Kirkuk have been washed in blood along with oil.

The International Crisis Group’s 14 December 2018 report, Reviving UN Mediation on Iraq’s Disputed Internal Boundaries, Middle east Report No. 194 maintained that Kirkuk was one of the areas that had suffered the ‘worst turbulence’ in recent years in the disputed territories.11 It must be noted that the report post-dates the change of control over the disputed territories that occurred on 16 October 201712 and is therefore still generally valid. However, for so long as the militia control the roads and checkpoints security for all travelers regardless of sect and ethnicity will remain elusive.

Competing Interests – Looking to Iran or the West

Equally disruptive are the divided loyalties between the groups to either Iran or their Western allies. Each bloc competes to dominate the other. The US and Iran exploit their respective fiefs.

A recent European Council on Foreign Relations (ecfr.eu) publication concerning the present dangers adopted a pro-Europe stance but also emphasised that one of the key obstacles is posed by the militias. Torn between two allies: How Europeans can reduce Iraqi dependence on Iran and the US [13] observed that PM Mustafa Kadhimi faces three main internal challenges, the third of which is the issue of central control over the militias. The Iraqi author of the report, Sajad Jiyad, opined that Kadhimi needs to “assert a higher degree of central control over the PMF and to prevent the proliferation of armed groups in Iraq. The prime minister will have to deepen negotiations with Iran on containing unruly elements in the PMF, such as Kataib Hizbullah and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, and new groups operating outside the PMF, such as Usbat al-Thareen and Ashab al-Kahf14. Kadhimi also needs to appoint new leaders of the Popular Mobilisation Commission (PMC) to improve oversight of these groups. [15]

Easier said than done!

That daunting task would also involve reining in the militias at checkpoints and removing their masters from Baghdad Airport. However, with several of the main armed actors having assumed political positions in the post 2018 elections, such an achievement is presently unlikely.

Sajad Jiyad reached much the same conclusion noting: “Serious attempts to carry out reforms to the security and justice systems could invite a backlash from a political elite that is eager to protect itself. Given that many parties have an armed wing – and are willing to use it to prevent the arrest of their leaders and members – it is even possible that far-reaching reforms, though unlikely, could lead to violence. The presence of these armed wings explains why the judiciary pursues very few cases involving individuals with political connections.“

That takes us back to the key issues of corruption and nepotism that have destroyed the country’s economy and plague post-Saddam Iraq. The Kurdistan region has been equally lacking in transparency in this regard. Few Kurds now dare criticise their own masters. Criticism coupled with exposure carries high risks. Journalists and protestors have paid a heavy price. The murder of journalist Kawa Garmiyani, ascribed to the PUK elite, is one such case in point. [16]

In Kurdistan, just as in Baghdad, the critics of those in power whose names find their way onto the blacklists are wisest to avoid check points – but that is, of course, impossible.

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