In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Iraqis Grapple With Fears Of Israeli Infiltration
Additional Reporting by Aws al-Sharqy, IOL Iraq Correspondent
BAGHDAD, June 24 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Reports were rife
in the Iraqi capital Baghdad that Israeli companies and intelligence
elements were being housed in the famous Baghdad Hotel which was
rented by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and some American
reconstruction firms.
"We were surprised that some people rented the whole hotel and were
later told they were from the CIA and that the building would be
devoted for them and other accompanying agents," a hotel employee told
IslamOnline.net Tuesday, June 24, on condition of anonymity.
He said that hotel employees noted Monday that more foreigners and
armed civilians "were seen roaming the hotel, with increasing whispers
that they were here to protect Israeli companies working that rented
several rooms in the hotel.
"The light guns they were carrying were not U.S.-made but rather
appear to be the well-known Iraeli Ouzi machineguns," said the hotel
employee to IOL correspondent outside the heavily guarded hotel.
Ousting all guests from the Baghdad Hotel, the U.S. forces even
prevented the shop owners from entering the hotel and refused to pay
them compensations.
"I was told to vacate my shop, which I have rented 26 years ago, in
two hours' time," complained Hamid Al-Izawi, expecting the decision to
extend to other shops located in the hotel vicinity.
"They even refused to compensate us for the rent money we had paid for
the whole of this year, " he lamented.
IOL correspondent tried to enter the hotel, but was banned by U.S. and
Iraqi security members, who also prevented him from taking any photos.
"The hotel is now rented by U.S. reconstruction companies," they told
the reporter.
Infiltration
The incident coincided with the circulation of an anonymous leaflet in
Baghdad this week urging Iraqis to shun that hotel, because it was
used by Jews and Israeli intelligence elements.
Signed by "a sincere Iraqi Muslim," the leaflet sounded the alarms
that some people were buying houses from Iraqis at sky-high prices for
the interest of Jews.
The warning found credit among mosque preachers and Iraqi citizens,
with reports that Israelis were seeking to lay their hands on key
buildings in sensitive areas of the capital.
"Jews will try to lure Iraqis into selling their homes at whatever
prices, and control the media in order to spread corruption and
immorality," asserted Muhanad Abdullah, Imam of Omar Ibn Al-Khatab
mosque.
"But we will fight them, and will never allow a rerun of the Palestine
episode," said Sheikh Muhanad, in reference to the Israeli occupation
of Palestinian territories.
On Friday, a Sunni Muslim prayer leader charged that U.S. forces
occupying Iraq were opening up the country to "Jews" and chided Iraqis
he said were working as "brokers" for the Jewish infiltrators, Agence
France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"The Jews, civilian and military people, are now entering Iraq ...
buying property, factories and companies while Iraqis work for them as
brokers and guides," Sheikh Mahmud Khalaf told the faithful during
weekly Muslim prayers in Baghdad's Sheikh Abdul Kader al-Kilani
mosque.
"It is a sin for Iraq's people to sell their lands to the Jews and to
deal with the Jews in this way," he said.
The warnings came few days after U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary John
Taylor invited Israeli companies to join hands in the reconstruction
of Iraq.
Taylor said in an interview with the Israeli daily Yediot Ahoront
Saturday, June 21, that the Iraqi market would be always open to
Israeli products.
Press Warning
Grapping with news of Jewish infiltration of the U.S.-occupied
country, Iraqi press joined in with a flurry of reports about
acquisitions of Iraqi estate by Jewish interests.
"A hotel in the city center hosts a group of Zionists seeking to buy
homes and palaces that belonged to officials of the former regime,"
the daily al-Dawa wrote last week under the headline, "The secrets of
a Karrada hotel."
"Jews are coming and buying as they did in Palestine," echoed
Al-Hilal, while another newspaper, citing Baghdad residents who were
offered big money to sell their homes, wondered if "Jews were about to
reclaim property confiscated (when they left) in 1951."
Israeli public television reported on Saturday that a representative
of the Jewish Agency had visited Iraq to check on the safety of Jews
since Saddam's ouster.
Some 100,000 Jews were living in Iraq before the creation of Israel in
1948, but most left to the Jewish state and only around 40 Jews remain
in Iraq now.
The tiny Jewish community lives in Baghdad, chiefly around a synagogue
in the Batawin district.