With Isil ousted, Baghdad emerges from its decade of darkness
When Sajad Jiyad landed at Baghdad airport in summer 2014, he was one of four people on the plane. Driving through the Iraqi capital, the streets were empty and the inhabitants on edge.
Even during a decade-long insurgency featuring near daily bombings in the capital, things hadn’t seemed this bad. Headlines were proclaiming the end of Iraq. Baghdad appeared to be the besieged capital of a failed state. After overrunning a third of the country, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) were on the doorstep of the city.
“In Kadhimiya, [in north-west Baghdad] you could hear mortars being launched just past the Abu Ghraib area towards western Baghdad,” says Mr Jiyad.
The 34-year-old spent much of his life in the United Kingdom but returned in 2014 to work for an independent Iraqi think-tank.
Today, Mr Jiyad says, you just need to step into the street outside his office at the Bayan Centre for Planning and Studies to see the change.
Security has increased dramatically and new businesses are opening weekly. Among a generation that has come of age since the 2003 invasion – in an environment where every gain in security can easily be reversed – there’s an openness to new ideas, and even cautious optimism. “This is the best period of time Baghdad has seen in the past 14 years,” says Mr Jiyad. “Serious crime is down, suicide attacks are down.” In November, the UN estimated that across Iraq 117 civilians were killed and another 244 injured in acts of terrorism, violence and armed conflict. While still high, the only month with a lower death toll since 2012 was October, when 114 civilians were killed, according to the UN’S casualty reports.
The improving security situation is largely attributed to the defeat of Isil since the Iraqi Security Forces took the last Isil-controlled town in Anbar last month. “From a military perspective, we have ended the presence of Daesh in Iraq,” Prime Minister Haider al-abadi told the press in late November. Back in 2014, US generals predicted the war against the group could last a decade.
Occasional terrorist attacks have continued around Baghdad – the latest was on the outskirts of the city last month – though many fear a renewed wave of attacks if Isil reverts to its insurgent roots.
Meanwhile though, Baghdadis have embraced the opportunity to stay out late since the curfew ended in 2015, lingering in shisha cafés long into the evening. Burger trucks and Westernstyle eateries have proliferated, with patrons discussing the new iphone X over espressos.
“The situation is great,” says Minas Liom, an ethnic Armenian tattoo artist working in the popular Karrada neighbourhood. With greater security, the economy is bouncing back. “There’s even a waterpark now,” he says. Mr Liom has been tattooing in Baghdad for the past 10 years but recently noted an explosion of popularity, as Iraqi society gradually opens up to the practice.
“Tattooing has become normal,” he says, as he puts the finishing touches on a client’s first tattoo – his name in cursive on his arm. Today, Mr Liom estimates there are 30 other tattooists working in the city.
A few streets away, a different group of artists is at work renovating an old house. Tarkib is a collective of artists working in different media who recently opened Baghdad’s first contemporary art space with exhibition rooms, workshops and a dance studio. “My entire life I’ve been thinking about making a place where anyone could come – young or old – and do whatever makes them happy,” says Anne, a 25-year-old studying fashion design at the Baghdad College of Fine Arts. “That’s art; art makes everybody happy, and that’s Tarkib.”
The collective has staged several exhibitions with immersive multimedia installations, many of which contain a social message on the causes of violence in Iraq.
Zaid Saad is a softly spoken artist in a red fedora, whose “terrorist factory” installation shows the different influences – from extremist ideology to social conservatism – he sees as responsible for radicalising youth. It’s a challenging subject he says, but notes that people are more receptive to new ideas than in the past. It’s this climate and the increased security that enabled Tarkib to open, he says. “These days the situation is normal in Baghdad.”
Admittedly, “normal” still means the occasional act of random violence. A bombing outside a popular ice cream shop last May left 15 dead. The year before, 300 people were killed in a bombing at a Karrada shopping mall.
It’s this history that makes Mr Saad guarded about what could come next. “Iraqis still don’t trust the future,” he says. But there is a cautious optimism in Baghdad these days.