Ongoing clashes in Iraq’s Anbar hurts businesses

Shipping disrupted

BAGHDAD, May 11, (AP): Fighting in Iraq’s western Anbar province, now in its fifth month, appears to have bogged down, with government forces unable to drive out Islamic militants who took over one of the area’s main cities. But the impact is being felt much further, with the repercussions rippling through the country’s economy to hit consumers and businesses.

The large, desert province is a major crossroads. The main highways linking Baghdad and other parts of Iraq to Syria and Jordan run through it. So fighting has not only dislodged thousands of residents from their homes and forced shutdowns of their businesses. It has also disrupted shipping, inflating prices of goods in Baghdad and elsewhere. Fears of the road have gotten so bad Iraq has had to stop shipments of oil to Jordan.

Anwar Salah, co-owner of alBaqiee travel agency in Baghdad, Anbar, Iraq’s largest province, is said his company used to run more the heartland of Iraq’s Sunni minorithan 13 trips a day by SUVs shuttling ty and was the birthplace of insurpassengers between Baghdad and the gency that arose after the 2003 USJordanian capital, Amman. led invasion that toppled Saddam

Now people avoid the highway, Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime which runs near the flashpoint Anbar and brought the long-oppressed cities of Fallujah and Anbar, fearing majority Shiites to power. militant checkpoints or clashes. So It has significant strategic value. his firm is down to one trip every Besides its desert borders with Saudi other day, and profits have plunged Arabia, Jordan and Syria, it also by 90 percent, he said. stands on the doorstep of the capital.

“Most of the drivers who used to Some militant-held villages are only work for me are now either jobless or about 30 kms (18 miles) from working in other professions,” he Baghdad’s western edges. said. “We are part of the country’s So the turmoil has an effect in the city.miserable situation.” A real estate broker in western Baghdad said prices of houses there have dropped, some by as much as a fifth, and sales have dwindled because people are reluctant to buy, fearing the violence. He spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Oil Ministry spokesman Assem Jihad told The Associated Press that the government has stopped shipping the 10,000 to 12,000 barrels a day of oil it sells to Jordan at preferential rates because the only route for sending it — by truck down the Baghdad-Amman highway — has become too dangerous. The Iraqi shipments made up only about a 20th of energy-poor Jordan’s daily needs, and it has turned to increased imports from Saudi Arabia to make up for the loss.

Tensions

Militants, many of from the alQaeda-breakaway group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, overran Fallujah and parts of Anbar’s capital, Ramadi, at the beginning of the year, taking advantage of tensions between the Sunni community, which dominates Anbar, and the Shiite-led central government.

Since then, government forces backed by Sunni tribal fighters opposed to al-Qaeda have battled the militants with little success. The forces encircle Fallujah, but it remains completely under militants’ control. In Ramadi, where militants control several districts, the fighting swings to and fro: Government forces may retake an area during the day, only to lose it again by nightfall or within days.

The violence has uprooted around 75,000 families from their homes, according to United Nations figures.

Abu Abdullah, owner of a small dairy factory in Fallujah, shut down his business in January and fled the city. His factory used to produce yogurt, cheese, and cream with 20 employees. He closed because milk supplies from nearby villages stopped and his employees were afraid to come to work.

“Business was good before Anbar crisis,” said Abu Abdullah, who spoke on condition he be identified only by his nickname for security reasons. Now he’s in the northern city of Kirkuk with his eight-member family, hoping for calm to return. “We are out of business and our savings will not last forever,” he said.

Insurgency