Day 3
It’s the biggest festival of the year, and everyone’s determined to enjoy themselves.
Mosul’s built around the ruins of the ancient city of Nineveh. Muslims come to worship at the rebuilt tomb of Jonah.
They’re observant, but that doesn’t mean they’re fanatical, and it certainly doesn’t mean they support al Qaeda.
One man said some Iraqis would welcome bin Laden’s support but most people we met were unaware that he’d said anything on the subject.
They were more interested in their holiday snaps…
People don’t say what they think about the government, but Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party is secular, and on this subject people may well agree with the official line.
Taha Yassin Ramadan, Iraqi vice-president:
“If this is looked at with the slightest degree of logic, we all know what the Ba’ath Socialist party is and what al Qaeda is. What do they have in common?“
We went further north to the town of Bashika, near the autonomous Kurdish area.
Under a faded advertisement for a hairdressers, the old men were chatting in the sun. They said they knew who bin Laden was but they didn’t have any connection with him.
Not surprising, because these men are Yazidis, a minority religion.
Osama bin Laden’s jumping on the bandwagon, trying to cite Iraq as an Islamic cause. In towns like this, where Muslims and Christians and even smaller religions like Yazidis live together, religion doesn’t really come into it.
Some Yazidis had gathered for a funeral, they welcomed us into their temple and explained how they worship one God with seven angels.
These men have seen war, during the Gulf War, Kurdish fighters, peshmerga, came down from the mountains and there were clashes before the Kurds were driven back.
They fear that could happen again.
Uday Jalal, doctor
“There are some interference from other sides, not American, like Kurdish, Turkish or Iranian but we defend our town and we not permit for anyone to come to here. “
Thabet Jirjis Fatho, photographer
"People aren’t happy about the American threats, they’re worried. But God is there and the government is there, and we went through a worse experience during the Gulf War."
We chatted to the elders at the tea-shop who’d gathered to enjoy the holiday. This group said they were teachers. Who knows if their sons would fight if the Americans and their Kurdish allies attacked again?
Bashika feels a long way from Washington, from Colin Powell’s assertion that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are linked, from bin Laden’s cry that Iraq is his cause.
One old man just said his experience of war had taught him that in the end there is no winner – even the winner loses.
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