Iraq: The True Evil That Poses As Islam
Atwar BahjatToday, the Sunday Times carries a report on how a respected 30-year old journalist called Atwar Bahjat was killed. She was a regular contributor to al-Arabiya TV news, after being a journalist for Al Jazeera. Her death happened on February 22, after she had been abducted. But a mobile phone, found on the body of Shi’ite Badr Brigade member killed in fighting, showed the method in which she was killed. Passed on to the Sunday Times last week, its contents were described in harrowing detail by Hala Jaber, a friend of Ms Bahjat.
First she was stripped to the waist, a humiliation for any woman but particularly so for a pious Muslim who concealed her hair, arms and legs from men other than her father and brother.
Then her arms were bound behind her back. A golden locket in the shape of Iraq that became her glittering trademark in front of the television cameras must have been removed at some point – it is nowhere to be seen in the grainy film, which was made by someone who pointed a mobile phone at her as she lay on a patch of earth in mortal terror.
By the time filming begins, the condemned woman has been blindfolded with a white bandage.
It is stained with blood that trickles from a wound on the left side of her head. She is moaning, although whether from the pain of what has already been done to her or from the fear of what is about to be inflicted is unclear.
Just as Bahjat bore witness to countless atrocities that she covered for her television station, Al-Arabiya, during Iraq’s descent into sectarian conflict, so the recording of her execution embodies the depths of the country’s depravity after three years of war.
A large man dressed in military fatigues, boots and cap approaches from behind and covers her mouth with his left hand. In his right hand, he clutches a large knife with a black handle and an 8in blade. He proceeds to cut her throat from the middle, slicing from side to side.
Her cries – “Ah, ah, ah” – can be heard above the “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) intoned by the holder of the mobile phone.
Even then, there is no quick release for Bahjat. Her executioner suddenly stands up, his job only half done. A second man in a dark T-shirt and camouflage trousers places his right khaki boot on her abdomen and pushes down hard eight times, forcing a rush of blood from her wounds as she moves her head from right to left.
Only now does the executioner return to finish the task. He hacks off her head and drops it to the ground, then picks it up again and perches it on her bare chest so that it faces the film-maker in a grotesque parody of one of her pieces to camera.
In addition to the slow death by decapitation, Ms Bahjat had nine drill holes in her right arm and 10 in her left arm. The drill had also been applied to her legs, her navel and her right eye.
That the person filming her killers could brazenly chant “Allahu Akhbar”, while witnessing them acting so inhumanely, is only a further testament to how evil, barbaric and uncompromising the so-called religion of Islam can be.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis
