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Few days ago we were getting back home at night from a visit to a relative of us, when we reached our neighborhood; two blocks away from my house, we noticed a gathering of people at the door of one of the houses, it was clear from the faces of the people and the way they were acting that something unpleasant happened.
I stopped the car and got out to offer my help in case they needed it. Unfortunately there was nothing I or anybody there could do because their son was kidnapped an hour ago from their very same street! He is a 7 years old kid, his father is a mechanic and about a year ago he started working with the Americans as people say…the kidnappers called and they asked for ransom, his parents didn't tell us how much exactly do they want.
I was a bit scared to be honest, because this might be the start for troubles and crime in my neighborhood, I thought the kid was kidnapped because his father works with the Americans but later I begun to doubt that.
At that night a friend called and I told him about the incident and he told me that his neighbor's son was also kidnapped two weeks ago and he was about the same age as my neighbor's kid. His parents paid the ransom and he was released but it seems that kid was smart because from several signs and evident he was able to tell his parents exactly where was held and he told them that there were 15 other kid held with him.
The parents called the police and they were able to rescue the rest of them and capture the thugs.
At that time I made an impression, it seems that this will be the new technique that will be used by the low life criminals, so I wanted to make a small search about the subject.
Yesterday at work I asked many of my colleagues and many of them heard or witnessed such incidents.
One of them had a young brother who was going to school with his friends; they were walking as a group when a car stopped by and two men disguised in women's robes got out of it and kidnapped one of their friends, till now his parents haven't heard anything about him!
I reached a conclusion that kids are the primary target for the gangs now, and the reason is so rational (criminally peaking); they are much much easier to kidnap and force to get into the car, the kid may scream and cry as he wants because no one will interfere (people will think they are his parents) and the parents are ready to pay all they have and more, when they kidnap the father who will get the money for them? And they solved this issue with kidnapping kids.
So for all the Iraqis who reads this; take care of your kids and watch them all the time, never leave them alone or let them go out alone at least these days and if you don't have kids then please spread the word among the people you know who have kids.
I think I have to go to work now.
May God protect us all.
7 comments:
Excellent advice you gave here, "take care of your kids." This kidnapping kids for ransom has been going on in other parts of the world by criminals. It's gone on for years in Mexico. These criminal tactics seems to spread around the world. In the US, large numbers of kids go missing each year. Usually here, it's a divorced spouse who takes them, but not always. People need to take care of their kids all over the world.
That's not good news at all. As if you didn't have enough troubles in Iraq already. There are actually tracking devices for children that emit a radio signal, but I suspect these are rather expensive and not suited for people living in a war zone.Maybe it is time for the extended family to kick in and to form supervised playgroups for the kids.
That's the problem with war: when all the law and order breaks down every sort of scum floats to the surface.
The criminal mind works quite similarly every where in the world. Any way to steal from honest people is fair play in their book. Which ever way they find to be the safest and most profitable for them is the way they will ust. Look at the pirates from Somalia, making fortunes with little risk (until recently) has seen that problem grow to what it is today, a thriving enterprise indeed. Let us hope the police in Iraq will be able to clamp down HARD on these thugs and show them that kidnapping kids does NOT pay very well. God bless you Mohammed and your family.
Joe
Dr. Mohammed, how do you think the Iraqi Police (IP) should go after these thugs?
The police don't have the excuse that they are too busy fighting the resistance to protect children from thugs anymore.
Some IP are in cahoots with organized crime kingpins. Is the IP doing a better job in fighting corruption?
Still thinking of you all, Mohammed.
We don't get any news of Iraq now in the UK - the government is obsessed with Members of Parliament being caught out stealing money from the public purse - and it looks as if people like Mandelson and Brown are preparing for a post-democratic Britain. (The Cabinet is now almost entirely made up of people from the House of Lords who are there only because "rewarded" for loyalty to Tony Blair, instead of elected Members from the House of Commons.)
Only on the web do I learn that Harith al-Ubaidi, a Sunni politician who headed the Accordance Front, Iraq's biggest Sunni bloc, and was deputy chairman of the Iraqi parliament's human rights committee, has been assassinated at a mosque in Baghdad. Several other worshippers were killed at the same time.
Speaking of watching kids, watching the election in Iran is very interesting. The majority of the population there is under 30. Given the large turnout of people there to vote and the frustration of people in Iran, it does seem questionable that the results were fair. It is heartwarming to see that young people in Iran want a different sort of life, just as they do in Lebanon, Iraq and all over the Middle East and Asia.
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