visiting the general hospital in fallujah is like living it was a nightmare. children with two heads toomas malformations missing limbs and macao been on bearable literally they say every family here is sheltering or

hiding a deformed monstrous child. from. one of them. get away and the grandmother you know after my daughter cries all day long it but she hopes to see her daughter get better. deeply affected by leave the city with its newborn monsters. we head for baghdad on the banks of the tigris. baghdad can be translated as the garden of peace. but it's a better fragile peace patrol. those are iraqi wearing uniforms supplied by the us

the army is divided by political religious and tribal conflicts everyone fights for his own camp. the president is kurd the prime minister shia and the parliament is run by sunnis. in paradise square opposite the royal mosque stands a concrete pedestal. here once through the absolute symbol of power a statue of saddam hussein. on april ninth two thousand and three it was torn to the ground of the united states believed it of wonderful. nine years have passed the square is empty and the city appears to be in

a state of siege. oh is that our passenger alley a theater director back from exile in paris waited for a long time to see his enemy fall and return to his native city. where i was thrown in prison and when i got out i was given five days to leave baghdad and iraq. but folly the combat continues. and is through theater that he hopes to win it is methodist to reinvest the public with a sense of resistance and a taste for life. i met out. today i see a country filled with weapons the overriding color in the city is khaki the color of soldiers was i see young people with no future men and women deprived of any feeling of citizenship the grown people have forgotten their rights and their duties. as if they were lost with them but i can. last.

night's. more time to be doing your shoulder but more than that. in baghdad no one knows who the enemy is anymore sunni's shias islamists christians each with their armies and militia fighting the other. nine out of lawless i know some of your guys who joined al qaeda just to get some money. so out of the car then the model of some of it i do gives the money whereas the government abandons them by that something of laws. that paid to kill here on that floor. about michelle obama so they've ruined their futures that lives and their families find out oh my while home. for nothing goes.

on october thirty first twenty ten a terrorist group claiming all kind of affiliation occupied the catholic cathedral in baghdad. five suicide bombers activated their explosive belts fifty eight people were killed. in nine years of occupation of civil and religious wars and attacks of caused more than one hundred ten thousand victims essentially civilian. syriac khaldiyeh and orthodox and armenian churches have become choice targets. al

qaeda assassins and sunni and shia fanatics agree on nothing except only victim the christians they accuse of being western crusaders. baghdad is a raising it's a loss tree as christian past. checkpoints abound every hundred meters crossing baghdad is a permanent obstacle course. but i think iraq is a battlefield for an array of foreign forces. iran supports the shia brothers while saudi arabia age there's the sunnis. and as for the month i live in. a sunny district. in two thousand and six it was awful. it was subjected to rocket fire at least fifty rockets falling on us every day it never stopped. you know me the streets were filled with corpses and there was fighting everywhere but out of you know their ideas revenue the battles raged for seventy two hours you know.

al-qaeda the army the militia everyone was fighting men. abandoned bodies became prey fit to be devoured by stray dogs that my little girl saw dogs eating the dead which i had never seen before in my life packet which is what me. living in baghdad means surviving attacks but it's also an everyday battle. in the capital of the world's third biggest oil producer the electricity system works for just a few hours a day. the best business in china is selling generators. for khaled my driver a visit to the barber after ten days on the road should be a moment to relax a moment of peace but nothing is that simple. yes quite soon. the hell here sheer hell that alan.

led thousand of it's not a normal life like other people have around the world. may god act to improve things so what do you say to the good of will know for sure god is good and. evil. didn't. the schoolteacher she's invited us to dinner. at twenty years old. how you got through it as a woman. i grew up in the mail on your head and how first the war with iran and then the embargo and the two american intervention i see. a little but the first in

one thousand nine hundred and the second in two thousand and three. for the iran war my brother was arrested and there was just my dad to take care of the family all those girls had no work my father ran a small business. we barely grown up when the embargo strangle the whole country can you imagine no fruit or vegetables meat we couldn't afford and fish even more so. it's only today that i can buy it but we lived in safety the women could move about without any problem we had peace but in poverty i think that anything that lets you down i was. among the one of my wife is devout but as we have guests i can drink we may be poor but we still have a sense of hospitality. abdu is our a sunni and a shia from the rest couple today war and religion have also imposed by hundreds on

love. as the lights go out once again the neighborhoods back up generators take over i have your message that you. none not one thing that we were hearing. on shia my husband a sunni muslim had now after the war the two religions can't intermarry anymore and that's and it wasn't the case before and what was important was that people loved each other and what's the distinction between shia and sunni thingy it's shameful treating people this way in iraq with all muslims muslim. and so what a muslim man asks for the hand of a muslim woman according to islamic tradition by faith and that's all but i think it was at the end of the war that this division appears shia sunni. but there's now we've come to threats with the head how does

a sunni bear an area shiite is that we're seeing as we look at that what if the alternative is to get divorced or dalek you know if you don't agree to get divorced you risk death you could think you're going to be an issue of national in our own neighborhood they shot a woman in front of her husband and children for the unique reason she was shia and he was sunni except you know she. this morning i'm not just leaving baghdad i'm fleeing baghdad. but the city gates the soldier who checks out passports tells us yet another attack a scar to the capital. was. another checkpoint on the road to babylon we present our passports and passes. a country apprehensive. this guy is like twilight

i feel like i'm wandering in the kingdom of the dead it's raining sand. prayers have punctuated each day on the road i sleep while he converses with his god. amidst the wind blown sound appears the mythical city of babylon. in his delusions of grandeur saddam hussein emerged himself to be its king the heir to throw the president of the iraqi republic saddam hussein in one nine hundred eighty eight inaugurated the restored city of babylon first built by nebuchadnezzar between six o four and five sixty two b.c. . at the height of his power

like the ancient kings before him saddam built his palace in the heart of the legendary city. his tower of babel crashed down around him and the dust of pride and ambition. his memory has been left to the ravages of time and the insults of his survivors. potentially deadly blizzard taking aim for the northeast it's expected to hit stunning in a few hours from new york to maine we have team coverage of the storm. but we're watching is the very heavy snow moving into boston proper earlier today it was very sticky you can see it start to become much more powdery down the line there's still a lot of snow out here a good place for snowball fight. heating it is better pretty incredible day there

and even record snowfall throughout much of in life nobody is largely driving lessons from emergency vehicles exceptions. at the end of the road lies come the mecca of vatican and medina of the shia world

. but something of god and other al qaeda is the real enemy of iraq and even of all the arab regions i don't believe several terrorist organizations have been exported by neighboring countries i don't know but they are responsible for so many victims since baghdad fell. you know at the end i would stress that most of the attacks have targeted the shia community not just the one upmanship. pilgrims are well protected here all the offices and soldiers are shia. several million faithful including many from iran come every year to visit the mosques in karbala a boon for the holy city. religion is a river of gold as the saying goes. we know what happened it's obvious that when a country's native sons defend it things go better than when they're always better

than an occupier. and invader always has trouble understanding the country they occupy and as the air proverb says no one knows the roads of mecca better than its own inhabitants that shout i have it if i have it. is. the main prayer takes place and he's saying most. the interim sermons have a political resonance and a broadcast throughout iraq in the shia world and. the shias today are imposing their numbers and their power. in the prayers always end with cries to the glory of the prophet hussein the son of ali allegedly designated by mohammed to be his only successor you never heard them

. but many on under saddam a million years were detained and many of them were assassinated and thrown into mass graves and it's not much of a sentiment i myself your servant spent twelve years in iraqi jails about my family only received news of me one or two years after i was released. i was even afraid of my own brother i thought he was an officer who come to interrogate me yes we suffered and the prisons were filled with shias on me when i be. leaving kabbalah is like crossing a graveyard. everywhere all portraits of she amount has fallen for the glory of the prophet hussein mohammed there. that.

possible. on the baghdad and basra highway in the middle of the desert our faithful taxi finally gives up the ghost. i feel suddenly vulnerable alone in the wilderness. as if by magic a man appears from the sams to help us out perhaps this is the renowned a desert hospitality. we had for

a camp for the man who maintained the highway once they were all soldiers and saddam's army. when the americans came many deserted. him without knowing who we are to make room for us to share that. with out of massive data iraqi army was hunger thirst and fatigue. remember your family was taken hostage and she deserves it. you horrible new days when they called people who ran away they were simply hang out with them one on one of you and i spent seven years in the army and it was very tough. insana most days a soldier was paid two thousand tina less than the bank he was carrying was worth we can definitely say we were really miserable.

the highway splits the desert and on each side of the road to bask in the vast oil fields of rumaylah and mushroom. more than half of iraqi production is pumped from this burning desert a treasure chest within the sand. shale b.p. exxon mobil and the chinese soon a pack of already got their hands on the bulk of it. at last we reach bastrop where the euphrates and the tigris meet. travelers once called the city the venice of the south. who comes to kill us and destroy our country and good it before we said it the americans but the americans are gone and now my general so who else is continuing

the job of a that nobody knows of there's no work in the situation is unlivable i say yes it was better before. conversely if we talk about security and civic respect we can say it was one hundred percent better under saddam. today there's no respect for the citizens as if we were no longer men that's the truth that's honestly what i feel. we are less and less respected before in iraq you could walk with his head held high anywhere in the world and especially at home as long as the state was not affected or undermined things have changed a lot i can tell you that the situation was much better before. the venice of the self was awash with detritus of all kinds half of the inhabitants are unemployed it's a humanitarian and social disaster area. here we have

absolutely nothing to eat muck where we going but at that event in this oil rich country we can't find work. this is how we live the children of this country why is it fair does god accept this master is in the middle of all the country's oil wealth its like the mother of oil but he doesn't seem to gain from it the inhabitants are poor and the streets are filled with the unemployed and it. was once one of the richest cities in iraq today it seems to have been forgotten by both god and mankind because of oil is cruel indeed. and yet in the heart of the shantytowns is always given freely. and sweet offering

. by our government isn't he in when it could i think government doesn't take care of the porn is only there to save itself until it sound pockets i do expect things to change what the fuck out of all my heart that no minister has taken the trouble to come and see us to ask how we survive or ask us if we. need and i think we have nobody to talk to. and so since the americans left the poor and the powerless join the militia and the terrorist groups who would least provide money and protection. everywhere in the city of portraits of the shia in might i doubt saddam his radical troops feed on poverty.

the road ends and i'll file on the banks of the push and gulf the end of our journey. this is the outback oil terminal rising from the water far from terrorist attacks and on a constant military surveillance where iraq's fortune oil flows in and out. the country's fortune and perhaps misfortune two. wars here have always been clothed in the same color black. and foul is at the mouth of the shuttle our best during where the tigris joins the euphrates forming the border with iran. on the iranian bank a gigantic portrait of the how many is there to talk to us

a reminder that americans have gone leaving pandora's box wide open. been especially on me personally i never thought i know collaborated with the americans. which i would show where i work i am and always have been a taxi driving us. i still can't cross the country no. to south gen from south dakota and follow all taxi i go wherever i can find work have that i don't hesitate god be praised all i want to still live my. twenty days on the road perhaps one hundred checkpoints. with my friend khaled and we've crossed a country which is officially no longer at war but where peace is not being

restored a country divided by sectarian shia sunni and kurd communities a country where tara is a daily issue. from the hope they'll be able so their money or kook muscle to create for. baghdad bob alone kabbalah bastra as far as i'll file we've traveled a road where danger is ever present.

khaled was under the protection of his god and me maps of providence.

more news today vorlon says once again flared up. and these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are on today.

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the man shot dead by the f.b.i. during questioning about links to the boston bombings was reportedly on ahmed new revelations emerge contradicting earlier statements he attacked offices with a knife. as a london reels from the harrowing wallace murder and earlier criminal cases involving the muslim community draws the media attention for the alleged neglect of the race and religion factor. ratcheting up cyber attention of the u.s. of bruce is a digital wall thank you abilities recruiting thousands of the hackers for internet attacks the reports come as obama prepares to confront china over its digital offensive.