e was violence. Anyone not affiliated with them was treated badly. During prayer time everyone was required to go to the mosque. If we didn’t go we were insulted and fined 50 dollars.”
50 dollars may not be a lot of money in the United States, but was a huge amount in a remote village in Iraqi Kurdistan while all of Iraq was under international sanctions. People needed the Oil for Food program just to stay alive.
“Did anyone here actually like Ansar Al Islam?” I asked.
“There were one or two very young people,” he said. “I am from here. We never had anything like that before. I was joking with my friends in this tea shop. We were arrested, chained, blindfolded, and beaten. Laughing was banned.”
“They were like the Taliban,” his friend said.
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