The wind’s howl buffeted Imad Mohammed’s window Tuesday, suffocating the peal of bombs from Baghdad’s outskirts. Across the sky, the black haze of burning oil trenches mixed with desert sand from a savage storm to wrap the city in an otherworldly glow. Paper, bags and cardboard were blown across the street. Traffic lights and palm trees swayed. A soldier hunkered near the Tigris River, a black scarf draped over his head like a veil.To Mohammed, the relentless sandstorm was foreboding, a portent of divine will. ‘‘The storm is from God,’’ he said, looking out his trembling window. ‘‘Until the aggression started, never in my life did I see a storm like this. We all believe in God, we all have faith in God. And God is setting obstacles against the Americans.’’During six days of war, Baghdad is looking to the heavens for omens have had much to contemplate. A terrifying cascade of US bombs has been followed by the apocalyptic smoke of oil fires lit by Iraqi forces, so dense that cars almost collided. The smoke was joined by Tuesday’s storm, which abruptly ended Baghdad’s struggle to reclaim ordinary life. Shops again shuttered and streets were deserted as a sickly yellow cloaked the sun. Weary residents spoke of divine intervention, and in the storm they saw God’s determination to aid Iraq. Beneath the surface were churning emotions — of fear and flight, of fatalism and bravado, of grief and dread. With few exceptions, Iraqis still consider political discussions taboo, especially with a foreign journalist shadowed by an official escort. But the storm seemed to give voice to concerns about a future no one seems willing to predict. ‘‘Whatever will be will be,’’ said Adnan Khalid, 28, as he negotiated the $2 fare for a private taxi to the northern city of Mosul, where he sent his wife before the war.‘‘What can we do? If we survive, then we go on living.’’ Khalid was leaving Baghdad Tuesday for what he called ‘‘a change in atmosphere.’’ Across the parking lot, the winds coated cars, taxis and buses with a veneer of dust. Drivers cried out their destinations: ‘‘Tikrit!’’ ‘‘Baiji!’’ ‘‘Mosul!’’ In one hand, Khalid carried a bag with clothes for three days; with the other, he dragged on a cigarette. By night, he said, he would be far from Baghdad and its bombs, far from the sandstorms and oil fires, far from what comes next.When the initial assault proved less devastating than feared, businesses reopened — vegetable vendors, working-class restaurants, cafes and grocery stores. Among them were barber shops. Yaacoub Ahmed, with a full head of gray hair, plopped down Tuesday in the barber’s chair in Sadriya. The cost: about 15 cents. He paid a visit every month, and neither bombs nor storms would keep him from a haircut. ‘‘Where’s the bombing? Up until now, I don’t see it,’’ he said, with a touch of bravado. ‘‘All we do is hear it. I don’t see it.’’ But he acknowledged sending his wife and five children to what he considered the safety of Diwaniya, a city in southern Iraq. Over the clock hung a sign that read ‘‘God.’’ In Ahmed’s words was a surrender to God’s will. ‘‘The future is by God,’’ he said. ‘‘No one knows the future. We’re not fortune tellers.’’ Ali Jassim, the barber, nodded. ‘‘There’s fear,’’ he said. But like Ahmed, he said he was resigned to his fate, a fate that could be decided by either the US or his own government. ‘‘It’s not in our hands,’’ he said, speaking in a vague vernacular so common to speech in public. ‘‘You can’t surrender easily, we should fight,’’ Ahmed said. ‘‘Our religion says we should fight for our honour. We’re more afraid of God than we’re afraid of the Americans.’’ (LAT-WP)
