In Baghdad, a surge in homicides

The city's morgue has seen a 60 percent rise in gunshot killings over the past 10 days.

By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

BAGHDAD � Hamid Turki winced as the emergency-room doctor inspected a wound in his hip. Under the glare of neon lights, his face was pale.

Mr. Turki was the eighth gunshot victim Mohammed Nouri had seen by midnight Wednesday at the Al Kindi Hospital in central Baghdad. The doctor stepped back from his patient and sighed. "We don't have even 1 percent security now," he said.

Five weeks after US troops entered Iraq's capital, reconstruction has taken a backseat to security. "There are a number of problems, in particular the problem of law and order in Baghdad," L. Paul Bremer, the new chief civilian administrator for Iraq, said yesterday. He appeared to be introducing a get-tough policy, pledging the US would beef up infantry and military police forces.

Mr. Bremer's comments acknowledged a reality Faik Amin Bakr understands all too well. On Wednesday night, the director of the Baghdad morgue counted through his register of violent deaths. There have been 124 over the past 10 days, he says, almost all gunshot homicides. That marks a 60 percent rise over the previous 10-day period, despite claims by US officials here that the security situation is improving.

"We are aggressively targeting looters" as they turn their attention from public buildings to their fellow citizens, said Maj. Gen. Buford "Buff" Blount, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division that has occupied the capital. "We have refocused our soldiers."