Library Science in Iraq

From the diary of Saad Eskander, Director of the Iraq National Library and Archive:

On Wednesday, I received more bad news. A terrorist group attacked the house of one of my staff. As a result, he and one of his sons (a university student) were injured, while the other son (a doctor) was murdered.

On the same day, I met Ali's brothers and talked about his pension, and how the LNA could support his wife and two sons. The brothers gave some of information about the assassination of their brother. They said that Ali was in his car, when another blocked his way, after he had taken his younger sister to her university. The assassins were 4 men, who ordered Ali to get out of his car. After leaving his car, Ali discovered the 4 men were armed with guns and that they intended on killing him. Ali was a brave person, and had well-built body. He attacked the 4 assassins, succeeding in bringing down two of them. Unfortunately, one the assassins shot hem in the leg. After Ali fell on the ground, the assassins fired at his head, chest and stomach. Ali left on the pavement bleeding until he died. The street, the scene of the crime, was very busy that morning. But no one dare to intervene. It is highly likely that the assassins are members of one the militias that penetrated the security forces.

Our main concern now is the snipers. There are two areas, which the snipers use to kill innocent people at random. The first area is the infamous Haifa Street, the strong hold of the Ba'athists and al-Qadda. The Haifa Street is located on the other side of the Tigris (1 km away from our building). The second area is al-Fadhal, which is only 1/2 km. away from our building. A number of innocent people, including women, were gunned down by the snipers. The Republican Street, which separates our building from al-Fadhal, is no go area.

(h/t to Juan Cole)