Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

Samad and Dina Jabbo dance at a banquet organized for the Iraqi community in El Cajon, Calif. Samad, 40, his wife Dina, 37, and their daughters Monica, 16, and Milano, 12, and son Antonio, 7 months, arrived in the United States in June 2010 after living in Damascus, Syria, for four years. They are Christians from Baghdad and have green cards. They felt their lives were in danger when they lived in Iraq.

Photojournalist Kadir van Lohuizen traveled from the southern tip of South America to the far reaches of Alaska on the North American continent to explore migration in the Americas. What he found both supported and defied stereotypes, which he reported on a website and an app for iPad called Via Panam.

“Little Baghdad” is the nickname for El Cajon, a suburb of San Diego that is home to a high concentration of the 116,000 Iraqis living in the United States. The Kurds came in the late 1980s, followed later by Sunnis, Shiites and Christians. They live together peacefully, far away from the violence in Iraq, but life is far from easy. Many lost their social status and networks of family and friends when they emigrated, and they often struggle to find work. Xenophobia is also an ever-present obstacle.

Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

Monica Jabbo opens her locker at school in El Cajon. She and her sister Milano love being in the U.S. but it's still a struggle for the family -- they have to finance day-to-day life and pay their rent, which is $1,200. Because Monica's father Samad is unemployed, the family has to rely heavily on government assistance -- $760 per month.

The United States admits thousands of Iraqis each year as refugees -- although that is only a fraction of the number that Iraq's Middle Eastern neighbors and some European countries have absorbed. Nonetheless, their numbers in the San Diego area rose rapidly after the American invasion of Iraq. El Cajon, around 15 miles northeast of San Diego, has almost 7,000 Iraqi-born residents out of a total population of 100,000. A further 3,000 have Iraqi ancestry, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.

Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

The Baghdad cafe in El Cajon, above, is a popular tea house frequented by many Iraqis in the community.

In recent years, Iraqi stores and restaurants have been cropping up across the city, the Arabic script signs above their doors quickly becoming part of the city's scene. But the growing Iraqi presence has also brought some unsavory characters: According to authorities, members of Iraqi criminal organizations from Detroit are now active in El Cajon. In late 2011, police raided an Iraqi club in search of drugs and weapons.

Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

Mohammed Mustafa, 68, in his store in El Cajon. Mustafa and his wife Nasrin, 58, have eight children, two of whom live at home. They are from Dohok in Iraqi Kurdistan. In August 1988 they fled to Diyarbakir in Turkish Kurdistan, and in September 1991 they arrived in New York. They made their way to El Cajon in June 1993. Mustafa feels he has made a mistake by coming to the U.S. and not returning to Kurdistan, where the economy nowadays is growing. The family recently opened this 'Community Fashion' store but business is very slow, he says.

Many Iraqis in El Cajon say xenophobia is common, and some fear being the victim of a hate crime. It is not an unfounded worry -- a 32-year-old Iraqi woman was murdered in El Cajon in what appeared to be a racially motivated attack in March. Next to her body police found a note threatening her family. "Go back to your own country, you're a terrorist," it read.

Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

Breakfast at home. Khattab Aljubori, 37, and his wife Suhad, 31, frequently speak to their family in Iraq through Skype. The computer is parked near the table so that they can have breakfast 'together'. The family, including children Ibrahim, 4, Awos, 3, and twins Mustafa and Fatima, 6 months, as well as Khattab's mother Nhanaa, 61, came to San Diego in November 2010 from Babylon, Iraq. Khattab worked for the U.S. in Iraq as a computer and info system administrator and was often threatened for being a U.S. agent. In the end it became so dangerous for him and his family that they sought asylum in the U.S. and were granted visas.

Iraqis in El Cajon make an effort to support their fellow immigrants. Each year the Iraqi community organizes a large celebration that brings everyone together. Local businessmen meet one another and newly arrived immigrants learn about life in America from their established countrymen.

Kadir van Lohuizen / NOOR

Khattab with his family in a park in San Diego. While they lived comfortably in Iraq, they find it much harder to be successful in the U.S. and they say they feel they've lost their dignity. Khattab likes the U.S. but his wife wants to go back to Iraq. She says she feels locked up and misses her family. Finances are also an issue -- Khattab earns some money repairing people's computers but they depend on government support and sometimes find it difficult to pay the rent.

Slideshow: Migration in the Americas

K. van Lohuizen / NOOR

From Colombians fleeing war to North Americans retirees moving to Nicaragua, a photographer's journey from Chile to Alaska explores both the expected and unexpected patterns of migration in the Americas

Launch slideshow

Experience the entire journey, from Chile to Alaska, by exploring the slideshow at right, the Via Panam website or by downloading the app for iPad.

More Photoblogs from the Migration in the Americas series:
Mom works in US while family stays in El Salvador
US retirees flock to Nicaragua
On the run from water in Panama
Bolivia hopes for windfall from producing lithium

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•Sign up for the NBCNews.com Photos Newsletter

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

An Iraq war veteran holds pairs of combat boots that are part of the "Eyes Wide Open" exhibit in front of San Francisco City Hall on Monday in San Francisco, California. The Eyes Wide Open exhibition includes a pair of boots for every one of the 481 California servicemen and women who died in the Iraq war.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

People embrace as they stand among rows of combat boots that are part of the "Eyes Wide Open" exhibit in front of San Francisco City Hall.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

A photograph is displayed on a pair of combat boots that are part of the "Eyes Wide Open" exhibit in front of San Francisco City Hall.

See more PhotoBlog posts related to the war in Iraq.

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After serving four years as a Marine including two deployments to Iraq, Brian Scott Ostrom, now 27, returned home to the U.S. in 2007 with a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder. “The most important part of my life already happened. The most devastating. The chance to come home in a box. Nothing is ever going to compare to what I’ve done, so I’m struggling to be at peace with that,” Scott said.

Craig F. Walker / The Denver Post

Brian Scott Ostrom cups his hand over his mouth as he tries to calm a panic attack at his apartment in Boulder, Colo., May 2011.

Ostrom attributes his PTSD to his second deployment to Iraq, where he served seven months in Fallujah with the 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion. “It was the most brutal time of my life,” he said. “I didn’t realize it because I was living it. It was a part of me.”

Craig F. Walker / The Denver Post

Ostrom counts the stitches in his wrist while having a drink at a bar in Boulder, April 2011. He attempted suicide earlier in the week after he and his girlfriend had an argument. He said many times he should have died overseas, and during the fight with his girlfriend, she agreed.

Craig F. Walker / The Denver Post

Ostrom reacts to his apartment application being turned down in Westminster, Colo., May 2011. The leasing manager said he was sorry but couldn't allow him to move in because of an assault charge on his background check.

Since his discharge, Ostrom has struggled with daily life, from finding and keeping employment to getting an apartment to maintaining healthy relationships. But most of all, he’s struggled to overcome his brutal and haunting memories of Iraq.

Craig F. Walker / The Denver Post

A picture showing Ostrom holding his little brother after graduating boot camp at Paris Island, S.C., in June 2003 hangs on the refrigerator at Scott's new apartment in Broomfield, Colo., May 2011.

Craig F. Walker / The Denver Post

Ostram shakes hands and talks with fellow veteran Mike Butler at a restaurant in Broomfield on Veterans Day. Veterans drank for free, and Scott was happy to find someone to talk with.

Nearly five years later, Ostrom remains conflicted by the war. Though he is proud of his service and cares greatly for his fellow Marines, he still carries guilt for things he did — and didn’t do — fighting a war he no longer believes in.

Editor's note: Msnbc.com took note of this exceptional photo story done by Denver Post Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Craig F. Walker because of its intimate, in-depth look at living with PTSD.  You can see many more of Walker's images, view video and read more about Scott Ostrom's story at the Denver Post website.

Related Content:

• When the war comes home - From combat in Afghanistan to their return home to Ft. Drum in upstate New York, photojournalist Erin Trieb profiles one group of soldier’s battle with PTSD.
•  Ian Fisher: American Soldier - From high school to boot camp, photojournalist Craig F. Walker earned a Pulitzer Prize for his in-depth look at one Colorado teen's decision to enter the military.

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Editor's note: Photojournalist Kael Alford spent 10 months covering the invasion of Iraq and its immediate aftermath in 2003-2004. She returned this summer to see what has and hasn’t changed as the U.S. prepared to withdraw its troops. 

By Kael Alford

For many Sunnis in Iraq, including a man I’ll call “the Sheik” to protect his identity, the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq is no cause for celebration. Rather it is fueling apprehension about basic security and the minority sect’s economic future.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

The Sheik has breakfast while his eldest son and heir Zaindon, 9, sleeps on the couch in their temporary Baghdad apartment. One day Zaindon will take responsibility for mediating conflicts and providing community leadership back in Anbar province.

I met the Sheik in 2003 not long after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when I broke curfew and slipped past the scary Iraqi security forces at the Palestine hotel and, with a driver assigned to me by the Foreign Ministry, ventured out for a glimpse at village life outside Baghdad. A writer I was working with had previously met the Sheik, who invited me to join them. Outside his village, near Ramadi in Anbar province, we encountered another ring of security – this time a checkpoint manned by Baath party regulars in their drab green uniforms. But here, even Saddam Hussein’s power had limits, outranked by an older code of tribal affiliations and family networks, and they let us through.

In my early visits to the village I got glimpses of an idyllic life that residents enjoyed, so far not marred by the invasion -- feasts of fresh foods, wading in the Euphrates River with the Sheik’s family – but that soon changed.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

A photo of Zaindon in the clothing worn traditionally by a Shiek or tribal elder is shown on a cell phone. One day Zaidun will be a community leader following in his father's footsteps.

Village elders had initially given U.S. troops safe passage through their area. That attitude changed within months as civilian deaths and raids on local homes by U.S. troops fueled resentment. By the end of 2003, neutrality had changed to open hostility, and roadside bombs and ambushes on the main road through Anbar earned it the name the “Highway of Death” because it was the scene of so many attacks against U.S. troops.

I visited the area repeatedly to report on the uprising and checked in regularly with the Sheik. While his neighbors and members of his tribe were debating – and in some cases battling -- the U.S. occupation, he was focused elsewhere. The Sheik is a practical man and had many mouths to feed, so he decided to work with the Americans, figuring his construction business could benefit from some of the projects they were planning – building schools and roads or repairing basic infrastructure.

The Sheik made trips to the “Green Zone” to seek reconstruction jobs, but didn’t have any success. He said the contracts were going to American companies, stoking further frustration in Anbar.  When I left Iraq at the end of 2004, the Sheik was still without work.

When I returned in June, I found the Sheik and his family in a rented Baghdad apartment, very comfortable by Iraqi standards but nothing like the vaulted ceilings and marble floors of the family home in Anbar, with its vast garden and palm trees.

Within a half hour of my arrival, the food started coming – roasted chicken, salads, bread -- only this time it arrived in plastic bags from a nearby restaurant rather than on platters from the kitchen, because the army of women in the family who used to prepare the meals were back in the village.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

Zaindon, 9, climbs through a window between the laundry room and his bedroom in the family's temporary Baghdad apartment while his younger sisters and a cousin watch. The children typically play indoors for safety reasons while their father has business in the busy capital. At home in Anbar, they had plenty of room to play safely outdoors.

The Sheik told me had finally landed some reconstruction contracts related to a water treatment plant outside of Ramadi, but he moved his family to Baghdad because most of his business was in the capital and it wasn’t safe for them in Anbar.

But he said he was concerned that his business contracts would be terminated after the American withdrawal, when the fractured and corrupt Iraqi government will take complete control of infrastructure projects and contract procurement.

“I was given a chance to apply for an American visa, but I can’t leave Iraq” he said. “Too many people depend on me here.”

Among them is the Sheik’s heir, 9-year-old Zaindon. It will be his responsibility to carry on the family name and traditions – not just a patriarchal euphemism in this culture. One day Zaindon will be a community leader responsible for helping to settle disputes in the village. The Sheik would like his son to learn English so he can study abroad.

“My dream is to open a university in Iraq,” he said, explaining that providing better educational opportunities for young engineers is critical so that the next generation of talented people can stay and help the country to rebuild.

But he was concerned with the deterioration of the security situation in his village and elsewhere in Anbar.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

The Shiek's wife cuts melon while her two oldest daughters Yehmameh, 7 left, and Tiba, 9, watch.

When what was initially a mostly home-grown Iraqi insurgency became dominated by groups affiliated with militant Islam, many of them made up of foreigners, local leaders in Anbar eventually took security into their own hands. With the backing of U.S. forces, they formed “Awakening” councils – essentially Sunni militias capable of taking on the al-Qaida-inspired groups that had grown powerful in Western Iraq.

The Sheik said most of the radicals arrested early on were released without prosecution, because there was rarely enough evidence for trials and people were too frightened to testify. That's led to a resurgence of the radicals and put pressure on the Awakening councils from two sides – from the radical groups and also from the central government, which is increasing arrests of Sunnis in the region under expanded de-Baathification purges.

“Al-Qaida is distributing fliers again,” said the Sheik, “and although there is no way for them to reorganize like before, they are still active, only using quieter techniques, like sticky bombs that target specific vehicles and silencers on their weapons.” 

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

The Shiek walks the grounds surrounding his estate along the banks of the Euphrates River in Anbar Province, May 2003.

At the time of my visit, the situation was growing worse. We cancelled a trip to see the water treatment plant his company was working on when we got news that at least seven policemen had been killed in a drive-by shooting at a checkpoint west of Ramadi. Three were relatives from the Shiek’s village and he was occupied paying his respects to the families.

And that incident was hardly isolated. A cursory Internet search for attacks targeting Iraqi police in Anbar province leads to websites of radical Islamist groups like Ansar Al-Mujahadeen, which posts videos, photos and detailed descriptions of operations carried out against Iraqi security forces in English.

In light of the increasing insecurity and purges of Sunnis from government posts, Sunni dominated provinces are reconsidering their relationship to Iraq’s central government. The Awakening councils that reined in al-Qaida in western Iraq that were once on the American payroll are now paid by the central government, but members have been complaining of irregularities and bad treatment under the Shiite-dominated government. They have no official position in Iraq’s formal security structures and weak political representation, leaving them in limbo and even vulnerable to recruitment by Al-Qaida. Governing councils in the Sunni provinces of Salahuddin, where Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit is located, and Diyala have voted for increased autonomy from the central government, sparking demonstrations by Shiites in the latter province and feeding concerns that the tenuous Iraqi state could splinter along political and sectarian lines.

But perhaps the most unsettling development in Anbar province is the resurrection and persistence of local radical Islamist groups that now target Iraqi security forces and Iraqi civilians as readily as they did American forces while they were in the country. These groups were unheard of in Iraq before the war.

Like many Iraqis in western Iraq, the Sheik is convinced that Iran is supporting the radical Islamist groups in Anbar, citing the weapons they use and their choice of targets, including local Sunni shrines.

As the Sheik sees it, that may be a long-term impact of the U.S.-led war and subsequent withdrawal that Washington never anticipated.

“The Iraqi advisers misinformed the Americans when they first came” bringing Iraq closer to the interests of Iran and empowering Al-Qaida, he said. Now, “It’s only the politicians with loyalty to Iran who don’t want the Americans to stay.”

More from the series:

Introduction: As U.S. withdraws, the people speak
Corruption in high places costs widow everything
Patchwork electrical grid a symbol of country's disconnects
A new day for culture and consumer goods
For women, freedoms under fire
Suspicious minds in a squatters' camp
Colonel helped with the ‘Surge,’ then his past came calling

Follow @msnbc_pictures

Mario Tama / Pool via EPA

Soldiers from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division rejoice in the convoy staging area before departing Camp Adder, now known as Imam Ali Base, Dec. 17, near Nasiriyah, Iraq.

From NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services:

Mario Tama / Getty Images

The final section of the last American military convoy to depart Iraq from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division crosses over the border into Kuwait on Dec. 18, in Khabari Al Awazeem, Kuwait. Around 500 troops from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division ended their presence on Camp Adder, and departed in the final American military convoy out of Iraq.

NBC News' Richard Engel tweeted from the border: "The gate to #iraq is closed. Soldier just told me, 'that's it, the war is over.'"

The final column of around 100 mostly U.S. military MRAP armored vehicles carrying 500 U.S. troops trundled through the night along an empty highway, across the southern Iraq desert to the Kuwaiti border.

The Iraq war began on March 20, 2003, at a time when national defense was a top priority for Americans still shocked by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. It continued with the invasion and ouster of Saddam Hussein, then ground through years of war against an insurgency that left tens of thousands dead.

Lucas Jackson / Reuters

U.S. Army soldiers perform a casing of the colors ceremony signifying the departure of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division as they depart in the last convoy from Camp Adder near Nasiriyah, Iraq on Dec. 17.

Among those dead were nearly 4,500 Americans, and the war cost $800 billion from the U.S. Treasury. The question of whether it was worth it all is yet unanswered.

"It's good to see this thing coming to a close. I was here when it started," Staff Sgt. Christian Schultz said just before leaving Contingency Operating Base Adder, 185 miles south of Baghdad, for the border. "I saw a lot of good changes, a lot of progress, and a lot of bad things too."

"A good chunk of me is happy to leave. I spent 31 months in this country," said Sgt. Steven Schirmer, 25, after three tours of Iraq since 2007. "It almost seems I can have a life now, though I know I am probably going to Afghanistan in 2013. Once these wars end I wonder what I will end up doing."

Read the full story here.

• Related PhotoBlog posts

Pool via Reuters

Soldiers from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division hug while preparing to depart in the last convoy from Iraq at Camp Adder, now known as Imam Ali Base, near Nasiriyah, Iraq, Dec. 17. The last convoy of U.S. soldiers pulled out of Iraq on Sunday, ending their withdrawal after nearly nine years of war and military intervention that cost almost 4,500 American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives.

Maya Alleruzzo / AP

U.S. Army soldiers from 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, based at Fort Hood, Texas, inspect their body armor at Camp Adder during final preparations for the last American convoy to leave Iraq.

Mario Tama / Getty Images

Soldiers from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division secure equipment to a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle while preparing to depart in the last convoy from Iraq at Camp Adder, Dec. 17.

Lucas Jackson / Reuters

Soldiers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division play football while waiting at a staging area in Camp Adder to be part of the last U.S. military convoy to leave the country near Nasiriyah, Iraq on Dec. 17.

Mario Tama / Getty Images

Specialist Matthew Hildebrandt from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division smokes while preparing to depart from Iraq at Camp Adder, Dec. 17.

Lucas Jackson / Reuters

Soldiers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division celebrate through the roof hatches of their Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles as they drive out on the U.S. military's last combat patrol in the country, at Camp Adder near Nasiriyah, Dec. 16.

Mario Tama / Getty Images

A soldier from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division cleans a housing unit to be turned over to the Iraqis while preparing to depart from Iraq at Camp Adder, now known as Imam Ali Base, Dec. 17.

Mario Tama / Getty Images

A soldier from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, walks through the nearly deserted Camp Adder, now known as Imam Ali Base, on Dec. 16.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

U.S. Army soldiers from the 2-82 Field Artillery, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, carry their bags to customs as they prepare to fly home to Fort Hood, Texas after being one of the last American combat units to exit from Iraq on December 15, 2011 at Camp Virginia, near Kuwait City, Kuwait. Today the U.S. military formally ended its mission in Iraq after eight years of war and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

U.S. Army soldiers from the 2-82 Field Artillery, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, salute during the playing of retreat during the daily flag lowering ceremony as they prepare to fly home to Fort Hood, Texas after being one of the last American combat units to exit from Iraq on Dec.15 at Camp Virginia, near Kuwait City, Kuwait. Today the U.S. military formally ended its mission in Iraq after eight years of war and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

After being stationed at one of the few remaining U.S. bases in Iraq at Camp Adder, these soldiers today prepared to board their flight home to the United States from Kuwait. Most of them had been in Iraq for the past 7 to 10 months. Getty photographer Joe Raedle spent the past few weeks embedded with the troops. One of their first stops after leaving Iraq was McDonald's, after several weeks eating only MRE's (Meal, Ready to Eat).

The U.S. military's pullout of Iraq was formally recognized today with a flag ceremony in Baghdad. While 4,000 troops remain in the country, they will be completely out by the end of the year.

Read the full story: 'A new chapter': US officially ends Iraq war.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

U.S. Army soldiers from the 2-82 Field Artillery, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, carry their bags to waiting trucks as they prepare to board buses later in the evening to fly home to Fort Hood, Texas after being one of the last American combat units to exit from Iraq on December 15, 2011 at Camp Virginia, near Kuwait City, Kuwait. Today the U.S. military formally ended its mission in Iraq after eight years of war and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

A U.S. Army soldier from the 2-82 Field Artillery, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, packs his helmet into his travel bag for the last time before the flight home from Kuwait after their unit exited from Iraq on Dec. 15 at Camp Virginia, near Kuwait City, Kuwait.

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

U.S. Army soldiers from the 2-82 Field Artillery, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, place their bags on a truck as they prepare to board buses later in the evening to fly home to Fort Hood, Texas after being one of the last American combat units to exit from Iraq on Dec. 15 at Camp Virginia, near Kuwait City, Kuwait. Today the U.S. military formally ended its mission in Iraq after eight years of war and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Editor's note: Photojournalist Kael Alford spent 10 months covering the invasion of Iraq and its immediate aftermath in 2003-2004. She returned this summer to see what has and hasn’t changed as the U.S. prepared to withdraw its troops. 

By Kael Alford

When I start feeling really dark about all the troubles around me in Baghdad, I’ll take a detour from my designated route and stroll through the market in Karrada with my translator Sarah. Karrada is one of the busiest and safest districts, a place where a foreign face can get lost in the crowd. Sometimes we’ll wander into the pool halls or family style clubs on Abu Nuwas Street, mostly tranquil islands in a sea of uncertainty.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

A loosely organized bike club takes over Abu Nuwas street, along the Tigris riverfront in the Karrada neighborhood of Baghdad, June 2011. Members compare rides, display tricks and dart in and out of traffic on dirt bikes, mopeds and motorcycles. The club which is entirely comprised of boys is one of a handful of clubs that gather around the city in various locations along the river.

In such places, I’m guaranteed to bump into one of Iraq’s beautiful juxtapositions and my spirits will be lifted. It may be a hand painted mural on a blast wall, or a shop with trendy women’s fashion called “Hannah Montana” next to a store selling traditional men’s dishdashas. On my most recent trip, I saw evidence that Iraq is more open than ever before to cultural and economic influences outside its own borders.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

Early morning at the booksellers market near Mutanaba Street in Baghdad, July 2011, a historic district seen as the heart of the intellectual community in the capital. The area is named after the 10th century Iraqi poet Al-Mutanabbi and has been the target of terrorist attacks.

Young Iraqis in particular, like young people the world over, are often attracted to the habits of the affluent western countries. So nearly nine years of contact with Americans have left its stamp on Iraqi street style as well.

This results in some surprising scenes:  a young man at the book market on Mutanaba Street wears a purple T-Shirt that reads in snarky, oversized English type “How lucky am I to work here? (I keep forgetting).” I ask him if he knows what his shirt says. He says no and when Sarah translates and I try to explain why it’s funny. He looks puzzled. It seems sarcasm doesn’t translate easily.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

Sako, a Iraqi private security contractor turned tattoo studio owner, shows off his shop's work. "People say I'm acting like a foreigner," he said. But tattoo shops like Sako's are growing in popularity among young people. Sako says they make up to 10 tattoos a day and even do work on women. The shop's tattoo art is influenced by designs found on the internet, particularly work from Mexico - what their tattoo artist, a.k.a. "Dante", calls Mexican "prison inventions". The shop blares American tunes and sports Marilyn Manson and Ozzy Osborne posters on the walls.

In Saddam Hussein’s Iraq before 2003, information -- from school textbooks to media -- was strictly controlled by the state, with little available beyond official sources. Influence from western cultures came in small doses and reached only the wealthiest and most educated classes. Few Iraqis met Europeans or Americans, or traveled abroad. This is still the case, but some things have changed.

Gone are the days when families listened to radio transmissions of Voice of America or BBC World News for word from the West. Now Iraqis have much wider access to information, advertising and culture through the Internet and cell phones. Iraq’s markets are flooded with goods; foreign shipments of electronics and other goods arrive daily, mostly from China, South Korea and Iran.

The new access to outside influences and information would be difficult to undo. The influx of culture is not only coming from the west of course. Long black “juba” overcoats popular among more conservative Shia women in Iraq are arriving studded with sequins and other bling from Dubai. Iranian tourists arrive in droves to visit holy Shia shrines in Iraq and international flights to Iran outnumber the new direct flights to Europe and the UAE. Now that the borders are more open, Iraqis can choose where they find their influence and inspiration. Future generations of Iraqis will decide what to pick and choose from global culture themselves.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

A popular Kebab restaurant in the affluent district of Karrada is busy on a Wednesday night in June. The neighborhood is currently one of Baghdad's safest - although it still sees its share of violence. It is one of the few that remains somewhat mixed including Sunni, Shia and Christian residents although it is majority Shia. As a result housing prices have climbed further out of the reach of many Iraqis and the commercial districts is bustling.

More from the series:

Introduction: As U.S. withdraws, the people speak
For 'the Sheik,' U.S. pullout is cause for alarm
Patchwork electrical grid a symbol of country's disconnects
A new day for culture and consumer goods
For women, freedoms under fire
Suspicious minds in a squatters' camp
Colonel helped with the ‘Surge,’ then his past came calling

Editor's note: Photojournalist Kael Alford spent 10 months covering the invasion of Iraq and its immediate aftermath in 2003-2004. She returned this summer to see what has and hasn’t changed as the U.S. prepared to withdraw its troops. 

By Kael Alford

When I first met Yanar Mohammed in 2003, she was holding a megaphone and leading a women’s rally in Baghdad’s Firdos Square, standing in the shadow of a pedestal where a statue of Saddam Hussein had stood until U.S. tanks dragged it to the ground a few weeks earlier.  With a head of uncovered dark curls and a raised fist, she led chants demanding improved security and equal civil rights for women.

Eight years later, Mohammed is perhaps the most widely quoted activist on women’s rights in Iraq. A resident of both Iraq and Canada, she travels internationally, speaks at universities and conferences and has received prestigious awards for her service. And yet her message remains little known outside Iraq.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

Yanar Mohammed rallies protestors in Tahrir Square in Baghdad, July 2011, calling for governmental reforms. She has been an activist since 2003 after the U.S. led invasion.

One of her main talking points is this: Iraq is a more dangerous place for women than it was before the U.S. invasion and it is getting worse. Reports by international human rights groups support her observations. According to the 2011 Iraq summary report by Human Rights Watch: “The deterioration of security has promoted a rise in tribal customs and religiously-inflected political extremism, which have had a deleterious effect on women's rights, both inside and outside the home.”

Today, in a country where women have served in Parliament since the 1960s – longer than in any other Middle Eastern country – they are increasingly targeted by militant Islamic elements for participating in government, holding jobs or violating conservative Islamic traditions, such as appearing in public without head coverings. Even secular women now wear scarves in hopes of avoiding dangerous attention.

Iraq also has seen a rise in the tribal tradition of honor killings, where women who have a love affair outside of accepted cultural or religious boundaries are slain by members of their own family. Often these women, fleeing for their lives, seek out the Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), which Mohammed founded in the wake of the U.S. invasion.
 
When I tracked down Yanar this summer, she said the situation remains dire. She is the chief editor of the newspaper “Al Mousawat,” or ”Equality,” that devotes a full page to reporting violent crimes against women, along with phone numbers for OWFI offering safety in underground shelters for women looking for an escape from violence. She also helps operate a radio station that uses  female university students as deejays. 

Mohammed is still leading protests over the lot of women in Iraq, but is now surrounded by a new group of mainly young women.

When I visited the OWFI compound, not far from Firdos Square, on a Friday in July, about two dozen people -- mostly women but a few young men -- were buzzing about preparing signs, making jokes and chatting about strategy for the morning’s protest.

There was nervous energy in the air before the group ventured out to Iraq’s version of the “Arab Spring,” a weekly demonstration in Baghdad’s own Tahrir (“Freedom”) Square. Two weeks earlier state security officers who had been lurking on the fringes of the protests had moved in to teach the women a lesson.

“We heard them among themselves saying, ‘These are the whores, let’s go and get them,’” recalled Mohammed. “…We were beaten, our bodies were groped, we were humiliated … sexually harassed, and their message was to tell us that we are females who do not have the right to come in the arena of political struggle. We should feel ashamed and go back to our homes.”

Mohammed’s young protégés fled the square for various safe houses around the city, many of them bloody, bruised and shaken. Human Rights Watch interviewed the women afterwards and issued a report about the incident.

Despite the obvious risks, the protesters were ready to return to the streets.

“They tried to make us escape in humiliation, but the women are quiet fierce,” Mohammed said. “They gave them a good fight and today they’re back again.”

One of the younger women was 20-year-old Aya al Lamie, a thin, energetic woman in a long sleeved black T-shirt, jeans and oversized faux-diamond studded sunglasses. Head thrown back and long, dark, uncovered hair streaming down her back, she seemed to float on nervous energy as she led the women gathered in the antechamber of Mohammed’s office in anti-government chants. Mohammed stood back beneath large glossy color photographs of earlier protests, looking like a proud mother.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

Women's-rights activist Aya Al Lami leads chants from the front of a bus headed to Tahrir square for a weekly Friday demonstration against Iraqi government policies, July 2011. The protestors, mostly women, were sexually harassed and groped by plain clothes security forces the previous week. Undaunted, most of the women are returning for another protest.

After a few minutes of singing and anxious strategizing, the 30 or so protestors piled out of the offices behind Lami and boarded the bus that would take them to the square. I climbed aboard too.

As we approached the square, the protestors grew quiet and began peering out the windows to assess the situation. The protest seemed smaller this week. Perhaps the rash of criticism from international observers would keep the security personnel at bay.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

Protestors arrive in Tahrir Square in Baghdad on a minibus, July 2011. Protests in Iraq have been dealt with harshly by the Maliki government since February but protests have continued every Friday, with varying turnout.

The protestors entered the square, passing several Iraqi soldiers in uniform who checked their bags for weapons. The square was alive with several hundred people of all ages and types. An older women in a long black abaya posed solemnly for photographs, pictures of her missing relatives in hand.  Boisterous young men in western clothes would who fit seamlessly into the protests in Egypt, Tunisia or Libya, climbed onto a wall overlooking the square. People chanted and shouted, protesting corruption, judicial impunity, state torture and limitations on free speech.
Aside from a Human Rights Watch observer, I appeared to be the only American in the crowd.

Mohammed and her followers pulled out the megaphone and began stirring things up.  I was struck by how little has changed. Eight years ago, I made a photograph of her just like this, standing next to a red and white banner, megaphone in hand, fist in the air. It was like a flashback to an OWFI organization in 2003.

I recalled Janar’s words during our interview earlier that morning. “(After the invasion) we had a lot of worries,” she said. “There were abductions of women and we were protesting against them. … Now we have a dictatorship again and this dictatorship is exercising to take us back to Saddam’s times.”

Lamie, her young protégé, the took the megaphone,  a wide smile on her face and pumping her hand rhythmically in the air. 

I didn’t want any run-in with state security, and Sami, my driver, had been circling the square in his battered Mercedes, begging me to get in.  It was my last day in Iraq and I had more appointments, so I left the women mid-protest, hoping all would go smoothly.  I later learned that their bus was stopped as they left -- not in the square where the lone Human Rights observer was watching,  but on a side street a few blocks away. The bus driver was questioned and some of the men were taken to an abandoned building for interrogation. One of the women on the bus called the Human Rights Watch observer, who soon arrived on the scene to ask why the women are being detained. Shortly after that, the bus and protesters were allowed to leave.

But that was not the end of it. In November, four months after my trip and one month before President Barack Obama’s promise to complete the withdrawal of U.S. troops before the Christmas holidays, I found this story about Lamie, Yanar's young protege, on the OWFI website:

20 Year old OWFI activist Aya Al Lamie Kidnapped from Tahrir Square and tortured
Although the numbers of demonstrators became much less in the Iraqi Tahrir square, Aya Al Lamie insisted to join [sic] the demonstrators every Friday of the last months. She insisted to put a woman's face on the Tahrir demonstrations and cooperated with all the organized groups in the square.

On Friday 30-9-2011 afternoon, towards the end of the demonstration, a group of security men dressed in civilian clothing surrounded her, carried and threw her into the trunk of a car which they parked next to the square, in what looked like sectarian mob kidnappings, under the eyes of the police and the army - which had become common practice in the last months in Tahrir.
20 year old Aya was taken to a security facility in Jadiriyah-Baghdad where she was beaten by a mob of torturers using sticks and whipping her back and arms by cables.

She was released at 5:00 pm after being told:" This was a first warning!"

A pattern is emerging in Iraq related to the treatment of demonstrators, journalists and social critics. This September, Hadi Al-Mahdi, a journalist well-known for his public criticism of the government on a popular radio show, was shot in the head in his apartment. Al-Mahdi had been helping to organize a large protest on the first Friday after Ramadan. He’d been abducted from a demonstration earlier this year, beaten and threatened with torture. It makes me fear for Aya and Yanar's bnd of brave, outspoken women.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

Anti-American banners decorate Tahrir square in Baghdad during anti-government protests, July 2011. The abuses of the Iraqi government are often considered partly as a consequence of American intervention in Iraq.

More from the series:

Introduction: As U.S. withdraws last troops, the people speak
Suspicious minds in a squatters' camp
Colonel helped with the ‘Surge,’ then his past came calling
Patchwork electrical grid a symbol of country's disconnects
A new day for culture and consumer goods

Photojournalist Kael Alford spent 10 months covering the invasion of Iraq and its immediate aftermath in 2003-2004. She returned this summer to see what has and hasn’t changed as the U.S. prepared to withdraw its troops.

By Kael Alford

If there is one issue that symbolizes the difficulties and political turmoil that have beset Iraq over the last decade, it is the country’s electrical system.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

A generator in Sadr City, Baghdad, July 2011.

While the nation of 29 million people is rich in oil, which generates revenue of nearly $2 billion a week, the government has not been able to translate that river of cash into a steady flow of electrical current from its power plants to homes and businesses. According to the Iraqi government’s figures, the grid currently meets 50 percent of demand or less, depending on the region. 

USAID and other international organizations have invested billions of dollars to try to improve the battered system, and progress has been made. But as an October 2009 USAID report noted, such efforts are hampered by the continuing “looting of cables, destruction of high-tension towers and sabotage of fuel lines. … Decades of operation without regular maintenance have resulted in increased breakdown and a need for significant rehabilitation.”

The dire state of the official grid has given rise to a perilous patchwork by the private sector to keep the lights and other appliances on.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

Cables reach to a generator on the outskirts of Baghdad, July 2011.

On a typically sweaty July afternoon in Baghdad, as temperatures hovered around 113 degrees, I met a 40-year-old freelance electrician named Majid, who was making the rounds at private residences in the Karrada district.  He was installing a second-hand air conditioner for a woman whose “swamp cooler,”  which functions by blowing air across a reservoir of water, wasn’t working because the city water had been cut for two days.  Majid had been an electrician in Saddam’s elite Republican Guard, and was wearing U.S. military issue boots with thick rubber soles to guard against getting electrocuted while he worked. His only other protection was a pair of pliers with plastic handles. Regardless of these precautions, he said he’s been shocked many times. He said these days Iraqis were all doing their own maintenance work on the city wiring in their neighborhoods and he was one of the best-employed men around.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

Majid, a 40-year-old freelance electrician, works on the makeshift neighborhood wiring while a young local resident holds his ladder this summer.

He waxed nostalgic about the electricity supply under Saddam, which was already inadequate. “Then there were only 2 hours in the day and 2 hours at night without power, and we were complaining! We even had one day when there was electricity all day.”  With a half-joking expression he says that people used to complain about Saddam Hussein, “but these days we say, ‘God be Merciful. Let those days come back again!’”

He works from 9 in the morning until 9 or 10 at night and doesn’t ask anyone for a fixed price. He says he’ll accept whatever his neighbors can pay.  “The whole neighborhood depends on me and I’m getting tired,” he said.

In addition to freelance electricians, each neighborhood in Iraq hosts a private generator to augment the official electrical supply. Cables erupt from crude concrete or aluminum buildings containing the thrumming generators and converge and tangle in chaotic knots before finally plunging into homes and businesses. It’s the same in big cities, small towns and even some squatters' camps, all over the country.

The uninsulated cables often stretch and sag, particularly in the summer, triggering fires when they touch one another.

Experts say it’s no secret what the problems are: The Iraqi electrical grid is unstable, hampered by war-torn infrastructure that forces implementation of blackouts to prevent it from crashing entirely; demand that has steadily increased since the 2003 U.S. invasion; and incompetence and massive corruption at the highest levels of the government.

Kael Alford / Panos Pictures

Electric cables to private generators hang above a street in the Karrada neighborhood of Baghdad, July 2011.

In August, Iraqis learned that Minister of Electricity Ra’as Shalal al-Ani had tendered $1.7 billion in contracts to a shell Canadian company and a German company that had gone bankrupt, prompting Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to request his resignation and leading to a corruption investigation.

And that may be only the beginning. An International Crisis Group report released in September said that in 2011 the Integrity Commission and the Board of Supreme Audit, two oversight bodies in Iraq, identified hundreds of such shell companies abroad linked to senior government officials in the Defense Ministry and Maliki’s office.

More from the series:

Introduction: As U.S. withdraws, the people speak
For 'the Sheik,' U.S. pullout is cause for alarm
Patchwork electrical grid a symbol of country's disconnects
A new day for culture and consumer goods
For women, freedoms under fire
Suspicious minds in a squatters' camp
Colonel helped with the ‘Surge,’ then his past came calling

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Koppel: Is the U.S. really leaving Iraq?
Engel: A look a the US bases, Iraqi troops and other legacies of the US presence