Iraqis Head Back to Baghdad to Fight
A R R U W A Y S H I D, Jordan, March 31 -- At a dingy bus stop near the Iraqi border, streams of people have been loading their bags, saying their goodbyes and resolutely heading back to their hometown: Baghdad.
The crowd at the Ar Ruwayshid bus stop hasn't thinned since the war in Iraq began. If anything, it has grown, even though coalition strikes have continued to pound targets in and around the Iraqi capital. By the carload and by the truckload, 7,500 have already crossed back into Iraq, according to Jordanian border officials.
Today, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz claimed that more than 5,000 Arabs from across the region are already in Baghdad, answering the call to jihad, or holy war. There is no way to confirm that number.
"From outside, from inside, these people are heroes," Aziz said. "They are freedom fighters against invaders, against colonialists, against imperialists — they are freedom fighters and heroes and we are proud of them."
Also, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned today that terrorist organizations are uniting, and instead of one Osama bin Laden there will be hundreds.
Some 400,000 Iraqi citizens live and work in Jordan, having left Iraq years ago. So many of them are clamoring to leave, there's a waiting list at the Iraqi Embassy to obtain the necessary permits to cross the border.
Most people had expected the traffic to flow from Iraq to Jordan, as happened during the first few days of the Gulf War, when more than 1 million refugees poured into Jordan. But the Amman camp that served those refugees is now a ghost town.
Not one person lives there. The soup kitchen is empty and so are the tents.
Yet the buses going the other way are full. As of today, the Iraqi government is paying the full cost of the $17 bus tickets. A bus on the Iraqi side takes the Iraqis who work in Jordan the rest of the way home.
‘I Must Go’
They know it could be dangerous, but these Iraqis are desperate to get home — to help their families and their country.
