Word: iraqi
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...apartment reveals streets and sidewalks carpeted in fresh snow, a tableau of tranquillity half a world away from the chaos of Iraq. But inside, the war is never far from his mind. The television set is turned at high volume to a talk show on Baghdadi TV, an Iraqi satellite channel. Only Arabic books line the bookshelves in the living room; Alaa and his roommate, Ali Hamad, an ophthalmologist from Baghdad, barely speak English, let alone the language of the country in which they have sought refuge. As he welcomes a visitor with the typical Iraqi drink of sugared mint...
This country of 9 million has long prided itself on being one of the world's most hospitable to foreigners fleeing war and hardship. After the 1991 Gulf War, Sweden took in thousands of Iraqi Shi'ites and Kurds. But nothing could have prepared Swedes for the numbers of Iraqis who are pouring in today. While most of the 2 million Iraqis who have left since the U.S. invasion in 2003 have remained in the Middle East, a growing number are trying to make their way out of the region, in search of refuge and the promise...
What happens to a country when its population grows by more than 10% in three years? In Syria, which has absorbed more than a million Iraqi refugees, you can see cosmetic transformations. Iraqi-accented Arabic is heard constantly in the cafés and streets of Damascus. Real estate prices have skyrocketed. Food prices are rising. There's even a neighborhood in the capital called Fallujah that's popular with Iraqis...
...Iraqi-refugee issue is also changing Syria in deeper ways, altering the country's image in the Middle East--and bolstering its leverage with the U.S. While the Bush Administration has accused it of supporting terrorism in Iraq, Israel and Lebanon, Syria has established itself as the lifeboat of the Arab world. Having taken in 180,000 temporary Lebanese refugees fleeing the war with Israel last summer, Syria is the only Arab country that has been equally welcoming to all of Iraq's religious sects, according to Syrian human-rights groups. Only Jordan--which has received 750,000 Iraqis...
Damascus may not have that card for long. Internally, the refugee issue poses long-term dilemmas for the Baathist regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. The presence of so many needy Iraqis has exposed the government's failure to make economic reforms. The Syrian government--dominated by a secular core of Alawite Muslims who rule a country that is 74% Sunni Muslim--may have to stop the influx as a measure of self-preservation. Assad is particularly concerned about extremists re-entering the country from Iraq, according to Syrian security analysts. "We used to call them the Afghan Arabs...