Iraqis Crackdown on Foreigners

[Rose Siding]

BAGHDAD -- In a bid to rid the country of foreign insurgents, the Iraqi government is using strict new residency rules to detain and expel non-Iraqi Arabs.
...
Far more are being detained -- as many as 200 a day in the Baghdad area alone -- although most are released within a few days. Though some are taken in for suspected terrorist activities, others are held with no evidence other than not having proper residency permits under the new rules. Such people can be deported without any evidence of having committed crimes. While the focus has been on Arabs, a few Chechens and Iranians also have been detained.
...
The crackdown has unnerved many longtime foreign Arab residents of Iraq because they enjoyed favored status under Saddam Hussein, in part because the former president was a strong proponent of pan-Arabism, which advocated mutual assistance among Arabs regardless of their countries of origin.

"It is unfair that even those of us who have been here for decades should be treated like this," said Mustafa Mohammed, 43, a Syrian car mechanic who has been in Iraq since 1984 and who lives and works in the crime-ridden Bataween neighborhood of Baghdad.

Most deeply alarmed are Palestinians, whose community in Iraq numbers more than 30,000, most of them in Baghdad. Many came here in 1948, when the British mandate in Palestine ended and the state of Israel was created.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-arabs23mar23,0,7603599.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Mistress Quickly]

1. The Palestinians

poor people have no where to go and no one wants them.

No wonder their so angry.

[bemildred]

2. More bonehead paranoid stupidity. nt

[democrat1129]

3. interesting

[daleo]

4. That's a hilarious headline

A country that is occupied by a foreign army is going to "crack down on foreigners".

[fushuugi]

5. well it looks like our job is done here....

they've learned everything they can from u.s.

[newyawker99]

6. fushuugi!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Az_lefty]

7. I thought they were throwing us out....

:shrug:

[Cocoa]

8. we're honorary Iraqis