Anbar University now known as one of Iraq's most dangerous places

[Robbien]

BY MOHAMMED AL DULAIMY AND HANNAH ALLAM

Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - (KRT) - Eighteen students were missing from Wissam Samarraie's engineering class one recent day. Furious that college seniors would skip lessons right before finals, the professor demanded to know where they were. "Sir," one student volunteered in a soft voice, "fifteen have been detained and the other three were killed."

Samarraie was devastated, but not surprised. He teaches at Anbar University, where heading to class means passing through a gauntlet of checkpoints, dodging bullets flying between Iraqi insurgents and American troops, ignoring masked insurgents who roam the halls and sometimes arriving to find class canceled because the professor was hauled away by U.S. forces for interrogation.

"Students leave their families in the morning as if they're going to a battlefield," Samarraie said by phone.

. . .

Fighting shut down the campus for most of last year and delayed this term's final exams. The area is so dangerous that reporters do not travel there. Students and faculty quoted in this story were interviewed by phone from Baghdad. The information was confirmed with officials from the Ministry of Higher Education in Baghdad.

About 800 students have dropped out this year; 10 percent of the 8,000 enrolled at the co-ed campus, Iraqi education officials said. The university president was kidnapped by insurgents and released - with broken ribs, smashed legs and a cracked skull - for a large ransom. The College of Agriculture is occupied by U.S. troops, who have raided campus four times in the past two weeks. One of the dormitories was blown up; two others sit empty after U.S. searches and insurgent gun battles drove students to camp out in a nearby mosque.

much much more . . .
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/world/11774790.htm

[annabanana]

1. freedom on the march...n/t