An Iraqi Army Humvee races down the street with sirens wailing, past the abandoned ice cream parlor, the bombed-out coffee shop and the white corner building whose facade has been hit by so much shrapnel it looks like it ran through a shredder.
Down the block, a pair of Iraqi policemen wield a heavy-caliber gun in the back of a pickup truck, eyeballing pedestrians. Nearby, U.S. soldiers peer out from rooftop positions, waiting for the next suicide attack, roadside explosion or car bombing.
The U.S. soldiers call this street Route Vanessa. Residents know it simply as Government Street.
By whatever name, the three-quarter-mile stretch through the heart of this city has been arguably the most dangerous place in Iraq. One senior Iraqi police commander said the street has had seven car bombings and suicide attacks in just the past 16 months. Scores have been killed or wounded.
Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province, remains a stronghold of the Iraqi insurgency. And Al Qaeda in Iraq and other militant groups have targeted this street because it’s home to the city’s main government complex — dubbed “the Alamo” by one U.S. military officer — and because they couldn’t conquer it even when the insurgency was at its peak.
The street’s merchants and residents have paid the price.
“Of course I’m scared,” said Mustafa Muthenna, 23, dressed in a 1970s-style coat and tie as he stood behind the counter of his family’s photography studio on Route Vanessa, across the street from the Governance Center. “Most of the time, I stay inside.”Located down a small fight of stairs, Muthenna’s cramped studio has no special security measures. Police and soldiers are his best customers, but they also make his store a potential magnet for insurgent bombers.
“I have to love [security forces] being here because my living depends on them,” said Muthenna, who nearly died in June after shrapnel from an insurgent bombing tore open his throat. His grandfather, two uncles and a cousin were killed in a Route Vanessa bombing two years ago.
Once the city’s liveliest street, with outdoor cafes and upscale shopping, the street has been transformed into a canyon of blast walls, concertina wire and fortified guard posts.
Iraqi security forces sealed off the main section and set up police checkpoints after the latest deadly attack in October. Vehicles need a special permit to enter the area, and all cars and people are searched for weapons and explosives.
Residents now feel safer. Local officials are trying to revitalize the area by repairing the tiled sidewalks and painting its curbs. Still, many here worry it’s only a matter of time before the insurgents strike again.
Last month, a suicide bomber killed four members of the Sons of Iraq — armed residents aligned with the U.S. military and the Iraqi government against the insurgency — only a few blocks north of Route Vanessa.
“This is the worst place to be stationed,” said Ahmed Gheidan, a 24-year-old police officer assigned to the Governance Center. “Every day I’m asking God to keep me safe.”
Like many people along Route Vanessa, Gheidan is in a constant state of alert. He rarely ventures out from behind the compound’s defenses: a 20-foot-high concrete blast wall, a 30-foot-high fence topped by green netting designed to prevent a grenade being tossed inside, and bunkered guard posts.
When he does leave the compound, Gheidan carefully scans the street looking for anything suspicious. He turns back if the sidewalks are crowded because insurgents often target crowds to kill as many people as possible.
“When I need stuff from the shops, I run,” said Gheidan, peering around anxiously even though he was not in uniform because it was his day off. “I’m scared to spend a long time on the street. There is no hanging out.”
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Already, Gheidan had one brush with death during his four months on Route Vanessa. In October he was eating at a roadside vendor across from the Governance Center when a suicide bomber detonated herself only about 30 feet from him.
Twelve Iraqi security personnel and civilians, including the bomber, died in the blast. Gheidan survived by a stroke of luck.
“I was standing behind a column when the explosion happened,” he said, showing a visitor his exact position when the explosion occurred. “Without that column, I would have been killed.”
While Al Qaeda and other extremists overran Baqouba in 2005 and 2006, they never managed to occupy the main section of Route Vanessa where the Governance Center, the provincial courthouse and other key buildings are located.
But it was not for lack of effort. Insurgent gunfire, mortar attacks and bombings made the street so dangerous that the provincial governor was holed up for a year in the Governance Center because venturing out meant certain death. He has survived nine assassination attempts.
“It became the Alamo,” said Lt. Col. Shawn Reed, whose soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment patrol Route Vanessa on foot backed by hulking Stryker armored vehicles. “They circled the wagons.”
Today, now that troops from the U.S. surge and improving Iraqi security forces have retaken control of Baqouba, a weakened yet determined insurgency continues targeting Route Vanessa because of its symbolic value.
“It represents the city,” Reed said. “[Insurgents] want a spectacular result. They can’t get it anywhere else.”
Like elsewhere in Iraq, local insurgents frequently change tactics to counter the security forces. This month, insurgents responded to stepped-up vehicle searches by placing a bomb on a child’s bicycle. Three died in the blast.
To counter the insurgents’ increasing use of female suicide bombers, Iraqi police set up two flimsy booths at both ends of Route Vanessa where female officers search hundreds of women each day.
One of those officers is Muna Mehdi, a five-year veteran of the force who returned to Baqouba six months ago after fleeing the city following the assassination of at least 10 of her female co-workers.
Waiting inside the booth between pat-downs, Mehdi said she has not found any explosives but has had several scares. During a recent search, she reached under an abaya and felt what she believed was a suicide vest. Mehdi froze.
“It turns out it was a brace for back pain,” said Mehdi, who like many here have witnessed so much death that they seem almost resigned to it.
Just down Route Vanessa from Mehdi sat Mahmoud Ibrahim, 20, and his 19-year old brother, Walid. To find their shop, one must pass several shuttered metal storefronts, an open tire retailer and the bombed-out shell of a restaurant where 10 police officers and civilians were killed in an insurgent bombing in 2005.
The brothers used to sell produce from a wooden pushcart but opened a shop with baskets of tomatoes, oranges, bananas and other fruits on Route Vanessa last month after the new security measures were enacted, even though many city residents tell them they are still too scared to visit the street.
Mahmoud knows everyone entering Route Vanessa is being searched but, nonetheless, he recoils when a female customer approaches him. He watches closely, trying to discern if there is a hint of suicide vest.
“I am afraid of all women,” said Mahmoud, who was injured in a car bombing last June on Route Vanessa that killed 15 security personnel and civilians and wounded 45 others. “I am staying away from them.”
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