Story of “Bilal Hussein” Associated Press photographer in Fallujha

In the weeks before the crush­ing mil­i­tary assault on his home­town, Bilal Hus­sein sent his par­ents and brother away from Fal­lu­jah to stay with relatives.

The 33-year-old Asso­ci­ated Press pho­tog­ra­pher stayed behind to cap­ture insider images dur­ing the siege of the for­mer insur­gent strong­hold. “Every­one in Fal­lu­jah knew it was com­ing. I had been tak­ing pic­tures for days,” he said. “I thought I could go on doing it.” In the hours and days that fol­lowed, heavy bomb­ing raids and thun­der­ous artillery shelling turned Hussein’s north­ern Jolan neigh­bor­hood into a zone of rub­ble and death. The walls of his house were pock­marked by coali­tion fire.

“Destruc­tion was every­where. I saw peo­ple lying dead in the streets, wounded were bleed­ing and there was no one to come and help them. Even the civil­ians who stayed in Fal­lu­jah were too afraid to go out,” he said. “There was no med­i­cine, water, no elec­tric­ity nor food for days.”

By Tues­day after­noon, as U.S. forces and Iraqi rebels engaged in fierce clashes in the heart of his neigh­bor­hood, Hus­sein snapped. “U.S. sol­diers began to open fire on the houses, so I decided that it was very dan­ger­ous to stay in my house,” he said. Hus­sein said he pan­icked, seiz­ing on a plan to escape across the Euphrates River, which flows on the west­ern side of the city. “I wasn’t really think­ing,” he said. “Sud­denly, I just had to get out. I didn’t think there was any other choice.”

In the rush, Hus­sein left behind his cam­era lens and a satel­lite tele­phone for trans­mit­ting his images. His lens, marked with the dis­tinc­tive AP logo, was dis­cov­ered two days later by U.S. Marines next to a dead man’s body in a house in Jolan. AP col­leagues in the Bagh­dad bureau, who by then had not heard from Hus­sein in 48 hours, became even more worried.

“I kept walk­ing along the river for two hours and I could still see some U.S. snipers ready to shoot any­one who might swim. I quit the idea of cross­ing the river and walked for about five hours through orchards.” He met a peas­ant fam­ily, who gave him refuge in their house for two days. Hus­sein knew a dri­ver in the region and sent a mes­sage to another AP col­league, Ali Ahmed, in nearby Ramadi.

Ahmed relayed the news that Hus­sein was alive to AP’s Bagh­dad bureau. He sent a sec­ond mes­sage back to Hus­sein that a fish­er­man in nearby Habaniyah would ferry the pho­tog­ra­pher to safety by boat. “At the end of the boat ride, Ali was wait­ing for me. He took me to Bagh­dad, to my office.” Sit­ting safely in the AP’s offices, a haggard-looking Hus­sein offered a tired smile of relief. “It was a ter­ri­ble expe­ri­ence in which I learned that life is pre­cious,” he said. “I am happy that I am still alive after being close to death dur­ing these past days.”

Source khi­lafah