The Sirens of Baghdad by Yasmina
Khadra
"A Thousand Times More Awesome Than The Attacks Of September 11"
The third novel in Yasmina Khadras bestselling trilogy about Islamic
fundamentalism has the most compelling backdrop of any of his novels:
Iraq in the wake of the American invasion.
A young Iraqi student, unable to attend college because of the war, sees
American soldiers leave a trail of humiliation and grief in his small village.
Bent on revenge, he flees to the chaotic streets of Baghdad where
insurgents soon realize they can make use of his anger. Eventually he is
groomed for a secret terrorist mission meant to dwarf the attacks of
September 11th, only to find himself struggling with moral qualms. The
Sirens of Baghdad is a powerful look at the effects of violence on ordinary
people, showing what can turn a decent human being into a weapon, and
how the good in human nature can resist.

Personal Review: The Sirens of Baghdad by Yasmina Khadra
Yasmin Khadra (a female pseudonym for Mohammed Moulessehoul) in his
novel THE SIRENS OF BAGHDAD takes the reader inside the head of a
young unnamed first-person narrator who has been recruited for a secret
mission, the nature of which he himself does not know when the story
begins when he has just arrived in Beirut to carry out the mission: "All I
know is, what's been planned will be the greatest operation ever carried
out on enemy territory, a thousand times more awesome than the attacks
of September 11. . . ." The rest of this chilling novel covers the events in
this young man's life that get him to this appointment with destiny.
The narrator was a humanities student who had to leave the University of
Baghdad when the American forces invaded Iraq and return to his home in
the remote village of Kafr Karam. Gentle and nonviolent by nature, he lives
a relatively quiet life with his sisters and aging parents. "I had nothing to
complain about in my parents' house. I could be satisfied with little. I lived
on the roof, in a remodeled laundry room." Although he had no television,
he listened to a "tinny radio." Then three events occur that make the
narrator willing to do anything to get vengence against the American
soldiers whom one character describes as shooting first and verifying later.
He witnesses the killing of a retarded youth about his age by American
soldiers at a checkpoint when he starts running away. The Americans
mistakenly believe he might be carrying explosives. Then an American
plane drops a missle on a wedding party. Finally soldiers break into the
home of the narrator's family looking for terrorists and commit an atrocity
that "a Westerner can't undertand," as the family is disgraced.
The young narrator returns to Baghdad, a man on a monomaniacal
mission, where he encounters more violence and ignorance from all sides,
betrayal and where his views clash with that of his friend Omar who tells
him: "No one owns the truth." Although certainly most Westerners will
disagree vehemently with most of the young narrator's conclusions, this
novel is instructive as to the hopelessness and rage that can blind
someone who has experienced what the narrator has and turn him into an
Islamic fundamentalist terrorist.
To call this novel unsettling would be a gross understatement. It is
frightening beyond measure. We have to ask ourselves (without revealing
more of the plot) if the narrator's mission is possible. We can no longer call
novels like this science fiction. It should be read with another finely-written,
nuanced novel, THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST.
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