IRAQ: Braving threats, shrinking handful of professionals stay in country

BAGHDAD, 9 November (IRIN) - Ali Bashir, a lecturer at Iraq's Baghdad University, has received four threats since the beginning of the year telling him to quit his job and leave the country.

"I may die, but I'll be happy to die serving my people," said the 52-year-old Bashir passionately. "I love Iraq."

According to officials and media reports, hundreds of Baghdad's professionals get similar threats everyday.

Generally receiving monthly salaries of between $200 and $400, members of the professional class have become prime targets – both for organised kidnappers after big ransoms and insurgents with no sympathy for anyone perceived to be working for the US-backed government.

Official statistics indicate that almost 6,000 working professionals have left the country since the beginning of the US-led invasion of Iraq in early 2003 to find work elsewhere.

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