“And if the money we pay the border guards isn’t enough to guarantee the safe delivery of our goods, then we will use our guns to make sure our Syrian customers get their deliveries,” he added.
Indeed, at a security checkpoint overseen by the Iraqi army Yousef’s truck was stopped. The soldier on duty asked him what his destination was. Without any hesitation whatsoever Yousef told the soldier that his goods were bound for Syria. With a complicit smile, the soldier waved him onwards.
At this stage, the mid-sized Kia was joined by four other vehicles and the group made for a ragged convoy along a rough dirt road. During the two hour journey, the only sights one saw were a few dusty villages, one of which was Yousef’s home town.
At one point, the convoy appeared to be trying to avoid being another military checkpoint. At the previous checkpoint nobody seemed to have been worried about what they were doing with so many cigarettes but the drivers had been forewarned that the soldiers at this next checkpoint would not be so friendly.
During the voyage, Yousef also continually telephoned the convoy’s forward scout. The scout’s role was to check the road ahead and to tell the drivers which route to take and whether it was safe to proceed. The smugglers take many risks. Some of the biggest dangers are the border guards, army troops and customs officers. Even worse though, are local bandits.
When we met this trip’s scout later on, he explained the importance of his role. "There is no room for mistakes,” he told NIQASH. “The total value of the car and its cargo is estimated at US$45,000.”
Near the Sanouni neighbourhood in Sinjar, Yousef and the other drivers stopped their trucks and allowed some other men, who were waiting for them there, to unload their precious cargo into more vehicles.
Sinjar is located in one of the areas subject to territorial disputes between the Iraqi government and the government of the semi-autonomous state of Iraqi Kurdistan. And the looser security situation there, with a variety of different military forces in charge, together with complicity between locals, smugglers and border guards, make this area an optimal one for the smuggling goods across the two nations’ borders.
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