Every day the old man feels the presence of his dead son as if he were living with his spirit.
"Harith is still with us here in this house," says Abid al-Sudani.
He is a simple, hard-featured man who speaks through thin rows of teeth.
His son Harith is a hero.
A master spy of the "Falcons", an elite unit of the Iraqi secret service.
When the "Islamic State" (IS) still ruled large parts of Iraq and the terror of its suicide bombers shook the capital Baghdad at short intervals, Captain Hartih al-Sudani infiltrated the jihadist organization.
He prevented dozens of suicide attacks, drew those who longed for death into the clutches of the agents, who then faked explosions or spread false reports so that Harith's cover would hold up.
Christoph Ehrhardt
Correspondent for the Arab countries based in Beirut.
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But at some point the jihadists became suspicious.
In the last few days of 2016 they bugged a flatbed truck packed with explosives, which Harith once again failed to drive to its destination at the turn of the year.
Harith was blown up, lured into a trap.
In August 2017, IS released a video showing the beheading of several prisoners.
One of them was Harith.
"The state is broken"
"A memorial should be erected for him in one of the big squares in Baghdad," says the father, who is indignant about being abandoned by the state. It was quite a feat to get a death certificate. It was only when the New York Times reported on Harith's exploits in August 2018 that his complaints about the agency's inaction were heeded. "The politicians have promised us help so that we can pay for a new house for Harith's family and provide for them," says the old man. "But nothing has happened to this day."
Like many Iraqis, Abid al-Sudani is angry about the dire economic condition of his country; on the incompetent, corrupted government apparatus and the selfish politicians who benefit from a system that had divided society along sectarian lines for years. “The state is broken,” he says angrily.
The family lives in an area where the problems of Iraq are omnipresent: Sadr City, that impoverished and neglected Shiite suburb of Baghdad, which in the years after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 was notorious for brutal death squads, a bloody guerrilla war by Shiite militias against the American occupiers and for terror by Sunni extremists.
The long, dead straight main streets of the suburb are lined with run-down functional buildings.
In the dusty, winding streets of the residential areas, people live in modest houses that are hidden behind high walls.
Better to go to the militia than to poverty
There is a lack of everything in Sadr City, except for weapons and militiamen. When mass protests against the government and the political class broke out in Baghdad in October 2019, armies of young men from the suburbs threw themselves into the bloody street battles. It is very difficult for them to find work, and not a few prefer the wages of the militias to poverty.
“The politicians should all follow the example of my son's patriotism and selflessness,” complains Harith's father. “You have to create a good atmosphere for the youth.” He thinks of it differently than many of the young men in the neighborhood who not only want work, but also want more freedom. Abid al-Sudani is a strict patriarch who demanded ambition, resignation and obedience from his children, forced his son Harith into an arranged marriage and regularly punished his demands.