By Ernesto Londoño and Joshua Partlow
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, February 15, 2007
BAGHDAD, Feb. 14 — At least once a week inside his stationery shop, Ali al-Yousef stacks up old notebooks in the back room and fires his pistol at them.
“Target practice,” Yousef said. “We don’t like guns, but we have to have them. I think every house should have a gun.”
As the contours of the Baghdad security plan start to solidify, Yousef, 55, like millions of other Iraqis, is trying to assess whether measures such as the newly announced ban on civilians carrying weapons are more likely to keep him safe than the 9mm pistol he carries on the seat between his legs, safety off, for the drive home.
The U.S. military announced Wednesday the formal start of the security plan, dubbed Operation Law and Order, saying in a statement that troops cleared several areas of the capital in “intelligence-focused searches.”
Read More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/14/AR2007021400450_pf.html
