“Gulf War-A Safe in Kuwait”

It was 2nd of August 1990. The Iraqi tanks swerved towards Kuwait in the early hours of the morning. Surrounding them were trucks full of sleepy Iraqi soldiers from the “Popular Army”. Though they were not really popular in Iraq nor would they be accepted by Kuwaitis in the near future. At best, they were a bunch of poorly trained soldiers who had been handed a few weapons and were commanded to loot, plunder, rape and kill.

Colonel Moosa was handed one such division of rogues. Looking at the heavy eyed lethargic asses in the slow moving trucks, he cursed his bad luck to be assigned to command them. He was not sure what Saddam Hussein had in his mind but believed completely in the reasons behind the upcoming assault. The bastards had it coming. Lowering oil prices like that and then disrupting our weak economy. If that was not enough the Kuwaities had the audacity to demand for their money spent in saving them from the Iranian steam roller. And any ways was not Kuwait once a part of Iraq. We are just about to take over what is rightly ours, Moosa convinced himself.
ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM………….the deafening sound of the first Iraqi fighter planes passed above the trucks, which would initiate the seven months of agony and destruction on the now resting Kuwaitis.

And Destruction it was. The whole city was bombed. The buildings destroyed. The airports shattered. Parliamentary institutions burnt. The monuments ravaged. Play grounds and recreational centers were ransacked. International phone lines were cut. Those that did not suit their purposes were torched. Even mosques and places of worship were not spared. The economy was in doldrums as Iraqis went about burning oil wells and turning one of the most prosperous nations into tatters.

Some locals escaped the torture and ran for their lives to neighboring countries. Dejected expatriates came back home to their families losing out on every penny they saved. Some stayed back seeing their rights being abused every single day. Women raped. Children killed. Men grief-stricken with the burning images of their loved ones. The methods used to torture Kuwaities were devilish. They included fracturing limbs and ribs, administration of electric shocks, burning naked body parts, pouring acid into the eyes eventually leading to blindness, subjecting victims to mock trials and no medical attention to the ailing Kuwaities. All these outrageous acts occurred in a span of 7 months but it took the Iraqis only 4 hours to take over the whole of Kuwait. The weak Kuwaiti army could not pose any resistance to the mighty Iraqi one.

In four hours, Colonel Moosa and his bunch of thugs had reached Shuwaikh, an industrial area wherein all major ports as well as offices are located. It contained a Friday market at Al-Rai place which used to start on Thursday in the afternoon and went on till Friday.
As the trucks took a groaning halt, the soldiers jumped out of them and started shooting haphazardly at the well furnished offices. The whole area had been vacated by the locals after the news of the defeat had reached them. After realizing that there was almost no one in the area to be shot, the soldiers started searching for any valuable object they could get their hands on. And they found cash, artifacts, new and used goods, clothes, material, furniture, carpets, animals, antiques and souvenirs which were put into the trucks. They busted each and every shop and then burned it.

At the far end of the area stood a lavish Car Showroom in the name of Osman Rahmani. A dealer in automobiles and also an agent for companies like Ferrari, Jaguar, Dahitsu and BMW. The swanky cars could be seen from far, standing neatly in order, waiting to be taken. Some of the soldiers broke it open and were amazed to see a humongous showroom with at least 50 high class adrenalin-pumping beauties.
“Is this all for us?” asked an amazed Saqib, one from the popular Army.
“Yes, you ass, this one for you, that one for me and Rameez you can take this…”Sohel laughed hysterically at their fortune.
Rameez,a sly young boy stood silently at a corner ,his eyes on the beautiful spectacle but his mind elsewhere, “Don’t you think we should check for cash here, a man having so many babies must have plenty of cash piled in his office”.
So the search started. They walked around the cars and broke open one by one all the doors to find the safe. Sohel entered a cabin which was left in hurry with papers all around and a messed up wooden desk with photos and desk toys all lying unattended. A motivational poster in the cabin said “Winners Never Cheat” in Arabic which Sohel promptly tore off. The grand desk was ably matched by a grander chair all made of Rosewood, the finest wood in the world. A look of the cabin indicated that it belonged to a person who believed in conventional products as opposed to the latest technology gadgets.

And there behind the chair was the old harmless looking Safe.

“Here it is ,here it is”, Sohel called others as they came running to find a grey colored rectangular strongbox cast from steel. The door and the body of the safe were clung tightly to each other. Sohel first tried to push the door open with its handle when Rameez called on “Donkey, first look for the key”
Sohel, though hurt by his own stupidity, shot back, “You are a donkey, and do you think the bastard would leave the key here for us to open”.
“Shot it then, Himaar”, said Rameez.And all the three soldiers started pumping bullets on the poor safe. Nothing Happened. So, they tried shooting it from different angles, aiming at the key-hole. The safe had turned black with smoke emitting from its exterior but refused to budge.
“This is not the right way; let’s hit it hard with a sharp object, an axe or something”, Sohel spoke, looking everywhere to find something.
“Are u crazy? Saqib staggered, replied, “Where in the world will we find that? Look at the time. The Colonel would be waiting for us. Any ways this safe looks too old to have anything in it”.
“Grapes are sour, you go if you want but I am going to open up this devil”, a determined Sohel answered.
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Colonel Moosa looked at his watch, it was 4.30 p.m. The instructions were to be at the Dasman palace by 6.00. The journey had tired him. He ordered all the soldiers to stop the looting and start sitting back in the army trucks with all that they had garnered.
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Meanwhile the three soldiers started hammering the safe with sharp and heavy objects, which they found in a hardware shop nearby. Two more joined in to help but the bloody safe was resolute. “Fuck…Fuck..Fuck” sweared Rameez in rage, pounding the safe blow after blow with a very heavy axe.
“Stop it”,Sohel said finally, “This is not working. There is a shayataan in this, we need welding equipment. I will get it”. And he ran from the cabin.
Welding is used to join two metals but as there were dents on the safe due to repeated blows; Sohel wanted to burn and melt it for ease in breaking through. The soldiers found a Gas Metal Arc welder, a heavy equipment which required four of them to pick up. They brought the machine to the far end office and amidst the cars to finally the cabin, entirely exhausted.
Sohel who had received moderate training in welding when he was fifteen started burning the dent with the flame. “This will take 10 minutes” he claimed as the sparks flew from the Safe.

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Meanwhile, Moosa checked the trucks one by one filled with looted artifacts. But he saw one truck’s driver seat vacant. He walked to it to find some soldiers sitting behind.
“Where is the driver, we have to leave”
“Don’t know sir, infact there are five missing”
“Find them, you have 5 minutes” as he checked his watch showing 4.50 p.m.
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“Sohel, leave it. This is not taking us anywhere”, Saqib spoke finally after 10 minutes of welding dint melt a single dent.
Sohel stopped the welding and could not believe that after an hour they could not come even close to opening it.
Rameez was quiet sitting in a corner but dint speak a word.
“Are you saying that we took over the whole of Kuwait but could not open a single fucking safe”
“So what the fuck can we do, we are just wasting time here.Fuckin wasted an hour on this fuckin safe.”,Saqib retorted.
Sohel containing his anger, spoke “Let me try once. Just once.”
He Looked at Rameez who was fuming with anger “Rameez,Can u just keep hammering the safe while I try to melt it” =================================================================
Moosa finally gave the orders to move the trucks to Dasman palace. But it pissed him to see one lonely truck still standing without the driver in the seat. A soldier came running from the truck.
“Where is the fucking driver?”
“There, the soldier pointed to Osman Rahmanis Office,”They are opening a safe”.
“A safe? What is in it?”
“They don’t know, but they think its going to be valuable”
“And who came to told them that, how much time they were in there”
“One hour, I think”
“One fucking hour and they could not open a safe”
Moosa started marching with fury towards the office with the lone soldier following him helplessly. What he saw pissed him more. Amidst the smoke, the sparks, the frustrated soldiers, and an unfortunate safe being the target of their aggression, he could sense defeat.
“What the fuck do you think you all are doing?”
All of them stopped their work and stood in a line. One managed to speak.
“Sir, we are opening the safe”
“For the last one hour. If you could not open it why didn’t you just leave it”.
“Sir, it would be matter of shame, we take the whole country in few hours but can’t open a simple safe”
That’s irked Moosa.He had not thought of it this way. “Did you shoot at it?”
“Yes, sir”
“You even tried the hammering?”
“Yes”
“You tried welding also as I can see?”
“No positive result, Sir”.
“When u can’t break it, fuckin burn it and leave”.Moosa declared and left the cabin.
As per orders petrol was splashed at the safe and was burned. The soldiers left for the waiting truck one by one but not before giving one glance to the unconquerable safe.
Sohel, the last one to leave scowled and said, “Shayataan”